Word: brained
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...those weird ankle boots in ‘French Kiss.’ She looks so incredibly dumb and lame!” “I agree,” said my friend. “ Ankle boots are so bizarre, one would have to have an undulating brain hemorrhage to find them even remotely excusable.” “So true,” I replied. “That’s one item of clothing which I know is never coming back!” And then we laughed like hyenas. I am using...
...disorder is more common in affluent countries and, within those, in wealthier families. For every boy who gets it, nine girls do. There have been attempts to explain anorexia in the same way most doctors account for depression - as resulting from an imbalance of certain neurotransmitters in the brain - but these have tended to lead nowhere. Since anorexia was named in 1868 by English physician William Gull, says Mondraty, "we haven't made much progress on treatment...
...scans showed that when the anorexics and the controls looked at pictures of others, the type and extent of their brain activity more or less matched. But it was a different story when the two groups studied their own image. The controls' brains again lit up in predictable regions, but activity in the anorexics' brains was much more limited. Specifically, the areas involved in visual perception and emotional processing stayed out of play. Because the anorexic patient can scarcely bear to look at herself, Sachdev theorizes, "I think what the brain is trying to do is inhibit the level...
...girl might go on a diet," he says. Nearly all girls diet during their teenage years, but only about 1% of them develop anorexia. "What I'm guessing," Mondraty says, "is that when those with an underlying biological vulnerability lose a certain amount of weight, then something happens ... this [brain abnormality] clicks in. The significance of this is that it takes a bit of blame away from the family, away from the patient, and lets us - the people who treat anorexia - realize how hard it is for the young woman to get better. We're telling her to eat when...
...coauthor sees things slightly differently. "I think what we've observed," says Sachdev, "is a functional abnormality that probably follows, rather than precedes, the development of anorexia." The pair plan to conduct a follow-up study on the 10 anorexic patients in about two years to see whether brain activity has normalized in those who've recovered. If it has, that would suggest that what they've observed is a product of the disease - triggered, perhaps, by malnutrition - rather than a hardwired abnormality. Brain-imaging skeptics would argue that all Mondraty and Sachdev have observed is an extreme example...