Effects of an Agro-healing Program on Promoting Mental Health of the Middle-aged

Background and objective: This study was conducted with 10 men and women in their 50s-60s to investigate the effect of agro-healing activities on the improvement of mental health.Methods: The experimental group participated in total 8 sessions of agro-healing activities, once a week for 2 hours each, at a care farm in Wanju-gun. Physiological measurements were taken with an electroencephalogram (EEG), Salivettes samples, and blood pressure before and after the activities.Results: As a result of analyzing the changes in brainwaves of the experimental group before and after agro-healing activities, relative slow alpha (RSA), relative fast alpha (RFA), and ratio of alpha to high beta (RAHB), the indices of stability and relaxation, increased after the program with statistical significance. Also, the ratio of SMR to theta (RST) of the attention index increased on the right frontal lobes, temporal lobes, and left occipital lobes, and relative low beta (RLB) increasd on the frontal lobes, temporal lobes, and occipital lobes after the program with statistical significance. The sympathetic nervous system activity, which is a stress index, decreased after the program, whereas the parasympathetic nervous system activity, which is a relaxation index, increased, showing statistical significance (p < .05). As a result of analyzing the changes in blood pressure after the program, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure decreased from prehypertension to normal blood pressure, showing statistical significance. SThese results indicate that participating in agro-healing activities at a care farm for the 50-60s helps reduce stress and improve stability and relaxation as well as attention.Conclusion: Thus, developing and applying customized agro-healing programs for participants will have a positive effect on brain activity and psychophysiological improvement by relieving tension and stress. However, there are limitations in generalizing the results of this study since most of agro-healing farms have low accessibility that leads to a low level of participants.

What makes a human? Conscious human beings are hyperobjects that interact via physical and mental representations in an ecosystem based on fundamental story-flow interactions.

What is a human being? Some might answer this question by referring to a biological body, growing from genetic information passed on through generations. Others refer to a mind, developed from infancy to adulthood, expressing itself self-aware and intelligently. Few will argue that a human being could exist without one or the other, but many disagree on their relative contribution. Does the conscious mind emerge solely from a single physical body? Is the developing body shaped purely by biological predetermination? I propose that the formation of individual human beings is subject to an environment that envelops both, the physical and mental realms. This environment is here referred to as story-verse of humanity. It is an ecosystem that emerged from biological activity but grew and evolved into an interactive space that includes temporal interactions, such as created by nervous system activity. The emerging story-verse gives rise to persistent hyperobjects, including individual human beings, whose stories perpetuate themselves via physical and mental representations. The story-verse is a real physics realm that includes the four fundamental interactions described by particle physics, but additionally requires higher-order fundamental forces that facilitate interactions between the physical and mental realm.

Effect of Standardized Yelling on Subjective Perception and Autonomic Nervous System Activity in Motion Sickness

This study investigated the effects of yelling intervention on symptoms and autonomic responses in motion sickness. Forty-two healthy participants were recruited, and they participated in Coriolis stimulation, a technique for inducing motion sickness. The experimental procedure comprised five 1-min rotating stimuli with 1-min rest after each stimulus. Then, the symptom severity was assessed using the Motion Sickness Symptom Rating (MSSR). The d2 Test of Attention scores and cardiovascular responses were recorded before and after Coriolis stimulation. The electrocardiogram results were documented to analyze heart rate variability (HRV). During Coriolis stimulus, the participants were required to yell 5–8 times in the experimental trial, and to keep quiet for each minute of rotation in the control trial. The yelling intervention significantly reduced the MSSR score (p < 0.001). Nevertheless, it did not significantly affect the d2 Test of Attention scores. Yelling while rotating did not significantly affect the heart rate nor blood pressure. However, it decreased the normalized low frequency of HRV (p = 0.036). Moreover, it improved motion sickness, but its effect on attention was not evident. Motion sickness could significantly affect cardiovascular responses and HRV. However, yelling did not affect cardiovascular response, and it reduced sympathetic nervous system activity.

Reduced prefrontal cortex and sympathetic nervous system activity correlate with fatigue after aHSCT

Long-term fatigue and cognitive dysfunction affects 35% of allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (aHSCT) survivors, suggesting a dysfunctional prefrontal cortex. In this study, we assessed prefrontal cortex and sympathetic nervous system activity in aHSCT patients with fatigue (n = 12), non-fatigued patients (n = 12) and healthy controls (n = 27). Measurement of near-infrared spectroscopy and electrodermal activity was carried out at rest and during cognitive performance (Stroop, verbal fluency and emotion regulation tasks). Prefrontal cortex and sympathetic nervous system activity were also analyzed in response to dopamine and noradrenaline increase after a single dose of methylphenidate. Baseline cognitive performance was similar in the two patient groups. However, after methylphenidate, only non-fatigued patients improved in Stroop accuracy and had better verbal fluency task performance compared to the fatigued group. Task-related activation of prefrontal cortex in fatigued patients was lower compared to non-fatigued patients during all cognitive tests, both before and after methylphenidate administration. During the Stroop task, reaction time, prefrontal cortex activation, and sympathetic nervous system activity were all lower in fatigued patients compared to healthy controls, but similar in non-fatigued patients and healthy controls.Reduced prefrontal cortex activity and sympathetic arousal suggests novel treatment targets to improve fatigue after aHSCT.

Endurance training increases ventricular refractoriness and wavelength of the cardiac impulse without participation of parasympathetic postganglionic neurons. A study in isolated rabbit heart

Background Endurance physical training plays a protective role in against ventricular fibrillation (VF), but the exact underlying mechanisms are not completely understood. It is well-known that modifications in myocardial ventricular properties such as refractoriness, conduction velocity and wavelength are key in the initiation and maintenance of VF; furthermore, vagus nerve stimulation has prophylactic effects on malignant arrhythmias and VF. On the other hand, parasympathetic nervous system activity is increased in trained individuals, which in turn affects different ventricular electrophysiological properties. We hypothesized that physical training increases conduction velocity and wavelength, and that these changes are mediated by myocardial cholinergic neurons. Methods To test this hypothesis, ten rabbits were submitted to a six-week endurance training protocol and twenty controls were not trained (divided in control group, n=10 and sham group n=10). After training, rabbits were euthanized and their hearts excised, isolated and perfused in a Langendorff system. A pacing electrode and a plaque with 240 recoding electrodes acquiring at 1 KHz were positioned on the left ventricle (LV). Extraestimulus test using four different pacing cycle lengths (90% basal cycle length, 250, 200 and 150 ms) was performed before and after atropine (1μM, control and trained groups) or vehicle (tyrode, sham group) infusion. We studied 1) LV effective refractory period (ERP), 2) LV functional refractory period (FRP), 3) LV conduction velocity (CV), and 4) LV wavelength, determined as LV FRP x CV. Factorial ANOVA (mixed model) was used for statistical analysis (p&lt;0.05). Results Before parasympathetic blockade, LV FRP increased in trained animals (Figure, B) whereas no difference was found in LV CV between trained and control animals at any pacing cycle length (Figure, A). In consequence, LV wavelength increased in trained animals (Figure, C). There were no changes in LV ERP, FRP, CV and wavelength when comparisons were made within groups before and after atropine infusion. In sham animals, vehicle infusion or time-course of the experiment did not modify LV FRP, ERP, CV and wavelength. Conclusion Physical training increases LV wavelength, which can be one electrophysiological mechanism by which endurance training could protect against VF. Since modifications of ventricular refractoriness and wavelength do not seem dependent of intrinsic parasympathetic nervous system activity, other intrinsic mechanisms could be implied and warrant further research. FUNDunding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Generalitat Valenciana