NeuroBlog

Greetings. This blog is intended primarily as a tool to encourage students enrolled in Neuroscience 120: Introduction to Neuroscience at Washington and Lee University to consider the content of basic neuroscience in contexts outside of the classroom. Often students spend little time contemplating how the material contained in a textbook or presented in class relates to their daily existence. For those of us major dorks who have decided to make a career out of neuroscience, it becomes a matter of course that nearly everything that happens around us, from the mundane to the sublime, requires some degree of assessment in neuroscientific terms. That may seem like major a buzz-kill to some people, but to me it serves as a persistent reminder of the extraordinary wonder of the brain's structure and function.

Short of the profoundly nerdy compulsion to put nearly all of one's existence into a neuroscientific framework (not that there's anything wrong with that), those of us who teach neuroscience hope perhaps above all that our students walk away from our courses with a solid sense for how neuroscience is a pervasive influence in their lives. One way to accomplish that is by making a deliberate effort to seek out (and evaluate) examples of neuroscience and neuroscientific influences in popular media. With this in mind, the postings that make this blog grow in the coming months will be primarily concerned with how basic and applied neuroscience are revealed in the news, and in less likely spots, such as in film, on TV, in music, in politics. Neuroscience, and science in general, is everywhere, but sometimes we need to look carefully to see it. Or at least to appreciate it. What follows is a sampling of some neuroscience "sightings."

This is Susan posting this, by the way.

I found an article on ABC News about Autism, which seems relevant, since it's in the brain...it says that at least three studies have found that "contactin-associated proteinlike 2 (CNTNAP2)" might be the cause of Autism (which is involved in interneuron communication). Also, you are more likely to get it from your mother than your father.

Here's the article.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/OnCall/story?id=4114447&page=1

Hey everyone, this is Grace Wang posting.

I just read an article on The New York Times website (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/health/14heart.html?ref=health) discussing the successful in-vitro construction of a real, beating rat heart. This is obviously very exciting news given the current hype about stem cells and their unique ability to develop into cells of all types - muscle, cardiac, liver, and neural (neuron), to name a few. The University of Minnesota research team, led by Dr. Doris A. Taylor, used the heart of a dead rat as scaffolding for a new heart. They removed all the non-functional cells from the dead heart using a detergent (like those used in shampoos) and then injected fresh cardiac cells harvested from newborn rats. The manipulated organ thus consisted of a "base," which came from dead rats, and "filling," which were obtained from newborn rats. With this simple procedure, they found that within two weeks the new neonatal cardiac cells had formed a new beating heart which both conducted electrical impulses and pumped blood, albeit a small amount. This finding has many practical implications because with some modifications and further experimentation, research scientists should be able to grow a human heart by taking stem cells from a patient's bone marrow and placing them in a cadaver heart. Thus, a patient suffering from chronic heart failure could have one of these hearts made, greating increasing his/her chance of survival. Because of the success generated from this study, Dr. Taylor is now conducting similar experiments on pigs. She believes that the porcine heart is more comparable to humans and will potentially reveal whether this technology can be implemented in humans.

I found this article to be very exciting. First, the idea that an organ as essential and complex as a heart has been made is mind boggling. As Dr. Taylor stated in the article, generating a mass of cardiac cells has not been a problem for scientists; creating a functional three-dimensional organ which can pump blood and support an organism of several billion cells has been a challenge. Second, this article proves that although our country may not be as progressive as others in embryonic stem cell research (another topic in itself), we can still progress in meaningful research. Although these experiments have not been extended to human subjects yet, a procedure for generating operating human hearts has been suggested. Using the scaffold provided by a cadaver heart and then inserting bone marrow cells from the patient in need of the heart would not require embryonic stem cells at all. This avoids the controversial topic completely but still gets the job done.

What does everyone think about this scientific finding? Do you think it holds much promise? Would it work for something as complex as a neuron?

I (Sam Brusca) searched the CNN website for recent science related articles. Just like
Dr. Stewart promised, there was a neuroscience related article readily
available. Recently, a new sequence of genes on chromosome 16 has been
found to be related to autism. Duplications and seemingly
random mutations on this sequence of genes have been related to 1 percent
of total Autism patients. Hopefully, this can be the begging of a new area
of research that will help the fight of autism and related conditions.
Neuroscience is all over this article. Autism is a disorder characterized
by repetitive behaviors and a lack of social skills. I know that all
behavior stems from the brain and motor neurons responses to messages
received by sensory neurons. What genes must mutate, what must go wrong in
the brain's neurons to make motor neurons "react inappropriately." Somehow,
an autism patient responds very different to stimuli than you or I would.
Neuroscience is also involved in the discussion of the future development
of gene therapy drugs. Drugs that can target and somehow reverse or lesson
the effect of mutated genes. Gene therapy seems to be the hot spot of
current medical research. Because autism stems from issues involving the
neurons in one's brain, will these new drugs have to break the blood/brain
barrier and somehow alter the genes in brain neurons specifically?
Personally, I see gene therapy as the next step in medicine!
-Sam Brusca

n-topics>

Hey, this is Granvil George posting.
So, leafing through the newsweek in the commons I found the article "Mind Reading is Now Possible." Here's a link http://www.newsweek.com/id/91688.
Basically researchers at Carnegie Mellon showed people various tools (such as a hammer, and a drill, etc.) and dwellings (igloos, castles) and told them to think abuot the object's properties, uses, and anything else that came to mind while an fRMI measured brain activity. Each object actually had individually distinguishable brain activity, and the researchers subsequently were able to tell with 78 percent accuracy when someone was thinking about any of the given objects tested, and accuracy rose as more time was spent thinking about the object. The finding has not yet been replicated and it would take an incredible amount of time to create a mind-reading dictionary but the idea is still fascinating and raises a host of ethical issues, as the article mentions.
Personally, I think the idea of mind-reading has very few positives and many possible negatives; it is kind of Frankensteinian to think about. However it is fascinating that with a detailed scan and lots of effort neuroscientists at a small university were able to determine brain patterns that are not unique to individuals that show up when we think about certain objects. Think about what that implies for linguistics, for philosophers, for law enforcement officers, for a huge variety of fields. This certainly seems very groundbreaking to me.

