tokofukawa:

“you can’t let your mental health affect everything” sorry. my bad. i forgot that even though my mental illness is In My Brain, which does Everything for me, that’s not an excuse for my mental health affecting everything i do. so sorry.

neurosciencestuff:

(Image caption: This is immunohistochemical and electrophysiological analysis. (top) whole mouse brain, the dotted region is the dorsal raphe where COX-negative cells were more numerous in the mutants. (botton left). Close-up of the dorsal raphe. COX-negative cells are red. (bottom right) Electrophysiological analysis showed that serotonergic neurons in the mutant dorsal raphe were more excitable than in wildtype mice)

Mutation links bipolar disorder to mitochondrial disease

Mitochondria are the vital organelles that deliver energy to all cells and mitochondrial damage has been found, for example, in brain imaging of bipolar patients and in post-mortem brains. Roughly 20% of patients with mitochondrial disease also have bipolar disorder, a major psychiatric disease characterized by manic and depressive episodes. Altered serotonin functioning, on the other hand, seems to be involved in bipolar disorder because drugs that target serotonin levels can effectively treat the condition. “Our study suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction can alter activity of serotonergic neurons in bipolar disorder, and this is the first time these two lines of evidence have been linked,” says Tadafumi Kato, research group leader at CBS. The research was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

The study started by identifying ANT1 mutations in patients with bipolar disorder. Kato and colleagues then looked at mice lacking the ANT1 gene in the brain only. Compared with non-mutant mice, the mitochondria in these knockout mice could not retain calcium and had leakier pores. The ANT1-mutant mice also showed lower impulsivity in behavior tests, and consistent with this, their brains showed elevated serotonin turnover. This hyper-serotonergic state is likely a result of a cascade of changes that starts with the loss of the ANT1 gene and the resulting dysfunctional mitochondria. Enhanced serotonergic activity may then further impair mitochondria in a vicious cycle.

Serotonergic neurons were found to deteriorate in a brain area called the dorsal raphe, which is a region also affected in Parkinson’s disease—another condition that may have its roots in mitochondrial dysfunction. The ANT1 mutation does not cause bipolar disorder, says Kato, but is associated with elevated risk. The implication of this research is that emerging therapies for the underlying mitochondrial dysfunction could one day treat bipolar disorder more successfully than today’s variable serotonin-targeting drugs.

jwstudying:

the truth

oldschoolfrp:

“The Rankin/Bass Hobbit float seen in the 1977 Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade with Orson Bean, who was the voice of Bilbo in the animated special.“  (via thelandofshadow.com )

extrafabulouscomics:

part of a big comicc im workin on 

vicloud:

oldschoolfrp:

oldschoolfrp:

War of the Ring, SPI, 1977, illustrated by Tim Kirk.

SPI games often were subtitled with the date of the historic battle or campaign, so this is labeled Shire Reckoning 1418 to 1419.

I remember this as surprisingly less bad than I thought it would be.

snazzymax:

Luigi Serafini

oldschoolfrp:

dasha-through-the-snow:

Have I ever shown you guys these weird late 80s Soviet Lord Of The Rings illustrations?

They were made by Sergei Iukhimov, who’s virtually unknown otherwise.

LOTR through a medieval art filter

somewhere-wonderful:

Pictures from skiing trip to Lapland

phantastrophe:

Banff National Park, Canada | Photographer: Aron Cooperman

happymoomin:

Tove Jansson’s illustrations of J.R.R Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”

It was Astrid Lindgren, author of the universally beloved Pippi Longstockings, who as an editor and publisher by the Stockholm publishing house Rabén & Sjögren approached Tove and asked her to illustrate the Swedish edition of The Hobbit.