Most of my blogging has been posted to X.com (Formerly Twitter.com) in recent years but I plan to
forward more posts to this website in the near future.
Neal Engelking
8/11/16
New research supports the theory that Accelerated-State Conditioning reduces the desire to smoke - Per the following review in Reuters.com (1), the brain makes less dopamine, a chemical inMolved in both pleasure and addiction, when people smoke but this temporary deficit may be reversed when smokers kick the habit, a small experiment suggests.
“It is assumed that the brain adapts to the repeated nicotine-induced release of dopamine by producing less dopamine,” said lead study author Dr. Lena Rademacher of Lubeck University in Germany (2).
It’s still not clear if dopamine production reduced by long-term smoking bounces back in ex-smokers, so the researchers did brain scans of 15 never-smokers and 30 smokers.Then, they offered cessation treatment to the smokers and did another set of brain scans three months later on the subset of 15 people in this group who had quit.
On the first set of scans, smokers had a 15 percent to 20 percent lower capacity for dopamine production than the nonsmokers, researchers report in the journal Biological Psychiatry (2). But in the second set of scans, there was no longer a difference between nonsmokers and the smokers who successfully quit during the study.
This is important because some researchers think certain people could possess naturally low dopamine production that predisposes them to addiction.
Nicotine addiction is known to be associated with abnormalities in the dopamine system. But scientists are uncertain if smoking induces those abnormalities or if they already exist in some people and make them more vulnerable to getting hooked on nicotine.
Because the study found that most nicotine abnormalities went away after smokers quit, it suggests they are a byproduct of smoking, Rademacher said. “In case of a predisposing trait, abnormalities are expected to persist with abstinence,” Rademacher said. “Conversely, if dopamine function normalizes with abstinence this rather indicates that alterations were induced by substance consumption.”
One limitation of the study is its small size, which makes it difficult to draw statistically meaningful conclusions, the authors note. The study also only included men, making it hard to say whether the findings would apply to women.
Even so, the results are encouraging because they suggest that brain function is plastic, or modifiable, and that an ex-smoker's brain can return to more normal functioning over time, said Joseph McClernon, a psychiatry researcher at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, who wasn’t involved in the study.
The findings also may have implications beyond just addiction to cigarettes because the dopamine system is involved in a broad range of functions including learning, motivation and behavior control, McClernon added by email.
“To the extent that smoking or other drug use alters how this system functions normally can have impacts on behavior that increase the likelihood that one continues to use drugs or has difficulty in quitting drug use,” McClernon said.
“Dopamine regulation of motivation for instance, is likely involved in the tendency of drug users to be overly preoccupied with drug use” to the exclusion of other forces in their lives like work and relationships, McClernon added.
Neal's Note:
This study supports the ASC Theory that depleted dopamine levels contribute to "cravings" like the desire to smoke and therefore a dramatic dopamine elevating routine like AccceleratedStateConditioning (ASC), based on the experience of myself and others, is likely to prove to be useful tool in combating this harmful behavior.
As outlined in the book "Accelerated-State Conditioning: A 5 minute daily motivational routine designed to elevate mood and permanently change behavior"; dopamine blood-brain/body levels can be dramatically and rapidly elevated using the revolutionary AcceleratedStateConditioning (ASC) routine.
ASC is the only motivational routine which works by teaching the unique skill of "deliberately" evoking multiple episodes of frisson (chills) within very short time frames. Researchers at McGill University (Salimpoor 2011) demonstrated a link between episodes of frisson and significant increases in endogenous (natural) dopamine. Frisson is reportedly experienced by 2/3rds of the popula tion. Artists and music lovers frequently experience frisson as "goosebumps" or extremely pleasureable (and frequently mood-elevating) "chills" running up and down the spine. To learn more about developing this skill you can review many free excerpts from the book ASC here.
(1) SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-dopamine-smoking-idUSKCN10L2LQ
(2) bit.ly/2aBNfde Biological Psychiatry, online August 1, 2016.
