Humility is an admirable quality, but it may also be something to be proud of. According to a study by the University of Texas at Austin, people who are unrealistically self-assured have lower frontal lobe activity than their more modest counterparts.

The two-part study asked university students to rate themselves against peers on positive and negative qualities that were meant to indicate desirability. Traits such as maturity, modesty, discipline, wit, and being well-spoken were considered positive, while traits such as rigidity, aggressiveness, messiness, and being materialistic, narrow-minded or boastful were undesirable.

For the first test, 20 students evaluated themselves on these characteristics during two timed sessions that required participants to make decisions quickly. Fifty-six students participating in the second test were asked to take the same test, but they were given an unlimited amount of time for evaluation.

“The extent to which participants viewed themselves as ‘above average’ was negatively correlated with orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and, to a lesser extent, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation,” authors of the study wrote. “The majority of people judge their personality to be more desirable than their peers' personalities.”

The OFC and dACC are both involved in evaluation and planning. According to the authors, these regions of the brain are involved in deep thought and may be partly responsible for keeping the ego in check. They may also, in part, be responsible for recalling self-serving examples of specific traits. Judging broader traits, they say, would require less effort.

"In healthy people, the more you activate a portion of your frontal lobes, the more accurate your view of yourself is,” said lead author Jennifer Beer in a press release. Beer is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. “The more you view yourself as desirable or better than your peers, the less you use those lobes."

The study is the first to examine the brain’s role in self-bias in social judgment. Authors say it implies a relationship between poor insight and frontal lobe dysfunction. This information could be used to further study other relationships the frontal lobe might have with poor insight.

“For example, mood disorders and substance abuse may compromise function and/or volume in frontal lobe regions,” authors write. “Understanding these functional and structural changes in relation to self-judgment bias may be helpful for designing therapeutic interventions for various disorders.”

The study appears online in NeuroImage.

A visual recording tool, the SenseCam, offers great promise as a memory aid for patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

SenseCam automatically snaps pictures every 30 seconds to create and archive image sequences. Its fish-eye lens creates images similar to the wearer’s natural perspective. It is also capable of recording short videos. About the size of a deck of cards, SenseCam weighs just 3.2 ounces and stores up to 30,000 pictures.

“The small size of the recall device makes it possible to integrate it into common portable consumer products, such as MP3 players, purses, clothing, hats, backpacks, necklaces, collars, and other human-wearable products,” developers wrote in the patent.

The images primarily trigger episodic recall, memory of events and experiences. This is the most common form of memory loss for Alzheimer's patients.

Lyndsay Williams invented SenseCam for Microsoft Cambridge in 1999. The device has since been used to monitor diet, anxiety triggers and disaster response volunteers. Gordon Bell, 75, one of Microsoft’s lead researchers, has been using the SenseCam to record every detail of his daily life every day for the last ten years. “I capture everything that I can that is of value,” he says. “I think of my e-memory and bio-memory as one.”

SenseCam features a 24-hour battery life, and according to Bell it’s also extremely durable. His first SenseCam lasted 4 years. That’s over 420,480 pictures! Because so much information is recorded, Bell stresses the importance of a good filing system.

“We have a collections mechanism that gives as a by-product a more general file system beyond (an organizational) tree,  ability to collect stuff together and name it, keywords, taxonomies,” he says. “My favorite organizing principle is facets.”

Apart from day-to-day activity, Bell says it’s come in handy when meeting new people at tradeshows and conferences. He’s come to depend on and respect the system a great deal, too. “All of your life’s images have a strong impact on being able to refresh your life,” he says.

SenseCam shows great potential, but further research is needed to determine its full effect on memory recall. In the meantime, you can read more about Bell's experience in his book, Total Recall, or follow MyLifeBits until the official release date is set.

Visit Healia's Alzheimer's Community.

The untimely death of actress Natasha Richardson from head trauma sustained in a fall while skiing brings to mind the tragic skiing deaths of other celebrities. In January 1998, Sonny Bono died of injuries after hitting a tree while skiing in Nevada and Michael Kennedy, one of son Robert F. Kennedy sons, also died while skiing in Aspen, Colorado. Neither of these men nor Richardson had been wearing a helmet.

The official cause of death for Natasha Richardson was epidural hematoma or bleeding between the skull and the covering of the brain. This is often a treatable condition but only if the victim can be hospitalized immediately. Health experts strongly recommend that all skiers and snowboarders wear helmets. The National Ski Areas Association reports that helmet usage in the United States has grown significantly in recent years. According to their studies, 43 percent of U.S. skiers and boarders wore helmets in 2007/08 compared to only 25 percent of skiers and boarders during the 2002/03 season. Here is a list of other celebrities who have died while skiing.

Unfortunately, it often takes a high profile accident such as Richardson’s to make the public aware of the importance of safety measures like wearing a helmet on the slopes. Hopefully, this incident will be incentive enough. Have questions about skiing or head injuries? Please post them at Healia Communities.

