, 2005) independently of any notable disorder and within the range of normal behavior and physiology (Ryff, 2014). Moreover, interventions directed towards changing physiology and brain function may be useful when adaptation to a particular environment has resulted in an individual who then chooses, or is forced to adapt to a different, e.g. more or less threatening or nurturing, environment. A powerful “top down” therapy (i.e., an activity, usually voluntary, involving activation of integrated nervous system activity, as opposed

to pharmacologic therapy which has a more limited target) is regular physical activity, which has actions that improve prefrontal and parietal cortex blood flow and enhance executive function GDC-0941 research buy (Colcombe et al., 2004). Moreover, regular physical activity, Depsipeptide consisting of walking an hour a day, 5 out

of 7 days a week, increases hippocampal volume in previously sedentary adults (Erickson et al., 2011). This finding complements work showing that fit individuals have larger hippocampal volumes than sedentary adults of the same age-range (Erickson et al., 2009). It is also well known that regular physical activity is an effective antidepressant and protects against cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia (Babyak et al., 2000 and Snyder et al., 2010). Moreover, intensive learning has also been shown to increase volume of the human hippocampus (Draganski et al., 2006). Furthermore, the evidence that the novel antidepressant candidate, LAC, exerts fast antidepressant-like effects in a genetic animal model where a LAC deficiency was found in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, prompts investigation

of how lifestyle as well as diet, vitamin intake or depletion, oxidative stress and the aging process will determine only epigenetic states in ways yet unidentified (Denu, 2007 and Nasca et al., 2013). Social integration, social support and finding meaning and purpose in life are known to be protective against allostatic load (Seeman et al., 2002) and dementia (Boyle et al., 2010). Programs such as the Experience Corps, which promotes both cognitive adaptations along with increased physical activity, have been shown to slow the decline of physical and mental health and to improve prefrontal cortical blood flow in a similar manner to regular physical activity (Carlson et al., 2009 and Fried et al., 2004). Depression and anxiety disorders are examples of a loss of resilience, in the sense that changes in brain circuitry and function, caused by the stressors that precipitate the disorder, become “locked” in a particular state and thus need external intervention.