"Real-time" functional magnetic resonance imaging is starting to be used in neurofeedback applications, enabling individuals to regulate their brain activity for therapeutic purposes. These applications use two-dimensional multislice echo planar or spiral readouts to image the entire brain volume, often with a much smaller region of interest within the brain monitored for feedback purposes. Given that such brain activity should be sampled rapidly, it is worthwhile considering alternative functional magnetic resonance imaging pulse sequences that trade spatial resolution for temporal resolution. We developed a prototype sequence localizing a column of magnetization by outer volume saturation, from which densely sampled transverse relaxation time decays are obtained at coarse voxel locations using an asymmetric gradient echo train. For 5×20×20 mm3 voxels, 256 echoes are sampled at ~1 msec and then combined in weighted summation to increase functional magnetic resonance imaging signal contrast. This multiecho coarse voxel pulse sequence is shown experimentally at 1.5 T to provide the same signal contrast to noise ratio as obtained by spiral imaging for a primary motor cortex region of interest, but with potential for enhanced temporal resolution. A neurofeedback experiment also illustrates measurement and calculation of functional magnetic resonance imaging signals within 1 sec, emphasizing the future potential of the approach.

Magn Reson Med. 2011 Mar;65(3):715-24. doi: 10.1002/mrm.22674. Epub 2010 Nov 3. Kuo AY, Chiew M, Tam F, Cunningham C, Graham SJ. Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

BACKGROUND: Telomerase activity is a predictor of long-term cellular viability, which decreases with chronic psychological distress (Epel et al., 2004). Buddhist traditions claim that meditation decreases psychological distress and promotes well-being (e.g., Dalai Lama and Cutler, 2009). Therefore, we investigated the effects of a 3-month meditation retreat on telomerase activity and two major contributors to the experience of stress: Perceived Control (associated with decreased stress) and Neuroticism (associated with increased subjective distress). We used mediation models to test whether changes in Perceived Control and Neuroticism explained meditation retreat effects on telomerase activity. In addition, we investigated whether two qualities developed by meditative practice, increased Mindfulness and Purpose in Life, accounted for retreat-related changes in the two stress-related variables and in telomerase activity. METHODS: Retreat participants (n=30) meditated for ~6h daily for 3 months and were compared with a wait-list control group (n=30) matched for age, sex, body mass index, and prior meditation experience. Retreat participants received instruction in concentrative meditation techniques and complementary practices used to cultivate benevolent states of mind (Wallace, 2006). Psychological measures were assessed pre- and post-retreat. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples were collected post-retreat for telomerase activity. Because there were clear, a priori hypotheses, 1-tailed significance criteria were used throughout. RESULTS: Telomerase activity was significantly greater in retreat participants than in controls at the end of the retreat (p<0.05). Increases in Perceived Control, decreases in Neuroticism, and increases in both Mindfulness and Purpose in Life were greater in the retreat group (p<0.01). Mediation analyses indicated that the effect of the retreat on telomerase was mediated by increased Perceived Control and decreased Neuroticism. In turn, changes in Perceived Control and Neuroticism were both partially mediated by increased Mindfulness and Purpose in Life. Additionally, increases in Purpose in Life directly mediated the telomerase group difference, whereas increases in Mindfulness did not. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to link meditation and positive psychological change with telomerase activity. Although we did not measure baseline telomerase activity, the data suggest that increases in perceived control and decreases in negative affectivity contributed to an increase in telomerase activity, with implications for telomere length and immune cell longevity. Further, Purpose in Life is influenced by meditative practice and directly affects both perceived control and negative emotionality, affecting telomerase activity directly as well as indirectly.

Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2011 Jun;36(5):664-81. Epub 2010 Oct 29. Jacobs TL, Epel ES, Lin J, Blackburn EH, Wolkowitz OM, Bridwell DA, Zanesco AP, Aichele SR, Sahdra BK, Maclean KA, King BG, Shaver PR, Rosenberg EL, Ferrer E, Wallace BA, Saron CD. UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, Davis, CA, USA.

BACKGROUND: This paper critiques the model for non-verbal communication referred to as SOLER (which stands for: "Sit squarely"; "Open posture"; "Lean towards the other"; "Eye contact; "Relax"). It has been approximately thirty years since Egan (1975) introduced his acronym SOLER as an aid for teaching and learning about non-verbal communication. AIM: There is evidence that the SOLER framework has been widely used in nurse education with little published critical appraisal. A new acronym that might be appropriate for non-verbal communication skills training and education is proposed and this is SURETY (which stands for "Sit at an angle"; "Uncross legs and arms"; "Relax"; "Eye contact"; "Touch"; "Your intuition"). THE NEW MODEL: The proposed model advances the SOLER model by including the use of touch and the importance of individual intuition is emphasised. The model encourages student nurse educators to also think about therapeutic space when they teach skills of non-verbal communication.