This isn't directly related to neuroscience, but I found it very interesting nonetheless. Today the track and field governing body ruled that world class sprinter Oscar Pistorius cannot compete in the Olympics. There is something unique about Oscar, though; he is a double amputee, born without fibulas below the knees. He holds Paralympic world records in the 100, 200, and 400 meters.

He races with special prosthetic devices, which the governing body found to be unfair. The mechanical devices, called "Cheetahs", were more efficient than the ankle and had a mechanical advantage of higher than 30%. Therefore, Pistorious is able to run with about 25% less energy expenditure. This presented a clear advantage to Pistorious, although he still claims the findings to be disputable, and is currently appealing to other experts in the field to come to their own conclusions. By using less energy, Pistorious was able to avoid having excess lactic access buildup in his muscles, which is what occurs when muscles perform at peak activity and are forced to generate ATP from anaerobic respiration, or lactic acid fermentation.

Here is a link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/sports/othersports/14cnd-pistorius.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Sprinter&oref=slogin

Hey this is Bridget Donovan.

I just read an article from the National Geographic magazine regarding the two complete opposite spectrums of memory: from complete dementia to remembering every detail of every day of the past. While one man lives in a continual state of oblivion, living from moment to moment without remembering anything that occurred previously, a woman lives with the incredible ability to recall dates, facts and emotions about every day she has lived. The article goes into the detail of memory, defining memory as a stored pattern of connections between the neurons in varying parts of the brain. There are currently ensuing arguments about whether or not different parts of the brain "store" different memories, but the common consensus is that the general analogy used to illustrate memory, such as a complete, sometimes hidden, storage site or tape recording for all the events of life, is rather misleading.

Though the people analyzed in the article demonstrate the extreme cases of memory ability, it has always intrigued me that though people have the same basic neurons and the same central nervous system, there are differences in how well people can recollect events. The article points out the fact that often what people are best at remembering are things that
they are interested in. Sports fanatics can remember every play from every game for the past 15 years of their favorite team. And yet there are still more subtle differences in memory, not relating to a preference for remembering certain things. The huge variation in how "good"
someone' s memory is interests me because memory is so incredibly unique to each individual. It seems to me as though the brain would function as other common organs among all humans do, in that they perform the same basic process (unless, of course, they have some kind of malfunction or disorder). Yet having a humanly assessed "good" or "bad" memory
does not seem to fit into that category of one person's brain being "better" than another person's. In addition there seem to be universal types of memories that can be recalled step by step, emotion by emotion. Usually these involve situations of fear or humiliation. Why are
these the memories most commonly strongly pressed into human recollections?

The most interesting aspect of the article, I thought, was the discussion of what role memory plays in life, and whether or not the human capability to remember has changed throughout history based on the cultural and historical context in which that memory exists. The article contends that in our modern age, where it is so easy to write something down on a post-it, or record something on the calendar or iphone, memory is not used nearly as much nor is it nearly as important as in the past, when the lack of books meant that learning meant memorization and recollection. The question brought up is whether or not the human capability to remember has diminished due to a "lack of exercise." In addition, the article debates whether or not the recollection of such trivial daily facts is even something that is necessary. Possibly the brain often "forgets" short-term memory factoids because they are not essential to life and simply clutter the process of unfolding and understanding those things remembered of more consequence.

I feel like the answers to the questions brought up by this article all have to do with the more philosophical question of what it means to be alive and act as a human. Memories define our past and help to shape our future. If memory were considered inconsequential, then history
would be insignificant as well. Yet so much of what happens today depends on what happens yesterday, or last year. With this in mind (no pun intended) it is also essential to see that the possibility of improving memories through certain pharmaceutical drugs that can alter what happens at the synapses of neurons may not necessarily be a good thing. Though
wonderful for people suffering dementia, the drugs can be abused and can arouse the ethical debate of what it means to be human. A certain part of living is remembering what has happened in the past so that experiences can shape how the future is undertaken. And yet another part of being human is forgetting- it is an essential technique that relieves humans of possibly some of the more painful things or decisions, or the non-essentials that simply clutter.

Is it better to live blissfully without remembering from moment to moment, or is it better to live burdened by the trivial details of every point in one's life? Obviously some intermediate state is preferable, but isn't that where most humans are in their memory abilities? Should humans
look to enhance memory capabilities?

Here's the link to the article:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-11/memory/foer-text2.html

From Rosemary Hambright:

Today I went to Walmart to stock up on some necessary supplies. Instead of buying my usual vanilla-flavored soy milk, I opted for the soymilk enhanced with Omega-3 DHA because the box said that it “helps support heart, brain & eye health” and that Omega-3 DHA is a “hot topic for scientists studying brain function and development.” It’s not an example from television, but it’s delicious on my Mini Wheats.

From: Connell Owings

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15robo.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

I just read an article from the New York Times reporting that a monkey’s brain signals were successfully used to make a robot walk. The female monkey was trained with the help of raisins and cheerios to walk on a treadmill like a human in the upright position with her hands holding the bar. As she walked, electrodes implanted in her brain recorded the neuron activity as her legs moved. Scientists noted that the neurons had different activity when each different part moved. This information was collected by a computer and then immediately sent to a highly specialized robot in Japan. Remarkably, as the monkey walked on the treadmill, the robot made the same movements.

