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Walking in Their Footsteps in Ashdod |
University Student Since 8th Grade |
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Dance with Your Fears |
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RESEARCH |
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Breakthrough Research: Dealing With Stress, the Natural Way
...continued from previous page.
The mice were then divided into three different groups, where they were administered either a placebo, a conventional drug for treating anxiety or the natural substance. What Dr. Doron's team discovered was that those mice who had been treated with the natural treatment enjoyed an equivalent reduction in anxiety levels – a low level of corticolesterone in the blood, a standard physiological measure of anxiety – as those who had been treated with the conventional drug. But the conventional drug has side effects, and while the team is now checking for side effects from the natural treatment, they feel certain that there will be none. They also discovered one other interesting effect. The hippocampus area of the brain, responsible for memory, is impacted under stressful levels. Generally, if the stress situation does not take place over an extended period of time, the brain can undergo neurogenesis. Chronic stress lessens the brain’s ability to do so. The chemical inside the body which stimulates neurogenesis is BDNF. Conventional drugs are known to stimulate BDNF and therefore help in the brain’s neurogenesis process, but surprisingly (or maybe not) the natural treatment exhibited even better results. This experiment may have some very long-range implications and applications – from stress control to memory enhancement. The team has already received a provisional patent, and Dr. Ravid Doron has been approached by the Tel Aviv Medical School and the Weizmann Institute who have shown great interest in the experiment. "I am convinced that we will get to the market very quickly, because we are talking about only natural subtances. Right now we are looking for a company to pick up the glove with us, a company interested in pharmacology using nature's own products." In the meantime, they will be expanding the experiments, as per the Helsinki accords, with patients suffering from stress and anxiety currently in Israel's psychiatric hospitals.
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