Science is the poetry of Nature.
Contributing Authors
Posts tagged "PSYCHOLOGY"
neuromorphogenesis: The Neuroscience of Calming a Baby Every parent and caregiver knows from first hand experience that babies calm down when they are picked up, gently rocked, and carried around the room. New research published in the journal Current Biology on April 18, 2013 shows that this is a universal phenomenon. Infants experience an automatic calming reaction when they are being carried, whether they are mouse pups or human babies. “From humans to mice, mammalian infants become calm and relaxed when they are carried by their mother,” says Kumi Kuroda of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama, Japan. Being held in a mother’s arms is the safest place for a baby to be, and the mother can have peace of mind knowing her baby is happy, content, and relaxed. The fact that babies are neurobiologically wired to stop crying when carried is a part of our evolutionary biology that helps our species survive. This study is the first to show that the infant calming response to carrying is a coordinated set of central, motor, and cardiac regulations that is an evolutionarily preserved aspect of mother-infant interactions, the researchers say. It also helps to have a scientific explanation for the frustration many new parents struggle with… a calm and relaxed infant will often begin crying immediately when he or she is put down. When my daughter was young, swaddling her seemed to create a compact posture and sense of security that triggered an automatic relaxation response when she was put back down and helped break this cycle. What triggers this calming response? Kuroda and colleagues at RIKEN determined that the calming response is mediated by the parasympathetic nervous system and a region of the brain called the cerebellum (Latin: little brain). The researchers found that the calming response was dependent on tactile inputs and proprioception. Proprioception is the ability to sense and understand body movements and keep track of your body’s position in space. They also found that the parasympathetic nervous system helped lower heart rate as part of mediating the coordinated response to being carried. Both human and mouse babies calm down and stop moving immediately after they are carried, and mouse pups stop emitting ultrasonic cries. Mouse pups also adopt the characteristic compact posture, with limbs flexed, seen in other mammals such as cats and lions. The idea that the familiar calming dynamic was also playing out in mice occurred to Kuroda one day when she was cleaning the cages of her mouse colony in the laboratory. She says, “When I picked the pups up at the back skin very softly and swiftly as mouse mothers did, they immediately stopped moving and became compact. They appeared relaxed, but not totally floppy, and kept the limbs flexed. This calming response in mice appeared similar to me to soothing by maternal carrying in human babies.” The Role of the Cerebellum in Calmness The cerebellum is always on guard to protect your body from danger and prepare you for ‘fight-or-flight’ by keeping track of everything going on in your environment.  Among many other jobs, the cerebellum has a huge responsibility to maintain your safety and physical well being. This takes a lot of brain power and energy. Although the cerebellum is only 10% of brain volume it holds over 50% of your brain’s neurons. Neuroscientists are perplexed by everything that the cerebellum does. This study offers one more valuable clue.  Scientists have known for years that the cerebellum is directly linked to a feedback loop with the vagus nerve which keeps heart rate slow and gives you grace under pressure. As adults, we can calm ourselves by practicing mindfulness and Loving-Kindness Meditation which puts the cerebellum at peace and creates a parasympathetic response of well being. This appears to be the same response that occurs in infants when they are being carried.  Interestingly, the only time during the day that the cerebellum is allowed to let down it’s guard and go offline is during REM sleep when your body is paralyzed to prevent you from acting out your dreams. It makes sense that being picked up and carried would send automatic signals that allow the cerebellum to relax and create healthy vagal tone which would lower heart rates in infants. Conclusion The researchers believe that these findings could have broad implications for parenting and contribute to preventing child abuse. “This infant response reduces the maternal burden of carrying and is beneficial for both the mother and the infant,” explains Kuroda. She goes on to say, “Such proper understanding of infants would reduce frustration of parents and be beneficial, because unsoothable crying is a major risk factor for child abuse.” “A scientific understanding of this infant response will save parents from misreading the restart of crying as the intention of the infant to control the parents, as some parenting theories—such as the ‘cry it out’ type of strategy—suggest,” Kuroda says. “Rather, this phenomenon should be interpreted as a natural consequence of the infant sensorimotor systems.” If parents understand that properly, perhaps they will be less frustrated by the crying, Kuroda says. And that puts those children at lower risk of abuse. The authors conclude that, “Although our study was done on mothers, we believe that this is not specific to moms and can be used by any primary caregiver.”

neuromorphogenesis:

The Neuroscience of Calming a Baby

Every parent and caregiver knows from first hand experience that babies calm down when they are picked up, gently rocked, and carried around the room. New research published in the journal Current Biology on April 18, 2013 shows that this is a universal phenomenon. Infants experience an automatic calming reaction when they are being carried, whether they are mouse pups or human babies.

“From humans to mice, mammalian infants become calm and relaxed when they are carried by their mother,” says Kumi Kuroda of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama, Japan. Being held in a mother’s arms is the safest place for a baby to be, and the mother can have peace of mind knowing her baby is happy, content, and relaxed. The fact that babies are neurobiologically wired to stop crying when carried is a part of our evolutionary biology that helps our species survive.

This study is the first to show that the infant calming response to carrying is a coordinated set of central, motor, and cardiac regulations that is an evolutionarily preserved aspect of mother-infant interactions, the researchers say. It also helps to have a scientific explanation for the frustration many new parents struggle with… a calm and relaxed infant will often begin crying immediately when he or she is put down. When my daughter was young, swaddling her seemed to create a compact posture and sense of security that triggered an automatic relaxation response when she was put back down and helped break this cycle.

What triggers this calming response?

Kuroda and colleagues at RIKEN determined that the calming response is mediated by the parasympathetic nervous system and a region of the brain called the cerebellum (Latin: little brain). The researchers found that the calming response was dependent on tactile inputs and proprioception. Proprioception is the ability to sense and understand body movements and keep track of your body’s position in space. They also found that the parasympathetic nervous system helped lower heart rate as part of mediating the coordinated response to being carried.

Both human and mouse babies calm down and stop moving immediately after they are carried, and mouse pups stop emitting ultrasonic cries. Mouse pups also adopt the characteristic compact posture, with limbs flexed, seen in other mammals such as cats and lions.

The idea that the familiar calming dynamic was also playing out in mice occurred to Kuroda one day when she was cleaning the cages of her mouse colony in the laboratory. She says, “When I picked the pups up at the back skin very softly and swiftly as mouse mothers did, they immediately stopped moving and became compact. They appeared relaxed, but not totally floppy, and kept the limbs flexed. This calming response in mice appeared similar to me to soothing by maternal carrying in human babies.”

The Role of the Cerebellum in Calmness

The cerebellum is always on guard to protect your body from danger and prepare you for ‘fight-or-flight’ by keeping track of everything going on in your environment. 

Among many other jobs, the cerebellum has a huge responsibility to maintain your safety and physical well being. This takes a lot of brain power and energy. Although the cerebellum is only 10% of brain volume it holds over 50% of your brain’s neurons. Neuroscientists are perplexed by everything that the cerebellum does. This study offers one more valuable clue. 

Scientists have known for years that the cerebellum is directly linked to a feedback loop with the vagus nerve which keeps heart rate slow and gives you grace under pressure. As adults, we can calm ourselves by practicing mindfulness and Loving-Kindness Meditation which puts the cerebellum at peace and creates a parasympathetic response of well being. This appears to be the same response that occurs in infants when they are being carried. 

Interestingly, the only time during the day that the cerebellum is allowed to let down it’s guard and go offline is during REM sleep when your body is paralyzed to prevent you from acting out your dreams. It makes sense that being picked up and carried would send automatic signals that allow the cerebellum to relax and create healthy vagal tone which would lower heart rates in infants.

Conclusion

The researchers believe that these findings could have broad implications for parenting and contribute to preventing child abuse. “This infant response reduces the maternal burden of carrying and is beneficial for both the mother and the infant,” explains Kuroda. She goes on to say, “Such proper understanding of infants would reduce frustration of parents and be beneficial, because unsoothable crying is a major risk factor for child abuse.”

“A scientific understanding of this infant response will save parents from misreading the restart of crying as the intention of the infant to control the parents, as some parenting theories—such as the ‘cry it out’ type of strategy—suggest,” Kuroda says. “Rather, this phenomenon should be interpreted as a natural consequence of the infant sensorimotor systems.” If parents understand that properly, perhaps they will be less frustrated by the crying, Kuroda says. And that puts those children at lower risk of abuse.

The authors conclude that, “Although our study was done on mothers, we believe that this is not specific to moms and can be used by any primary caregiver.”

Photo
neuromorphogenesis: Mindscapes: The woman who was dropped into her body Mindscapes is our new column on brain science with a difference: we meet people who live with the world’s most mysterious neurological conditions Name: Louise AireyCondition: Depersonalisation disorder “I feel like I have been dropped into my body. I know this is my voice and these are my memories, but they don’t feel like they belong to me.” It happened out of the blue. Louise Airey was 8 years old, off sick from school, when suddenly she felt like she had been dropped into her own body. “It’s just so difficult to verbalise what this feels like,” she says. “All of a sudden you’re hyper aware, and everything else in the world seems unreal, like a movie.” She panicked, but told no one. The feeling soon passed but returned several times until, at the age of 19, a migraine triggered a sensation of being disconnected from the world that was to last 18 months. When she was in her 30s she was diagnosed with depersonalisation disorder – an altered sense of self with all-encompassing feelings of not occupying your own body, and detachment from your thoughts and actions. It has come and gone throughout her life, but since a traumatic pregnancy 20 months ago, these feelings have remained constant. “Other people seem like robots,” Airey says. “It’s like I’m watching a film, like I’m on my own in the centre of everything and nothing else is real. I’ll be speaking to my children and I’ll catch my voice talking and it seems really alien and foreign. It makes you feel very separated and lonely from everything, like you’re the only person that is real.” Not so rare Depersonalisation disorder is not as rare as you might think, says Anthony David at King’s College London and the Maudsley Hospital: it may affect almost 1 per cent of the British population (Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, DOI: 10.1007/s00127-010-0327-7). We’ve all probably experienced mild versions of it at some point, in the unreal, spaced-out feeling you might get while severely jet-lagged or hung-over, for example. Now neuroscientists are beginning to uncover what goes wrong in those who persistently feel unreal. Their findings could tell us something about how we all form a sense of self, and potentially, bring a treatment for those who have the disorder. The sense of self has much to do with our awareness of our physicality and how we interact with the outside world. The brain integrates all the information coming in from the external world and from internal sensations and forms a default setting of “this is me here and now”, says Nick Medford, who studies depersonalisation at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, UK. “If that setting changes somehow, then you feel ‘not right’, in a way that might be very hard to put into words.” There are probably several ways that change can occur, but Medford’s work is looking at on the emotional detachment characteristic of depersonalisation. In people who have the disorder, areas of the brain that are key to emotion are much less active than normal. These people also show unusual autonomic physical responses to external stimuli, such as evocative images (Emotion Review, DOI: 10.1177/1754073911430135). David and his colleagues are also looking at why people with depersonalisation disorder report emotional “numbing” – the feeling that the world is somehow alien. They have found that some areas in the brain’s frontal lobes, which help keep emotions in check, are overactive, or too controlling. Living the scream One symptom related to this skewed brain activity is the sensation of all sounds competing against each other to be heard. It’s like living inside Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, Airey says, which some critics have suggested is about depersonalisation. “The person and the landscape are screaming, you can’t get any peace.” Another area of the brain that appears to be less responsive in depersonalisation is the anterior insula, responsible for integrating physical and emotional sensations. This might explain why sufferers don’t feel in touch with the world, Medford says. It’s not only the outside world that seems strange, says Airey. The disorder makes it almost impossible for her to relate to herself. “Everything that you’re familiar with yourself – your thoughts, your memories – become alien,” she says. “Memories of things you’ve done don’t feel like they belong to you; it robs you of your past. I know rationally that they’re my thoughts, my voice, my memories, but they’re all wrong – that why it’s so frightening. It takes away the core of who you are.” Airey says she would investigate any potential treatment. There is an epilepsy drug, Lamotrigine, that has shown some promise when combined with an antidepressant in trials. Transcranial magnetic stimulation – in which an electromagnet stimulates or suppresses neuronal activity – is also being explored by David’s team to retrain the depersonalised brain. “Rationally knowing that I’m real, that these memories are real, that my voice is my own, but not feeling like they all belong to me is somehow worse than being away with fairies,” Airey says. “It’s like I’m a sane person gone mad.”

neuromorphogenesis:

Mindscapes: The woman who was dropped into her body

Mindscapes is our new column on brain science with a difference: we meet people who live with the world’s most mysterious neurological conditions

Name: Louise Airey
Condition: Depersonalisation disorder

“I feel like I have been dropped into my body. I know this is my voice and these are my memories, but they don’t feel like they belong to me.”