I think it is very intriguing that it is scientifically possible for the neurons in a monkey’s brain in the United States can make a robot walk in Japan via a high-speed internet link. This should give great hope for people who are paralyzed or have other impairments of limbs, such as the legs or arms. At this point, a safe way to implant electrodes into the brains of humans has not been found. However, I think this idea of a “brain machine interface” that connects a person’s thoughts and brain activity to some sort of brace holds great promise.

Tori Stevens

http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/444720.html

This experiment was in quite a few newspapers, but I thought this one included the best details. The article talks about an experiment done where twenty volunteers were to taste test various wines. The catch, however, is that some of the wines are the same. All the price tags are left on the wines and they seem to range from $5 - $90. The $5 and $45 wines were both acutally $5 and the $10 and $90 wines were both actually $90.
When asked to rank the pleasantness of the wines, people ranked the $90 bottle first and the $5 last.The experiment included an fMRI scan, which related increased activity in the pleasure detecting part of the brain with the increasing wine prices.

This is a fantastic example of just how much marketing and neuroscience run together. In addition, the article points out the simplicity of altering a view of a product, which I am sure can be done by other ways than pricing.

This is Daria; read this article about a month ago on shocks; interestin' and controversial.

Rotenberg is the only school in the U.S. that's currently using shock therapy to "control" students with severe behavioral problems. The State of New York a year ago tried to ban the use of electric shock therapy for controlling bad behavior but now the parents of these kids are against this state policy and want the use of shocks to continue. Here's the link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/nyregion/25shock.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

It's Daria by the way;
I don't know if y'all knew Kevin Everett; he was a Buffalo Bills' blocking tight-end. In a game in the beggining of season' he made a tackle in the special-team where he went for the kick returner and injured his spine and doctors thought he would not walk again; but something else happened and Kevin is on a path to a miracolous recovery.
Here's the link to the article that I found about this:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-bills-everetthurt&prov=ap&type=lgns

Playing Nicely: Robotic and natural roaches influence each other's behavior
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70644
~Maya Iyengar

Although many insects have small brains, insects can perform highly specialized tasks displaying complex behavior. Cockroaches, bees, and ants create extremely elaborate homes and function in a structured society with distinct privileges, disadvantages, and tasks for each class. For decades, researchers have wondered how these simple-minded insects can collectively execute complicated decisions and actions. Belgian scientists created a robot cockroach in order to test the ability and willingness of a cockroach community to change its behavior because of an individual’s behavior—they are testing the workings of emergence, the principle that an individual’s simple behavior can instigate a complex collective action. Scientists chose to concentrate on roaches, thanks to the simplicity of the social structure in a community; this simplicity allows scientists to make mathematical predictions and conclusions, which could bring them one step closer to understanding the principle of emergence. The robot roaches look nothing like real roaches, but several factors ensure that they will be accepted by other roaches. The robots naturally head towards dark areas, like real roaches, and they are able to be influenced by the actions of other roaches. Also, the robots emit the same pheromones (molecules emitted which give off a distinct smell) that real roaches do. The real roaches process this smell as coming from another real roach, allowing them to accept the robots as one of their own. A key aspect of these robots is that they can influence and be influenced by other roaches. In one experiment, if the robot roach was programmed to go towards lighted shelters, the others [real] roaches would go with it. However, sometimes, the other roaches overrode that decision and changed direction towards the dark areas, causing the robot roaches to also change direction. Scientists want to further this research by making a robot hen that would be accepted by chicks as their mom, since hens tend to be leaders. This way, whatever the programmer wants the hen to do, the hen can get the chicks to do. Thought has been put into creating an android that could affect the decision-making process in humans, although this would require an android which humans could accept as one of their own. We can’t be as easily fooled as roaches… we need something more than pheromones to convince us to change our minds. This research is the first step to understanding the complexity of human brains and how emergence actually works among humans.

Diane Lee here, writing about human decision making abilities and why we do what we do.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/01/09/why-would-you-lie-to-your-therapist/

This article states that people turn to mechanics, dentists, plumbers, etc to fix the problem. You tell them the weird kinks and they help you find and fix what is wrong with your car or your sink. You don't lie to them. After all you are paying money to have something of yours work properly. So why then, especially with the prices for shrinks so high, do people lie to their therapists? After all, aren't they supposed to help you with whatever emotional problem you're having? They're also bound to confidentiality. The author of the article theorized that the thing that causes us to lie to our therapists is the thing that causes us to go to a therapist in the first place! People are afraid that they'll tell their innermost, deepest, darkest and creepiest facts or thoughts about themselves and the therapist will pass judgment: "oh man, my patient is such a freakazoid." While the author of the article tries to soothe readers by claiming that therapists don't judge and that they are only there to help their patients move forward in their lives, I can't help but feel that he is lying. Some therapists get too involved (therapists can develop relationships with their patients), some aren't involved enough, and some therapists do their jobs fairly well. After all, they are human and they are fallible. It is my own opinion that it is expected for people to lie to their therapists, although not preferred. It is the job of the therapist to uncover, without extending their boundaries, if their patients are lying or not because lying isn't always necessarily a product of decision making. It can also be a symptom.

