Tuesday, August 31, 2010

BLOG INTERAÇÃO DE AMIGOS EM FESTA!!!



ESTE BLOG ESTÁ EM FESTA!!!!!
TEM UM SELO MUITO ESPECIAL PARA VOCÊ!!!

SELO EXCLUSIVO DO BLOG
VENHA INTERAGIR COMESTE BLOG.

VENHA INTERAGIR E LEVAR O SELO DE COMEMORAÇÃO.
CLICK NA IMAGEM E VENHA VOU TE ESPERAR.

DIA 29 DE SETEMBRO ESTAREI AQUI..
LER É FASHION!
Entre nesta moda!!! Ler é Fashion!

GRADEÇO A SUA COMPANHIA!!!Clique Aqui e veja mais imagens

QUERO DIZER A TODOS QUE ESTÁ MUITO
DIFICIL DE VIR TODOS OS DIAS.

MAS SEMPRE QUE EU PUDER VIREI PELO MENOS PARA AGRADECER O SEU CARINHO. ASSIM QUE REALMENTE PUDER E TIVER UM TEMPINHO VOU RETRIBUIR DE CORAÇÃO A TODOS.
NUNCA ESQUEÇA QUE EU TE AMO..


COMO ANDO SEM TEMPO. GOSTARIA DE PEDIR UM GRANDE FAVOR.
SE POSSIVEL DEIXAR O LINK DA INTERAÇÃO DE AMIGOS http://sandrarandrade7.blogspot.com EM VOSSO BLOG PARA QUE OS AMIGOS PUDESSEM VIR BUSCAR. POIS TEMOS MUITOS AMIGOS EM COMUM.
MUITO OBRIGADA MAIS UMA VEZ, PELO SEU CARINHO E SUA ATENÇÃO.
CARINHOSAMENTE DEIXO O MEU MUITO OBRIGADA...SANDRA

Monday, August 30, 2010

Serotonin, Psychedelics and Depression

Note: This post is part of a Nature Blog Focus on hallucinogenic drugs in medicine and mental health, inspired by a recent Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper, The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders, by Franz Vollenweider & Michael Kometer. That article will be available, free (once you register), until September 23. For more information on this Blog Focus, see the "Table of Contents" here.

Neurophilosophy is covering the history of psychedelic psychiatry, while Mind Hacks provides a personal look at one particular drug, DMT. The Neurocritic discusses ketamine, an anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, which is attracting a lot of interest at the moment as a treatment for depression.

Ketamine, however, is not a "classical" psychedelic like the drugs that gave the 60s its unique flavor and left us with psychedelic rock, acid house and colorful artwork. Classical psychedelics are the focus of this post.

The best known are LSD ("acid"), mescaline, found in the peyote and a few other species of cactus, and psilocybin, from "magic" mushrooms of the Psilocybe genus. Yet there are literally hundreds of related compounds. Most of them are described in loving detail in the two heroic epics of psychopharmacology, PIKHaL and TIKHaL, written by chemists and trip veterans Alexander and Ann Shulgin.

The chemistry of psychedelics is closely linked with that of depression and antidepressants. All classical psychedelics are 5HT2A receptor agonists. Most of them have other effects on the brain as well, which contribute to the unique effects of each drug, but 5HT2A agonism is what they all have in common.

5HT2A receptors are excitatory receptors expressed throughout the brain, and are especially dense in the key pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex. They're normally activated by serotonin (5HT), which is the neurotransmitter that's most often thought of as being implicated in depression. The relationship between 5HT and mood is very complicated, and depression isn't simply a disorder of "low serotonin", but there's strong evidence that it is involved.

There's one messy detail, which is that not quite all 5HT2A agonists are hallucinogenic. Lisuride, a drug used in Parkinson's disease, is closely related to LSD, and is a strong 5HT2A agonist, but it has no psychedelic effects. It's recently been shown that LSD and lisuride have different molecular effects on cortical cells, even though they act on the same receptor - in other words, there's more to 5HT2A than simply turning it "on" and "off".

*

How could psychedelics help to treat mental illness? On the face of it, the acute effects of these drugs - hallucinations, altered thought processes and emotions - sound rather like the symptoms of mental illness themselves, and indeed psychedelics have been referred to as "psychotomimetic" - mimicking psychosis.

There are two schools of thought here: psychological and neurobiological.

The psychological approach ruled the first wave of psychedelic psychiatry, in the 50s and 60s. Psychiatry, especially in America, was dominated by Freudian theories of the unconscious. On this view, mental illness was a product of conflicts between unconscious desires and the conscious mind. The symptoms experienced by a particular patient were distressing, of course, but they also provided clues to the nature of their unconscious troubles.

It was tempting to see the action of psychedelics as a weakening of the filters which kept the unconscious, unconscious - allowing repressed material to come into awareness. The only other time this happened, according to Freud, was during dreams. That's why Freud famously called the interpretation of dreams the "royal road to the unconscious".

Psychedelics offered analysts the tantalizing prospect of confronting the unconscious face-to-face, while awake, instead of having to rely on the patient's memory of their previous dreams. To enthusiastic Freudians, this promised to revolutionize therapy, in the same way that the x-ray had done so much for surgery. The "dreamlike" nature of many aspects of the psychedelic experience seemed to confirm this.