3/19/15
This recent study supports the notion that Accelerated-State Conditioning (ASC) helps make us more sensitive to inequality - What if there were a pill that made you more compassionate and more likely to give spare change to someone less fortunate? UC Berkeley scientists have taken a big step in that direction.
A new study by UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco researchers finds that giving a drug that changes the neurochemical balance in the prefrontal cortex of the brain causes a greater willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as ensuring that resources are divided more equally.
The researchers also say that future research may lead to a better understanding of the interaction between altered dopamine-brain mechanisms and mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or addiction, and potentially light the way to possible diagnostic tools or treatments for these disorders.
“Our study shows how studying basic scientific questions about human nature can, in fact, provide important insights into diagnosis and treatment of social dysfunctions,” said Ming Hsu, a co-principal investigator and assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
“Our hope is that medications targeting social function may someday be used to treat these disabling conditions,” said Andrew Kayser, a co-principal investigator on the study, an assistant professor of neurology at UC San Francisco and a researcher in the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley.
In the study, published online today (March 19) in the journal Current Biology, participants on two separate visits received a pill containing either a placebo or tolcapone, a drug that prolongs the effects of dopamine, a brain chemical associated with reward and motivation in the prefrontal cortex. Participants then played a simple economic game in which they divided money between themselves and an anonymous recipient. After receiving tolcapone, participants divided the money with the strangers in a fairer, more egalitarian way than after receiving the placebo.
“We typically think of fair-mindedness as a stable characteristic, part of one’s personality,” said Hsu. “Our study doesn't’T reject this notion, but it does show how that trait can be systematically affected by targeting specific neurochemical pathways in the human brain.”
In this double-blind study of 35 participants, including 18 women, neither participants nor study staff members knew which pills contained the placebo or tolcapone, an FDA-approved drug used to treat people with Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological disorder affecting movement and muscle control.
Computational modeling showed Hsu and his colleagues that under tolcapone’s influence, game players were more sensitive to and less tolerant of social inequity, the perceived relative economic gap between a study participant and a stranger.
By connecting to previous studies showing that economic inequity is evaluated in the prefrontal cortex, a core area of the brain that dopamine affects, this study brings researchers closer to pinpointing how prosocial behaviors such as fairness are initiated in the brain.
“We have taken an important step toward learning how our aversion to inequity is influenced by our brain chemistry,” said the study’s first author, Ignacio Sáez, a postdoctoral researcher at the Haas School of Business. “Studies in the past decade have shed light on the neural circuits that govern how we behave in social situations. What we show here is one brain ‘switch’ we can affect.”
[Neal's Note]: So what's the connection between this study and Accelerated-State Conditioning (ASC)? Its that the daily motivational ASC routine activates the same neurochemical pathways in the human brain that are being researched in this study. You may think I'm exaggerating, but personally, I don't think you need to wait for scientists to develop a "pill" to make yourself more prosocial. Just keep using the ASC routine to evoke your own "chemicals of positive emotion" and enjoy your continued growth and development :)
SOURCE: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/03/19/dopamine-inequality/
3/16/15
A new study adds support (in my view) that Accelerated-State Conditioning (ASC) might delay onset of Parkinson's disease (PD) - The ideal in any progressive disease is to find it early enough to start effective treatment before irreversible damage has occurred. For Parkinson’s disease (PD), which afflicts 1.5 million Americans and growing, a new study has brought this goal a little closer.
The study, identified symptoms that were more likely to be present in people who years later were diagnosed PD. The findings underscore the prevailing view among neurologists that the damage caused by this disease begins long before classic symptoms like tremors, rigidity and an unsteady gait develop and a definite diagnosis can be made.
According to the study, by Dr. Anette Schrag and fellow neurologists at the University College London (1) as many as five years before a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, those who developed it were more likely to have experienced tremor, balance problems, constipation, low blood pressure, dizziness, erectile and urinary dysfunction, fatigue, depression and anxiety.
In addition, Dr. Claire Henchcliffe, director of the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Institute at Weill Cornell Medical Center, said that REM sleep behavior disorder, characterized by a tendency to act out one’s dreams while asleep, is one of the strongest prediagnostic symptoms, along with a lost sense of smell and subtle changes in cognition.