Grace Barnett

I read the post about Keven Everett, however, I could not get the link to work. Thus, I did some more research about the topic because I knew that there was controversy about his initial treatment. I found this site:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/health/15spin.html?ex=1358571600&en=a02553862d7d744d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

which talks about the controversy surrounding induced hypothermia. Induced hypothermia is a technique used by some doctors (who are responding to spinal cord injuries) in which they lower the patient's body temperature (to approximately 92 degrees) using cold saline solution. This supposedly freezes spinal cord fluid, which prevents it from dying. It also, obviously, lowers the patient's body temperature which prevents fever induced symptoms of the injury. However, the technique is also highly controversial because it can lead to side effects such as: heart arrhythmia, blood clotting and infection. Despite the controversy, the technique was possibly responsible for Everett being able to walk again and could even have saved his life. Due to the hype surrounding Everett's case, there is now a huge wave of unfounded support for the induced-hypothermia technique. I am interested to know, without any real scientific basis for the positives of the technique, what should be the plan of action of the scientific community. Should the technique be used, knowing that it could possibly do damage with the hopes that it might help? How should doctors respond until we know the exact pros/cons of the technique?

Dr. Benzel, of the Cleveland Clinic said, “It now appears criminal to not employ, urgently, hypothermia for the care of spinal-cord injuries,” he said. “But in reality, it is not substantiated by truth. We should demand, and the public should demand we demand, research that substantiates safe and effective treatment before we embark on it.”

Grace Barnett

http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/18/pfizer-chantix-smoking-markets-equity-cx_ml_0118markets23.html

This article talks about a popular drug, called Chantix, that helps nicotine addicts stop smoking. The drug was approved by the FDA 1995 and has since been popularly prescribed by physcians to help their patients ween off of cigarettes/nicotine. However, the FDA has recently become aware of dangerous side effects associated with the drug. Apparently, Chantix can cause depression and even suicidal behavior in patients. However, this observation is controversial (mostly on the side of Pfizer, the manufacturing company) because it is a drug that causes the end of an ADDICTION. Is the depression and suicidal feelings a result of nicotine withdrawl, or is it actually due to the drug? Interesting article and topic...should smokers continue to take the drug to stop their nicotine addiction (and risk depression/suicide) or should they just keep on smoking?

Bridget Donovan

I just read an article concerning a study done about how musical conductors are better able to distinguish musical notes while performing a visual task than ordinary people. The article suggests that the findings of this study may prove that it is possible to “rewire” the brain in order to better be able to multitask. Though for a long while it has been commonly accepted that women are better able to multitask than men because of survival techniques that separated men from women in prehistoric times, the theory is now that most (anyone?) can “rewire” their brain and teach themselves to be able to functionally multitask. My main concern with the validity of this statement is that there are two possible explanations for the differences in how well the musical conductors performed as compared to the members of the general population. Either the musicians already had brains that were more capable of multitasking and thus became musicians, or they retrained their brains through hours and years of practice for distinguishing sounds and faces in ensembles. Although the article seems to suggest that the latter of the two explanations is more commonly accepted, I feel hesitant to disregard the other possibility I feel like this study does not necessarily prove beyond doubt that brains are able to be trained to multitask, because the possibility that people with this as a talent above normal functioning abilities do become musicians, and that is why that test group performed better on these diagnostic tests.
I believe that most people have the ability to train themselves to do multiple things at once, as long as they are dedicated enough to finishing everything that needs to get done. However, I still think that there is a disparity between those who can multitask and those who can multitask really well, and get results as if they had done the tasks one at a time. What I’m trying to say is that I believe there is a certain unique plateau for each individual beyond which one is not capable of training themselves to do several functions at once any more. I just wonder if this idea has been fully addressed in this study.

This is the site for the article:
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/figaro-figaro-training-the-multitasking-brain/

Lauren Barousse

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/depression-more-deadly-for-diabetics/?WT.mc_id=HL-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M011-ROS-0108-L2&WT.mc_ev=click&mkt=HL-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M011-ROS-0108-L2

This article discusses the potential depression can have on affecting the health of diabetics. A study was done in which 600 patients, 123 of which had diabetes, were split into two groups. Of these groups, one group received care from primary care doctors, including drug therapy, counseling, or both, and the other group received care that focused on depression management. After 5 years 110 patients had died. THe researchers found that the health of the otherwise healthy patients had not been affected by depression, but that the diabetic patients who had received less intensive care were twice as likely to die as those who had been cared for by depression case managers. The overwhelming results of this experiment suggest that the treatment of depression can play a big part in prolonging the life of diabetics.

I thought this article was really interesting because it showed a big connection between depression and diabetes, something I had previously thought completely unrelated. The research conducted seems to advocate the aggressive treatment of depression, particularly in patients with diabetes, based on the strong correlation between the two.

Lauren Barousse

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/health/research/08symp.html?_r=1&ref=research&oref=slogin

This article is another out of the New York Times. It explores the effects fever on children with disorders in the autism spectrum. Researchers asked the parents of 30 children to keep track of their childrens behavior during and in the days after a fever. The results of this were consistent showing of at least some effects after the child had a fever of at least 100.4 degrees. This study has shown that the fever could possibly be temporarily "rekindling" neural mechanisms that do not function properly in autistic people. This study appears to need much more development before this connection can be truly established, but I think the results are very interesting and promising to lead more insight into the cause and affects of disorders in the autism spectrum.

By Caroline Haeberle
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22718183/

This article talks about a woman with severe epilepsy who, before having surgery, was experiencing up to "10 grand mal seizures a day." Although she was taking medication her epilepsy was not getting better until she had a strange revelation. One day she heard a song by Sean Paul at a cook out and seconds later began to seize. She realized that the time she heard his music before, she also began to seize. She went to her doctors, iPod in hand, and showed the doctors what Sean Paul's songs did to her. Her doctors then monitored her brain with over 100 electrodes and played the song; therefore, the doctors were able to pinpoint the areas of abnormal activity. After a 4 hour surgery, Stacey Gayle never had another seizure.

