PLT Test Blog

I think today's post is going to be one of my better efforts.  We are continuing with the theme of Cortisol, depression and stress; but we are going to add two further chemicals, both "social neuropeptides". The reason than today's post is worth reading is that it will bridge neurobiology and neuropsychology.   For me at least, psychology is light reading whereas biology needs more thought and understanding.  A social neuropeptide is a nice term not invented by me; it seems to come from Dr Stein from the University of Cape Town . Rather than understand everything about human hormones, we are just trying to understand stress and coping mechanisms, so that we can reduce or  just better manage autistic behaviours.  Cortisol Cortisol is a hormone that is very easy to measure; saliva samples will do just fine.  Cortisol levels, or changes in cortisol levels, tell us about how the body is coping with emotion stress.  We are not talking about oxidat...

Today starts a mini-series inspired by a reader’s comment about depression.   Angie, from Australia, pointed out that while the kids with ASD might not be depressed, many of the parents certainly are.   Not only will we address Angie’s point, but we will extend it a little and show how this can also help in our quest for the grail. Many people have stressful lives, but some have discovered a special way to overcome this.   I was reading an English newspaper recently and there was an article about a celebrity cook, Nigella Lawson, who is very popular on the BBC.   While Jamie Oliver appears not to overindulge on his own cooking, it appears that Nigella does. Nigella was giving her tips to losing those excess pounds or kilograms.   The interesting part was not the treadmill in the spare room, but her comment about singing extremely loudly while using it.   Here comes the science part.   Cortisol is an important hormone; and as we learnt previously when s...