It happened out of the blue. Louise Airey was 8 years old, off sick from school, when suddenly she felt like she had been dropped into her own body. “It’s just so difficult to verbalise what this feels like,” she says. “All of a sudden you’re hyper aware, and everything else in the world seems unreal, like a movie.”

She panicked, but told no one. The feeling soon passed but returned several times until, at the age of 19, a migraine triggered a sensation of being disconnected from the world that was to last 18 months. When she was in her 30s she was diagnosed with depersonalisation disorder – an altered sense of self with all-encompassing feelings of not occupying your own body, and detachment from your thoughts and actions. It has come and gone throughout her life, but since a traumatic pregnancy 20 months ago, these feelings have remained constant.

“Other people seem like robots,” Airey says. “It’s like I’m watching a film, like I’m on my own in the centre of everything and nothing else is real. I’ll be speaking to my children and I’ll catch my voice talking and it seems really alien and foreign. It makes you feel very separated and lonely from everything, like you’re the only person that is real.”

Not so rare

Depersonalisation disorder is not as rare as you might think, says Anthony David at King’s College London and the Maudsley Hospital: it may affect almost 1 per cent of the British population (Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, DOI: 10.1007/s00127-010-0327-7). We’ve all probably experienced mild versions of it at some point, in the unreal, spaced-out feeling you might get while severely jet-lagged or hung-over, for example. Now neuroscientists are beginning to uncover what goes wrong in those who persistently feel unreal. Their findings could tell us something about how we all form a sense of self, and potentially, bring a treatment for those who have the disorder.

The sense of self has much to do with our awareness of our physicality and how we interact with the outside world. The brain integrates all the information coming in from the external world and from internal sensations and forms a default setting of “this is me here and now”, says Nick Medford, who studies depersonalisation at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, UK. “If that setting changes somehow, then you feel ‘not right’, in a way that might be very hard to put into words.”

There are probably several ways that change can occur, but Medford’s work is looking at on the emotional detachment characteristic of depersonalisation. In people who have the disorder, areas of the brain that are key to emotion are much less active than normal. These people also show unusual autonomic physical responses to external stimuli, such as evocative images (Emotion Review, DOI: 10.1177/1754073911430135).

David and his colleagues are also looking at why people with depersonalisation disorder report emotional “numbing” – the feeling that the world is somehow alien. They have found that some areas in the brain’s frontal lobes, which help keep emotions in check, are overactive, or too controlling.

Living the scream

One symptom related to this skewed brain activity is the sensation of all sounds competing against each other to be heard. It’s like living inside Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, Airey says, which some critics have suggested is about depersonalisation. “The person and the landscape are screaming, you can’t get any peace.”

Another area of the brain that appears to be less responsive in depersonalisation is the anterior insula, responsible for integrating physical and emotional sensations. This might explain why sufferers don’t feel in touch with the world, Medford says.

It’s not only the outside world that seems strange, says Airey. The disorder makes it almost impossible for her to relate to herself. “Everything that you’re familiar with yourself – your thoughts, your memories – become alien,” she says. “Memories of things you’ve done don’t feel like they belong to you; it robs you of your past. I know rationally that they’re my thoughts, my voice, my memories, but they’re all wrong – that why it’s so frightening. It takes away the core of who you are.”

Airey says she would investigate any potential treatment. There is an epilepsy drug, Lamotrigine, that has shown some promise when combined with an antidepressant in trials. Transcranial magnetic stimulation – in which an electromagnet stimulates or suppresses neuronal activity – is also being explored by David’s team to retrain the depersonalised brain.

“Rationally knowing that I’m real, that these memories are real, that my voice is my own, but not feeling like they all belong to me is somehow worse than being away with fairies,” Airey says. “It’s like I’m a sane person gone mad.”

Photo
neuromorphogenesis: Negative Emotions in Response to Daily Stress Take a Toll on Long-Term Mental Health Our emotional responses to the stresses of daily life may predict our long-term mental health, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Psychological scientist Susan Charles of the University of California, Irvine and colleagues conducted the study in order to answer a long-standing question: Do daily emotional experiences add up to make the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or do these experiences make us stronger and provide an inoculation against later distress? Using data from two national surveys, the researchers examined the relationship between daily negative emotions and mental health outcomes ten years later. Participants’ overall levels of negative emotions predicted psychological distress (e.g., feeling worthless, hopeless, nervous, and/or restless) and diagnosis of an emotional disorder like anxiety or depression a full decade after the emotions were initially measured. Participants’ negative emotional responses to daily stressors — such as argument or a problem at work or home — predicted psychological distress and self-reported emotional disorder ten years later. The researchers argue that a key strength of the study was their ability to tap a large, national community sample of participants who spanned a wide age range. The results were based on data from 711 participants, both men and women, who ranged in age from 25 to 74. They were all participants in two national, longitudinal survey studies: Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) and National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE). According to Charles and her colleagues, these findings show that mental health outcomes aren’t only affected by major life events — they also bear the impact of seemingly minor emotional experiences. The study suggests that chronic nature of these negative emotions in response to daily stressors can take a toll on long-term mental health. In addition to Charles, co-authors on the study include Jennifer Piazza of California State University, Fullerton; and Jacqueline Mogle, Martin Sliwinski, and David Almeida of Pennsylvania State University.

neuromorphogenesis:

Negative Emotions in Response to Daily Stress Take a Toll on Long-Term Mental Health

Our emotional responses to the stresses of daily life may predict our long-term mental health, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Psychological scientist Susan Charles of the University of California, Irvine and colleagues conducted the study in order to answer a long-standing question: Do daily emotional experiences add up to make the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or do these experiences make us stronger and provide an inoculation against later distress?

Using data from two national surveys, the researchers examined the relationship between daily negative emotions and mental health outcomes ten years later.

Participants’ overall levels of negative emotions predicted psychological distress (e.g., feeling worthless, hopeless, nervous, and/or restless) and diagnosis of an emotional disorder like anxiety or depression a full decade after the emotions were initially measured.

Participants’ negative emotional responses to daily stressors — such as argument or a problem at work or home — predicted psychological distress and self-reported emotional disorder ten years later.

The researchers argue that a key strength of the study was their ability to tap a large, national community sample of participants who spanned a wide age range. The results were based on data from 711 participants, both men and women, who ranged in age from 25 to 74. They were all participants in two national, longitudinal survey studies: Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) and National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE).

According to Charles and her colleagues, these findings show that mental health outcomes aren’t only affected by major life events — they also bear the impact of seemingly minor emotional experiences. The study suggests that chronic nature of these negative emotions in response to daily stressors can take a toll on long-term mental health.

In addition to Charles, co-authors on the study include Jennifer Piazza of California State University, Fullerton; and Jacqueline Mogle, Martin Sliwinski, and David Almeida of Pennsylvania State University.

Photo
Multiple Genes Robustly Contribute to Schizophrenia Risk in Replication Study Multiple genes contribute to risk for schizophrenia and appear to function in pathways related to transmission of signals in the brain and immunity, according to an international study led by Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy researchers. By better understanding the molecular and biological mechanisms involved with schizophrenia, scientists hope to use this new genetic information to one day develop and design drugs that are more efficacious and have fewer side effects. In a study published online in the April issue of JAMA Psychiatry, the JAMA Network journal, researchers used a comprehensive and unique approach to robustly identify genes and biological processes conferring risk for schizophrenia. The researchers first used 21,953 subjects to examine over a million genetic markers. They then systematically collected results from other kinds of biological schizophrenia studies and combined all these results using a novel data integration approach. The most promising genetic markers were tested again in a large collection of families with schizophrenia patients, a design that avoids pitfalls that have plagued genetic studies of schizophrenia in the past. The genes they identified after this comprehensive approach were found to have involvement in brain function, nerve cell development and immune response. “Now that we have genes that are robustly associated with schizophrenia, we can begin to design much more specific experiments to understand how disruption of these genes may affect brain development and function,” said principal investigator Edwin van den Oord, Ph.D., professor and director of the Center for Biomarker Research and Personalized Medicine in the Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcomes Science at the VCU School of Pharmacy. “Also, some of these genes provide excellent targets for the development of new drugs,” he said. One specific laboratory experiment currently underway at VCU to better understand the function of one of these genes, TCF4, is being led by Joseph McClay, Ph.D., a co-author on the study and assistant professor and laboratory director in the VCU Center for Biomarker Research and Personalized Medicine. TCF4 works by switching on other genes in the brain. McClay and colleagues are conducting a National Institutes of Health-funded study to determine all genes that are under the control of TCF4. By mapping the entire network, they aim to better understand how disruptions to TCF4 increase risk for schizophrenia. “Our results also suggest that the novel data integration approach used in this study is a promising tool that potentially can be of great value in studies of a large variety of complex genetic disorders,” said lead author Karolina A. Aberg, Ph.D., research assistant professor and laboratory co-director of the Center for Biomarker Research and Personalized Medicine in the VCU School of Pharmacy.

Multiple Genes Robustly Contribute to Schizophrenia Risk in Replication Study

Multiple genes contribute to risk for schizophrenia and appear to function in pathways related to transmission of signals in the brain and immunity, according to an international study led by Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy researchers.

By better understanding the molecular and biological mechanisms involved with schizophrenia, scientists hope to use this new genetic information to one day develop and design drugs that are more efficacious and have fewer side effects.

In a study published online in the April issue of JAMA Psychiatry, the JAMA Network journal, researchers used a comprehensive and unique approach to robustly identify genes and biological processes conferring risk for schizophrenia.

The researchers first used 21,953 subjects to examine over a million genetic markers. They then systematically collected results from other kinds of biological schizophrenia studies and combined all these results using a novel data integration approach.

The most promising genetic markers were tested again in a large collection of families with schizophrenia patients, a design that avoids pitfalls that have plagued genetic studies of schizophrenia in the past. The genes they identified after this comprehensive approach were found to have involvement in brain function, nerve cell development and immune response.

“Now that we have genes that are robustly associated with schizophrenia, we can begin to design much more specific experiments to understand how disruption of these genes may affect brain development and function,” said principal investigator Edwin van den Oord, Ph.D., professor and director of the Center for Biomarker Research and Personalized Medicine in the Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcomes Science at the VCU School of Pharmacy.