I've heard that flashing lights and video games could cause seizures but who know that the thumping, hip-bumping sounds of Sean Paul could do the same.

By Caroline Haeberle
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22557169/

Wondering if a friend of yours is depressed? According to Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, how much perfume a woman puts on can hint to whether or not she is depressed. If she has on more than usual, it could be because of a decreased sense of smell which is a symptom of depression in patients with autoimmune diseases. The autoantibodies that cause depression turn off the olfactory gland cells, leading to a loss of smell. This also explains why women who are depressed commonly lose weight because loss of smell goes hand in hand with loss of taste. The article really didn't mention anything about the relationship between men, extra cologne, and depression.

From Connell Owings:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/fashion/03impression.html?sq=neuroscience&scp=11&pagewanted=print

This article from the New York Times discusses the hidden motives behind online socializing. It emphasizes how people modify their personalities, behavior, and appearances on online profiles to give certain impressions to others that view their information. They give the glimpse of themselves that they want others to see. The article calls this “impression management.” It suggests that people often pick what they think to be the best parts of themselves to show the internet world. Many well-known cyberspace socializing hotspots are mentioned, such as Facebook and Myspace. (Ones that we are all well-acquainted with). Furthermore, when people are asked why they misrepresent themselves on the internet, they are quick to come up with many excuses and defenses, providing the fudging of the truth is not too outrageous. Finally, the article suggests that online social sites should allow for people to selectively share different portions of themselves to different people.

It’s logical that one would want to distinguish between the appearance given to one’s parents and boss from one’s friends. Most students wouldn’t want their teachers to see pictures of them doing keg stands or dressed skankily for costume parties. Along the same lines, people don’t usually put up horrible pictures of themselves for their facebook profile pictures, unless its in a joking manner, because they want others to see themselves as attractive. And tons of people “detag” pictures on facebook that they don’t want others to see and judge them by. I think this article brings up many valid and interesting points that I had never really sat down and thought about before. Ultimately, we are all part of this “impression management.”

From the Minds of Babes Come the Beginnings of Morals
http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/brain/2008/01/10/from-the-minds-of-babes-come-the-beginnings-of-morals.html
~Maya Iyengar

For years, people have wondered whether the ability to judge actions as morally good or bad is innate at birth or instilled in people during childhood. Do children have to be taught how to interpret an action as good or bad? Or are they born with this ability? The results of a study conducted by Yale psychologist Karen Wynn of the Infant Cognition Laboratory suggest that “we are in fact born with the ability to interpret positive or negative actions”. There were two groups of infants in the study—6-month-olds and 10-month-olds. All of the babies were in a prelingual state during the test, to reduce the influence of language, education, culture, or experience of any sort. The tests given were simple. The infants watched a computer screen, on which scenarios involving different shapes of different colors were played. In one scenario, a red circle tries to climb up a hill, but keeps sliding down. A yellow triangle then comes and helps push the red circle to the top of the hill. In the other scenario, a blue square tries to push the red circle back down instead of helping it up the hill. The colors were switched around before shown to another group of infants to minimize, and hopefully eliminate, choices made due to color preferences instead of actions by the shapes. After being shown such scenarios, the infants were given the three shapes to play with. Every single child picked up the triangle to play with. This indicates a child’s preference for the helpful nature of the triangle. Such preference for a particular behavior was determined through a process known as “social evaluation”. The results are also significant, in noting that a child’s knowledge of right from wrong can come about without personal interaction; the infants simply watched a scenario as spectators before judging the actions of the shapes—they did not have to be involved to determine right from wrong. History, too, supports these conclusions, in that early humans were hunter-gatherers who worked, shared, lived, and fought as a group to preserve the individual. Perhaps this ability is one which has evolved to benefit an individual. In any case, we now know that “from the minds of babes come the beginnings of morals”.

Insights: Possible Link Between Sleep and Risk for Diabetes
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/health/15insi.html?ref=science
~Maya Iyengar

Researchers from the University of Chicago performed studies regarding the connection between sleep and levels of blood sugar. People who slept soundly all night long had normal amounts of blood sugar, but those who were repeatedly awakened while they slept had much higher levels of blood sugar. After three nights of disturbed sleep, normal, healthy individuals have trouble regulating their blood sugar, and “their bodies behave as if they are on an express train to diabetes”. For some reason, their bodies were not as sensitive to insulin and did not make more insulin to compensate. The biochemical reason has not been uncovered, but a “solution” can be extracted from this research. People who are overweight and/or older in age often have problems sleeping well, so this research suggests that if the quality of their sleep is improved, their susceptibility to becoming diabetic might be lowered.

This is Granvil George.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/73356
This is an old article (apparently magazines in the commons don't get thrown out, they just live on forever.) The gist is basically an explanation of how aging brains lose memory function (apparently it involves more a slowing of cognitive function rather than actual memory loss as older people use both brain hemispheres for verbal memory tasks while younger people tend to use just the left side, among many other things.) and then an explanation of several avenues of working to repair that loss. They talk about physical and mental efforts, but they also talk about drugs that are being designed. An MIT neuroscientist trained rats to be afraid of a cage by shocking them and then triggered degeneration of critical neurons causing the rats to no longer be afraid of the cage. He then put some of the mice in an 'enriched environment' while others were given an experimental drug that promotes synapse formation. Both sets of animals began again to exhibit fear.
Obviously this is revolutionary because it would fight simple senility and serve a delaying effect for the process of diseases such as Alzheimer's. I think this is fundamentally important because so much of human effort is spent to extend our life-spans while the tail end of that life-span, the part we've gained thanks to science and medicine, is occassionaly (often? hopefully not) in a state of near misery in large part because of degraded mental conditions. I think that this form of healing is crucial to truly bettering the human condition and extending 'life'.