_{Photo: Rick Smit, Flickr, Creative Commons}

The news that British actress Natasha Richardson may be in critical condition after falling on a beginner’s ski slope highlights the importance of taking proper safety measures to prevent head injury. The incident also points out the insidious nature of some types of head trauma.

Reports say that the 45-year-old Richardson was participating in a beginner’s skiing lesson at the Mont Tremblant ski resort in Montreal when she fell. The accident occurred in a flat portion of the ski run and did not involve a collision with another person or object. She was not wearing a helmet at the time of the fall.

According to reports, there were no obvious signs of injury, and Richardson was walking and talking normally not long after the accident. About an hour after the fall, Richardson began experiencing headaches and was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital. Unconfirmed reports say the hospital has her listed in critical condition while other reports say she has been transported to a hospital in the U.S.

You may be asking, how could such a seemingly benign incident end up becoming a serious tragedy? The answer is related to the insidious nature of certain types of head trauma. Whenever the head is whipped back and forth abruptly or impacts a solid surface such as the ground, the brain collides with the inner surface of the skull. If the impact is hard enough, the person will likely lose consciousness, but if not there may not be any immediate symptoms.

This does NOT mean there is no cause for concern. Such an impact can cause the brain to swell slowly, a process that can occur over minutes or even hours. Because the brain is housed in the thick, unforgiving casement of the skull, swelling is very dangerous. It pushes the brain up against the sides of the skull, compressing it and causing symptoms ranging from headaches to loss of consciousness. If the pressure is not relieved quickly, the person may die.

This is why anyone who suffers a blow to the head should be monitored carefully for the ensuing day to make sure that no problems occur as a result of brain swelling. It is also why it is very important to wear a helmet when participating in any activity with a high risk of falls or collisions. This includes such common activities as skiing, biking, and skating. Remember that even a low speed crash can cause head trauma, so don’t skip the safety gear just because you are not going "all out."

For more information on head trauma or to share your own experience, join the Healia Support Group for Head and Brain Injuries.

_{Photo: KhEdara, Flickr, Creative Commons}

Canadian researchers report today that athletes who suffer a concussion while playing sports continue to show negative effects of their injury 30 years later. The results are alarming because until recently, most research into the aftereffects of concussions has focused on the period immediately following the injury or at most a few years after.

Researchers at the Université de Montréal gave a questionnaire to former university-level athletes (mainly hockey players) who are now in their 50s and asked them if they had ever suffered a concussion during their playing days. The researchers identified a group of 19 healthy former athletes who had sustained concussion more than 30 years ago and another group of 21 healthy former athletes with no history of concussion. When compared, the results showed that former athletes who had suffered only one or two concussions showed declines in their attention and memory, as well as a slowing of movements compared to athletes who had not suffered a concussion.

Specifically, former athletes who had suffered a concussion more than 30 years ago (and not since) showed signs of mild cognitive impairment on the Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE), which tests orientation, attention, immediate and short-term recall, language, and the ability to follow simple verbal and written commands. They also showed deficits on tests of episodic memory and executive function. Electroencephalogram (EEG) tests showed impairments in brain activity as well: concussed participants showed aberrant responses to unpredictable stimuli. Even their overall movements were slower than their non-concussed counterparts.

The results of the study are alarming on several levels. For one, they call into question the current thinking about sports concussions, which is often focused on ensuring safety by determining how much time should pass after a concussion before an athlete returns to competition. The results also indicate that sports concussions may actually accelerate the aging process in the brain, perhaps making these athletes more vulnerable to developing severe neurological disorders including dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.

However, it is important to note that all the study participants were all still fit and healthy and continued to engage in some form of regular physical activity at least three times a week. They lived relatively normal lives despite their mild impairments. The researchers intend to follow the participants in the coming years to determine if they experience more severe deteriorations in their mental functioning and quality of life.

The researchers suggest that athletes should be better informed about the long-term effects of sports concussion on mental and physical functioning so that they can weigh the potential risks of returning to competition after a concussion.

Do you have child who plays contact sports? If he or she experiences an on-field concussion, you may want to consider talking to the doctor about the risks of a return to competition. For more information about concussions, join the Healia Health Community for Head and Brain Injuries.

 

_{Photo: JamieL.WilliamsPhotograph y, Flickr, Creative Commons} 

Soldiers returning home are suffering not only from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but also from traumatic brain injuries. A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is caused by a blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts the normal function of the brain. The leading causes of TBIs are falls and car crashes, though this is a growing concern for our nation’s troops who have been in active combat.

Thousands of troops have been diagnosed with TBI. Signs and symptoms can be subtle and sometimes don’t appear for days or weeks after the injury, so many troops are never diagnosed, and simply sent back to the battlefield

Dr. Alisa Gean, a neurosurgeon at the University of California, San Francisco:

"It's the so-called invisible injury. It's where a troop takes 10 times the normal time to pack his rucksack ... a complicated injury to the most complicated part of the body."

 

Read more about two soldiers, Eric O'Brien and Bryan Malone, who suffer from TBIs.

Search Healia for more on TBI and PTSD.

 

traumatic brain injury TBI soldiers