“Also, some of these genes provide excellent targets for the development of new drugs,” he said.

One specific laboratory experiment currently underway at VCU to better understand the function of one of these genes, TCF4, is being led by Joseph McClay, Ph.D., a co-author on the study and assistant professor and laboratory director in the VCU Center for Biomarker Research and Personalized Medicine. TCF4 works by switching on other genes in the brain. McClay and colleagues are conducting a National Institutes of Health-funded study to determine all genes that are under the control of TCF4. By mapping the entire network, they aim to better understand how disruptions to TCF4 increase risk for schizophrenia.

“Our results also suggest that the novel data integration approach used in this study is a promising tool that potentially can be of great value in studies of a large variety of complex genetic disorders,” said lead author Karolina A. Aberg, Ph.D., research assistant professor and laboratory co-director of the Center for Biomarker Research and Personalized Medicine in the VCU School of Pharmacy.

Photo
Animal Cams: Why We Can’t Look Away What is it about animal webcams? These stress-busting, smile-inducing sites are like an online yoga class, giving us a break from our daily routine of reading, writing and analyzing data while plugging our brains into a monitor and keyboard all day. In fact, experts say that watching these cute animals affects our brain’s pleasure centers, releasing the same neurotransmitter dopamine that is also associated with substances like drugs and sugar. Yes, that cute kitty playing with a ball of string might have the same effect as crack. Well, not quite, but almost. That’s according to Oriana Aragon, a graduate student in psychology at Yale University who has been studying the effects of “cute” animals on the human psyche. “Cute has a power over us,” Aragon said. “We are drawn to cute things. That might be what you are tapping into when you are looking at animal webcams.” Animal Planet recently partnered with the Washington Animal Rescue League to create a new site featuring animal webcam feeds. The network set up cams for kittens, puppies, penguins, ants, jellyfish, baby calves and tropical reef fish. Some creatures are obviously not as cute as others. Full Story

Animal Cams: Why We Can’t Look Away

What is it about animal webcams? These stress-busting, smile-inducing sites are like an online yoga class, giving us a break from our daily routine of reading, writing and analyzing data while plugging our brains into a monitor and keyboard all day.

In fact, experts say that watching these cute animals affects our brain’s pleasure centers, releasing the same neurotransmitter dopamine that is also associated with substances like drugs and sugar.

Yes, that cute kitty playing with a ball of string might have the same effect as crack. Well, not quite, but almost. That’s according to Oriana Aragon, a graduate student in psychology at Yale University who has been studying the effects of “cute” animals on the human psyche.

“Cute has a power over us,” Aragon said. “We are drawn to cute things. That might be what you are tapping into when you are looking at animal webcams.”

Animal Planet recently partnered with the Washington Animal Rescue League to create a new site featuring animal webcam feeds. The network set up cams for kittens, puppies, penguins, ants, jellyfish, baby calves and tropical reef fish. Some creatures are obviously not as cute as others.

Full Story

(via abluegirl)

Photo
neuromorphogenesis:  More Coffee, Less Bang? Joshua Gowin, Ph.D. in You, Illuminated A good friend of mine visits the Starbucks near his office at least 3 times a day. He says he can’t work any other way. There’s something alluring to the thought that if you need more energy, you can just gulp down a coffee and, like Popeye after spinach, you become a better version of yourself. But do you really gain from drinking coffee, or is the effect all in your mind? According to a new study from the University of Bristol, regular caffeine consumers may not receive any benefit in performance. Worse still, they may depend on their favorite beverage just to function at the baseline level of non-consumers. The lackluster effects of caffeine may come as a surprise, but that may be the bitter truth in your cup.   Psychologist Peter Rogers, who has studied the effects of caffeine for nearly 20 years, led this study. Rogers recruited 157 low drinkers of caffeine (less than 40 mg caffeine per day) and 212 high drinkers (more than 40 mg caffeine per day). The low drinkers averaged 10 mg of caffeine per day and the high drinkers averaged 235 mg per day, which is about 2 cups of coffee. Participants weren’t allowed to drink caffeine between 7pm the night prior to the study and 9:30am the following morning, when they arrived at the laboratory. Participants were excluded if they had a high concentration of caffeine—more than 2 mg— in their saliva the morning of testing. Rogers tested memory, motor function, and reaction time. He also had participants rate their level of sleepiness and mental alertness.  Rogers tested reaction time by asking participants to focus on the center of a computer screen, where either an ‘A’ or ‘B’ would flash. They tried to correctly identify whether they saw an ‘A’ or ‘B’ as quickly as possible. Distracters, such as shapes (stars, squares) or letters (A or B), also appeared next to the target letter to increase the error rate. The first test occurred at 10:30, not long after the participants arrived and before they consumed any caffeine. Low caffeine consumers were significantly better at identifying A’s and B’s. The high caffeine consumers made nearly 2 more errors on average during the task compared to the low caffeine drinkers. Caffeine withdrawal impaired their  vigilance in the morning. Participants took two pills during the day, first at 11:15am and again at 12:45pm. Half the participants received a placebo and the other half received caffeine (100 mg in the first pill, 150 mg in the second). There were four groups, high caffeine consumers who received placebo or caffeine and low caffeine consumers who received placebo or caffeine.   The second session occurred 45 minutes after the first dose. The third and fourth session occurred 60 and 135 minutes after the second dose.   Overall, the high caffeine consumers who received placebo performed worst on nearly all measures of performance. Caffeine withdrawal significantly impaired their performance. Their performance only got worse as the day wore on. The longer they went without caffeine, the more errors they made. In contrast, the low caffeine consumers who didn’t get placebo performed equally well across the day. Further, low caffeine consumers performed about equally well if they received placebo or caffeine in most respects. The clear advantage for the group that received caffeine was that they had a higher tapping speed if they received caffeine. Low caffeine consumers who received caffeine responded more quickly in the tasks and they reported feeling less sleepy, but they did not make any fewer errors when identifying A and B. Based on these results, it appears that high caffeine consumers receive no benefit from caffeine, and their improved performance relative to the first session only represents a return to baseline. Caffeine only brought them back up to the baseline level where low caffeine consumers begin. The one universal benefit of caffeine was that both high and low caffeine consumers were able to press the space bar faster if they were given caffeine. This enhanced speed may result because caffeine decreases muscle fatigue. A number of triathlete magazines have recommended drinking caffeine before a race and, based on the results of this study, there may be good reason to do so. Low caffeine consumers may benefit from a brief increase in caffeine consumption to overcome sleepiness. This could come in handy when driving long distances. If they continue to consume caffeine, however, the benefit will wear off and they will become dependent on caffeine to return to their previous baseline level. The authors concluded, “high consumers treated with caffeine displayed almost the same levels of mental alertness and sleepiness as [low] consumers treated with placebo. This is fully consistent with withdrawal reversal and indicates nearly complete tolerance to these effects of caffeine.” My friend who drinks three cups a day may not be getting the benefit he thinks from coffee, but like all things in life, there are other reasons for the things we do. He met his girlfriend at a coffee shop and one reason they hit it off was because they kept running into each other at the Starbuck’s where they worked. That’s something you just don’t get from a glass of water.

neuromorphogenesis:

 More Coffee, Less Bang?

Joshua Gowin, Ph.D. in You, Illuminated

A good friend of mine visits the Starbucks near his office at least 3 times a day. He says he can’t work any other way. There’s something alluring to the thought that if you need more energy, you can just gulp down a coffee and, like Popeye after spinach, you become a better version of yourself. But do you really gain from drinking coffee, or is the effect all in your mind?

According to a new study from the University of Bristol, regular caffeine consumers may not receive any benefit in performance. Worse still, they may depend on their favorite beverage just to function at the baseline level of non-consumers. The lackluster effects of caffeine may come as a surprise, but that may be the bitter truth in your cup.  

Psychologist Peter Rogers, who has studied the effects of caffeine for nearly 20 years, led this study. Rogers recruited 157 low drinkers of caffeine (less than 40 mg caffeine per day) and 212 high drinkers (more than 40 mg caffeine per day). The low drinkers averaged 10 mg of caffeine per day and the high drinkers averaged 235 mg per day, which is about 2 cups of coffee.

Participants weren’t allowed to drink caffeine between 7pm the night prior to the study and 9:30am the following morning, when they arrived at the laboratory. Participants were excluded if they had a high concentration of caffeine—more than 2 mg— in their saliva the morning of testing.

Rogers tested memory, motor function, and reaction time. He also had participants rate their level of sleepiness and mental alertness.  Rogers tested reaction time by asking participants to focus on the center of a computer screen, where either an ‘A’ or ‘B’ would flash. They tried to correctly identify whether they saw an ‘A’ or ‘B’ as quickly as possible. Distracters, such as shapes (stars, squares) or letters (A or B), also appeared next to the target letter to increase the error rate.

The first test occurred at 10:30, not long after the participants arrived and before they consumed any caffeine. Low caffeine consumers were significantly better at identifying A’s and B’s. The high caffeine consumers made nearly 2 more errors on average during the task compared to the low caffeine drinkers. Caffeine withdrawal impaired their  vigilance in the morning.

Participants took two pills during the day, first at 11:15am and again at 12:45pm. Half the participants received a placebo and the other half received caffeine (100 mg in the first pill, 150 mg in the second). There were four groups, high caffeine consumers who received placebo or caffeine and low caffeine consumers who received placebo or caffeine.  

The second session occurred 45 minutes after the first dose. The third and fourth session occurred 60 and 135 minutes after the second dose.  

Overall, the high caffeine consumers who received placebo performed worst on nearly all measures of performance. Caffeine withdrawal significantly impaired their performance. Their performance only got worse as the day wore on. The longer they went without caffeine, the more errors they made.

In contrast, the low caffeine consumers who didn’t get placebo performed equally well across the day. Further, low caffeine consumers performed about equally well if they received placebo or caffeine in most respects. The clear advantage for the group that received caffeine was that they had a higher tapping speed if they received caffeine. Low caffeine consumers who received caffeine responded more quickly in the tasks and they reported feeling less sleepy, but they did not make any fewer errors when identifying A and B.

Based on these results, it appears that high caffeine consumers receive no benefit from caffeine, and their improved performance relative to the first session only represents a return to baseline. Caffeine only brought them back up to the baseline level where low caffeine consumers begin.

The one universal benefit of caffeine was that both high and low caffeine consumers were able to press the space bar faster if they were given caffeine. This enhanced speed may result because caffeine decreases muscle fatigue. A number of triathlete magazines have recommended drinking caffeine before a race and, based on the results of this study, there may be good reason to do so.

Low caffeine consumers may benefit from a brief increase in caffeine consumption to overcome sleepiness. This could come in handy when driving long distances. If they continue to consume caffeine, however, the benefit will wear off and they will become dependent on caffeine to return to their previous baseline level.

The authors concluded, “high consumers treated with caffeine displayed almost the same levels of mental alertness and sleepiness as [low] consumers treated with placebo. This is fully consistent with withdrawal reversal and indicates nearly complete tolerance to these effects of caffeine.”

My friend who drinks three cups a day may not be getting the benefit he thinks from coffee, but like all things in life, there are other reasons for the things we do. He met his girlfriend at a coffee shop and one reason they hit it off was because they kept running into each other at the Starbuck’s where they worked. That’s something you just don’t get from a glass of water.