Not all psychedelic therapists were orthodox Freudians, however. There were plenty of other theories in circulation, many of them inspired by the theorists' own drug experiences. Stanislav Grof, Timothy Leary and others saw the psychedelic state of consciousness as the key to attaining spiritual, philosophical and even mystical insights, whether one was "ill" or "healthy" - and indeed, they often said that mental "illness" was itself a potential source of spiritual growth.

Like many things, psychiatry has changed since the 60s. Psychotherapy is currently dominated by cognitive-behavioural (CBT) theory, and Freudian ideas have gone distinctly out of fashion. It remains to be seen what CBT would make of LSD, but the basic idea - that carefully controlled use of drugs could help patients to "break through" psychological barriers to treatment - seems likely to remain at the heart of their continued use.

*

The other view is that these drugs could have direct biological effects which lead to improvements in mood. Repeated use of LSD, for example, has been shown to rapidly induce down-regulation of 5HT2A receptors. Presumably, this is the brain's way of "compensating" for prolonged 5HT2A activation. This is probably why tolerance to the effects of psychedelics rapidly develops, something that's long been known (and regretted) by heavy users.

Vollenweider and Kometeris note that this is interesting, because 5HT2A blockers are used as antidepressants - the drugs nefazadone and mirtazapine are the best known today, but most of the older tricyclic antidepressants are also 5HT2A antagonists. Atypical antipsychotics, which are also used in depression, are potent 5HT2A antagonists as well.

So indirectly suppressing 5HT2A might be one biological mechanism by which psychedelics improve mood. However, questions remain about how far this could explain any therapeutic effects of these drugs. Psychedelic-induced 5HT2A down-regulation is presumably temporary - and if all we need to do is to knock out 5HT2A, it would surely be easiest to just use an antagonist...

ResearchBlogging.orgVollenweider FX, & Kometer M (2010). The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11 (9), 642-51 PMID: 20717121

Serotonin, Psychedelics and Depression

Note: This post is part of a Nature Blog Focus on hallucinogenic drugs in medicine and mental health, inspired by a recent Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper, The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders, by Franz Vollenweider & Michael Kometer. That article will be available, free (once you register), until September 23. For more information on this Blog Focus, see the "Table of Contents" here.

Neurophilosophy is covering the history of psychedelic psychiatry, while Mind Hacks provides a personal look at one particular drug, DMT. The Neurocritic discusses ketamine, an anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, which is attracting a lot of interest at the moment as a treatment for depression.

Ketamine, however, is not a "classical" psychedelic like the drugs that gave the 60s its unique flavor and left us with psychedelic rock, acid house and colorful artwork. Classical psychedelics are the focus of this post.

The best known are LSD ("acid"), mescaline, found in the peyote and a few other species of cactus, and psilocybin, from "magic" mushrooms of the Psilocybe genus. Yet there are literally hundreds of related compounds. Most of them are described in loving detail in the two heroic epics of psychopharmacology, PIKHaL and TIKHaL, written by chemists and trip veterans Alexander and Ann Shulgin.

The chemistry of psychedelics is closely linked with that of depression and antidepressants. All classical psychedelics are 5HT2A receptor agonists. Most of them have other effects on the brain as well, which contribute to the unique effects of each drug, but 5HT2A agonism is what they all have in common.

5HT2A receptors are excitatory receptors expressed throughout the brain, and are especially dense in the key pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex. They're normally activated by serotonin (5HT), which is the neurotransmitter that's most often thought of as being implicated in depression. The relationship between 5HT and mood is very complicated, and depression isn't simply a disorder of "low serotonin", but there's strong evidence that it is involved.

There's one messy detail, which is that not quite all 5HT2A agonists are hallucinogenic. Lisuride, a drug used in Parkinson's disease, is closely related to LSD, and is a strong 5HT2A agonist, but it has no psychedelic effects. It's recently been shown that LSD and lisuride have different molecular effects on cortical cells, even though they act on the same receptor - in other words, there's more to 5HT2A than simply turning it "on" and "off".

*

How could psychedelics help to treat mental illness? On the face of it, the acute effects of these drugs - hallucinations, altered thought processes and emotions - sound rather like the symptoms of mental illness themselves, and indeed psychedelics have been referred to as "psychotomimetic" - mimicking psychosis.

There are two schools of thought here: psychological and neurobiological.

The psychological approach ruled the first wave of psychedelic psychiatry, in the 50s and 60s. Psychiatry, especially in America, was dominated by Freudian theories of the unconscious. On this view, mental illness was a product of conflicts between unconscious desires and the conscious mind. The symptoms experienced by a particular patient were distressing, of course, but they also provided clues to the nature of their unconscious troubles.

It was tempting to see the action of psychedelics as a weakening of the filters which kept the unconscious, unconscious - allowing repressed material to come into awareness. The only other time this happened, according to Freud, was during dreams. That's why Freud famously called the interpretation of dreams the "royal road to the unconscious".

Psychedelics offered analysts the tantalizing prospect of confronting the unconscious face-to-face, while awake, instead of having to rely on the patient's memory of their previous dreams. To enthusiastic Freudians, this promised to revolutionize therapy, in the same way that the x-ray had done so much for surgery. The "dreamlike" nature of many aspects of the psychedelic experience seemed to confirm this.

Not all psychedelic therapists were orthodox Freudians, however. There were plenty of other theories in circulation, many of them inspired by the theorists' own drug experiences. Stanislav Grof, Timothy Leary and others saw the psychedelic state of consciousness as the key to attaining spiritual, philosophical and even mystical insights, whether one was "ill" or "healthy" - and indeed, they often said that mental "illness" was itself a potential source of spiritual growth.

