Originally published by Democracy Now! Febuary 15, 2010

The Vancouver-based Dr. Gabor Maté argues that too many doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption—that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness and in the restoration of health. Based on medical studies and his own experience with chronically ill patients at the Palliative Care Unit at Vancouver Hospital, where he was the medical coordinator for seven years, Dr. Gabor Maté makes the case that there are important links between the mind and the immune system. He found that stress and individual emotional makeup play critical roles in an array of diseases. (Transcript)

About Dr. Maté: Vancouver, Canada-based physician and author. He is staff physician at the Portland Hotel Society, which runs a residence and harm reduction facility as well as Insite, North America’s only supervised safe-injection site. His four books, all bestsellers in Canada: Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates What You Can Do About It, Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers, When the Body Says No, and his latest, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.

Originally published by Democracy Now! November 24, 2010

A spike in diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other mental disorders has fueled an unprecedented reliance on pharmaceutical medications to treat children, with long-term effects that remain unknown. We speak with Canadian physician and best-selling author, Dr. Gabor Maté. He argues that these responses are treating surface symptoms as causes while ignoring deeper roots. Dr. Maté says children are in fact reacting to the broader collapse of the nurturing conditions needed for their healthy development. (Transcript)

About Dr. Maté: Vancouver, Canada-based physician and author. He is staff physician at the Portland Hotel Society, which runs a residence and harm reduction facility as well as Insite, North America’s only supervised safe-injection site. His four books, all bestsellers in Canada: Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates What You Can Do About It, Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers, When the Body Says No, and his latest, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.

The more difficult the decision we face, the more likely we are not to act, according to new research by UCL scientists that examines the neural pathways involved in ‘status quo bias’ in the human brain.

The study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), looked at the decision-making of participants taking part in a tennis ‘line judgement’ game while their brains were scanned using functional MRI (fMRI).

First author Stephen Fleming, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL, said: “When faced with a complex decision people tend to accept the status quo, hence the old saying ‘When in doubt, do nothing.’

“Whether it’s moving house or changing TV channel, there is a considerable tendency to stick with the current situation and choose not to act, and we wanted to explore this bias towards inaction in our study and examine the regions of the brain involved.”

The 16 study participants were asked to look at a cross between two tramlines on a screen while holding down a ‘default’ key. They then saw a ball land in the court and had to make a decision as to whether it was in or out. On each trial, the computer signalled which was the current default option – ‘in’ or ‘out’. The participants continued to hold down the key to accept the default and had to release it and change to another key to reject the default.

The results showed a consistent bias towards the default, which led to errors. As the task became more difficult, the bias became even more pronounced. The fMRI scans showed that a region of the brain known as the subthalamic nucleus (STN) was more active in the cases when the default was rejected. Also, greater flow of information was seen from a separate region sensitive to difficulty (the prefrontal cortex) to the STN. This indicates that the STN plays a key role in overcoming status quo bias when the decision is difficult.

Stephen added: “Interestingly, current treatments of Parkinson’s disease like deep-brain stimulation (DBS) work by disrupting the subthalamic nucleus to alleviate impaired initiation of action. This is one example of how knowing about disease mechanisms can inform our knowledge of normal decision making, and vice-versa.

“This study looked at a very simple perceptual decision and there are obviously other powerful factors, such as desires and goals that influence decisions about whether or not to act. So, it would be of interest to investigate how these regions respond when values and needs come into play.”

Provided by University College London

By Kara Gavin
Originally published by UMHS Public Relations October 17, 2005

Smokers often say that smoking a cigarette helps them concentrate and feel more alert, but years of tobacco use may have the opposite effect, dimming the speed and accuracy of a person’s thinking ability and bringing down his IQ, according to a study by University of Michigan Medical Center (U-M) researchers.

The association between long-term smoking and diminished mental proficiency in 172 alcoholic and non-alcoholic men was a surprising discovery from a study that set out to examine alcoholism’s long-term effect on the brain and thinking skills.

While the researchers confirmed previous findings that alcoholism is associated with thinking problems and lower IQ, their analysis also revealed that long-term smoking is, too. The effect on memory, problem-solving and IQ was most pronounced among those who had smoked for years. Among the alcoholic men, smoking was associated with diminished thinking ability even after accounting for alcohol and drug use.

The findings, released online before publication by the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, were made by a team from the U-M Addiction Research Center, or UMARC, and colleagues at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and Michigan State University.

Lead author Jennifer Glass, a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry, cautions that the results need to be duplicated by other studies before conclusions are made about smoking’s effect on the brain, or before the findings can be considered relevant to women.

But, she says, the results should prompt alcoholism researchers to re-examine their data for any impact from smoking—a factor that usually is not taken into account in studies of alcoholism’s effects on the brain, despite the fact that 50 percent to 80 percent of alcoholics smoke. The U-M-led team, meanwhile, is launching a study that will examine the issue in adolescents and plans to test the 172 men again soon.

“We can’t say that we’ve found a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and decreased thinking ability, or neurocognitive proficiency,” Glass says. “But we hope our findings of an association will lead to further examination of this important issue. Perhaps it will help give smokers one more reason to quit, and encourage quitting smoking among those who are also trying to control their drinking.”

Many alcoholism-recovery programs don’t emphasize quitting smoking, even though smoking can be a social and possibly chemical cue associated with alcohol consumption.

Glass notes that her team’s paper is being published at the same time as one from a team at the University of California, San Francisco, in which brain scans showed that alcoholics who smoke have lower brain volume than alcoholics who don’t smoke.

Taken together with previous epidemiological studies, the two papers feed a growing body of evidence for a link between long-term smoking and thinking ability, says Robert Zucker, professor of psychology in the departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and director of UMARC. Zucker is senior author on the new paper led by Glass.

“The exact mechanism for smoking’s impact on the brain’s higher functions is still unclear, but may involve both neurochemical effects and damage to the blood vessels that supply the brain,” Zucker says. “This is consistent with other findings that people with cardiovascular disease and lung disease tend to have reduced neurocognitive function.”

The data for the paper by Glass come from an ongoing longitudinal project that uses interviews and standardized research questionnaires to look at mental and physical health issues in families, measured every three years.

The study, which has run for more than 15 years and recently was funded for another five, is supported by the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The new work that will explore these relationships in youth is being funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, also part of the NIH.

Below is a link to a lecture given by Dr. Gabor Maté to a Canadian First Nation group. He gives a great overview of some of the science behind substance addiction. He also gets to the root of passing the behavior to our children. This lecture is very educational and explains some of the “causes and conditions” that lead from substance use, to abuse, to addiction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpHiFqXCYKc

This is a great example of a professional in the drug treatment industry with an enlightened view: examining not only the symptoms, but also the “causes and conditions” that lead to substance abuse. By understanding why we behave as we do, we can learn new skills and retrain how we think. Through this understanding and acceptance we can overcome self destructive behavior.

Thank you to Darren Littlejohn, The 12-Step Buddhist, for passing this video on to me.

About Dr. Maté: Vancouver, Canada-based physician and author. He is staff physician at the Portland Hotel Society, which runs a residence and harm reduction facility as well as Insite, North America’s only supervised safe-injection site. His four books, all bestsellers in Canada, include Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It, When the Body Says No, and his latest, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.