DrmDoc

There are hundreds of archeological sites in America with artifacts laid bare to erosion by the elements and forbidden to study because of their Native American spiritual significance and protection. Although I mourn the loss to science, I respect the rights of Native Americans to their history and spiritual traditions, which they have been brutally denied by the American government routinely in the not so distant past. Their rights to their heritage and sources of religious significances outweigh, IMO, our need to study it.

I think your right. As I read his quote, Giedd made no reference to a second wave occuring during puberty. Instead, he appears to be discussing prepubescent increases continuing into puberty and how they might relate to subsequent selective synaptic pruning in adolescence. This appears to coincide with linked longitudinal MRI studies confirming "a second surge of neuronal growth" occurring "just before puberty." Papers suggesting a second pubescent wave based on Giedd's paper and the linked MRI studies I reviewed have misinterpreted their findings. According to the links you've provided, there is no second wave of synaptic growth proven, merely a continuation of selective prepubescence increases.

I reviewed the links you provided and found in the first paper what may be the basis for its second synaptogenesis surge conclusion. In the introduction, the authors conclude: "Brain maturation during adolescence (ages 10–24 years) could be governed by several factors, as illustrated in Figure 1. It may be influenced by heredity and environment, prenatal and postnatal insult, nutritional status, sleep patterns, pharmacotherapy, and surgical interventions during early childhood. Furthermore, physical, mental, economical, and psychological stress; drug abuse (caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol); and sex hormones including estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone can influence the development and maturation of the adolescent brain. MRI studies have suggested that neurocircuitry and myelinogenesis remain under construction during adolescence because these events in the central nervous system (CNS) are transcriptionally regulated by sex hormones that are specifically increased during puberty" Under the following Adolescent brain heading of the paper, the authors cited: " Longitudinal MRI studies have confirmed that a second surge of neuronal growth occurs just before puberty.1,7 This surge is similar to that noticed during infancy and consists of a thickening of the grey matter." I think what your looking for here are the longitudinal MRI studies the authors cited. According to one of those studies, regionally specific "linear decreases in cortical gray matter" were identified post-adolescence; whereas, pre-adolescence increases were observed. I think the author of the first link inferred a second surge of synaptic growth from the pre-adolescent increases that continue, "regionally specific", through puberty. They appear to view pre-adolescence as one phase and puberty as a second citing hormonal influences as a basis. A general overview of the second paper you provided appear to suggests a similar reliance on MRI studies involving continuing pubescent increases in white and regional gray matter. Perhaps worth a mention, I found this article referencing GABA receptors as a probable initiate of synaptic pruning at puberty. In reference to my comments on the nature of synaptic pruning in sleep, this article appears to regard similar. Again, you may have access to the full text through your institution. I hope it helps. EDIT: After a another look, that second wave or surge referenced in the paper described an occurrence prepubescence rather than concurrent with puberty. Therefore, only continued increases rather than a second surge during adolescence appear to be suggested.

I thought about your question regarding what factors underlie the growth and decay of brain matter volume. In considering a referenced link between myelination and neurodegenerative diseases, I am reminded of this article regarding relatively recent study of the glymphatic system, which is a function of sleep that appears to removes extracellular toxins from the brain such as the Amyloid-B peptide plaques associated with Alzheimer. Perhaps the processes of sleep are not relevant to your project but it may merit some consideration regarding what factors may contribute to synaptogenese/synaptic pruning. We know that sleep patterns change with age and synaptic pruning occurs in sleep, wherein, brain volume can decrease by as much as 6%. I'll try to find the specific reference for you and post a link here, if that is your interest.

Have you read this paper: Mapping brain maturation...? This is a link to an abstract of an 2005 paper that appears to explore a topic in brain maturation similar to yours. Although I could not find a link to this article outside of university, perhaps you may through your institution. From the abstract: "Non-invasive mapping of brain structure and function with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has opened up unprecedented opportunities for studying the neural substrates underlying cognitive development. There is an emerging consensus of a continuous increase throughout adolescence in the volume of white matter, both global and local. There is less agreement on the meaning of asynchronous age-related decreases in the volume of grey matter in different cortical regions; these might equally represent loss ("pruning") or gain (intra-cortical myelination) of tissue. Functional MRI studies have so far focused mostly on executive functions, such as working memory and behavioural inhibition, with very few addressing questions regarding the maturation of social cognition. Future directions for research in this area are discussed in the context of processing biological motion and matching perceptions and actions." ​​

From a victim's or surrogate's perspective, I think the death penalty is vengeance. From the perspective of those condemned to death, it's a cost rather than punishment. Death is the price one pays for an egregious act or wrong among certain societies. Like the death penalty, which is vengeance, I think a life sentence is also a price and not punishment when the condemned essentially loses the life he may have previously enjoyed. Therefore, a life sentence could also be considered vengeance.