Like many things, psychiatry has changed since the 60s. Psychotherapy is currently dominated by cognitive-behavioural (CBT) theory, and Freudian ideas have gone distinctly out of fashion. It remains to be seen what CBT would make of LSD, but the basic idea - that carefully controlled use of drugs could help patients to "break through" psychological barriers to treatment - seems likely to remain at the heart of their continued use.

*

The other view is that these drugs could have direct biological effects which lead to improvements in mood. Repeated use of LSD, for example, has been shown to rapidly induce down-regulation of 5HT2A receptors. Presumably, this is the brain's way of "compensating" for prolonged 5HT2A activation. This is probably why tolerance to the effects of psychedelics rapidly develops, something that's long been known (and regretted) by heavy users.

Vollenweider and Kometeris note that this is interesting, because 5HT2A blockers are used as antidepressants - the drugs nefazadone and mirtazapine are the best known today, but most of the older tricyclic antidepressants are also 5HT2A antagonists. Atypical antipsychotics, which are also used in depression, are potent 5HT2A antagonists as well.

So indirectly suppressing 5HT2A might be one biological mechanism by which psychedelics improve mood. However, questions remain about how far this could explain any therapeutic effects of these drugs. Psychedelic-induced 5HT2A down-regulation is presumably temporary - and if all we need to do is to knock out 5HT2A, it would surely be easiest to just use an antagonist...

ResearchBlogging.orgVollenweider FX, & Kometer M (2010). The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11 (9), 642-51 PMID: 20717121

Friday, August 27, 2010

Cats, Bins and Stalin

Britain is currently being outraged by the woman who threw a cat in a bin for some reason, and got caught on video:

As a cat person I'm as outraged as anyone, but as a vegetarian I feel that carnivores who object to this are not being very consistent. To paraphrase something that Stalin didn't actually say:
One cat in a bin is a tragedy. 2 million chickens killed every day is delicious
The life of a broiler chicken is not a happy one.

Cats, Bins and Stalin

Britain is currently being outraged by the woman who threw a cat in a bin for some reason, and got caught on video:

As a cat person I'm as outraged as anyone, but as a vegetarian I feel that carnivores who object to this are not being very consistent. To paraphrase something that Stalin didn't actually say:
One cat in a bin is a tragedy. 2 million chickens killed every day is delicious
The life of a broiler chicken is not a happy one.

VOCÊ É O MEU AMIGO OURO!!!

UMA LINDA E BELA MENSAGEM RECEBI E COMPARTILHO COM TODOS VOCÊS MEUS QUERIDOS E MARAVILHOSOS AMIGOS VIRTUAIS.

Você nasce sem pedir e morre sem querer...
Por isso, aproveite o Intervalo SENDO FELIZ!!!

VOCÊ VALE OURO!

cid:027e01c8eda8$d593c8e0$9000a8c0@local.datasupri.com.br

cid:027f01c8eda8$d593c8e0$9000a8c0@local.datasupri.com.br


Amigo é coisa pra se guardar...

Um filho pergunta à mãe:
- Mãe, posso ir ao hospital ver meu amigo? Ele está doente!
- Claro, mas o que ele tem?
O filho, com a cabeça baixa, diz:
- Tumor no cérebro.
A mãe, furiosa, diz:
-E você quer ir lá para quê? Vê-lo morrer?
O filho lhe dá as costas e vai...
Horas depois ele volta vermelho de tanto chorar, dizendo:
- Ai mãe, foi tão horrível, ele morreu na minha frente!
A mãe, com raiva:
- E agora?! Tá feliz?! Valeu a pena ter visto aquela cena?!
Uma última lágrima cai de seus olhos e, acompanhado de um sorriso, ele diz:
- Muito, pois cheguei a tempo de vê-lo sorrir e dizer:
'- EU TINHA CERTEZA QUE VOCÊ VINHA!'

Moral da história: A amizade não se resume só em horas boas, alegria e festa. Amigo é para todas as horas, boas ou ruins,tristes ou alegres.
CONSERVEM SEUS AMIGOS(a)! O VALOR QUE ELES TÊM NÃO TEM PREÇO...



DESEJO A TODOS UM LINDO E BELO FINAL DE SEMANA A TODOS.

GRADEÇO A SUA COMPANHIA!!!Clique Aqui e veja mais imagens

Poetas-Um Voo Livre-

Sinal de Liberdade-uma expressão de sentimento-

Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos-
JÁ NOVO TEMA...COMPARTILHE...

MEUS MIMOS . AQUI. OFERECIDOS/RECEBIDOS-

Thursday, August 26, 2010

MUITO OBRIGADA PELO SEU CARINHO...

O BLOG INTERAÇÃO DE AMIGOS AGRADECE OS AMIGOS...

SELO EXCLUSIVO DO BLOG
VENHA INTERAGIR COM
ESTE BLOG.

QUERO AGRADECER O CARINHO MUITO ESPECIAL DE TODOS QUE FORAM COMPARTILHAR COMIGO AS DELICIAS DO TURISMO RURAL LÁ NA MINHA ALDEIA-(BLOG DA SUSANA- PORTUGAL.)

NO FINAL DE SEMANA VOU VISITAR A TODOS. AGORA ESTOU SEM TEMPO...
...OBRIGADA PELO SEU CARINHO.
AMO CADA UM QUE CHEGA NESTA CASA.
VOCÊ FAZ PARTE DESTA MORADA.