Nurse Educ Pract. 2011 Apr 12. Stickley T. School of Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Duncan MacMillan House, Porchester Road, Nottingham NG3 6AA, United Kingdom.

This paper examines the twin German institutions of the Kur (spa), and the 'lay' licensed healing practitioner or Heilpraktiker. Through an ethnography of a Heilpraktiker and his Ayurvedic spa in a small catholic village in Germany, where patients arrive in person or as body parts by post, it examines the poly-therapeutics of the practitioner, who seems to combine in his being a dizzy array of diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities. It argues that the while the Ayurvedic spa can be seen as a kind of variation of the traditional German Kur, the Heilpraktiker's poly-therapy has to draw upon the special nature of the practice of medicine in Germany, symbolised in part by the very figure of the Heilpraktiker. It attempts to show that the practitioner's panoply of therapies is partly a symptom of an epistemic impasse at the heart of biomedicine, leading patients on an itinerant quest toward different therapeutic locales, such as the Kur, or to different therapeutic possibilities, such as the ones offered by the Heilpraktiker. But while the Kur and the Heilpraktiker would be either fringe or alternative in the Anglo-American world, in Germany the Kur is part of orthodox medicine, and the Heilpraktiker is a legal entity; and the two together re-draw and make fuzzy what elsewhere seem to be clearly drawn boundaries between medicine and the spa, between pleasure and therapy, and medicine and alternative medicine.

Anthropol Med. 2011 Apr;18(1):67-86. Naraindas H. Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 11067, India.

ABSTRACT:BACKGROUND: Most research on the impact of mind-body training does not ask about participants' baseline experience, expectations, or preferences for training. To better plan participant-centered mind-body intervention trials for nurses to reduce occupational stress, such descriptive information would be valuable. METHODS: We conducted an anonymous email survey between April and June, 2010 of North American nurses interested in mind-body training to reduce stress. The e-survey included: demographic characteristics, health conditions and stress levels; experiences with mind-body practices; expected health benefits; training preferences; and willingness to participate in future randomized controlled trials. RESULTS: Of the 342 respondents, 96% were women and 92% were Caucasian. Most (73%) reported one or more health conditions, notably anxiety (49%); back pain (41%); GI problems such as irritable bowel syndrome (34%); or depression (33%). Their median occupational stress level was 4 (0 = none; 5 = extreme stress). Nearly all (99%) reported already using one or more mind-body practices to reduce stress: intercessory prayer (86%), breath-focused meditation (49%), healing or therapeutic touch (39%), yoga/tai chi/qi gong (34%), or mindfulness-based meditation (18%). The greatest expected benefits were for greater spiritual well-being (56%); serenity, calm, or inner peace (54%); better mood (51%); more compassion (50%); or better sleep (42%). Most (65%) wanted additional training; convenience (74% essential or very important), was more important than the program's reputation (49%) or scientific evidence about effectiveness (32%) in program selection. Most (65%) were willing to participate in a randomized trial of mind-body training; among these, most were willing to collect salivary cortisol (60%), or serum biomarkers (53%) to assess the impact of training. CONCLUSIONS: Most nurses interested in mind-body training already engage in such practices. They have greater expectations about spiritual and emotional than physical benefits, but are willing to participate in studies and to collect biomarker data. Recruitment may depend more on convenience than a program's scientific basis or reputation. Knowledge of participants' baseline experiences, expectations, and preferences helps inform future training and research on mind-body approaches to reduce stress.

BMC Complement Altern Med. 2011 Apr 11;11:26. Kemper K, Bulla S, Krueger D, Ott MJ, McCool JA, Gardiner P. Center for Integrative Medicine, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center; Winston-Salem, NC, USA. kkemper@wfubmc.edu.

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain condition which is difficult to diagnose and to treat. Most individuals suffering from FM use a variety of complementary or alternative medicine (CAM) interventions to treat and manage their symptoms. The aim of this overview was to critically evaluate all systematic reviews of single CAM interventions for the treatment of FM. Five systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria, evaluating the effectiveness of homoeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, hydrotherapy and massage. The reviews found some evidence of beneficial effects arising from acupuncture, homoeopathy, hydrotherapy and massage, whilst no evidence for therapeutic effects from chiropractic interventions for the treatment of FM symptoms was found. The implications of these findings and future directions for the application of CAM in chronic pain conditions, as well as for CAM research, are discussed.