Photo
neuromorphogenesis: Resyncing the Bodyclock to Treat ADHD Studies point to a new way to treat ADHD symptoms by addressing biorhythms. It has long been known that individuals with ADHD tend to suffer from dysfunctional sleep. It’s unclear whether this is inherent to the disorder itself or if it results from ADHD symptoms, for example from feeling stressed all the time.Either way, non-restorative sleep creates a vicious cycle—poor sleep begets an exhausted child (or adult), whose nervous system goes into overdrive (fight or flight reaction) to stay alert the next day (affecting attention and memory), and this prevents restorative sleep from occurring the following night. Furthermore, insomnia may be compounded by stimulant medication commonly used to treat the disorder. Add to this the nature of today’s ubiquitous high-stimulation environment and sleep quality worsens still.  A common aspect of sleep disturbance seen in those with ADHD is delayed circadian preference, aka delayed sleep/activity rhythm or delayed sleep phase disorder, which simply means the body clock is delayed and out of sync with natural night/day cycles. This type of circadian preference has been associated strongly with ADHD symptoms in adults, and studies have demonstrated that ADHD children with initial onset insomnia (trouble falling asleep) probably have delayed sleep phase disorder. While not everyone with ADHD has sleep issues, those that do might very well benefit from targeting this area by resyncing the body clock.  Two interventions have been suggested to advance the sleep phase: bright light therapy administered in the morning, and melatonin administration at bedtime. One promising study (mentioned above) showed that light therapy given to adults with ADHD over a three-week period resulted in decreased subjective (self-reported) and objective (neuropsychological testing) attentional symptoms, improved mood, and phase advance in circadian preference (i.e. subjects felt like going to sleep earlier, and did so). Melatonin trials in ADHD children have shown improved sleep scores but not necessarily ADHD symptoms. (Melatonin tends to be suppressed and delayed in ADHD.) However one long term follow up study on melatonin safety in children in which parents were surveyed three to four years later showed that of the parents who had continued regular use of melatonin, ninety percent felt it continued to be effective for earlier sleep onset, and about two thirds reported it improved mood and behavior.  Another interesting eight-week trial compared the combination of melatonin and Ritalin to Ritalin alone—since  stunted or delayed growth has been attributed to stimulants in children—and found that those treated with the combination grew more in height and weight, despite no difference in calorie intake. The authors suggested that the growth might be attributed to increased growth hormone, which is released during deep sleep, since the growth did not correlate with increased food intake. This highlights the intricacies of the body clock on hormone regulation.  This area is promising, and since out of sync circadian rhythms are associated with a myriad of health problems, resyncing may improve sleep quality, attention and executive functioning, hormone regulation, and mental/physical health in general. Light therapy in particular may be helpful in rapidly improving sleep and attention.   You can do a self-assessment of your own circadian rhythm type at http://www.cet.org/eng/Tools_ENG.html#. 

neuromorphogenesis:

Resyncing the Bodyclock to Treat ADHD

Studies point to a new way to treat ADHD symptoms by addressing biorhythms.

It has long been known that individuals with ADHD tend to suffer from dysfunctional sleep. It’s unclear whether this is inherent to the disorder itself or if it results from ADHD symptoms, for example from feeling stressed all the time.

Either way, non-restorative sleep creates a vicious cycle—poor sleep begets an exhausted child (or adult), whose nervous system goes into overdrive (fight or flight reaction) to stay alert the next day (affecting attention and memory), and this prevents restorative sleep from occurring the following night. Furthermore, insomnia may be compounded by stimulant medication commonly used to treat the disorder. Add to this the nature of today’s ubiquitous high-stimulation environment and sleep quality worsens still.  

A common aspect of sleep disturbance seen in those with ADHD is delayed circadian preference, aka delayed sleep/activity rhythm or delayed sleep phase disorder, which simply means the body clock is delayed and out of sync with natural night/day cycles. This type of circadian preference has been associated strongly with ADHD symptoms in adults, and studies have demonstrated that ADHD children with initial onset insomnia (trouble falling asleep) probably have delayed sleep phase disorder.


While not everyone with ADHD has sleep issues, those that do might very well benefit from targeting this area by resyncing the body clock.  Two interventions have been suggested to advance the sleep phase: bright light therapy administered in the morning, and melatonin administration at bedtime. One promising study (mentioned above) showed that light therapy given to adults with ADHD over a three-week period resulted in decreased subjective (self-reported) and objective (neuropsychological testing) attentional symptoms, improved mood, and phase advance in circadian preference (i.e. subjects felt like going to sleep earlier, and did so). 

Melatonin trials in ADHD children have shown improved sleep scores but not necessarily ADHD symptoms. (Melatonin tends to be suppressed and delayed in ADHD.) However one long term follow up study on melatonin safety in children in which parents were surveyed three to four years later showed that of the parents who had continued regular use of melatonin, ninety percent felt it continued to be effective for earlier sleep onset, and about two thirds reported it improved mood and behavior.  

Another interesting eight-week trial compared the combination of melatonin and Ritalin to Ritalin alone—since  stunted or delayed growth has been attributed to stimulants in children—and found that those treated with the combination grew more in height and weight, despite no difference in calorie intake. The authors suggested that the growth might be attributed to increased growth hormone, which is released during deep sleep, since the growth did not correlate with increased food intake. This highlights the intricacies of the body clock on hormone regulation. 

This area is promising, and since out of sync circadian rhythms are associated with a myriad of health problems, resyncing may improve sleep quality, attention and executive functioning, hormone regulation, and mental/physical health in general. Light therapy in particular may be helpful in rapidly improving sleep and attention.  

You can do a self-assessment of your own circadian rhythm type at http://www.cet.org/eng/Tools_ENG.html#. 

Photo
Seeing Happiness in Ambiguous Facial Expressions Reduces Aggressive Behavior Encouraging young people at high-risk of criminal offending and delinquency to see happiness rather than anger in facial expressions results in a decrease in their levels of anger and aggression, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study, led by Marcus Munafò and Ian Penton-Voak of the University of Bristol (UK), explored the relationship between recognition of emotion in ambiguous facial expressions and aggressive thoughts and behavior, both in healthy adults and in adolescent youth considered to be at high-risk of committing crime. The researchers showed it was possible to experimentally modify biases in emotion recognition to encourage the perception of happiness over anger when viewing ambiguous expressions. This resulted in a decrease in measures of self-reported anger and aggression in both healthy adults and high-risk adolescents, and also for independently-rated aggressive behavior in the adolescents. To modify these biases, participants were shown composite images of facial expressions that were happy, angry or emotionally ambiguous and asked to rate them as happy or angry. This established a baseline balance point of how likely they were to read ambiguous faces as angry. The researchers then used feedback to nudge some of the participants away from this negativity bias by telling them that some of the ambiguous faces they had previously labeled as angry were in fact happy. In the first experiment in 40 healthy volunteers, this ultimately resulted in the participants learning to identify happiness in these faces rather than anger — and these participants subsequently reported lower levels of anger and aggression in themselves. The experiment was then repeated with 46 adolescents aged 11 to 16 years old who had been referred to a youth program, either by the courts or by schools, as being at high risk of committing crime and with a high frequency of aggressive behavior. Again, participants trained to recognize happiness rather than anger in the ambiguous faces reported less aggressive behavior. In addition, incidences of aggressive behavior — as recorded independently by program staff in the week before and the two weeks following the training — were also reduced. To test this result further, the researchers then ran a different experiment on a further 53 healthy volunteers which did not rely on explicit feedback to change the way participants judged facial expressions. Previous studies have shown that prolonged viewing of an image subsequently alters the perception of similar images, so one group of participants was shown only angry faces while a control group looked at an equal mix of happy and angry faces. The researchers found that those shown only angry faces subsequently shifted their perceptions and became more likely to see happiness in ambiguous faces. Again, they also reported lower levels of anger and aggression in themselves. “Our results provide strong evidence that emotion processing plays a causal role in anger and the maintenance of aggressive behavior. This could potentially lead to novel behavioral treatments in the future,” said Munafò. In addition to Penton-Voak and Munafò, co-authors on the research include Jamie Thomas of the University of Wales Institute, Suzanne Gage and Sarah McDonald of the University of Bristol, and Mary McMurran of the University of Nottingham.

Seeing Happiness in Ambiguous Facial Expressions Reduces Aggressive Behavior

Encouraging young people at high-risk of criminal offending and delinquency to see happiness rather than anger in facial expressions results in a decrease in their levels of anger and aggression, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The study, led by Marcus Munafò and Ian Penton-Voak of the University of Bristol (UK), explored the relationship between recognition of emotion in ambiguous facial expressions and aggressive thoughts and behavior, both in healthy adults and in adolescent youth considered to be at high-risk of committing crime.

The researchers showed it was possible to experimentally modify biases in emotion recognition to encourage the perception of happiness over anger when viewing ambiguous expressions. This resulted in a decrease in measures of self-reported anger and aggression in both healthy adults and high-risk adolescents, and also for independently-rated aggressive behavior in the adolescents.

To modify these biases, participants were shown composite images of facial expressions that were happy, angry or emotionally ambiguous and asked to rate them as happy or angry. This established a baseline balance point of how likely they were to read ambiguous faces as angry. The researchers then used feedback to nudge some of the participants away from this negativity bias by telling them that some of the ambiguous faces they had previously labeled as angry were in fact happy.

In the first experiment in 40 healthy volunteers, this ultimately resulted in the participants learning to identify happiness in these faces rather than anger — and these participants subsequently reported lower levels of anger and aggression in themselves.

The experiment was then repeated with 46 adolescents aged 11 to 16 years old who had been referred to a youth program, either by the courts or by schools, as being at high risk of committing crime and with a high frequency of aggressive behavior.

Again, participants trained to recognize happiness rather than anger in the ambiguous faces reported less aggressive behavior. In addition, incidences of aggressive behavior — as recorded independently by program staff in the week before and the two weeks following the training — were also reduced.

To test this result further, the researchers then ran a different experiment on a further 53 healthy volunteers which did not rely on explicit feedback to change the way participants judged facial expressions.

Previous studies have shown that prolonged viewing of an image subsequently alters the perception of similar images, so one group of participants was shown only angry faces while a control group looked at an equal mix of happy and angry faces.

The researchers found that those shown only angry faces subsequently shifted their perceptions and became more likely to see happiness in ambiguous faces. Again, they also reported lower levels of anger and aggression in themselves.

“Our results provide strong evidence that emotion processing plays a causal role in anger and the maintenance of aggressive behavior. This could potentially lead to novel behavioral treatments in the future,” said Munafò.

In addition to Penton-Voak and Munafò, co-authors on the research include Jamie Thomas of the University of Wales Institute, Suzanne Gage and Sarah McDonald of the University of Bristol, and Mary McMurran of the University of Nottingham.

