Creativity and Madness "two sides of the same coin?

The power or ability to create ideas, works or new and unique situations is closely related to certain disorders or mental illnesses like schizophrenia, characterized by the deprivation of the trial or the right.
Nobel laureate John Forbes Nash, whose life inspired the movie "A Beautiful Mind", the great musician Ludwig van Beethoven, Edgar Allan Poe writer, the painter Vincent Van Gogh, the scientist Isaac Newton.
Some of the greatest geniuses of mankind have been classified as "crazy". Also, some scientific studies suggest that poets, painters, musicians, writers and general creative character, are more affected by bipolar disorder in a much higher percentage than the general population and creativity and madness.
Attest to this phenomenon where some of the most prolific artistic minds and famous writers such as Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, the composer Sergey Rachmaninoff, and the painters Paul Gauguin and Jackson Pollock, who have suffered, with certainty or high probability, also called manic-depressive.

Creativity and Madness

An investigation by the University of Toronto (Canada) has found that creative people have little or no "latent inhibition", ie the unconscious ability to reject unimportant or irrelevant stimuli creativity and madness..
Normally, an ordinary person classifies an object and then forgets it, although it might be more complex and interesting than you think. In contrast, creative individuals remain in contact with the additional information that comes to the environment constantly and are always open to new possibilities, according to Canadian experts creativity and madness.
Other studies have pointed to a possible link between certain mental disorders such as psychosis or schizophrenia, with increased activity and creative and artistic predisposition creativity and madness..

Do artistic or creative personalities are closer to the genius or alienation? According to a recent European research is probably a false dilemma, and that creativity and madness seem to go together "by the hand.
According to a group of researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, who has been studying the functioning of the human mind with the help of different brain imaging, the processes of neurons in highly creative people who are saved "striking similarities" with those of individuals who suffer from some form of schizophrenia. 

Shadows of dementia and madness

According to the Swedish study, led by Professor Frederik Ullén, both groups of people, both the creative as suffering from a mental illness, lack of important receptors (brain structures that interact with some substances also brain called neurotransmitters) involved in the filtering and channeling of thought creativity and madness..
Professor Ullén believed that the presence of fewer dopamine receptors in the brain's thalamus, likely to result in a lower degree of filtering of signals and stimuli from abroad and, therefore, a greater flow of information.
Apparently, this glut of unfiltered information that could favor the occurrence of unexpected connections of different ideas that are at the base of creative and artistic processes. Although this same phenomenon also plays an important role in some mental disorders such as schizophrenia, according to Swedish researchers.
According Ullén and his group, free of inhibitions "processing" of information is what enables some people to turn the spark of creativity, discovering unexpected connections between very different elements, trying to solve problems.
People with schizophrenia share the creative, that remarkable ability to make novel associations, but in case of patients the result is strange and disturbing ideas.

19% of gay men and bisexuals in the U.S. have HIV

One in five gay men and bisexuals in the 21 major U.S. cities are infected with HIV, and half of them do not know, said the country's health officials said Thursday.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that young men, especially blacks, are the least know if they have contracted the virus."For young men who have sex with others, including blacks who are the least aware they are infected, the future is truly at stake," he said in a statement Jonathan Mermin, director of the division of HIV prevention / CDC AIDS, gays and HIV.

Mermin said that "it is important to reach this group with early prevention services and HIV testing, and continue offering these vital services as they grow older."The study was the evidence of this disease in 8,153 men who had sex with other men in 21 cities as part of National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System 2008,gays and HIV. which examined the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus and its spread awareness among this group of men.

HIV in U.S.

The results found that 28% of black men who have sex with men were infected with HIV, compared with 18% of Hispanics and 26% of whites.The rate of HIV among this group of men is strongly affected by reason of education and income gays and HIV., which, according to the authors, the lower socio-economic status of the person most likely is that they have HIV.Age is also an important factor in whether men know they are infected with HIV. Among infected men aged 18 to 29 years, 63% did not know, compared with 37% of men over 30 years.This is particularly disturbing because the CDC estimated that STIs are transmitted mostly by people who are unaware they are infected gays and HIV..Mermin said the results show that HIV remains a serious problem in the United States and called for a commitment on the part of national efforts to protect the health of gay men.

The dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes

Pharmacies, herbalists, shopping and, of course, internet. More and more people who join the fashion of the electronic cigarette. In a manner similar to that of conventional cigarettes, it hides a battery and recharge with or without nicotine, seasoned with various flavorings (vanilla, mint snuff ...) and other ingredients. But is it a safe alternative? Need help to quit smoking? Well, for now, it seems that neither the one nor the other and the Dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes.
In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Agency (FDA, for its acronym in English) analyzed several brands of these e-cigarettes and warned of the presence of carcinogenic substances (nitrosamines, for example) and toxic (such as diethylene glycol, an antifreeze ). All this, not to mention nicotine, according to Juan Antonio Riesco Miranda, vice president of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR), not always is reflected in the composition of the charges and the Dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes.
Indeed, just over a week, the FDA took a step further and warned five companies that manufacture these devices, it accuses of breaking the law: "They make unsubstantiated claims and rely on inadequate manufacturing practices." And the calls to "cooperate with the agency to ensure that these devices are safe and effective in their use they are trying to give and the Dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes."

Dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes

The World Health Organization (WHO) also seems to go with the fly behind the ear, since two years ago warned that there is still no evidence to prove the safety or effectiveness of these e-cigarettes. In fact, barred claim are used as an aid to stop smoking. They would have to be supported by scientific and comply with legislation governing the rest of approved products for this purpose (gum, patches, tablets nicotine and drugs).
In Spain, explains Dr. Riesco, a specialist in smoking, "the manufacturers of these products are benefiting from a loophole that the Administration should take into account." In fact, are not regulated as drugs or as medical devices and the Dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes.

In a similar vein to that of the FDA and WHO, the pulmonologist emphasizes that "the data are very contradictory, do not know the substances they contain and therefore can not predict its effects." In fact, at present, there are few scientific papers that evaluate the pros and cons of these electronic cigarettes. One of the most recent, published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, points out that when smoking them, users need to suck harder. But there are not enough data to clarify if this action is or is not harmful and the Dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes.
In addition to ignorance about their safety, smoking cessation specialists to help emphasize its ineffectiveness against tobacco. "They have a negative impact on prevención.No only closely resemble cigarettes but maintain the same gesture is done by smoking, which did not help at all," said the member of the SEPAR. And claims that are not regulated as an aid in quitting and the Dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes. "For that there are treatments that have low price-the e-cigarette range from 40 to 60 euros, and that have a scientific endorsement," he adds.

Electronic cigarettes

Although there may be marketed under this claim, the fact is that most users often buy so, if not to abandon it, to reduce the consumption of tabaco.Una intention translates into a marked increase in sales.  and the Dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes Or so it recognizes a pharmaceutical Madrid highlights the success of the product that is exposed on the counter.
Smoke-free spaces are another potential use of these fake cigarettes. Manufacturers stress that can be used where it is not allowed light up a cigarette and, with it, cope better with the monkey. But how that is accomplished if some say they do not contain nicotine? "We do not know what real power is back. But it is clear that it is confusing to the public, "Riesco complaint Electronic cigarettes.

Restless sleep to dementia

REM sleep in which rapid eye movements occur, characterized in that the brain is very active but the muscles are partially paralyzed, by the action of the brainstem. Therefore, although suffering nightmares or vivid dreams, the body remains comfortably lying down. But patients with conduct disorder of REM sleep are not so fortunate: scream, cry, hit, kicked and sometimes fall out of bed. This condition also may be associated with future development of Parkinson's or other neurodegenerative diseases and
REM sleep and Dementia.
A team of researchers at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona has just presented a method to determine, through a combination of two neuroimaging techniques, which of these people with sleep disorders are more likely to have Parkinson's, Lewy body dementia (a bad that produces paranoid delusions) or multiple system atrophy (a rare condition that affects mobility and bodily functions) the REM sleep and Dementia.. These degenerative diseases like himself REM sleep disorder, usually affecting men older than 60 years.

REM sleep and Dementia

The researchers, led by Dr. Alex Iranzo, Neurology Service Clinic, have continued for two and a half years a group of 43 patients with REM disorder, with an average of 70 years of age. Eight of them (ie about 30%) have developed at this time a neurodegenerative disease. And all these, according to results published by the Lancet Neurology (http://www.thelancet.com/) had shown in testing at baseline, low levels of dopamine, a hormone that functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain and whose absence is the main cause of Parkinson's.

The importance of this hormone is that scarcity can be detected years before showing the first symptoms of dementia. The researchers therefore hope that this can help in the future to detect the disease early and study their development during the early stages, before clinical manifestation the REM sleep and Dementia.. "This paper will matter in five or 10 years," predicts  Iranzo, "when neuroprotective drugs."
Wait for new therapies.

Restless sleep to dementia

The hope of this researcher is that, from here to that time, have developed new treatments that can control the disease since its first manifestations. But "for now, and unfortunately, the only thing we can do is to follow patients with more mime, watch rather than a microscope lens, and begin treatment sooner," says the researcher the REM sleep and Dementia..
The test consists of an ultrasound [transcranial sonography TCS] and CT [photon emission, or SPECT], seeking weaknesses of dopamine in two brain regions: the 'estratium' and 'black substance'. Up to 27 patients with sleep disorders (63%) showed alterations in some of these tests, that would be part of group at risk the REM sleep and Dementia.. Some of them, according to the study's authors fear, may join in the coming years to the eight that have already developed a neurodegenerative disease: five with Parkinson's disease, dementia and a two multiple system atrophy.
Other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, are not related to REM disorder and are beyond the scope of this investigation. Despite the low number of people studied, the authors believe their results are about the possibility of detecting patients at risk, "definitive." "What we do now," says Iranzo, "this group is to follow long term the REM sleep and Dementia.."