Myofascial Tissue and Depression

Background The myofascial system plays a fundamental role in the mechanics of the body, in body tension regulation and the etiology of pathological states like chronic pain. Moreover, it contains contractile elements and preliminary evidence suggests that its properties are linked to psychological factors. The aim of the present research was to investigate characteristics of the myofascial tissue in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and to examine whether the state of the myofascial tissue causally affects pathopsychological processes in MDD. Methods In Study 1, stiffness and elasticity of the myofascial tissue of 40 inpatients suffering from MDD measured with a tissue compliance meter were compared with those of 40 matched never-depressed participants. In Study 2, 69 MDD patients were randomly assigned to single-session self-myofascial release intervention (SMRI) or a placebo intervention. Effects on memory bias and affect were investigated. Results Results showed that MDD patients displayed heightened stiffness and reduced elasticity of the myofascial tissue and that patients in the SMRI group showed a reduced negative memory bias and more positive affect compared to patients in the placebo condition. Conclusions The preliminary results of our studies indicate that the myofascial tissue might be part of a dysfunctional body-mind dynamic that maintains MDD.

Places of Pain and Shame: Adaptive Reuse of Negatively Connotated Places

<p>Our landscape is a patchwork of scars, remnants of a painful past. A range of homes, sites and institutions with a history of confinement, racial discrimination or an involvement in war, massacre and genocide. These places, which often walk the thin line between our constant need to remember and the overwhelming urge to forget, often invoke pain, shame, guilt and ultimate futility because of the events that occurred and the ideologies they represent. These places, defined here as negative heritage - conflictual sites that become the repository of negative memory in the collective imaginary, have become prolific the world over as we redefine what inheritance we preserve in our landscape for current use and to pass on to future generations. What this suggests is that, with the passing of time, what we consider to be heritage can become highly malleable - shaped to fit the parameters of local or national value systems and perceptions of identity. The aim of this thesis is to examine the political, cultural or social conditions attributed to these stigmatized spaces that enable one site to be reused while another is condemned. It asks how does this influence of collective memory and perception affect how we design for the possible reuse of these sites? The findings of this research inform the design of a process for the adaptive reuse of some of our most potent places of pain and shame. The development of this process drew on the specific history of memory, erasure and preservation in the architecture of Levin’s dilapidated Kimberley Centre, once New Zealand’s largest state-run institution. The process will allow for the development of strategies for managing stigmatized spaces, where the tendency to obliterate traumatic sites, whether materially or psychologically, must be rationalized with an effort to frame architecture as containers of sets of events, a multifaceted collection of histories in context.</p>

Places of Pain and Shame: Adaptive Reuse of Negatively Connotated Places

<p>Our landscape is a patchwork of scars, remnants of a painful past. A range of homes, sites and institutions with a history of confinement, racial discrimination or an involvement in war, massacre and genocide. These places, which often walk the thin line between our constant need to remember and the overwhelming urge to forget, often invoke pain, shame, guilt and ultimate futility because of the events that occurred and the ideologies they represent. These places, defined here as negative heritage - conflictual sites that become the repository of negative memory in the collective imaginary, have become prolific the world over as we redefine what inheritance we preserve in our landscape for current use and to pass on to future generations. What this suggests is that, with the passing of time, what we consider to be heritage can become highly malleable - shaped to fit the parameters of local or national value systems and perceptions of identity. The aim of this thesis is to examine the political, cultural or social conditions attributed to these stigmatized spaces that enable one site to be reused while another is condemned. It asks how does this influence of collective memory and perception affect how we design for the possible reuse of these sites? The findings of this research inform the design of a process for the adaptive reuse of some of our most potent places of pain and shame. The development of this process drew on the specific history of memory, erasure and preservation in the architecture of Levin’s dilapidated Kimberley Centre, once New Zealand’s largest state-run institution. The process will allow for the development of strategies for managing stigmatized spaces, where the tendency to obliterate traumatic sites, whether materially or psychologically, must be rationalized with an effort to frame architecture as containers of sets of events, a multifaceted collection of histories in context.</p>

