Demystifying The Mind-Body Connection: The Neuroscience Behind How Thoughts Impact Physical Health

The beliefs, emotions, and experiences that constitute a mindset shape numerous aspects of one’s reality, but in particular, health. Health is defined by not only the physical state of one’s body, but also the content of one’s mind. The integration of the mind and body is often associated with naturopathic medicines or pseudoscience, and thus is usually left out of Western medicinal practices. This review aims to demystify the mind-body connection in health and wellness by introducing it within an empirical, neuroscientific landscape. This research supports the hypothesis that mind over matter rings true even at the biochemical level. Activation of the immune system and the autonomic nervous system as well as changes in gene expression and connections between neurons, among many other things, modulate the body’s physical responses to mindsets. Concepts like stress, somatization, mind-body therapies, and the placebo effect are discussed in relation to their neuroscientific mechanisms and resulting effects on bodily health. This review finds that many of these concepts share overlapping biochemical mechanisms that turn positive thoughts into healthier bodies, and vice versa; this research elevates the status of mindsets as powerful determinants of health that should be more heavily prioritized in Western medicine

Non-collapsing renormalized QRPA with proton-neutron pairing for neutrinoless double beta decay

Using the renormalized quasiparticle random phase approximation (RQRPA), we calculate the light neutrino mass mediated mode of neutrinoless double beta decay of Ge76, Mo100, Te128 and Te130. Our results indicate that the simple quasiboson approximation is not good enough to study the neutrinoless double beta decay, because its solutions collapse for physical values of g_pp. We find that extension of the Hilbert space and inclusion of the Pauli Principle in the QRPA with proton-neutron pairing, allows us to extend our calculations beyond the point of collapse, for physical values of the nuclear force strength. As a consequence one might be able to extract more accurate values on the effective neutrino mass by using the best available experimental limits on the half-life of neutrinoless double beta decay.Comment: 15 pages, RevTex, 2 Postscript figures, to appear in Phys. Lett.

CP Violation in Heavy Neutrino Mediated e−e−→W−W−e^- e^- \to W^- W^-

We consider the reaction $e^- e^- \rightarrow W^- W^-$ mediated by possible heavy neutrino exchange at future LINAC energies of $\sqrt{s}>> 2 m_W$. This reaction is sensitive to CP phases of the neutrino mixing matrices, even at the level of Born amplitudes. Certain integrated cross-sections are shown to have the power to resolve the CP phases when the experimental configurations are varied. Asymmetries sensitive to CP violation (involving initial QED phases) for $e^- e^-$ and $e^+ e^+$ reactions are constructed and their consequences considered.Comment: 9 pages plain Latex and 4 figures available separately as uuencoded figure

Necrotizing fasciitis of the neck: case presentation

Necrotizing fasciitis represents a severe and rare infectious disease, which is accompanied by extended necrosis of subcutaneous tissues and fascia layers, having as a result gangrene of the teguments. To reduce mortality associated with this disease, a rapid diagnosis is necessary as well as aggressive surgical treatment, accompanied by adequate, aggressive antibiotic therapy. As a rule, etiology is teeth related, with the condition more common in immunology-depressed patients. This article presents the experience of the authors regarding a case presentation of necrotizing fasciitis with typical clinical expression and management of the disease in an immunological-depressed patient. Further data on diagnosis, microbiology, clinical manifestations, therapy principles, and prognosis are yet needed for atypical cases

Chapter Unraveling Stakeholders’ Discourses Regarding Sustainable Development and Biodiversity Conservation in Greece

Pharmacolog

A large Hilbert space QRPA and RQRPA calculation of neutrinoless double beta decay

A large Hilbert space is used for the calculation of the nuclear matrix elements governing the light neutrino mass mediated mode of neutrinoless double beta decay of Ge76, Mo100, Cd116, Te128 and Xe136 within the proton-neutron quasiparticle random phase approximation (pn-QRPA) and the renormalized QRPA with proton-neutron pairing (full-RQRPA) methods. We have found that the nuclear matrix elements obtained with the standard pn-QRPA for several nuclear transitions are extremely sensitive to the renormalization of the particle-particle component of the residual interaction of the nuclear hamiltonian. Therefore the standard pn-QRPA does not guarantee the necessary accuracy to allow us to extract a reliable limit on the effective neutrino mass. This behaviour, already known from the calculation of the two-neutrino double beta decay matrix elements, manifests itself in the neutrinoless double-beta decay but only if a large model space is used. The full-RQRPA, which takes into account proton-neutron pairing and considers the Pauli principle in an approximate way, offers a stable solution in the physically acceptable region of the particle-particle strength. In this way more accurate values on the effective neutrino mass have been deduced from the experimental lower limits of the half-lifes of neutrinoless double beta decay.Comment: 19 pages, RevTex, 1 Postscript figur

Nuclear moments for the neutrinoless double beta decay II

The recently developed formalism for the evaluation of nuclear form factors in neutrinoless double beta decay is applied to $^{48}Ca$, $^{76}Ge$, $^{82}Se$, $^{100}Mo$, $^{128}Te$ and $^{130}Te$ nuclei. Explicit analytical expressions that follows from this theoretical development, in the single mode model for the decay of $^{48}Ca$, have been worked out. They are useful both for testing the full numerical calculations, and for analytically checking the consistency with other formalisms. Large configuration space calculations are compared with previous studies, where alternative formulations were used. Yet, besides using the G-matrix as residual interaction, we here use a simple $\delta$-force. Attention is paid to the connected effects of the short range nuclear correlations and the finite nucleon size. Constraints on lepton number violating terms in the weak Hamiltonian (effective neutrino Majorana mass and effective right-handed current coupling strengths) are deduced.Comment: 18 pages, latex, minor changes, to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Investigating the barriers to adopting a 'human-in-nature' view in Greek biodiversity conservation

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