GRADEÇO A SUA COMPANHIA!!!Clique Aqui e veja mais imagens

Poetas-Um Voo Livre-

Sinal de Liberdade-uma expressão de sentimento-

Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos-
JÁ NOVO TEMA...COMPARTILHE...

MEUS MIMOS . AQUI. OFERECIDOS/RECEBIDOS-

You Read It Here First

Remember the paper from 2009 about combining two different drugs in the treatment of depression?

It was about a clinical trial in which patients were randomly assigned to get just one antidepressant, fluoxetine, or two - mirtazapine & fluoxetine, mirtazapine & venlafaxine, or mirtazapine & buproprion. The people who got two antidepressants did better.

But as I said at the time, in a comment beneath my post about it...
All the first 6 weeks shows is that mirtazapine is better than placebo. Everyone in the study got a non-mirtazapine antidepressant, so any improvement in the non-mirtazapine group (i.e. the fluoxetine alone group) could have been placebo, regression to the mean etc. The only placebo-controlled aspect was that some people got placebo mirtazapine and some people got real mirtazapine.
Now Dr's El-Mallakh, Kaur and Lippmann have written in a Letter to The Editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry (where the original paper appeared) that
There was no mirtazapine plus placebo study group. This comparison arm is necessary in order to be confident that the observed effect by the three combined treatments could not have been accomplished by mirtazapine as a single drug. The observation that mirtazapine alone was equivalent to fluoxetine or paroxetine alone in a previous study does not negate the need for a control in the Blier et al. study. Without such a control, one cannot assume that two antidepressant medications are more effective than mirtazapine alone.
What I said - on 18th December 2009. The new Letter was "accepted for publication" in May 2010, and it's only just appeared.

Am I just blowing my own trumpet? No. Well, a bit. But there's a serious point as well: internet comments are a much better medium for discussing and criticizing research than Letters To The Editor ever can be.

Why? The Letter may have been a bit slower, but it's still out there, surely? Plus, it'll have been read by far more people. My post has got about 400 pageviews so far. I don't know how many people read the Letters page in the AJP, but I'd imagine it must be a good few thousand. So what's the problem?

The problem is that it's too late. Papers get cited by other papers fast (this one's got 13 citations so far), and they change minds even faster. This article's been out nearly a year, and I'm sure that in that time it will have convinced some psychiatrists to start their depressed patients on two drugs, rather than just one.

Now I'm not saying they shouldn't do that. I don't know. Anyway, I'm not a doctor. But I stand by my comment that this paper shouldn't be what changes your opinion on that question; the design of the trial means it can't tell you that. And I think that's something that readers of the paper should have been told at the time, not 9 months later.

What's the solution? I've written about this previously as well. Scientific journals should have open, blog-style comment threads attached to everything they publish, so that readers can say what they have to say, immediately. A number of major journals, e.g. the PLoS journals, some of the Nature ones, and the BMJ, already do this.

From what I've seen, the standard of comments is extremely high. Sure, some are rubbish. But the rubbish ones are almost always obviously bad, so I don't think they'll be doing much damage. The good ones, on the other hand, are often extremely insightful - whether they are criticizing, or praising, the paper.

ResearchBlogging.orgEl-Mallakh RS, Kaur G, & Lippman S (2010). Placebo group needed for interpretation of combination trial. The American journal of psychiatry, 167 (8) PMID: 20693473

You Read It Here First

Remember the paper from 2009 about combining two different drugs in the treatment of depression?

It was about a clinical trial in which patients were randomly assigned to get just one antidepressant, fluoxetine, or two - mirtazapine & fluoxetine, mirtazapine & venlafaxine, or mirtazapine & buproprion. The people who got two antidepressants did better.

But as I said at the time, in a comment beneath my post about it...
All the first 6 weeks shows is that mirtazapine is better than placebo. Everyone in the study got a non-mirtazapine antidepressant, so any improvement in the non-mirtazapine group (i.e. the fluoxetine alone group) could have been placebo, regression to the mean etc. The only placebo-controlled aspect was that some people got placebo mirtazapine and some people got real mirtazapine.
Now Dr's El-Mallakh, Kaur and Lippmann have written in a Letter to The Editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry (where the original paper appeared) that
There was no mirtazapine plus placebo study group. This comparison arm is necessary in order to be confident that the observed effect by the three combined treatments could not have been accomplished by mirtazapine as a single drug. The observation that mirtazapine alone was equivalent to fluoxetine or paroxetine alone in a previous study does not negate the need for a control in the Blier et al. study. Without such a control, one cannot assume that two antidepressant medications are more effective than mirtazapine alone.
What I said - on 18th December 2009. The new Letter was "accepted for publication" in May 2010, and it's only just appeared.

Am I just blowing my own trumpet? No. Well, a bit. But there's a serious point as well: internet comments are a much better medium for discussing and criticizing research than Letters To The Editor ever can be.

Why? The Letter may have been a bit slower, but it's still out there, surely? Plus, it'll have been read by far more people. My post has got about 400 pageviews so far. I don't know how many people read the Letters page in the AJP, but I'd imagine it must be a good few thousand. So what's the problem?

The problem is that it's too late. Papers get cited by other papers fast (this one's got 13 citations so far), and they change minds even faster. This article's been out nearly a year, and I'm sure that in that time it will have convinced some psychiatrists to start their depressed patients on two drugs, rather than just one.