Zolpidem Maintains Memories for Negative Emotions Across a Night of Sleep

Zolpidem, a common medication for sleep complaints, also shows secondary, unexpected memory benefits. We previously found that zolpidem prior to a nap enhanced negative, highly arousing picture memory. As zolpidem is typically administered at night, how it affects overnight emotional memory processing is relevant. We used a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject, cross-over design to investigate if zolpidem boosted negative compared to neutral picture memory. Subjects learned both pictures sets in the morning. That evening, subjects were administered zolpidem or placebo and slept in the lab. Recognition was tested that evening and the following morning. We found that zolpidem maintained negative picture memory compared to forgetting in the placebo condition. Furthermore, zolpidem increased slow-wave sleep time, decreased rapid eye movement sleep time, and increased the fast spindle range in NREM. Our results suggest that zolpidem may enhance negative memory longevity and salience. These findings raise concerns for zolpidem administration to certain clinical populations.

Negative Memory, Art and the World Peace

In the World agitated by terrorism, solidification of identity, paranoia, xenophobia and genocide, art indeed expresses the negativity, that is, the void, the chaos, or the spiritual blindness of the socio-cultural plight. But it also serves as a diagnostic tool for identifying the disease; a process of intensifying and heightening our perceptual awareness of the crises; a necessary visualization of the ciritical interface between body, mind and soul. Art renders palpabic the ugliness, the meanness, the unbearableness of life, and this, in turn, will open the possibility to see what ultimately is mroe desirable, the deeper mystery of the soul, what we usually call 'peace'. It is in this spiritual sense that art can serve as the negation of negation.

Post-retrieval Distortions of Self-Referential Negative Memory: Valence Consistency Enhances Gist-Directed False, While Non-negative Interference Generates More Intrusive Updates

According to the theory of reconsolidation, the contents of an original memory can be updated after reactivation with subsequent new learnings. However, there seems to be a lack of an appropriate behavioral paradigm to study the reconsolidation of explicit self-related memory, which is of great significance to further explore its cognitive neural mechanism in the future. In two separate experiments, we adapted a trial-by-trial interfering paradigm with a self-episodic simulation process and investigated (1) whether it is possible to reconsolidate negative memories under the new behavioral paradigm and (2) how the emotional valence of post-retrieval interference material affects the reconsolidation of negative memories. The results showed that the negative memories under trial-by-trial self-simulation can be degraded and updated via post-retrieval interference processes. Individuals whose original memories were reactivated by initial background cues and who were then presented with new interference situations were less able to recall original scenes and showed more memory intrusions on these scenes than those who had experienced new learning without reactivation or only reactivation without interference. Furthermore, the extent and manner of memory change/updating were greatly influenced by the characteristics of interference information. For memories with negative valences, new learning materials with the same valence produced superior interference effects in the form of lower correct recalls and more integrated false; whereas the neutral interference materials can cause more memory intrusion. Post-retrieval memory distortions of negative self-memory may underlie different functional mechanisms.

Environmental Identity: Information Strategies for Mobilizing ˋNegative Memory' of the Audience

The article analyzes the issues of interactive media culture development in modern society. The authors consider information and media strategies as tools for constructing the ecological identity of deprived territories residents (on the example of Chelyabinsk region). The article is based on research carried out between 2015 to 2019, monitoring the environmental situation in Chelyabinsk region. Mass representative surveys, held among the southern Urals citizens, expert interviews, content analysis of official information sources and informal channels of communication users (social networks), thematic debates with regional journalistic community served to ground the main ideas for this work. The resource mobilization idea of the ‘negative memory’ of the audience is the key conclusion, obtained during the analysis of sociological data. Negative memory is a stable negative perception of the territory ecological image under the influence of the broadcasted media content. The theoretical principles of memory studies are the base of this approach. The research has fixed the contradiction between the subjective readiness of the audience for constructive mobilization in the area of environmental initiatives and the ’negative ecological memory’ of the territory. To model the favorable environmental media content it is essential, firstly, to adjust it by: i) using the resource of opinion leaders and social advertising; ii) engaging the expert community in a broad public dialogue on environmental issues; iii) developing independent media projects aimed at radical transformation of the environmental agenda coverage in Chelyabinsk region. Keywords: information strategies, audience, ecology, identity, negative memory