Photo
neuromorphogenesis: A Case for Double-Edged Optimism Personality and outlook are critical for staying healthy but a sunny disposition only goes so far. For some, a shot of pessimism packs more medicinal punch. From good stress to lethal optimism, the new rules of the immunity game. With every new act, Brian distanced himself from the past: His father, explosive and often unemployed, had pounded him with names like “moron” and “jerk.” His life on the streets beyond the family’s Bronx apartment had been difficult, too. One of just a few white kids in a neighborhood of Hispanics and blacks, he felt he had to be macho and tough. It’s no wonder that Brian wanted to be a writer—he had stories to tell. But he also had issues, including a glaring lack of self-esteem. Still, he had fight in him—he plugged through college, earned a Ph.D. in literature and secured a coveted professorship at a university. In the wife he chose (cultured and moneyed), in the way he vacationed (Hamptons one year, Greek islands the next), in the books he read (literary, experimental), Brian disposed of his prior self, layer by layer, as if he were shedding skin. But the core remained, so he began writing a book about life in the ‘hood. The more he took on, the more he compensated for his insecurity with braggadocio, eventually insisting his novel (always “a work-in-progress”) would win a Pulitzer Prize. “Read this, it’s genius,” he said, pushing passages on friends, ignoring the voice inside that whispered, “This writing is bad.” Yet Brian was in fact gifted: A top New York publisher finally bought his novel, fulfilling his lifelong dream. But for Brian, it proved too much. “At first he just seemed depressed,” says his former wife, Meg, who witnessed the tailspin. But depression turned into alcoholism, then obesity and finally heart disease. When the book came out, Brian was too ill to go on tour. Brian’s downfall seems counterintuitive: Shouldn’t success bring happiness, boosting the immune system and improving our overall health? Not according to research from psychologists at Duke. Enormous success is healthy only for people with self-esteem to match, it turns out. For someone struggling with a poor self-image, like Brian, hitting a ball out of the park may tax the immune system, helping the body to spiral into disease. Instead, say the Duke scientists, the Brians among us stay healthier when success is more modest and slower to arrive. The Duke research is just one example of a new paradigm in psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), the study of the link between emotion, immunity and the brain. While we’ve long equated positive emotion with health and negative emotion with illness, studies have added nuance and subtlety to these broad ideas, proving them just partially correct and in many cases wrong. Among the surprising findings: Stress can prime the immune system, making us stronger. Too much optimism may be an immunological drain. And health improves when self-esteem and success stay in sync. With thousands of new studies and a better understanding of immunity, today’s experts agree that the link between emotion and immunity is robust. But it is also intricate and filled with surprises that open a dramatic new window on the nature of emotional health. Healthy Stress Raises Immunity Conventional wisdom holds that stress is ruinous, and who can argue? Too much stress increases blood pressure and the risk of heart disease. Studies tie stress to immune suppression, including a surplus of flu and colds. Yet the “rule” didn’t apply to Rachel, a special education teacher with the autoimmune disease lupus. She suffered a relapse a few years back, over the summer, and was still so tired by Labor Day, she didn’t see how she could return to work. “I was better, but drained, and I thought the strain of the commute alone would do me in,” she recalls. Encouraged by her doctor, she went back anyway. And instead of crashing under the burden, Rachel thrived. “Each day was a shot of energy,” she says, explaining how good she felt when one of the children made a breakthrough or gave her a hug. “I went home to chill.” In Rachel’s case, the ebb and flow of daily stress, much of it ultimately rewarding, provided a health boost. The harmful effects of stress occur “when the stress is chronic,” explains Monika Fleshner, a neuroimmunophysiologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder. It’s extreme, constant stress over a long period of time that impairs the immune system. But “short-term stress, under most circumstances, actually boosts immunity. It all makes sense in light of our evolutionary past. When we’re threatened or frightened, we become hyperalert, primed to get out of what could be a life-or-death situation,” she explains. To prove the point, Fleshner replicated her scenario with rats in the lab. All the rats were exposed to bacterial infection, but some were also stressed by receiving electric shocks to the tail. The rats that were infected and shocked at the same time resisted disease and stayed far healthier than rats not given the shock. This finding may warrant notice in emergency rooms, where overwhelmed patients are frequently treated with antianxiety drugs. Yet if a patient has an infection, reducing anxiety may depress the very immune response the patient needs to get well. Find Your Crowd People cultivating a few close friendships can be just as rich in emotional nourishment as those belonging to larger social networks, right? Not necessarily, according to research showing that those with wider social circles may literally be more immune. Working with college students, Carnegie Mellon researchers Sarah Pressman and Sheldon Cohen found that freshmen with larger social networks had a more robust immune response than those in smaller groups when given a flu vaccine. The researchers found freshmen who reported feeling lonely produced fewer antibodies than those who didn’t. Lonely freshmen with few friends had the lowest immunity of all. The most interesting finding was the distinction between loneliness and size of the social network. Lonely students had a lowered immune response to one vaccine component while those who had few friends had a depressed immune response to another. According to the researchers, the fact that social-network size and loneliness are separate factors in immunity is supported by the observation that you can have many friends yet feel lonely. For optimal immunity, the findings seem to suggest, a few close friends simply may not be enough. The findings may also explain why freshmen visit the infirmary more often than better-connected students in sophomore, junior and senior years. Keeping Self-Esteem And Success In Sync In another surprising reversal of long-held beliefs, the holy grails of self-esteem and stratospheric success may each threaten immunity in certain people. Specifically, great success may be a health risk when self-esteem is low. That’s why someone like Brian, who lacks confidence, may suffer if success is especially heightened or comes on too fast. Self-esteem, for its part, can be risky when achievement doesn’t measure up to personal expectations. The phenomenon, called “self-discrepancy,” occurs when self-image differs markedly from your actual self, your wished-for self or the unfolding of life events. To make the point, Timothy Strauman, head of psychology at Duke, asked healthy college students three basic questions: What kind of person do you think you are? What kind of person would you like to be? And, what kind of person do you think you ought to be? “If somebody says, ‘I’m lazy, but I think I should be hard-working,’ that’s a discrepancy,” Strauman explains. Blood tests showed that students with fewer discrepancies had a greater killer T cell count. When members of this group made progress commensurate with their own self-evaluation, they had stronger immunity than those who weren’t making progress or were making progress too fast. Immunity was optimized for those rich in both self-esteem and success. The hit to immunity, Strauman suggests, may come from continually evaluating and then modifying behavior to reach a goal—a disruption in the phenomenon known as “self-regulation.” When initial efforts to reach the goal fail, mood typically drops, but motivation may soar. When failure continues, however, motivation also falters. The higher one’s self-esteem is at the outset, the bigger the potential for both mood and motivation to fall hard. The Curiosity Cure The connection between good health and optimism is widely accepted, but studies show that optimism seasoned by reality works best. Researchers at Harvard studied 1,041 patients and found those identified as hopeful (optimistic but ultimately realistic) were less likely to develop diabetes, high blood pressure, colds and flu than out-and-out optimists, who were convinced they would thrive no matter what. Curious, skeptical patients, those who peppered doctors with questions or scoured the Internet for information, received an immune boost as well. University of Kentucky psychologist Suzanne Segerstrom suggests that some optimists could be pushing so hard they end up taxing their immune system and making themselves sick. In a study that was published last year, Segerstrom gave optimists a stressful arithmetic test and found that they showed a drop in immunity. “It can be more difficult to keep working on a problem than to give up,” she notes. “When pessimists encounter difficult situations, they’re likely to disengage. Optimists are likely to keep working at them.” As a consequence of the struggle, their immune systems weaken. Type D: A Killer Personality Impatient, anxious and hostile, the Type A individual has for years been considered a walking time bomb, a heart attack waiting to happen and sure to keel over years before the calmer, happier Type B. But now psychologists have identified an even deadlier personality: Type D, a cynical, hostile individual who is also unexpressive, keeping those bad feelings inside. Investigating a possible connection between Type D traits and cardiac risk, psychologists, cardiologists and immunologists followed male heart disease patients from Belgium over a period of years. Those with Type D personalities were far more likely to have heart attacks. And Type D was predictive of the worst case scenario: coronary heart failure. Type D patients were four times more likely than others to die of the disease. Looking for an explanation, the researchers discovered that Type D heart patients all had one thing in common: an alarming overabundance of tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha), an inflammatory molecule produced by immune cells. Among other destructive actions, TNF-alpha can rupture arterial plaque. Ruptured plaque can obstruct the artery or vein, a condition called thrombosis, and heart attack can result. Other research has found that Type D individuals also have killer T cells that are less active and have a diminished ability to fight infection compared with those found in more emotionally expressive peers. The finding is in line with a body of research linking social inhibition to less active immunity in the face of infectious disease. The connection between emotion and health is still unraveling. From the subtle role of stress to the double-edged sword of optimism, emotional states influence the strength of our hearts, the pace at which we age and the way we fight disease. As with nutritional science—where a nutrient is considered protective one day and harmful the next—psychoneuroimmunology is still in its adolescence. When the code is deciphered in full, PNI will be not just a fascination, but a precision tool for a longer, healthier life.

neuromorphogenesis:

A Case for Double-Edged Optimism

Personality and outlook are critical for staying healthy but a sunny disposition only goes so far. For some, a shot of pessimism packs more medicinal punch. From good stress to lethal optimism, the new rules of the immunity game.

With every new act, Brian distanced himself from the past: His father, explosive and often unemployed, had pounded him with names like “moron” and “jerk.” His life on the streets beyond the family’s Bronx apartment had been difficult, too. One of just a few white kids in a neighborhood of Hispanics and blacks, he felt he had to be macho and tough. It’s no wonder that Brian wanted to be a writer—he had stories to tell. But he also had issues, including a glaring lack of self-esteem. Still, he had fight in him—he plugged through college, earned a Ph.D. in literature and secured a coveted professorship at a university. In the wife he chose (cultured and moneyed), in the way he vacationed (Hamptons one year, Greek islands the next), in the books he read (literary, experimental), Brian disposed of his prior self, layer by layer, as if he were shedding skin. But the core remained, so he began writing a book about life in the ‘hood. The more he took on, the more he compensated for his insecurity with braggadocio, eventually insisting his novel (always “a work-in-progress”) would win a Pulitzer Prize. “Read this, it’s genius,” he said, pushing passages on friends, ignoring the voice inside that whispered, “This writing is bad.”

Yet Brian was in fact gifted: A top New York publisher finally bought his novel, fulfilling his lifelong dream. But for Brian, it proved too much. “At first he just seemed depressed,” says his former wife, Meg, who witnessed the tailspin. But depression turned into alcoholism, then obesity and finally heart disease. When the book came out, Brian was too ill to go on tour.

Brian’s downfall seems counterintuitive: Shouldn’t success bring happiness, boosting the immune system and improving our overall health? Not according to research from psychologists at Duke. Enormous success is healthy only for people with self-esteem to match, it turns out. For someone struggling with a poor self-image, like Brian, hitting a ball out of the park may tax the immune system, helping the body to spiral into disease. Instead, say the Duke scientists, the Brians among us stay healthier when success is more modest and slower to arrive.

The Duke research is just one example of a new paradigm in psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), the study of the link between emotion, immunity and the brain. While we’ve long equated positive emotion with health and negative emotion with illness, studies have added nuance and subtlety to these broad ideas, proving them just partially correct and in many cases wrong. Among the surprising findings: Stress can prime the immune system, making us stronger. Too much optimism may be an immunological drain. And health improves when self-esteem and success stay in sync. With thousands of new studies and a better understanding of immunity, today’s experts agree that the link between emotion and immunity is robust. But it is also intricate and filled with surprises that open a dramatic new window on the nature of emotional health.

Healthy Stress Raises Immunity

Conventional wisdom holds that stress is ruinous, and who can argue? Too much stress increases blood pressure and the risk of heart disease. Studies tie stress to immune suppression, including a surplus of flu and colds.