Now I'm not saying they shouldn't do that. I don't know. Anyway, I'm not a doctor. But I stand by my comment that this paper shouldn't be what changes your opinion on that question; the design of the trial means it can't tell you that. And I think that's something that readers of the paper should have been told at the time, not 9 months later.

What's the solution? I've written about this previously as well. Scientific journals should have open, blog-style comment threads attached to everything they publish, so that readers can say what they have to say, immediately. A number of major journals, e.g. the PLoS journals, some of the Nature ones, and the BMJ, already do this.

From what I've seen, the standard of comments is extremely high. Sure, some are rubbish. But the rubbish ones are almost always obviously bad, so I don't think they'll be doing much damage. The good ones, on the other hand, are often extremely insightful - whether they are criticizing, or praising, the paper.

ResearchBlogging.orgEl-Mallakh RS, Kaur G, & Lippman S (2010). Placebo group needed for interpretation of combination trial. The American journal of psychiatry, 167 (8) PMID: 20693473

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

O BLOG INTERAÇÃO DE AMIGOS AGRADECE OS AMIGOS...

SELO EXCLUSIVO DO BLOG
VENHA INTERAGIR COM
ESTE BLOG.

QUERO AGRADECER O CARINHO MUITO ESPECIAL DE TODOS QUE FORAM COMPARTILHAR COMIGO AS DELICIAS DO TURISMO RURAL LÁ NA MINHA ALDEIA-(BLOG DA SUSANA- PORTUGAL.)

OBRIGADA PELO SEU COMENTARIO A INTERAÇÃO DE AMIGOS AGRADECE.
TODOS OS COMENTÁRIOS ESTAM POSTADOS NA INTERAÇÃO. GUARDAREI COM MUITO CARINHO O SEU PONTO...

Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos-
COLETIVAS-COMPARTILHE. TEM -TURISMO RURAL-CONHEÇA UM POUQUINHO DESSE LUGAR ..VOU TE ESPERAR POR LÁ.
CLIQUE E COMENTE...CADA COMENTÁRIO VALE TRÊS PONTOS.
MAS TEM QUE SER LÁ NA ALDEIA DE MINHA VIDA.


.http://aldeiadaminhavida.blogspot.com/2010/08/momentos-especiais-em-turismo-rural.html#comment-form

VENHA SABOREAR AS DELICIAS DESSA POSTAGEM.
VIVA A MAGIA DO LUGAR. A REGIÃO SUL DE SANTA CATARINA É MUITO BELA.. NESTE RECANTO RURAL.DESCANSAMOS UM POUQUINHO.. SUPER MARAVILHOSO.



GRADEÇO A SUA COMPANHIA!!!Clique Aqui e veja mais imagens

Poetas-Um Voo Livre-

Sinal de Liberdade-uma expressão de sentimento-

Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos-
JÁ NOVO TEMA...COMPARTILHE...

MEUS MIMOS . AQUI. OFERECIDOS/RECEBIDOS-

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

OLA, TUDO BEM?? FOMOS AO TEATRO...

Acredito que sim.. Venho para deixar um abraço e dizer que é muito bom ter você na minha companhia.
Muito obrigada pelo seu carinho...

TEATRO DA SCAR.
http://www.radarsul.com.br/jaragua/imagens/scar2.jpg
Por aqui trabalhando muito. Mas muito feliz. Pois amo minha profissão.
Durante esta semana estamos levando nossos alunos ao Teatro.
É um Projeto com a SCAR...A Escola vai ao Teatro.
Lavamos todos..Cada um na sua fase escolar. Super bom.
Gostei muito desta peça.
A Menina e o Vento
Faixa etária: de 3 até 6 anos - Duração: 50 minutos
Dias 29 e 30 de abril - Quinta e sexta-feira - 15h
Sinopse: Esta é a história do encontro da menina Maria com o Vento, quando os dois se tornam amigos - apesar de quase ninguém acreditar nisso - e saem viajando juntos pelo mundo. Maria encoraja o Vento a fazer um pouco de bagunça, porque "mundo arrumadinho é muito chato"! A peça fala sobre liberdade, utilizando o vento como sua metáfora mais marcante e transforma a poética relação entre uma menina e esse elemento da natureza em uma linda fábula. Coloca em discussão temas extremamente presentes no cotidiano infantil como família, escola, amizade, hábitos e costumes sociais, a fim de defender, antes de tudo, a liberdade da criança de descobrir o mundo.

TEM OUTRAS PEÇAS PARA OS ALUNOS MAIORES. CITEI ESTA, PORQUE ASSISTI E FOI MUITO LEGAL..GOSTO DA LIBERDADE..A OUTRA NÃO FUI. FORAM OUTROS PROFESSORES.
É UM INCENTIVO CULTURAL. TODOS OS ANOS REALIZAMOS ESTE PROJETO.

O projeto A Escola vai ao Teatro, iniciativa da SCAR - Sociedade Cultura Artística com o objetivo de promover o acesso aos estudantes de Jaraguá do Sul e região a espetáculos de teatro, realiza de 27 a 30 de abril a primeira etapa da edição de 2010. A programação apresenta as peças Concerto em Ri Maior (Curitiba-PR), O Menino do Dedo Verde (Itajaí-SC), Aventuras e... Humor! (Jaraguá do Sul-SC) e A Menina e o Vento (Núcleo de Teatro da SCAR).