Dr. Melissa J. Nirenberg, a Parkinson’s disease specialist at New York University Medical Center, said, “Up to 80 percent of people with the sleep disorder get Parkinson’s or a similar neurodegenerative disease.”
Although far more study is needed before it will be possible to say that someone has preclinical Parkinson’s, people with combinations of the risk factors identified in the study might consider consulting a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders, the experts said.
If a neurological exam suggests the likelihood of Parkinson’s, individuals may be eligible to participate in a clinical trial of one or more drugs that may be able to stop or slow progression of the disease by preventing destruction of the brain’s dopamine-producing neurons.
This is where the ASC daily motivational routine comes in. As many of you who follow my work know, ASC Theory proposes that the routine significantly elevates endogenous (natural, non-synthetic) dopamine. And these elevated dopamine levels can last for lengthy periods.
By the time patients develop characteristic Parkinson’s symptoms, the brain has already lost more than half of its dopamine-producing cells. The goal is to identify those at risk of Parkinson’s while their brains are still largely intact, and long before a definitive diagnosis is made.
Dr. Henchcliffe suggested that people with symptoms predictive of Parkinson’s, as well as the relative few who are genetically at risk, adopt healthful exercise and dietary habits that may forestall the disease. “All forms of exercise seem to be good – dance, aerobics, stretching, whatever appeals to you,” she said. “With respect to diet, a Mediterranean-style diet” – rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fish and olive oil — “is most closely associated with a reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s.”
“There have also been some odd papers suggesting that certain foods, like red peppers and the flavonoids in apples, are protective,” Dr. Henchcliffe said, adding that careful studies are needed to determine if any specific foods or dietary substances are truly beneficial.
Neal's Note:
The ASC routine is of course, in addition to rapidly elevating levels of the "chemicals of positive emotion" (like dopamine), in part, designed to assist in the development of these type of desirable health related habits.
(1) www.thelancet.com/neurology, Vol 14, January 2015
SOURCE: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/looking-for-parkinsons-sooner/?_r=0
03/12/15
Dr. Deepak Chopra created a show recently for PBS on which he spoke about the value of a "Peak
Experience". And interestingly, a peak experience is the primary payoff received once you've - mastered the 5-minute daily motivational routine Accelerated-State Conditioning (ASC). ASC being the powerful routine that generates, literally within moments, an altered-state of consciousness identical, in my experience, to a "peak experience". For those unfamiliar, ASC is the fast, easy and fun motivational routine I've created, developed and extensively outlined in a book of the same name and on this blog, in the past.
For those not acquainted with the term, peak experiences describe moments accompanied by a euphoric mental state often achieved by self-actualizing individuals.[1] The ASC routine evokes a peak experience through the learned skill of deliberately creating multiple episodes of frisson. Frisson has been linked to significant elevations in dopamine blood levels. The neurotransmitter dopamine has been linked to areas in the brain associated with pleasure, positive emotion and motivation.
The peak experience concept was originally developed by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1964, who describes peak experiences as “rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter.” [2][3], The experience created with the ASC routine is, in my experience, just that.
According to Maslow, an individual in a peak experience will perceive the following simultaneously:
* loss of judgment to time and space
* the feeling of being one whole and harmonious self, free of dissociation or inner conflict
* the feeling of using all capacities and capabilities at their highest potential, or being "fully functioning"
* functioning effortlessly and easily without strain or struggle
* feeling completely responsible for perceptions and behavior. Use of self-determination to becoming stronger, more single-minded, and fully volitional
* being without inhibition, fear, doubt, and self-criticism
* Spontaneity, expressiveness, and naturally flowing behavior that is not constrained by conformity
* a free mind that is flexible and open to creative thoughts and ideas
complete mindfulness of the present moment without influence of past or expected future experiences
It might seem suspect that the motivational routine ASC can create a peak experience, but there are several unique characteristics of said experiences, and each element is perceived together in a holistic manner that creates a moment of reaching one’s full potential [4]. These moments can range from simple activities to intense events [5][6] however, it's not necessarily about what the activity is, but the ecstatic, care-free feeling that is being experienced during it.[7]
References:
