When a stroke strikes a person, the supply of blood to the part of the brain affected is interrupted, starving it of oxygen. Brain cells can be seriously damaged or die, impairing local brain function.

Within weeks of a stroke, new blood vessels begin to form, (one can visualize marching ants), newly born neurons migrate long distances to the damaged area to aid the regeneration process. We don't know what the right cellular environment is, and what the cellular cues are for this process of regeneration and migration to take place.

In the Journal of Neuroscience, S. Thomas Carmichael, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine, reports that in the mouse model, this march of the neurons is the result of signaling from the newly blooming blood vessels, which links angiogenesis (the development of new blood vessels) and neurogenesis, (the birth of new neurons). They have identified what these molecular signals are! Hopefully, this is the beginning.

Stroke is a leading cause of adult disability. Much is known about the mechanisms of cell death in stroke, but little is known about the mechanisms of recovery after a stroke.

Research has revealed that in the adult brain, new neurons form in a region of the forebrain known as the subventricular zone (SVZ). In mice, after a stroke was initiated in a part of the brain, located far from the SVZ, the researchers,tracked newly formed neuroblasts (which are immature brain cells from which mature adult neurons form) as they traveled through healthy brain tissue to the stroke area. These immature neurons wrapped themselves around the immature vascular cells that were in the process of forming new blood vessels in the damaged area. The neurons were found to arrive at the site within the first two to four weeks after the stroke.

Researchers found that two proteins, stromal-derived factor 1 (SDF1) and angiopoietin 1 (Ang1), that are given off by these newly-forming blood vessels, are what trigger the thousands of immature neurons to the site of damage.

The SDF1 and Ang1 proteins are what link the two processes of neurogenesis and angiogenesis together by promoting post-stroke neuroblast migration. These two proteins, also appear to effect behavioral recovery as well. The researchers produced the stroke in an area of the brain that controls the mouse's facial whiskers. When the mouse was infused by the researchers with Ang1 and SDF1, improvement in the function of the whisker's was seen to the same levels as the control (non-stroke) mice.

I would suggest that possibly, one might consider using these biological facts as images to include when using guided imagery hypnosis for stroke clients. Our thoughts are known to produce chemicals in our bodies. Perhaps, with our thoughts about the mechanisms that should take place we can stimulate that very mechanism.

Having just completed my official Certification as a Certified Instructor with the National Guild of Hypnosis, I thought it appropriate to include this article on training how to do a physical task since the practice of hypnosis is physical.

In a issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers, using the MRI, found that when a person watches someone else perform a task with the intention of later replicating the observed performance, motor areas of the brain are activated in a fashion similar to that with accompanies actual movement.

Teaching a physical skill often involves someone demonstrating the essential action and components after which the learner tries to reproduce what has been observed.

In the experiment, 19 college-aged, healthy adults watched a series of digital videos of another person putting together or disassembling objects using six toy parts. In one condition, participants simply watched the activity; in another, they observed clips with the intention to be able to reproduce the actions in the correct sequential order minutes later.

Despite lying completely still during these tasks, observing with the intention to learn actions and subsequently reproduce them engages areas of the brain known to contribute to motor learning thorough actual physical practice. It was of particular attention that the amount of activity occurring in the intraparietal sulcus (the part when watching to learn accurately) predicts how well these actions are reproduced minutes later.

The researchers concluded that what appears vital is the intention of the observer rather than simply the visual stimulus that is being viewed. Therefore, if the student has the goal to be able to do what you are seeing, then it appears that activity through your motor system is up-regulated substantially.

So, perhaps when teaching our hypnosis classes we should emphasize to our students to have the intention while they watch a "demo" to learn all they can so they can duplicate the process

Stress hormones may play a new role in speeding up cancer growth. New research suggests that hormones produced during periods of stress may actually increase the growth rate of a particularly nasty kind of cancer.

A recent study at the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at Ohio State University, showed that an increase in norepinephrine, which is a stress hormone, can stimulate tumor cells to produce two compounds. These compounds then go ahead and break down the tissue around the tumor cells and allow the cells to more easily move into the bloodstream. Then, they travel to another site in the body to form additional tumors. This is the process which is called metastasis.

It was shown that the same hormone can also stimulate the tumor cells to release another compound that can aid in the growth of new blood vessels that feed cancer cells, hastening the growth and spread of the disease. This work was reported in the journal Cancer Research.

Research scientists at Ohio State University, then also focused on the role of these compounds. Two of them, both matrix metalloproteinases - MMP-2 and MMP-9 - play a role in breaking down the way that cells attach to in order to maintain their shape. The third compound, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), is important in the growth of new blood vessels into tumor cells.

An interesting earlier work by the University of Texas had shown that the same stress hormones can stimulate ovarian tumor cells to produce these three compounds. The key to that discovery was that the two stress hormones – epinephrine and norepinephrine – would bind to places on the surface of ovarian cancer cells, called adrenergic receptors, and stimulate the release of MMP-2, MMP-9 and VEGF which might then foster cancer growth.

It was found by the Ohio study group that MMP-2 and MMP-9 contribute to the aggressiveness of tumors. It wasn't exactly clear as to how they are operating but they may work to facilitate blood vessel growth in new tumors so that they can grow.

It seems to me that using hypnosis as a way to deal with and release stress is a "no-brainer". Hypnosis is known to work with the autonomic nervous system and shut off sympathetic responses that can leave our body out of balance in the hypothalamus, pituitary adrenal axis response. We can use hypnosis as a way to also help with emotional healing which is a stress reliever within itself. Perhaps, with emotional healing we can shut off the instructions that our body was given to allow the cancer cells to go out of control. Our bodies know how to repair. They are programmed for health.