GRADEÇO
A SUA COMPANHIA!!!Clique Aqui e veja mais imagens

Poetas-Um Voo Livre-

Sinal de Liberdade-uma expressão de sentimento-

Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos-
COLETIVAS-COMPARTILHE. TEM -TURISMO RURAL-CONHEÇA UM POUQUINHO DESSE LUGAR ..VOU TE ESPERAR POR LÁ.
CLIQUE E COMENTE...CADA COMENTÁRIO VALE TRÊS PONTOS. MAS TEM QUE SER LÁ NA ALDEIA DE MINHA VIDA.
.http://aldeiadaminhavida.blogspot.com/2010/08/momentos-especiais-em-turismo-rural.html#comment-form
VENHA SABOREAR AS DELICIAS DESSA POSTAGEM. DESCANSE NESTE RECANTO RURAL. SUPER MARAVILHOSO.

MEUS MIMOS . AQUI. OFERECIDOS/RECEBIDOS-

Help I'm Being Regressed To The Mean

"Regression to the mean" was the bane of my undergraduate statistics class. We knew that it was out there, and that the final exam would have a question about it, but no-one understood it or had ever seen it. A bit like unicorns or fairies.

The lecture notes were unhelpful. They told us what it did - make things wrongly appear to change over time when actually stuff stayed the same - but not what it was. Some people claimed to get it, but they couldn't explain it to others.

I now see that our mistake was in thinking that there's some thing called "regression to the mean". There isn't. It's just a rather unhelpful term for what happens in a certain kind of situation, and once you understand those situations, there's nothing more to learn.

Suppose there's a number, which varies over time, and at least some of this variation is random. It could be anything from the number of sunspots to rates of cancer. You get interested in this number whenever it gets very high (or very low). Whenever it does, you start tracking the number for a while. Maybe you even try to change it. You notice that the number always seems to be falling (or rising). Why?

Because you only get interested in the number when it's, by chance, unusually high. The chances are, the next time you look at it, it will be lower: not for any interesting reason, or because "what goes up must come down", but just because if you take an unusually high number and then generate a new number at random, it'll probably be lower. That's why the first number was "unusually high".

Suppose that you take some people and give them an IQ test twice, a week apart. Call the first test "X" and the second test "Y". Suppose it's a crap test that gives entirely random results. Here's what might happen if you gave the test to 100 people, with each dot a person:
There's no correlation, because X and Y are both random junk. Nothing to see, move along. But wait a second...
Here's X, first test score, plotted vs Y-X i.e. the change in score between the first test and the second. There's a strong negative correlation: people who did well on the first test tended to get worse, and people who did badly, tended to improve. Wow? No. This is a purely statistical effect. It's meaningless: the "correlation" exists only because we're correlating X with itself (in the form of Y-X).

It's a fundamental mistake, and it's obvious when you look at it like this, yet it's a surprisingly easy one to make without noticing. Imagine that you'd invented a pill that you think can make people smarter. You decide to test it on "stupid people", because they're the ones who need it most. So you give lots of people an IQ test (X), select the worst 10%, and give them the drug. Then you re-test them afterwards (Y). Whoa! They've improved! The drug works!

There's only one stupid person involved in this experiment.

This remains true, even if the IQ tests aren't entirely random. A test that measures real intelligence will also have an element of luck. By selecting the bottom 10% of scores, you're selecting people who are both unintelligent and unlucky when they took the test. They'd have scored 11% if they were lucky. So the same problem applies, albeit to a lesser degree.

That's really all there is to "regression to the mean". The regression of high or low scores towards the mean score is inevitable, given our definition of "high" and "low" scores, to the extent that scores are random. This is why I said it's unhelpful to think of it as a thing. The trick is being able to spot it when it happens, and to avoid being mislead by it. If you're not careful, it can happen anywhere.

Interestingly, the reason why it's thought of in this unhelpful way is probably because the "discoverer" of regression-to-the-mean, Francis Galton, misunderstood it. He observed this "effect" in some data he'd collected about human height, and he wrongly interpreted it as a real biological fact about genetics. Eventually, people noticed the statistical mistake, but the idea of "regression to the mean" stuck, to the dismay of undergraduates everywhere.

Link: This was inspired by a post on Dorothy Bishop's blog, Three ways to improve cognitive test scores without intervention.

Help I'm Being Regressed To The Mean

"Regression to the mean" was the bane of my undergraduate statistics class. We knew that it was out there, and that the final exam would have a question about it, but no-one understood it or had ever seen it. A bit like unicorns or fairies.

The lecture notes were unhelpful. They told us what it did - make things wrongly appear to change over time when actually stuff stayed the same - but not what it was. Some people claimed to get it, but they couldn't explain it to others.

I now see that our mistake was in thinking that there's some thing called "regression to the mean". There isn't. It's just a rather unhelpful term for what happens in a certain kind of situation, and once you understand those situations, there's nothing more to learn.

Suppose there's a number, which varies over time, and at least some of this variation is random. It could be anything from the number of sunspots to rates of cancer. You get interested in this number whenever it gets very high (or very low). Whenever it does, you start tracking the number for a while. Maybe you even try to change it. You notice that the number always seems to be falling (or rising). Why?

Because you only get interested in the number when it's, by chance, unusually high. The chances are, the next time you look at it, it will be lower: not for any interesting reason, or because "what goes up must come down", but just because if you take an unusually high number and then generate a new number at random, it'll probably be lower. That's why the first number was "unusually high".