Yet the “rule” didn’t apply to Rachel, a special education teacher with the autoimmune disease lupus. She suffered a relapse a few years back, over the summer, and was still so tired by Labor Day, she didn’t see how she could return to work. “I was better, but drained, and I thought the strain of the commute alone would do me in,” she recalls. Encouraged by her doctor, she went back anyway. And instead of crashing under the burden, Rachel thrived. “Each day was a shot of energy,” she says, explaining how good she felt when one of the children made a breakthrough or gave her a hug. “I went home to chill.”

In Rachel’s case, the ebb and flow of daily stress, much of it ultimately rewarding, provided a health boost. The harmful effects of stress occur “when the stress is chronic,” explains Monika Fleshner, a neuroimmunophysiologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder. It’s extreme, constant stress over a long period of time that impairs the immune system. But “short-term stress, under most circumstances, actually boosts immunity. It all makes sense in light of our evolutionary past. When we’re threatened or frightened, we become hyperalert, primed to get out of what could be a life-or-death situation,” she explains.

To prove the point, Fleshner replicated her scenario with rats in the lab. All the rats were exposed to bacterial infection, but some were also stressed by receiving electric shocks to the tail. The rats that were infected and shocked at the same time resisted disease and stayed far healthier than rats not given the shock. This finding may warrant notice in emergency rooms, where overwhelmed patients are frequently treated with antianxiety drugs. Yet if a patient has an infection, reducing anxiety may depress the very immune response the patient needs to get well.

Find Your Crowd

People cultivating a few close friendships can be just as rich in emotional nourishment as those belonging to larger social networks, right? Not necessarily, according to research showing that those with wider social circles may literally be more immune.

Working with college students, Carnegie Mellon researchers Sarah Pressman and Sheldon Cohen found that freshmen with larger social networks had a more robust immune response than those in smaller groups when given a flu vaccine. The researchers found freshmen who reported feeling lonely produced fewer antibodies than those who didn’t. Lonely freshmen with few friends had the lowest immunity of all.

The most interesting finding was the distinction between loneliness and size of the social network. Lonely students had a lowered immune response to one vaccine component while those who had few friends had a depressed immune response to another. According to the researchers, the fact that social-network size and loneliness are separate factors in immunity is supported by the observation that you can have many friends yet feel lonely. For optimal immunity, the findings seem to suggest, a few close friends simply may not be enough. The findings may also explain why freshmen visit the infirmary more often than better-connected students in sophomore, junior and senior years.

Keeping Self-Esteem And Success In Sync

In another surprising reversal of long-held beliefs, the holy grails of self-esteem and stratospheric success may each threaten immunity in certain people. Specifically, great success may be a health risk when self-esteem is low. That’s why someone like Brian, who lacks confidence, may suffer if success is especially heightened or comes on too fast. Self-esteem, for its part, can be risky when achievement doesn’t measure up to personal expectations. The phenomenon, called “self-discrepancy,” occurs when self-image differs markedly from your actual self, your wished-for self or the unfolding of life events.

To make the point, Timothy Strauman, head of psychology at Duke, asked healthy college students three basic questions: What kind of person do you think you are? What kind of person would you like to be? And, what kind of person do you think you ought to be? “If somebody says, ‘I’m lazy, but I think I should be hard-working,’ that’s a discrepancy,” Strauman explains.

Blood tests showed that students with fewer discrepancies had a greater killer T cell count. When members of this group made progress commensurate with their own self-evaluation, they had stronger immunity than those who weren’t making progress or were making progress too fast. Immunity was optimized for those rich in both self-esteem and success.

The hit to immunity, Strauman suggests, may come from continually evaluating and then modifying behavior to reach a goal—a disruption in the phenomenon known as “self-regulation.” When initial efforts to reach the goal fail, mood typically drops, but motivation may soar. When failure continues, however, motivation also falters. The higher one’s self-esteem is at the outset, the bigger the potential for both mood and motivation to fall hard.

The Curiosity Cure

The connection between good health and optimism is widely accepted, but studies show that optimism seasoned by reality works best. Researchers at Harvard studied 1,041 patients and found those identified as hopeful (optimistic but ultimately realistic) were less likely to develop diabetes, high blood pressure, colds and flu than out-and-out optimists, who were convinced they would thrive no matter what. Curious, skeptical patients, those who peppered doctors with questions or scoured the Internet for information, received an immune boost as well.

University of Kentucky psychologist Suzanne Segerstrom suggests that some optimists could be pushing so hard they end up taxing their immune system and making themselves sick. In a study that was published last year, Segerstrom gave optimists a stressful arithmetic test and found that they showed a drop in immunity. “It can be more difficult to keep working on a problem than to give up,” she notes. “When pessimists encounter difficult situations, they’re likely to disengage. Optimists are likely to keep working at them.” As a consequence of the struggle, their immune systems weaken.

Type D: A Killer Personality

Impatient, anxious and hostile, the Type A individual has for years been considered a walking time bomb, a heart attack waiting to happen and sure to keel over years before the calmer, happier Type B. But now psychologists have identified an even deadlier personality: Type D, a cynical, hostile individual who is also unexpressive, keeping those bad feelings inside.

Investigating a possible connection between Type D traits and cardiac risk, psychologists, cardiologists and immunologists followed male heart disease patients from Belgium over a period of years. Those with Type D personalities were far more likely to have heart attacks. And Type D was predictive of the worst case scenario: coronary heart failure. Type D patients were four times more likely than others to die of the disease.

Looking for an explanation, the researchers discovered that Type D heart patients all had one thing in common: an alarming overabundance of tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha), an inflammatory molecule produced by immune cells. Among other destructive actions, TNF-alpha can rupture arterial plaque. Ruptured plaque can obstruct the artery or vein, a condition called thrombosis, and heart attack can result.

Other research has found that Type D individuals also have killer T cells that are less active and have a diminished ability to fight infection compared with those found in more emotionally expressive peers. The finding is in line with a body of research linking social inhibition to less active immunity in the face of infectious disease.

The connection between emotion and health is still unraveling. From the subtle role of stress to the double-edged sword of optimism, emotional states influence the strength of our hearts, the pace at which we age and the way we fight disease. As with nutritional science—where a nutrient is considered protective one day and harmful the next—psychoneuroimmunology is still in its adolescence. When the code is deciphered in full, PNI will be not just a fascination, but a precision tool for a longer, healthier life.

Photo
ucresearch: The Grateful Brain Alex Korb takes a look at the neuroscience of giving thanks: “Please take a moment to be grateful for this article you are about to read. I’ll wait… Seriously though, it can have a profound impact on your life (the whole being grateful thing that is … the effect of the article is less certain). …Gratitude, particularly if practiced regularly, can keep you healthier and happier. In this article I’ll share the results of four studies that show how gratitude can, among other things, help you exercise more, sleep better and be happier.” Read the full story on Psychology Today →

ucresearch:

The Grateful Brain

Alex Korb takes a look at the neuroscience of giving thanks:

“Please take a moment to be grateful for this article you are about to read. I’ll wait… Seriously though, it can have a profound impact on your life (the whole being grateful thing that is … the effect of the article is less certain).

…Gratitude, particularly if practiced regularly, can keep you healthier and happier. In this article I’ll share the results of four studies that show how gratitude can, among other things, help you exercise more, sleep better and be happier.”

Read the full story on Psychology Today →

Photo
Nothing personal: The questionable Myers-Briggs test: The trouble is, the more you look into the specifics of the MBTI, the more questionable the way it’s widespread use appears to be. There are numerous comprehensive critiques about it online, but the most obvious flaw is that the MBTI seems to rely exclusively on binary choices. For example, in the category of extrovert v introvert, you’re either one or the other; there is no middle ground. People don’t work this way, no normal person is either 100% extrovert or 100% introvert, just as people’s political views aren’t purely “communist” or “fascist”. Many who use the MBTI claim otherwise, despite the fact that Jung himself disagreed with this and statistical analysis reveals even data produced by the test shows a normal distribution rather than bimodal, refuting the either/or claims of the MBTI. But still this overly-simplified interpretation of human personality endures, even in the Guardian Science section! Generally, although not completely unscientific, the MBTI gives a ridiculously limited and simplified view of human personality, which is avery complex and tricky concept to pin down and study. The scientific study of personality is indeed a valid discipline, and there are many personality tests that seemingly hold up to scientific scrutiny (thus far). It just appears that MBTI isn’t one of them. But so what? People often benefit from things with a limited scientific basis, for many reasons. Scientific validity is necessary if you’re trying to diagnose a disorder of some sort, but in the everyday workplace for team building and the like? This is what MBTI is used for most, so why go on some major nerd-rant about how unscientific it is when it doesn’t really matter? Yes, the MBTI is harmless and potentially useful if you’re aware of its limitations. That’s the problem, though; the MBTI is predominately used in the workplace by HR departments, development/training teams and the like, who can often be clearly unaware of its limitations. Read the Full Article

Nothing personal: The questionable Myers-Briggs test:

The trouble is, the more you look into the specifics of the MBTI, the more questionable the way it’s widespread use appears to be. There are numerous comprehensive critiques about it online, but the most obvious flaw is that the MBTI seems to rely exclusively on binary choices.

For example, in the category of extrovert v introvert, you’re either one or the other; there is no middle ground. People don’t work this way, no normal person is either 100% extrovert or 100% introvert, just as people’s political views aren’t purely “communist” or “fascist”. Many who use the MBTI claim otherwise, despite the fact that Jung himself disagreed with this and statistical analysis reveals even data produced by the test shows a normal distribution rather than bimodal, refuting the either/or claims of the MBTI. But still this overly-simplified interpretation of human personality endures, even in the Guardian Science section!

Generally, although not completely unscientific, the MBTI gives a ridiculously limited and simplified view of human personality, which is avery complex and tricky concept to pin down and study. The scientific study of personality is indeed a valid discipline, and there are many personality tests that seemingly hold up to scientific scrutiny (thus far). It just appears that MBTI isn’t one of them.

But so what? People often benefit from things with a limited scientific basis, for many reasons. Scientific validity is necessary if you’re trying to diagnose a disorder of some sort, but in the everyday workplace for team building and the like? This is what MBTI is used for most, so why go on some major nerd-rant about how unscientific it is when it doesn’t really matter?

Yes, the MBTI is harmless and potentially useful if you’re aware of its limitations. That’s the problem, though; the MBTI is predominately used in the workplace by HR departments, development/training teams and the like, who can often be clearly unaware of its limitations.

Read the Full Article

Photo
Why Some People Faint When They See Blood Most phobias—of cockroaches, spiders, heights or clowns—don’t induce the wooziness typical of blood phobia. Some of the people who fear of blood will pass out at the sight of the stuff. Popular Science explains why this is so strange: Despite it being relatively common—3 to 4 percent of people suffer from blood phobia or a related disorder—the symptoms of it are totally different from most phobias: phobics’ blood pressure and heart rate will rise then drop when they see blood, as opposed to the just-heart-racing caused by most fears. Not much research has been conducted to explain why this happens, John Sanford of Stanford Medicine writes. But those studies that have examined the topic have yielded mixed results. Some say that fainting at the sight of blood may be the human equivalent of playing opossum—pretending to be dead so that a dangerous predator will lose interest. Others think that the physiological reaction some experience at the sight of blood may be an evolutionary adaptation. If a caveman got stabbed in the foot while out on a hunting trip, Sanford explains, he may have a better chance of surviving if his blood pressure drops, helping him to avoid bleeding to death. Yet blood phobia presumably would not — at least in modern times — provide much in the way of selective advantage. Emergency medical responders generally can reach you quickly and stanch bleeding. And if you faint, you can sustain a worse injury by falling. So besides being useful for dramatic effect in the movies, it seems blood phobia—perhaps like the appendix or wisdom teeth—is an evolutionary throwback that has largely outlived its usefulness. Now, if those of us who suffer from the phobia could only convince our pounding hearts of this logic. Original Article

Why Some People Faint When They See Blood

Most phobias—of cockroaches, spiders, heights or clowns—don’t induce the wooziness typical of blood phobia. Some of the people who fear of blood will pass out at the sight of the stuff. Popular Science explains why this is so strange:

Despite it being relatively common—3 to 4 percent of people suffer from blood phobia or a related disorder—the symptoms of it are totally different from most phobias: phobics’ blood pressure and heart rate will rise then drop when they see blood, as opposed to the just-heart-racing caused by most fears.