Jerzy Kessler http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/briefs/publichealth/hb051026a.htm

Anesthesiology, the means by which patients are rendered unconscious and subsequently operated on, is, quite obviously, an essential part of modern medicine. Recent studies suggest, however, that once in a great while- the most generous estimates place the probability at approximately 1/500- anesthetics do not make a patient as “unconscious” as he or she may seem. This phenomenon, known as Anesthesia Awareness, leaves a person fully paralyzed, but also fully conscious, throughout the duration of an operation. The patient sometimes feels physical pain while in this state, and visual and auditory senses function normally. In one such example, Carol Weihrer was having on operation preformed on her diseased left eye. In her state of paralysis, Carol did not have the means to inform the doctors of her consciousness; thus she was forced to silently watch and listen as her eyeball was removed from her skull. Fortunately, methods of detecting Anesthesia Awareness are being developed. BIS- bispectral index- Monitors measure brain waves and convert them into a number on a 0-100 scale. A 100 represents full consciousness, with 40-60 being the ideal amount during surgery. Given the rarity of Anesthesia Awareness, however, many hospitals do not consider the device a worthwhile investment and demand increased testing of it. Time will tell if the BIS Monitor ever makes it to every hospital, but given the gruesome nature of Anesthesia Awareness, it is a debate that will most certainly live on.

Jerzy Kessler
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/sleep_deprivation

A naturally occurring brain hormone known as "Orexin A" appears to have the ability to reverse the effects of sleep deprivation, a new study shows. In the study, monkeys were deprived of sleep for roughly 30-36 hours and given a nasal spray containing either saline-solution or Orexin A. The saline-solution control group was severely impaired, but the Orexin A group showed cognitive activity virtually identical to that of a well-rested monkey. With no immediately visible side effects, some scientists are optimistic that the drug could end America's sleep-deprivation epidemic. Naturally, the drug has its critics as well. Scientists warn that the long-term consequences of sleep deprivation are still unknown, and could, according to a recent study, increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders. Nonetheless, as a college student, the prospect of a drug that reduces my need for sleep is very intriguing. As the article notes, however, commercial testing has not yet been approved by the FDA- a process that can take over a decade. By my perspective, if in 10+ years I'm still pulling all-nighters to finish a paper, I have bigger things to worry about than sleep deprivation. In the meantime, though, you'll just have to combat sleep deprivation the old-fashioned way: a good night's rest and a cup of coffee in the morning.

Hey it's Daria;
There was this article in the New York Times called "Watching Love as It Sears the Brain" which sounded interestin'. Apparently, neuroscientists for the first time have found a way to produce some brain scan images of love. Based on these scans, these neuroscientists have argued that the romantic love is different from just sexual drive as it activates different parts of the brain. In fact they compare the effects of love on the brain to an addict's drive for drugs as love seems to engage parts of the primitive brain causing often irrational behavior. The researchers say that love activates a brain chemical called "dopamine" which is a chemical that's released when someone is expecting a reward or is waitin' for some good thing to happen. Cocaine, incidently, activates this dopamine at a high rate causing those feelings of euphoria. The region of the brain that was activated was passion-related and was on the opposite side of the region where different chemicals are released when the person is just physically attracted to someone. The study however does not claim that it has pictured love per se but it's a valid study to prove how different emotions activate different regions of the brain and cause the release of different chemicals, in this case "dopamine".

Here's the link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/health/psychology/31love.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

It's Daria;
Brady, after Kevin Everett was injured in the special-team tackle, said that what attracts us to the game is often the violence and hard-hittin' in it. Well, that's kinda true. Just about every week in the NFL, several players suffer from concussions during the games because of the hits. These concussions, usually cause short-term blacking out and of course they often cause several months of migrane headaches which was what kept Zack Thomas, the Dolphins fantastic linebacker and pass rusher out of this football season. NFL has argued strongly over the years that these concussions don't have a clear long-term effect on player's lives. However, according to the study performed by the University of North Carolina concussions tend to increase the rate of depression amongst the retired NFL players significantly. After the Steelers' LB commited suicide by drinking anti-freeze the relationship between concussion and long-term mental help was questioned since Long had suffered multiple cases of concussions during his career. Ted Johnson, former Patriot's Linebacker, had also suffered from multiple cases of concussion and he claims that coach Billicheck told him to play on most snaps regardless without considering his injuries. NFL is still denying any relationship between concussion, depression and other mental diseases but it has allowed team doctors to report any misconduct and neglegance in regards to a player's health annonymously. This article, about depression and NFL players, was published in the New Yotk Times. Here's a link to it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/sports/football/31concussions.html

By Caroline Haeberle

http://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20080111/stomach-full-brain-may-not-know

A study conducted by Gene-Jack Wang, MD shows that the left amygdala is responsible for feelings of fullness. The experiment involved having patients of different weights swallow a tube with a balloon on the end, and then monitoring the patients brains as the balloon was slowly filled with water. The amygdala became more active as the subjects reported feelings of fullness. The skinnier subjects' amygdalas became active sooner than the heavier subjects' amygdalas. Therefore, Dr. Wang thinks that surgery on the amygdala could be very beneficial for those who are obese and have health risks as a result.

An article on upi.com (United Press International) says that research in the US and in Sweden has found that people who are exposed to cell phone radiation, especially right before bed, take much longer to fall asleep and then spend less time in deep sleep. Children and teenagers tend to talk on the phone for a long time before bed and so they put themselves at risk of sleep deprivation. Not getting enough sleep can lead to depression, poor school performance, and irritability. As you all know, the brain doesn't shut off during sleep, but is actually quite busy. I'd be interested in looking more into its role and function during sleep.