It's just completely maddening not being able to rely on one's perceptions after a lifetime of trust building.

My thoughts haven't changed, the death penalty isn't punishment, its vengeance and I am not opposed to vengeance given the provocation.

It's an effort, an attempt that isn't always successful or permanent. With punishment, I think we are trying to effect change in an perpetrators future behavior against wrongful acts. I see we have a different view. For me, punishment is one thing and vengeance is another. Vengeance and revenge satisfies the anger of the person taking that action. A person may learn from the vengeance inflicted on him but vengeance is not punishment if it takes his life. Punishment, IMO, is an opportunity to learn and grow from the consequences of one's bad acts. The death penalty is not about teaching someone a lesson to grow on. You can't learn or grow if your dead.

I don't really believe they are on the same scale by any measure. Compared to the violently selfish passion that the pursuit of vengeance seeks to mollify, punishment of any kind appears almost altruistic. Punishment is about doing something for the punished while vengeance is about doing something for the victim or oneself. I can't say where the line should be drawn, but I can say the line becomes clearer when we view the death penalty in light of the vengeance it seeks to satisfy.

Punishment, IMO, is measured to educate or condition a person against committing some wrongful act. The intent of vengeance is not to educate but to inflict harm or injury in exchanged for some harm or injury suffered. The two are not the same--in my opinion.

Increasingly, suffix (-ly, -ing, -ed, etc.) omission has plagued my writing. It's particularly frustrating to find an omission after having reviewed what I've written several times both before and after making it public. Recently, for example, I wrote "actual" when I meant "actually." Errors involving sound-alike word (homonym) substitution are more agreeable to me than these seemingly small suffix errors. It's a small thing I know, but it bothers me especially after finding the error several hours after having reviewed, dozens of times, what I wrote. As far as I can tell, the error involves two aspects; a blockage in the efferent (output) command to fully execute my thoughts physically and a similar obstruction to my afferent (input) perception of correct confirmation. It's like something is standing in the way of what I want to do and is at the same time keeping me from knowing I made a mistake. What is that? Psychology or senility?

The death penalty is neither punishment nor justice, it's vengeance and, honestly, I am not above vengeance given the nature of the provocation.

Literacy was an advantage most slaves were denied. Not being allowed by a slave owner to learn how to read and write his language is not the same as not having the intellectual capacity (intelligence) to do so. By the measure you've suggested, nearly every person on Earth is intellectually challenged because no one, in my opinion, is literate in every language humanity uses. As time has shown, former slaves and the children of former slaves have learned to read and write very well, when provided equal opportunity to do so. Slavery was never a deterrent to intelligence.

No; immortality seems a shortsighted, immensely selfish indulgence. We know Earth is a finite sphere with limited resource. I imagine the demands a growing immortal populace would place on those resources. Even when we consider access to endless exoplanetary supplies, I think life has less appeal without the possibility of death. Immortality is existence potentially with and without endless consequence. So why bother? It's the possibility of death, I think, that gives life value.

Wow! A "mountza"? I learn something new everyday. I think I'll just keep my hands down and use my words.

If I may, that was StringJunky's response to Ten Oz's post regarding The Donald's propensity for name calling--in my opinion.

I didn't know you were also the OP, Lovetoloveyou. If you are, and I'm certain you're not, your OP never said it was a gang sign and I'm sorry you didn't find it helpful--but then, my reply wasn't meant for you. Also, I'm sure you are familiar--being a formerly Mexico (Location) resident who lived in Detroit--that gangbangers and non-gangbangers alike do make the handgun gesture as I described with the index and/or middle finger together pointed forward with thumb extended. Although we cannot know the intent of the person who might have flashed a likely variation of this handgun gesture--with fingers downward and palm inward--my interpretation is as valid as any offered here given the description provided. It's a simple gesture and the OP description didn't indicate to me, as it clearly did to you, that the hand signer was deformed. My reply was not an attack on the studied opinion you profess, it was merely my opinion based on my experience--and yes, I actually do live in America.