Not much research has been conducted to explain why this happens, John Sanford of Stanford Medicine writes. But those studies that have examined the topic have yielded mixed results. Some say that fainting at the sight of blood may be the human equivalent of playing opossum—pretending to be dead so that a dangerous predator will lose interest. Others think that the physiological reaction some experience at the sight of blood may be an evolutionary adaptation. If a caveman got stabbed in the foot while out on a hunting trip, Sanford explains, he may have a better chance of surviving if his blood pressure drops, helping him to avoid bleeding to death.

Yet blood phobia presumably would not — at least in modern times — provide much in the way of selective advantage. Emergency medical responders generally can reach you quickly and stanch bleeding. And if you faint, you can sustain a worse injury by falling.

So besides being useful for dramatic effect in the movies, it seems blood phobia—perhaps like the appendix or wisdom teeth—is an evolutionary throwback that has largely outlived its usefulness. Now, if those of us who suffer from the phobia could only convince our pounding hearts of this logic.

Original Article

Photo
neuromorphogenesis: The Temporal Doppler Effect: Why The Future Feels Closer Than The Past Like the sound of a passing ambulance siren, our perception of time distorts as it shoots by. Sometimes psychologists come up with such good names for their findings that I’m powerless to resist. Take this newly minted expression: ‘the temporal Doppler effect’. This really appeals to both the psychologists in me and my inner physics geek. The Doppler effect is most often experienced when an ambulance with siren blaring travels past you. The pitch of the siren shifts downwards as it whizzes past. The siren’s notes aren’t actually changing in pitch; it’s the effect of the ambulance’s movement on the sound-waves reaching your ear that produces the effect. You can see the video here. So, what is a temporal Doppler effect and what does this have to do with psychology? It seems to suggest that as events approach us from the future they feel closer, compared with events in the past, which feel further away as they recede. In other words: one week in the future feels closer in time than one week in the past. How far away does it feel? Could that be true? For example, imagine I ask you one week before Valentine’s Day how psychologically distant that feels to you. Then, imagine I ask you the same question one week after Valentine’s Day. Surely they should feel about the same distance? What the temporal Doppler effect suggests is that Valentine’s Day will feel closer in time one week beforehand than one week after. Sounds mad? Well this is exactly the experiment that Caruso et al. (2013) carried out. And guess what? They got this temporal Doppler effect. On a 1 to 7 scale, where 1 means it feels close in time and 7 means it feels far in time, people rated an upcoming Valentine’s Day an average of 3.9 when it was one week in the future, but an average of 4.8 when it was one week in the past. They got similar results for comparisons of time-points both one month and one year in the future and the past. This temporal Doppler effect kept showing up: the future seems to feel psychologically closer to people than the past, despite the fact we know it’s exactly the same. Metaphors of time and space So why does it happen? Caruso et al. put forward two explanations, one more abstract than the other. I’ll do the abstract one first but feel free to bail out and get on to the concrete one if it gets too much! The abstract argument goes like this: we don’t directly experience time although we see its effects. Unlike space, which we can clearly see, time is invisible. In contrast, you can reach out and touch objects and feel the space between them. Because time is abstract we try to understand it psychologically using metaphors. We say that ‘time flows like a river’, ‘time marches on’ or ‘time flies’. These are all spatial ways of thinking about an abstract idea. The result is that we unconsciously apply the same spatial rules to time. Just like things that are coming towards us sound higher in pitch and appear to us closer in space than things going away, so we intuit that things ahead of us in time are also closer than things in the past. Convinced? If not you’ll be interested in a further experiment Caruso et al. carried out where they tried to reverse the temporal Doppler effect with a simple manipulation: they had people walking backwards in virtual reality (VR). Compared to those walking forwards in VR, those walking backwards showed no tendency towards thinking the future was closer than the past. This helps support the idea that how we think about time is linked to how we think about space and why the temporal Doppler effect occurs. Future-facing Now here’s the more concrete explanation. The temporal Doppler effect is also highly adaptive. It’s very useful for our survival and success in life that the future seems closer than the past. What happens tomorrow we can plan for, what happened yesterday is just a memory. Yes, it’s important to understand where you’ve come from, but without a plan, you can’t know where you’re going. The temporal Doppler effect is one example of how we’re future-oriented creatures; always scheming for, worrying about, plotting and simulating the future. So that hopefully, when we get there, we’ve got some kind of plan.

neuromorphogenesis:

The Temporal Doppler Effect: Why The Future Feels Closer Than The Past

Like the sound of a passing ambulance siren, our perception of time distorts as it shoots by.

Sometimes psychologists come up with such good names for their findings that I’m powerless to resist. Take this newly minted expression: ‘the temporal Doppler effect’.

This really appeals to both the psychologists in me and my inner physics geek.

The Doppler effect is most often experienced when an ambulance with siren blaring travels past you. The pitch of the siren shifts downwards as it whizzes past. The siren’s notes aren’t actually changing in pitch; it’s the effect of the ambulance’s movement on the sound-waves reaching your ear that produces the effect. You can see the video here.

So, what is a temporal Doppler effect and what does this have to do with psychology?

It seems to suggest that as events approach us from the future they feel closer, compared with events in the past, which feel further away as they recede. In other words: one week in the future feels closer in time than one week in the past.

How far away does it feel?

Could that be true? For example, imagine I ask you one week before Valentine’s Day how psychologically distant that feels to you. Then, imagine I ask you the same question one week after Valentine’s Day. Surely they should feel about the same distance?

What the temporal Doppler effect suggests is that Valentine’s Day will feel closer in time one week beforehand than one week after.

Sounds mad? Well this is exactly the experiment that Caruso et al. (2013) carried out. And guess what? They got this temporal Doppler effect. On a 1 to 7 scale, where 1 means it feels close in time and 7 means it feels far in time, people rated an upcoming Valentine’s Day an average of 3.9 when it was one week in the future, but an average of 4.8 when it was one week in the past.

They got similar results for comparisons of time-points both one month and one year in the future and the past. This temporal Doppler effect kept showing up: the future seems to feel psychologically closer to people than the past, despite the fact we know it’s exactly the same.

Metaphors of time and space

So why does it happen? Caruso et al. put forward two explanations, one more abstract than the other. I’ll do the abstract one first but feel free to bail out and get on to the concrete one if it gets too much!

The abstract argument goes like this: we don’t directly experience time although we see its effects. Unlike space, which we can clearly see, time is invisible. In contrast, you can reach out and touch objects and feel the space between them.

Because time is abstract we try to understand it psychologically using metaphors. We say that ‘time flows like a river’, ‘time marches on’ or ‘time flies’. These are all spatial ways of thinking about an abstract idea.

The result is that we unconsciously apply the same spatial rules to time. Just like things that are coming towards us sound higher in pitch and appear to us closer in space than things going away, so we intuit that things ahead of us in time are also closer than things in the past.

Convinced?

If not you’ll be interested in a further experiment Caruso et al. carried out where they tried to reverse the temporal Doppler effect with a simple manipulation: they had people walking backwards in virtual reality (VR).

Compared to those walking forwards in VR, those walking backwards showed no tendency towards thinking the future was closer than the past. This helps support the idea that how we think about time is linked to how we think about space and why the temporal Doppler effect occurs.

Future-facing

Now here’s the more concrete explanation. The temporal Doppler effect is also highly adaptive. It’s very useful for our survival and success in life that the future seems closer than the past. What happens tomorrow we can plan for, what happened yesterday is just a memory.

Yes, it’s important to understand where you’ve come from, but without a plan, you can’t know where you’re going. The temporal Doppler effect is one example of how we’re future-oriented creatures; always scheming for, worrying about, plotting and simulating the future. So that hopefully, when we get there, we’ve got some kind of plan.

Photo
Mindfulness at school reduces symptoms of depression among adolescents Secondary school students who adhered to an in-class mindfulness programme exhibited decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress both immediately after and six months after the programme. Moreover, young people who followed the programme were less likely to develop pronounced depression-like symptoms. The study, conducted by Professor Filip Raes (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences), is the first to examine the effects of mindfulness on depression in a large sample of adolescents in a classroom setting. Mindfulness is a form of meditation therapy focused on exercising ‘attentiveness’ over one’s thoughts. Depression is often rooted in a downward spiral of negative feelings and worries. Once a person learns to more quickly recognise these feelings and thoughts, he or she can intervene before depression sinks in. While mindfulness has already been widely tested and applied in patients with depression, this is the first time the method has been studied in a large group of adolescents in a school-based setting, using a randomised controlled design. The study was carried out at five middle schools in Flanders, Belgium. 408 students between the ages of 13 and 20 took part. The students were divided into a test group and a control group. The test group followed an in-class mindfulness training programme which consisted of instruction in mindful breathing and body scan exercises, sharing experiences of these exercises, group reflection, inspiring stories, and education on stress, depression and self-care. The control group, meanwhile, received no training. Before the study, both groups completed a questionnaire designed to reveal symptoms of depression, stress and anxiety. Both groups completed the questionnaire again directly after the training, and then a third time six months later. Before the start of the training, the test group (21%) and the control group (24%) had a similar percentage of students reporting evidence of depression. After the mindfulness training, that number was significantly lower in the test group: 15% versus 27% in the control group. This difference persisted six months after the training, with 16% of the test group versus 31% of the control group reporting evidence of depression. The results suggest that mindfulness can lead to a decrease in symptoms associated with depression and, moreover, that it guards against the later development of depression-like symptoms. The full study can be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12671-013-0202-1.

Mindfulness at school reduces symptoms of depression among adolescents

Secondary school students who adhered to an in-class mindfulness programme exhibited decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress both immediately after and six months after the programme. Moreover, young people who followed the programme were less likely to develop pronounced depression-like symptoms. The study, conducted by Professor Filip Raes (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences), is the first to examine the effects of mindfulness on depression in a large sample of adolescents in a classroom setting.

Mindfulness is a form of meditation therapy focused on exercising ‘attentiveness’ over one’s thoughts. Depression is often rooted in a downward spiral of negative feelings and worries. Once a person learns to more quickly recognise these feelings and thoughts, he or she can intervene before depression sinks in.

While mindfulness has already been widely tested and applied in patients with depression, this is the first time the method has been studied in a large group of adolescents in a school-based setting, using a randomised controlled design. The study was carried out at five middle schools in Flanders, Belgium. 408 students between the ages of 13 and 20 took part. The students were divided into a test group and a control group. The test group followed an in-class mindfulness training programme which consisted of instruction in mindful breathing and body scan exercises, sharing experiences of these exercises, group reflection, inspiring stories, and education on stress, depression and self-care. The control group, meanwhile, received no training. Before the study, both groups completed a questionnaire designed to reveal symptoms of depression, stress and anxiety. Both groups completed the questionnaire again directly after the training, and then a third time six months later.