Rosemary Hambright

Here's the url to the article.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/01/19/study_cell_phone_use_disrupts_sleep/3591/

Marie Locke
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15robo.html
This article, found in the New York Times, talks about robots. Neuroscientists were able to use the brain signals of a monkey to make a robot walk. This has much greater implications-- such technology could eventually be used to give paralyzed people the ability to walk again. Before this can be done, however, we must first learn how to safely implant electrodes into the human brain. Until then, experiments harnessing the power of brain signals can only be performed on animals.

By Sarah Jenks:
We all know that as people age, their hearing often gets worse. But did you know that the same thing is happening to your muscles? As your bodies age, muscles require more neuronal stimulation in order to generate a response. Experiments have shown that for the same amount of neuron firing rates, their was less muscle response in the older study participants.However, continued exercise as you age, just like training your eyes or ears to be more alert, can prevent such decreases in muscle responses.
link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17707050/

Sarah jenks:
Many people from self-image disorders, where they have a distorted view of themselves. Although it may appear to be just a confidence problem stemming from some lack of emotional support, new research shows that it may actually be imprinted in the brain. Such people suffer from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), which can then lead to other problems, including suicide. In a study using functional MRI, the brains of people with BDD and without were scanned. Although there were no actual structural differences, the people with BDD relied much more on the left side of their brain than the right. The left side of the brain is involved in detailed analysis, which may explain why BDD sufferers focus so much on their body, and are able to analyze every flaw.
link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22087390/

Diane here. I don't really know, but I decided to check this page while doing my english paper, and then I had a weird thought. I feel like the neurons in my brain are running an uphill race whenever I study or do some type of academic work. In the beginning I work as fast and hard as I can until I get tired and I slow down. I thought it was kind of interesting that I don't just work at a steady pace. I wonder if its because my neurons are getting tired over a period of time or if thats just how I've learned to study.
What a strange thought huh?

This is Granvil;
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704672-2,00.html
Daria posted an article a couple of days ago about love's chemical effect on the brain, and this is an article from Time that is a little more comprehensive. Dopamine, which Daria discussed provides the exhilirating part of love, its cravings and its ecstasies. However in addition to dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin are also released, from an entirely distinct region of the brain (the nucleus accumbens, rather than the ventral tegmental.) Oxytocin essentially is an attatchment chemical. During labor and nursing, new mothers (and to a lesser extent, new fathers.) are flooded with the stuff, which is believed to be a major reason for the strong attatchment between mothers and their newborns. An experiment demonstrating this was done at the University of Illinois where an uninvolved aide would stand in the room while a mother was in labor and afterwards the mothers would remember the aide as very sympathetic, even though she did nothing.
At least as interesting to me is what goes on in yet another area of the brain, the caudate nuclei. This is the region of the brain where patterns and habits are stored, like the knowledge of how to type or drive a car- 'muscle memory' as it is often referred to. It is also the region of the brain that stores our feelings of love. Its amazing to me how deeply ingrained that means that love is embedded into our psyche. Very cool.
The article also discusses how adrenaline can distort our perceptions about others, as can drugs and alcohol, leading us to misinterpret our body's signals and to believe we are experiencing love- thus the phenomena of people who meet in crisis situations falling in love but rarely lasting as a couple. Finally the article also discussed how smell and taste factor into our perceptions of others. Apparently we as humans, and especially women, have developed the facility through smell and even more so through taste during a kiss to determine whether our prospective partner has a similar 'major histocompatibility complex, or MHC. Children whose mother and father have sufficiently different MHC's are more likely to be successfully carried to term, and it has been showed that this is mirrored in women's preferences- they consistently prefer the smell of men with different MHC's when given worn shirts to smell.
Love is an incredibly complex facet of humanity and it is fascinating to see even such a brief and simplified overview of part of how it works.

This is Granvil:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704686,00.html
Health improvements that accompany marriage such as a longer lifespan, lower levels of drinking and smoking, and lower rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer and mental illness have been known about for a long time. There are many hypothesized reasons for this, but one interesting reason recently determined by UVA neuroscientist James Coan has to do with the stress hormone Cortisol.
Stress hormones are useful but people under stress use extra energy and eventually causes health problems. Coan conducted an experiment where married women monitored by fMRI were told they would recieve an electric shock. For happily married women, activity in the hypothalamus, which instructs the adrenal gland to create cortisol, declined sharply when their husband held their hand. Also, this hand-holding diminished activity in the right anterior insula, which calls your attention to areas in which you feel pain, so apparently spouses can also function as an analgesic. These same effects were not found in unhappy marriages or when the women's hands were held by strangers.
One interesting part of the health benefits of marriage is that men recieve much greater levels of the aforementioned benefits, even though married men are also more likely to be overweight. It seems to me that this probably provides evidence of some continued household inequality between the sexes. Also, 'negative marriage interactions' like eye-rolling and arguments not only cause the release of cortisol but also decrease immune function and wound healing.
Finally recently bereaved spouses are more likely to die from almost any cause than others of the same age.
Obviously, social interactions have huge impacts on our brain chemistry, and marriage is one of the most fundamental forms of social interaction in our cultural. I think this article provides an engrossing description of the effects that that social institution can have on our bodies and brains

He’s Not as Smart as He Thinks
http://www.newsweek.com/id/101079?g=1
~Maya Iyengar

