The Power of Introverts: An Essential Understanding for Teachers

edutopia.org - About a year ago, I read Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking . I wanted to tell everyone about this book right away, but I also wanted to let what I'd learned sink in. I wanted to sit alone with my new self-awareness, process my experience, and absorb the revelations I'd had -- all in true introverted fashion. See, as I'd read Cain's book, my predominant thoughts were, "She's describing me!

Could arthritis drug combat Alzheimer's?

theguardian.com -

As a psychiatrist, he's had little formal training in immunology, but has spent much of his time of late trying to figure how immune cells in the body communicate with others in the brain. These signals into the brain, he thinks, accelerate the speed at which neurons – nerve cells in the brain – are killed in late-stage Alzheimer's disease and at the beginning of next year he hopes to test the idea that blocking these signals can stop or slow down disease progression.

Holmes has been testing etanercept , a drug widely used for rheumatoid arthritis. It blocks the production of TNF-alpha, one of the signalling molecules, or cytokines, used by immune cells to communicate with each other. In the next few months, he expects the results of a pilot trial in people with Alzheimer's. If they are positive, he'll test the strategy in people with only the mildest early forms of the disease.

 

Depression 'makes us biologically older'

m.bbc.co.uk - Depression can make us physically older by speeding up the ageing process in our cells, according to a study.Lab tests showed cells looked biologically older in people who were severely depressed or who had been in the past.These visible differences in a measure of cell ageing called telomere length couldn't be explained by other factors, such as whether a person smoked.