Neuroscientist says children are being 'labelled' as having ADHD when there could be other reasons for their disorder

One of the world's leading neuroscientists, whose work has been acknowledged by work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, has suggested that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not "a real disease".

On the eve of a visit to Britain to meet Duncan Smith and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, Dr Bruce D Perry told the Observer that the label of ADHD outlined a broad set of symptoms. "It is best thought of as a description. If you look at how you end up with that label, it is remarkable because any one of us at any given time would fit at least a couple of those criteria," he said.

Prescriptions for methylphenidate drugs, such as Ritalin, which are used to treat children diagnosed as suffering from ADHD, have soared by 56% in the UK, from 420,000 in 2007 to 657,000 in 2012. Such "psychostimulants" are thought to stimulate a part of the brain that changes mental and behavioural reactions.

However, Perry, a senior fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston, Texas, said he was concerned that children were being labelled as having ADHD when that merely described the symptoms of a range of different physiological problems. The symptoms that lead to a diagnosis of ADHD include inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness over a sustained period.

Perry added that clinicians were also too readily prescribing psychostimulants to children when the evidence suggested there were no long-term benefits. Animal studies have raised concerns over the potential for damage to be done.

Read the rest here... (theguardian.com)

Fractals are part of nature, they are a part of us. Undeniably, fractals also form part of different cultures, long before computer generated fractals were discovered – from the architecture of Indian temples that resemble fractal structure to indigenous African villages where fractals are embedded in their architecture, textiles, art and religion.

According to Ron Eglash, university professor and author of African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design, this was not simply unconscious or intuitive. Africans linked these fractal designs to concepts such as recursion and scaling that exists in African indigenous knowledge system.

Aerial view of Ba-ila settlement in southern Zambia shows fractal pattern

Read more here... (fractalenlightenment.com)

Is this reality an illusion? Are we living inside a matrix? The following article provides 'food for thought' about the reality we THINK we are experiencing.

~In5d

No one in the world can fathom what quantum mechanics is, this is perhaps the most important thing you need to know about it. Granted, many physicists have learned to use its laws and even predict phenomena based on quantum calculations. But it is still unclear why the observer of an experiment determines behavior of the system and causes it to favor one state over another. “Theories and Applications” picked examples of experiments with outcomes which will inevitably be influenced by the observer, and tried to figure out how quantum mechanics is going to deal with the intervention of conscious thought in material reality.

1. Schrödinger’s cat

Today there are many interpretations of quantum mechanics with the Copenhagen interpretation being perhaps the most famous to-date. In the 1920s, its general postulates were formulated by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. The wave function has become the core term of the Copenhagen interpretation, it is a mathematical function containing information about all possible states of a quantum system in which it exists simultaneously.

Read the rest here:

http://www.in5d.com/reality-is-an-illusion-quantum-physics.html

Mindfulness, an ancient technique (and key aspect of meditation) that trains the mind in stillness of being and present focus, has numerous important health benefits – physical, mental and emotional. Researchers from various fields have recently been exploring these benefits, with some very positive documented outcomes.

A new study  performed by University of Utah researchers found that Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), a program based on the ancient principle of mindfulness, had significant and lasting effects on easing chronic pain, and also helped reduce dependence on opioid painkillers in many cases.

Read the rest here:

http://www.thealternativedaily.com/researchers-find-mindfulness-useful-treating-chronic-pain/

According to a new study, most people probably have the ability to predict the future and influence the events before they happen. The study conducted by an American psychologist suggests that people have hidden psychic powers that allow them to foresee the events that are going to happen in the future.

Read the full article here:

http://www.learning-mind.com/new-study-proves-that-all-people-have-psychic-powers/