Clin Rheumatol. 2011 May 26. Terry R, Perry R, Ernst E. Complementary Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, University of Exeter, Exeter,UK, rohini.terry@pms.ac.uk.

Full title: Music therapy may increase breastfeeding rates among mothers of premature newborns: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of music therapy on breastfeeding rates among mothers of premature newborns. METHOD: In this open randomized controlled trial, mothers of premature neonates weighting = 1,750 g were submitted to music therapy sessions three times a week for 60 minutes. The endpoints were breastfeeding rates at the moment of infant hospital discharge and at follow-up visits (7-15 days, 30 and 60 days after discharge). RESULTS: A total of 94 mothers (48 in the music therapy group and 46 in the comparison group) were studied. Breastfeeding was significantly more frequent in the music therapy group at the first follow-up visit [relative risk (RR) = 1.26; 95% confidence interval (95%CI) = 1.01-1.57; p = 0.03; number needed to treat (NNT) = 5.6]. Moreover, this group showed higher breastfeeding rates at the moment of infant discharge (RR = 1.22; 95%CI = 0.99-1.51; p = 0.06; NNT = 6.3) and at days 30 and 60 after discharge (RR = 1.21; 95%CI = 0.73-5.6; p = 0.13 and RR = 1.28; 95%CI = 0.95-1.71; p = 0.09, respectively), but those results were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that music therapy had a significant effect in increasing breastfeeding rates among mothers of premature newborns at the first follow-up visit, and also a positive influence (although not significant) that lasted up to 60 days after infant discharge. Music therapy may be useful for increasing breastfeeding rates among mothers of premature newborns.

J Pediatr (Rio J). 2011 May-Jun 8;87(3):206-12. Epub 2011 Apr 1. Vianna MN, Barbosa AP, Carvalhaes AS, Cunha AJ. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

Dan Larosa's comedy hypnosis show is an adventure in imagination! In less than 3 seconds, he hypnotizes willing volunteers and then makes "stars" out of them. Watch your friends fly on magic carpets, land on a mysterious planet, and speak a "foreign" language. Listen to a concert by participants who actually think they're famous rock stars - even though they can't sing a note! Sound impossible? Then don't miss the opportunity to witness people right next to you fall asleep at the snap of a finger - and maybe even become hypnotized yourself!

Michael Stevenson is the founder of Transform Destiny, a full-service hypnotherapy office and training center in Fountain Valley, California. He is the author of the best-selling book Learn Hypnosis...Now! and creator of the music CD, Hypnotic Trancescapes Vol. I - Mystical Forest.He began his professional career, not as a programmer of minds, but as a programmer of computers, having developed a love of computer programming at ten years old when his grandparents sent him to a computer day-camp.

For more information visit: www.TransformDestiny.com.

Real-time fMRI permits simultaneous measurement and observation of brain activity during an ongoing task. One of the most challenging applications of real-time fMRI in neuroscientific and clinical research is the possibility of acquiring volitional control of localized brain activity using real-time fMRI-based neurofeedback protocols. Real-time fMRI allows the experimenter to noninvasively manipulate brain activity as an independent variable to observe the effects on behavior. Real-time fMRI neurofeedback studies demonstrated that learned control of the local brain activity leads to specific changes in behavior. Here, the authors describe the implementation and application of real-time fMRI with particular emphasis on the self-regulation of local brain activity and the investigation of brain-function relationships. Real-time fMRI represents a promising new approach to cognitive neuroscience that could complement traditional neuroimaging techniques by providing more causal insights into the functional role of circumscribed brain regions in behavior.

Neuroscientist. 2011 Jun 7. Caria A, Sitaram R, Birbaumer N. Institute of Medical Psychology & Behavioral Neurobiology, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Germany; Università di Trento, Trento, Italy.

Dr. John Reizer is a December 1986 magna cum laude graduate of Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic. Born in Lakewood, New Jersey in 1963, he now resides in Inman, South Carolina with his wife, Melissa and their daughter, Kayla. John has written numerous bestselling books on the subject of chiropractic. Dr. John has also authored three novels. His newest novel, PERIMETER, was published in E-Book format on October 7, 2010 by Book Locker. The story explores the concepts of alternate realities and time travel and takes place in the author's home community of Spartanburg, South Carolina.

For more information visit: www.JohnReizer.com.