Adrian Furnham, a British researcher and psychology professor at the University College in London, concluded from about 30 international studies that even though men and women are equally intelligent in terms of IQ, men overestimate their intellect while women underestimate theirs. On IQ tests, men tend to have higher scores in specialized skills like spatial awareness (they have a better sense of direction and are better at analyzing maps and navigating). Women, on the other hand, score higher in areas of language development and emotional intelligence. Overall, the scores even out to the conclusion that there is no significant difference in the relationship between gender and intelligence. Furnham studies “perceived intelligence”, not actual intelligence levels between genders. He analyzes how smart people think they are. Women all over the world downplay their intelligence—they underestimate their IQ by about five points on average. Men, thanks to their bigger egos, show a lot more self-confidence when it comes to their IQ. These conclusions are the result of the “male hubris and female humility effect”. If an IQ bell curve is drawn for both genders, the average IQ for males and female is about the same, but the far left and right ends of the bell curve are most likely men. As can be and has been observed in most university settings, men are either at the top of their class or at the very bottom. In general, people think that men are smarter over generations—fathers are thought to be smarter than mothers, and grandfathers are thought to be smarter than grandmothers. Sadly, parents often believe that their sons are more intelligent than their daughters. This could lead to parents sending the wrong message to their kids about their abilities, which in turn could be the cause of the ongoing belief that men are more intelligent. It’s interesting that men with low intelligence believe they are extremely bright, while very intelligent women believe that their intelligence is low. This could affect how men and women are perceived at times in which self-confidence in one’s abilities is important—for instance, during a job interview, if a man portrays more confidence in his abilities than a woman, he may be hired even if the woman is better qualified for the job. These results were both expected and unexpected, in that men do often believe them to be smarter. However, a lot of women think they are smarter than men, and girls tend to do better in almost all subjects compared to boys. A little self-belief for women and a little humility for men might help both genders better estimate their own intelligence.

This is Sam Brusca posting. Many of you have no doubt heard of the Human Genome project which was completed in 2000. The Human Genome officially mapped the entire human genome; all 25,000 genes. This was a big step in science, medicine, you name it. One of the main researchers and contributors to the Human Genome project is J. Craig Venter. His lab, in Rockville, Md (only 5 minutes from my house!), is no doing something possibly even more important. Venter has created his own genome from scratch. He has constructed a new single cell organism. He is yet to take the new genome and insert it into a new cell, however; he has experimented with the process of foreign DNA insertion. In most cases, the host cell's DNA production stops and the new genome takes over. Though this is not directly related to Neuroscience, I find this article very interesting and cutting edge. This could be the angle of future medicine. Already there has been a shift towards Gene therapies. The creation of a genome encoding a vertebrate or multi-cellular organism is far off, but it is definitely in the scope of reality to think that at some point humans will be able to create new species. I can only imagine the process of creating the genome sequence that codes for all the intricate and beautiful ladders of the nervous system. It makes me think about everything we are studying. All these enzymes, receptors, G-Proteins, Neurotransmitters, micro-tubules, and nearly everything else related to neurotransmission is coded for somewhere in our DNA.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1706552-1,00.html

Tori Stevens

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/GadgetGuide/story?id=4202266&page=1

In this article, some British scientists believe that they have found a possible aid for Alzheimer's in the form of a goofy looking hat. Supposedly, it uses a certain wavelength of infrared light to stimulate healing and regeneration of neurons.
They have performed tests with this technology on elderly rats with mental decline. After treatment, the aged rats had the memory performance of young rats in maze applications. Tests on human subjects are slated to begin this summer.

Many people in the scientific community are very skeptical about this idea. It seems too easy, too simple, and pretty far-fetched. I think this is just another gimmick for a very broad disease. We will have to see how it goes with human results...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-discover-way-to-reverse-loss-of-memory-775586.html

Blogger Nat here, bringing you the freshest neuroscience news on the block. A team of scientists attempting to cure an obese man of his insatiable appetite accidentally stumbled upon a technique that may lead to effective treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. The discovery came by way of deep-brain stimulation, where the patient is locally anesthetized and an electrode inserted in the brain. The team was hoping to stimulate an area relating to appetite, but when they turned up the juice, the man suddenly announced that old memories were flooding back. According to the doctors:
"He reported the experience of being in a park with friends from when he was around 20 years old and, as the intensity of stimulation increased, the details became more vivid. He recognized his girlfriend [from the time] ... The scene was in color. People were wearing identifiable clothes and were talking, but he could not decipher what they were saying."
The discovery has many in the field excited, and other trials are currently underway, with patients wearing permanently implanted electrodes attached to pacemaker-like devices worn on the body.

If you don't read the article, at least check out the "cartoon," as Prof. Stewart would say, of "What We Know about the Human Brain." Ah, if it were only that simple...

p.s. has anyone noticed that when you type neuroscience, the spellchecker suggests "pseudoscience?" eh eh eh...

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran07/ramachandran07_index.html

Blogger Nat, right back with some tasty bloggery. This is an article that I read last year, but it is pretty interesting. It deals with so-called "mirror-neurons." A team of neuroscientists, G. Rizzolati, V. Gallase and I. Iaccoboni, were observing cortical function in monkeys. When the monkeys reached for food, a certain set of neurons would fire; when they pushed a button, another particular set of neurons would fire, etc. The observance of these "command" neurons was no suprise to the team; the real interesting part came with the observance of a subset of the command neurons, which would fire, "not only (say) when the monkey reached for a peanut, but also when it watched another monkey reach for a peanut!" The monkeys were essentially imagining themselves in the other monkey's shoes to figure out, as the article says, "what he was up to." The author of the article, V.S. Ramachandran, expounds upon this research, arguing that development of these mirror-neurons led to our ability to be self-conscious. Prettyyy-pretttyyyyy interesting stuff.