In many cities, America is a very dangerous place to live; a place where a person could get shot for the slightest provocation, whether innocent or unintended. Shameful but true.

In the America I know, where there are considerably more guns than people, the OP should be relieved that it was merely a gesture.

Darn it! A day late and a dollar short! ​

In America, it likely conveys a variation of the same gesture with the index and middle finger pointed forward rather than downward, which is an aggressive simulation and reference to a handgun. Pointing downward would be a holstered gun position reference. I hope this helps.

According to this NASA HubbleSite press release, the Hubble Constant has been reduced to 73.2 kilometers per second per megaparsec, which is an uncertainty reduction to 2.4% from 3.3% initially. This means that, according to the article, "the distance between cosmic objects will double in another 9.8 billion years." ​Enjoy!

You're quite right; that link did not contain the references you sought. However, this link leads to an article exploring evidence suggesting how the sleep process "replenish energy stores in the brain". The article discusses various elements of a related "Benington-Heller" hypothesis on the nature of glycogen in sleep, as well as, sleep/wake and deprivation experiments suggesting the mechanism for glycogen production in sleep. Although prior evidence suggested a "predominant lack of glycogen" production in neuron cells because of their "constantly high energy demand" more recent studies now suggest values "substantially higher than previous estimates of glycogen content in the brain". The sleep/wake and deprivation studies discussed in the first link confirmed certain hypothesized predictions and suggests, though not expressly, how glycogen effect those cycles of non-REM to REM in sleep. As you may know, REM signals that active state of brain function in sleep when dreaming occurs. Our brain moves from an inactive to active state throughout the sleep process. From the article: "The predictions of Benington and Heller about glycogen changes with sleep/wake and sleep deprivation have been supported, at least in part. However, the dynamic changes are more complex than they proposed. A reassessment of data obtained in experiments stimulated by their hypothesis leads to new hypotheses: a) depletion of glycogen is part of the arousal response providing ATP for the sudden increase in energy required to support enhanced neuronal firing on sudden awakening; and b) it is repletion, not depletion, of glycogen that is likely the signal to promote sleepiness." The authors were discussing evidence that suggests glycogen depletion initiates arousal in the brain while glycogen restoration promote a return to an inactive state. Though not referenced expressly in the article, this process aligns with the proposed nature of our sleeping brain's inactive (NREM) to active (REM) cycles. I welcome your thoughts.

Apologies; to clarify, it was linked as a description of the nature of glycogen in the brain. For more on the metabolic processes of the brain, I refer you this discussion link. Brain stimuli, to further clarify, could be understood as those neural affects (physical/material and non-physical/material) that initiate a cognitive (mentation) process. Dreaming is a cognitive process that brain stimuli initiate and dreams are brain stimuli filtered, as physical/material experience, through a cognitive process. Dreams, as mentation products, invariably interpret something mental in nature or affect. Affect is another key work here because when discussing dreams (filtered neural stimuli in sleep) we are essentially discussing neural affects that have influenced the responses of our sleeping brain; therefore, our brain responses in sleep are the effects of or reactions to neural stimuli. There are two basic categories of brain responses that correspond to the neural stimuli that initiate or influence those responses in sleep: Mental and Social. There are stimuli that exclusively affect what and how we think and feel. These are categorically mental influences affecting our analytical processes that do not gain outwardly evident behavioral expression. There are also influences that do gain outward expression--through our attitude, emotion, or behavior--that are categorically social. The physical/material filter our brain applies to stimuli in sleep is an effort to detect the nature of those neural (mental and social) affects by how they have influenced the brain’s responses. We know that the brain can respond with further mentation (mental) or with some behavioral (social) expression; therefore, the physical/material filters our dreams depict likely reference something either mental or social. Houses in dreams, for example, may reference either mental or social structures; dream vehicles may reference either mental or social conveyances, and roads may reference either mental or social paths, etc. The process of referencing dream depictions as either mental or social influences condenses our efforts to extract meaning from dream content to a methodical process based on how our brain universally interprets the neural stimuli it experiences in sleep. I welcome your continued interest, queries, and comments.