1. Corsini, Raymond J. (1998). Encyclopedia of Psychology. United States: John Wiley & Sons.
2. Corsini, Raymond J. (1998). Encyclopedia of Psychology. United States: John Wiley & Sons. p. 21.
3. Maslow, A.H. (1964). Religions, values, and peak experiences. London: Penguin Books Limited.
4. Maslow, Abraham (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.
5. Polyson, J. (1985). "Student's peak experiences: A written exercise.". Teaching of Psychology, 12. pp. 211–213.
6. Capon, John. "Flow and Peak Experience".
7. Maslow, A. H. (1962). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_experience
01/11/15
There's a great deal of reason to believe, the daily use of Accelerated-State Conditioning (ASC), may delay or even prevent many medical illnesses - and now, another potential reason presents itself in the form of a new survey of research (1) conducted by Italian and American researchers, linking a class of mental illnesses labeled affective (mood) disorders like depression and anxiety to many medical ailments.
The researchers were (very persuasively) trying to make the case for certain affective disorders (e.g. depression and anxiety) frequently being early symptoms of various medical illnesses. But, I would argue that the data could just as easily be used to theorize these affective disorders were the causes (rather than early symptoms) of these medical illnesses.
If you've read excerpts from the book Accelerated-State Conditioning: A 5-minute daily motivational routine designed to elevate mood and permanently, (available for free on this website), you’e familiar with the argument that a powerful daily mood elevating routine like ASC can lesson and even prevent affective disorders like depression and anxiety.
Ongoing studies like this new one cited above, linking affective disorders with medical disease, only further the case for using powerful psychosocial, non-invasive tools like the ASC routine to combat affective disorders with the goal of very possibly delaying and/or preventing medical illness.
Neal
1. Cosci F, Fava GA, Sonino N. "Mood and Anxiety Disorders as Early Manifestations of Medical Illness: A Systematic Review." Psychother Psychosom 2015;84:22-29, DOI: 10.1159/000367913
09/05/2014
Mental health providers frequently find clients to be "treatment resistant" no matter what their efforts, but labeling someone "treatment resistant" is rarely, if ever, helpful and doesn't mean there aren't undiscovered answers for clients.
One of the most common mental health complaints is that of depression. Many sufferer's of depression (both acute and chronic) report they are unable to find relief from conventional "therapies and treatments".
From medical treatments such as medication, shock therapy, etc. to psycho-social
therapies like cognitive behavior therapy, or "talk therapy" for some, nothing seems to provide relief.
There are many reasons why an individual might not respond to conventional "treatments"; far more than can be covered in a short blog.
But what I would like to suggest from all of this is that there has been a real lack of willingness to try various "alternatives and/or supplements" to conventional treatments for depression (and all illnesses) by many providers.
It almost seems like only the very bold are willing to let clients sign "hold harmless" documents and experiment with something new when all else has failed, possibly from an inordinate fear of irrigators and regulators.
Take for example the powerful, mood-elevating motivational routine Accelerated-State Conditioning (ASC). As the creator of ASC, no matter how many articles, blogs, books, etc. I've published over the years, this powerful mood elevating routine just can't seem to make it into more than a handful of professional helper's "tool-kits".
One of the primary objections by professionals for not teaching ASC to clients is it's not "evidenced based". But this really isn't a valid argument because no treatment became evidence based until you pull together some clients, students, etc. who are willing, to try something new and then do some testing with them.
Oh well, just because new ideas are hard to sell isn't a reason to stop promoting what's worked for me and others over the years. Nor does it prevent the occasional professional from ""recognizing the value" and start recommending ASC and moving a client from the "treatment resistant" to the "improved client" file!
For a list of previous All Things Motivational Blogs CLICK HERE
All Things Motivational
A Neal Engelking Blog
This blog does not provide medical advise, diagnosis nor treatment.
TM