Suppose that you take some people and give them an IQ test twice, a week apart. Call the first test "X" and the second test "Y". Suppose it's a crap test that gives entirely random results. Here's what might happen if you gave the test to 100 people, with each dot a person:
There's no correlation, because X and Y are both random junk. Nothing to see, move along. But wait a second...
Here's X, first test score, plotted vs Y-X i.e. the change in score between the first test and the second. There's a strong negative correlation: people who did well on the first test tended to get worse, and people who did badly, tended to improve. Wow? No. This is a purely statistical effect. It's meaningless: the "correlation" exists only because we're correlating X with itself (in the form of Y-X).

It's a fundamental mistake, and it's obvious when you look at it like this, yet it's a surprisingly easy one to make without noticing. Imagine that you'd invented a pill that you think can make people smarter. You decide to test it on "stupid people", because they're the ones who need it most. So you give lots of people an IQ test (X), select the worst 10%, and give them the drug. Then you re-test them afterwards (Y). Whoa! They've improved! The drug works!

There's only one stupid person involved in this experiment.

This remains true, even if the IQ tests aren't entirely random. A test that measures real intelligence will also have an element of luck. By selecting the bottom 10% of scores, you're selecting people who are both unintelligent and unlucky when they took the test. They'd have scored 11% if they were lucky. So the same problem applies, albeit to a lesser degree.

That's really all there is to "regression to the mean". The regression of high or low scores towards the mean score is inevitable, given our definition of "high" and "low" scores, to the extent that scores are random. This is why I said it's unhelpful to think of it as a thing. The trick is being able to spot it when it happens, and to avoid being mislead by it. If you're not careful, it can happen anywhere.

Interestingly, the reason why it's thought of in this unhelpful way is probably because the "discoverer" of regression-to-the-mean, Francis Galton, misunderstood it. He observed this "effect" in some data he'd collected about human height, and he wrongly interpreted it as a real biological fact about genetics. Eventually, people noticed the statistical mistake, but the idea of "regression to the mean" stuck, to the dismay of undergraduates everywhere.

Link: This was inspired by a post on Dorothy Bishop's blog, Three ways to improve cognitive test scores without intervention.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Fish Out Of Water, On Ketamine

Ketamine is a drug of many talents. Used medically as an anesthetic in animals and, sometimes, in humans, it's also become widely used recreationally despite, or perhaps because of, its reputation as a "horse tranquilizer".

Ketamine's also a hot topic in research at the moment for two reasons: it's considered an interesting way of provoking the symptoms of schizophrenia, and it's also shown promise as a fast-acting antidepressant.

Anyway, most ketamine research to date has been done in either humans or in rodents, but New York pharmacologists Zakhary et al decided to see what it does to fish. So they put some ketamine in the fishes water and saw what happened: A Behavioral and Molecular Analysis of Ketamine in Zebrafish.

A high dose, 0.8%, just made the fish unconscious. Well, it is an anesthetic. But a low dose (0.2%) had rather more complex effects. It sent them literally loopy - they started swimming around and around in circles, usually in a clockwise direction. Control zebrafish swam about and explored their tanks without any circling behaviours.

They also examined the effect of ketamine on the "hypoxic stress" response, i.e. what happens when you take the fish out of water (only for 20 seconds, so it doesn't cause any real harm.) Normal fish struggle and gasp for water in this situation, unsurprisingly. Ketamine strongly inhibited this.

So what? Well, it's hard to say what this might mean. It would be great if the zebrafish turned out to be a useful experimental model for investigating the effects of ketamine and similar drugs, because they're much easier to work with than rodents (for one thing, it's a lot easier to just put a drug in a fish tank than to inject it into a mouse.)

However, it remains to be seen whether swimming in circles is a useful analog of the human effects of ketamine. Ketamine can make people act in some pretty stupid ways, but walking around in little circles is extreme even by K-head standards...

Link: I've blogged about ketamine before: I'm On K, You're On K.

ResearchBlogging.orgZakhary SM, Ayubcha D, Ansari F, Kamran K, Karim M, Leheste JR, Horowitz JM, & Torres G (2010). A behavioral and molecular analysis of ketamine in zebrafish. Synapse (New York, N.Y.) PMID: 20623473

Fish Out Of Water, On Ketamine

Ketamine is a drug of many talents. Used medically as an anesthetic in animals and, sometimes, in humans, it's also become widely used recreationally despite, or perhaps because of, its reputation as a "horse tranquilizer".

Ketamine's also a hot topic in research at the moment for two reasons: it's considered an interesting way of provoking the symptoms of schizophrenia, and it's also shown promise as a fast-acting antidepressant.

Anyway, most ketamine research to date has been done in either humans or in rodents, but New York pharmacologists Zakhary et al decided to see what it does to fish. So they put some ketamine in the fishes water and saw what happened: A Behavioral and Molecular Analysis of Ketamine in Zebrafish.

A high dose, 0.8%, just made the fish unconscious. Well, it is an anesthetic. But a low dose (0.2%) had rather more complex effects. It sent them literally loopy - they started swimming around and around in circles, usually in a clockwise direction. Control zebrafish swam about and explored their tanks without any circling behaviours.

They also examined the effect of ketamine on the "hypoxic stress" response, i.e. what happens when you take the fish out of water (only for 20 seconds, so it doesn't cause any real harm.) Normal fish struggle and gasp for water in this situation, unsurprisingly. Ketamine strongly inhibited this.

So what? Well, it's hard to say what this might mean. It would be great if the zebrafish turned out to be a useful experimental model for investigating the effects of ketamine and similar drugs, because they're much easier to work with than rodents (for one thing, it's a lot easier to just put a drug in a fish tank than to inject it into a mouse.)

However, it remains to be seen whether swimming in circles is a useful analog of the human effects of ketamine. Ketamine can make people act in some pretty stupid ways, but walking around in little circles is extreme even by K-head standards...

Link: I've blogged about ketamine before: I'm On K, You're On K.

ResearchBlogging.orgZakhary SM, Ayubcha D, Ansari F, Kamran K, Karim M, Leheste JR, Horowitz JM, & Torres G (2010). A behavioral and molecular analysis of ketamine in zebrafish. Synapse (New York, N.Y.) PMID: 20623473

Sunday, August 22, 2010

UM POUQUINHO DA VIAGEM A SP-BIENAL.

CONFORME PROMETIDO EIS AS FOTOS.

UM POUQUINHO DA VIAGEM A SÃO PAULO.
VISITANDO A BIENAL E DEMAIS LUGARES.
NÃO POSTAREI TUDO. FICARIA MUITO EXTENSA A POSTAGEM.






TORRE DO BANESPA-

São 161,22 metros de concreto armado, que contam com alguns requintes como o saguão principal, paredes em mármore e piso todo em granito.

http://www.fortalsampa.hpg.com.br/images/Sp-edbanespa1.gif
A Torre Banespa, com acesso por um lance de escadas a partir do 34º andar, é uma das grandes atrações do Prédio, pois possui um mirante com 360º que oferece uma deslumbrante vista panorâmica do centro da cidade.





COFRE ANTIGO-DENTRO DO BANESPA
LUSTRE TODO EM VIDRO
Em 1988, o hall de entrada do edifício foi adornado com um lustre de 13 metros de altura, pesando 1,5 tonelada. A peça conta com 150 lâmpadas e 10 mil acessórios de cristal.Esta foto eu peguei na net. para se ter a noção da altura da torre
http://i638.photobucket.com/albums/uu110/uliloppes/28ago2009006.jpg

http://sampa.art.br/historia/edificiobanespa/torrebanespa/images/antonio-prado.gif


VISITANDO A PINACOTECA. SUPER LEGAL. MUSEU DA LINGUÁ PORTUGUESA.
DENTRO DA ESTAÇÃO LUZ.
HOTEL ONDE PASSAMOS A NOITE. TUDO MUITO GOSTOSO.


PRAÇA DA SÉ. FRENTE A IGREJA.


ESTAÇÃO PARQUE DA LUZ

A Estação da Luz ocupa 7.500 metros quadrados do Jardim da Luz e foi construída entre 1895 e 1901 para substituir a primitiva estação de 1867, idealizada pelo barão de Mauá. A estação, com projeto de estilo vitoriano e material importado, já nasceu como a principal da Companhia São Paulo Railway e tinha como responsável o engenheiro James Ford. Marco histórico para a cidade, foi responsável pelo escoamento da produção de café. O seu relógio era referência para acertos na cidade.


MUSEU IPIRANGA.
O Museu do Ipiranga, oficialmente Museu Paulista da Universidade de São Paulo, é um dos mais importantes museus de história do país e um dos mais visitados.

Em frente, ficam os jardins, uma réplica em tamanho reduzido dos jardins do Palácio de Versailles, obra do paisagista Arsênio Puttemans. Encontra-se também a Casa do Grito, o Monumento da Independência e a capela Imperial Leopoldina. A iluminação especial noturna, que revela detalhes arquitetônicos do prédio, só ocorre em datas especiais, como 7 de setembro.

Parte do conjunto arquitetônico do Parque da Independência, o belo edifício de estilo eclético, com 123 metros de comprimento e 16 metros de profundidade, teve sua inspiração em um palácio renascentista, o que explica a riqueza de seus elementos decorativos.
Foi inaugurado em 15 de novembro de 1890, o primeiro aniversário da República Brasileira, e os lindos jardins que o adornam acrescidos em 1909.
Seu impressionante acervo de mais de 125 mil peças, entre esculturas, quadros, jóias, moedas, medalhas, móveis, documentos e utensílios de bandeirantes e índios, iconografia e documentação, desde o século XVI até meados do século XX, todos com alguma relação com a Independência do Brasil, visa mostrar principalmente o importante papel dos paulistas na história do país.

O prédio do Museu do Ipiranga foi construído às margens do riacho do Ipiranga, onde D. Pedro I declarou a independência do país em 1822. A majestosa construção, em estilo neoclássico renascentista, está situada ao fundo do Parque da Independência, conferindo ao local um ar de palácio europeu.


FOTO NA NET, NÃO É PERMITIDO TIRAR FOTO NO ESPAÇO

IDEM... ESCADARIA QUE DÁ ACESSO AOS ANDARES. TUDO MUITO LINDO!!!!
FOI UM FINAL DE SEMANA MUITO ESPECIAL. 11 Á 14 DE AGOSTO.
VALEU A PENA...

GRADEÇO A SUA COMPANHIA!!!Clique Aqui e veja mais imagens

Poetas-Um Voo Livre-

Sinal de Liberdade-uma expressão de sentimento-

Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos-
COLETIVAS-COMPARTILHE. TEM -TURISMO RURAL-CONHEÇA UM POUQUINHO DESSE LUGAR ..VOU TE ESPERAR POR LÁ.

MEUS MIMOS . AQUI. OFERECIDOS/RECEBIDOS-