Before the start of the training, the test group (21%) and the control group (24%) had a similar percentage of students reporting evidence of depression. After the mindfulness training, that number was significantly lower in the test group: 15% versus 27% in the control group. This difference persisted six months after the training, with 16% of the test group versus 31% of the control group reporting evidence of depression. The results suggest that mindfulness can lead to a decrease in symptoms associated with depression and, moreover, that it guards against the later development of depression-like symptoms.

The full study can be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12671-013-0202-1.

Photo
neuromorphogenesis: The body: Your curious behaviours and what they reveal What makes humans so special? The obvious answer is our amazing brains. The body barely gets a mention. Yet it should. Our bodies are extraordinary: hairless, upright and with many peculiar features related to intelligence, including an oversized head. And that is just the start.   Ever wondered why yawns are contagious, you can’t tickle yourself and we don’t speak from our bottoms? IT’S your body, and you like to think you’ve got it under control. But underneath the calm exterior lurk unruly instincts and urges that are struggling to escape, putting you at risk of embarrassment or ridicule. These disreputable behaviours – the likes of the fart, hiccup, itch and yawn – are familiar to us all, yet they are also decidedly curious. Although they have been the source of folklore and puzzlement since antiquity, they have largely been overlooked by scientists. After all, where is the scientific grandeur in such ignoble acts? I take a different view. Where others see forbidden areas, I find unexplored territory and new frontiers of research. So I have made a point of studying our curious behaviours. What I have found sheds new light on our body, our mind and our evolution as a social animal. Yawning Whatever the purpose of a spontaneous yawn – and this remains hotly contested – the most extraordinary property of human yawning is its contagiousness. When we see someone yawn, our body is hijacked by a primal neurological process that is hard to resist. Imagine a yawning person with mouth stretched wide open, eyes squinting, taking a long inhalation followed by a shorter outward breath. Are you yawning yet? Yawns are so catching that almost anything associated with them can stimulate more yawns, including seeing, hearing, reading about, or even thinking about yawning. My colleagues and I have found that silent videos of yawning people trigger contagious yawns in about 55 per cent of observers within five minutes, and almost everyone reports being at least tempted to yawn. Surprisingly, given that a gaping mouth is the most conspicuous element of yawning, videos that had the mouth edited out were just as effective at making viewers yawn. In fact, videos showing just a yawning mouth evoked no more yawns than one of a smiling face. That may be because an open mouth is not exclusively associated with yawning and could be doing something else such as singing or yelling. We respond to the overall configuration of the yawning face, including the squinting eyes. From the evolutionary perspective, spontaneous yawns are ancient – occurring in most vertebrates – whereas contagious ones are relatively modern, being confined to social mammals including chimpanzees andperhaps dogs. In humans, spontaneous yawning develops while we are still in the womb, but the contagious variety does not appear until a child is 4 or 5. This is also roughly when children start being able to attribute mental states to themselves and others, strengthening the idea that contagious yawning is linked with sociality. Although the neurobiology of this curious behaviour is little understood, it is clear that when it occurs we become mindless beasts of the herd. As a yawn propagates through a group, it drives a ripple of physiological and emotional connection, transforming individuals into a superorganism. Itching Itching is an exquisite torment that earned a place in Dante’s Inferno, but it has its virtues. The skin is our body’s first line of defence against invasion and we are neurologically primed to maintain its integrity. So, when threatened by insect pests, toxic flora or other irritants, an itch guides us to the problem area and motivates us to scratch, in an attempt to dislodge the invader and quell the discomfort. Only the skin, not internal organs, gets itchy. We also respond to tactile false alarms when we itch in response to skin conditions such as eczema, athlete’s foot and psoriasis and, even more mysteriously, as a result of thyroid disease, diabetes and some neuropathologies. Itching isinhibited by pain, but while vigorous, tissue-damaging scratching can offer blessed relief in the short term, it can produce even more itching, locking us into a self-perpetuating itch-scratch cycle. Like yawning, itching is contagious. You can “catch” an itch from observing someone scratching, attending a lecture about itching, or viewing slides ofitch-producing pests such as lice. Even reading this may make you itchy. Contagious itching makes evolutionary sense: your neighbour’s pesky flea may jump from its host to you but won’t get far if you are already scratching. Hiccupping Hiccupping starts with a sudden inhalation produced by a downward jerk of the diaphragm and contraction of the muscles between the ribs, and ends almost immediately by glottal closing to produce the “hic” sound. Although of unknown purpose, this enigmatic act is one of the most common prenatal behaviours, suggesting a developmental role. Hiccupping starts at around 8 weeks of gestation, peaking between 10 and 13 weeks, then declines through the remainder of life. For an unfortunate few, however, hiccups return with a vengeance in later life in the form of persistent bouts lasting 48 hours or longer. Men are nine times more likely to suffer this than women. The record for chronic hiccupping is held by Iowa farmer Charlie Osborne who hiccupped for over 67 years. Fortunately, hiccups usually stop during sleep. A “hiccup generator” in the brainstem choreographs the widely distributed neurological and muscular components of a hiccup when it receives certain cues. These causes can range from distension of the stomach and irritation of the oesophagus to various thoracic and nervous disorders. Remedies are even more diverse. In his Symposium, Plato listed breath holding, gargling and sneezing. Other purported cures include eating sugar, drinking water upside down, being frightened and putting your fingers in your ears. During the course of my research I have discovered another. The audio recorder cure simply entails my standing expectantly, microphone in hand, next to the hiccupper. It is particularly effective on children and shows the power of social inhibition over an ancient, instinctive act. Vomiting If you ingest a toxic substance, your body uses an effective and violent response to try to eject it: vomiting. However, you are also prone to retch at the mere sight, smell or sound of someone else doing it. Why? I became fascinated by this phenomenon as a child on a particularly nauseating family road trip when my cousin Karen was sick in the car, causing the other passengers to vomit. Decades later I got a chance to investigate contagious (or hysterical) vomiting. I found that girls of middle-school and high-school age are especially prone. Bouts usually occur during a group event that provokes anxiety. They tend to involve reports of vague smells such as vehicle exhaust fumes or sewer gas, or odd tasting or smelling food or drink. Symptoms are likely to be vague and the illness will resolve quickly and have no adverse effects. Although contagious vomiting seems like a prime example of a bodily malfunction, in evolutionary terms it is adaptive, permitting everybody in a group to benefit vicariously from the reaction of the person who takes the first taste of something toxic. Messy false alarms are a small price to pay for a potentially life-saving gut reaction. Indeed, some Central and South American peoples intentionally induce communal vomiting by drinking the ritual emetic ayahuasca, in their quest for purification and bonding. Cheers! Tickling Tickling is exceptional in its philosophical, neurological, psychological and practical significance – impressive credentials for a behaviour that is often relegated to a footnote. Everything starts with the observation that we cannot tickle ourselves. This is fortunate, otherwise we would go through life in a giant chain reaction of goosiness, confused about whether we touched something or it touched us. The neurological process that inhibits our response to self-touching also computes our discrimination of self and other. Who would have thought that the lowly tickle could offer a solution to the ancient and thorny philosophical problem of personhood? This amazing insight even has a practical application. If computer scientists could create an algorithm to differentiate touching from being touched, they would increase the fine motor control of robots and be on the way to producing a machine with personhood. The fact that we cannot tickle ourselves makes tickling inherently social. It is an important means of tactile communication and bonding, and, I would argue, the basis of a baby’s earliest preverbal conversations with carers. Although self-professed tickle-haters abound, my surveys indicate that we usually tickle and are tickled by friends, family and lovers, with the motive of showing affection and getting attention. The capacity for mutual tickling enables the neurologically programmed choreography of tickle battles, physical play and sex play. The laboured breathing this produces is the origin of laughter, with the ancestral “pant-pant” – still produced by chimpanzees when tickled – evolving into the modern human “ha-ha”. I will further suggest that feigned tickle – the basis of the “I’m going to get you” game – is the most ancient joke. Farting No investigation of our quirky bodily behaviours would be complete without considering flatulence. This uncouth act has attracted interest from scholars and the general public alike since antiquity. A growing appreciation of the importance of our gut microfauna has brought farting to the attention of gastroenterologists. My interest in the subject is more esoteric: given the rich variety of sounds entailed, I wondered why we speak through our mouth rather than our butt. This is not as frivolous as it first seems, given that no part of the human body evolved specifically for speech. We speak through the same orifice through which we breathe, eat, drink and vomit, and the vocal cords are two flaps of tissue that act as a seal to keep food and drink out of the airway when we swallow. So why did evolution not take the alternative option of using the abdomen and lower bowel as bellows – some people do have such control – and the anal sphincter as the vibrating seal? Well, a major weakness of this idea is that while the oral vocal tract has the mouth, tongue, teeth and throat to shape sounds, the anus lacks such features. That hasn’t stopped herring using farts to communicate, but the fish are an exception, and even then it causes problems. Flatulent herring attract the attention of hungry killer whales that home in on the sound of their breaking wind. Alas, buttspeak turns out to be a weak contender in the speech evolution sweepstakes. (Image: La Promessa, 2010, Bronze. Matteo Pugliese) 

neuromorphogenesis:

The body: Your curious behaviours and what they reveal

What makes humans so special? The obvious answer is our amazing brains. The body barely gets a mention. 

Yet it should. Our bodies are extraordinary: hairless, upright and with many peculiar features related to intelligence, including an oversized head. And that is just the start. 

 Ever wondered why yawns are contagious, you can’t tickle yourself and we don’t speak from our bottoms?

IT’S your body, and you like to think you’ve got it under control. But underneath the calm exterior lurk unruly instincts and urges that are struggling to escape, putting you at risk of embarrassment or ridicule. These disreputable behaviours – the likes of the fart, hiccup, itch and yawn – are familiar to us all, yet they are also decidedly curious. Although they have been the source of folklore and puzzlement since antiquity, they have largely been overlooked by scientists. After all, where is the scientific grandeur in such ignoble acts? I take a different view. Where others see forbidden areas, I find unexplored territory and new frontiers of research. So I have made a point of studying our curious behaviours. What I have found sheds new light on our body, our mind and our evolution as a social animal.

Yawning

Whatever the purpose of a spontaneous yawn – and this remains hotly contested – the most extraordinary property of human yawning is its contagiousness. When we see someone yawn, our body is hijacked by a primal neurological process that is hard to resist. Imagine a yawning person with mouth stretched wide open, eyes squinting, taking a long inhalation followed by a shorter outward breath. Are you yawning yet?

Yawns are so catching that almost anything associated with them can stimulate more yawns, including seeing, hearing, reading about, or even thinking about yawning. My colleagues and I have found that silent videos of yawning people trigger contagious yawns in about 55 per cent of observers within five minutes, and almost everyone reports being at least tempted to yawn. Surprisingly, given that a gaping mouth is the most conspicuous element of yawning, videos that had the mouth edited out were just as effective at making viewers yawn. In fact, videos showing just a yawning mouth evoked no more yawns than one of a smiling face. That may be because an open mouth is not exclusively associated with yawning and could be doing something else such as singing or yelling. We respond to the overall configuration of the yawning face, including the squinting eyes.

From the evolutionary perspective, spontaneous yawns are ancient – occurring in most vertebrates – whereas contagious ones are relatively modern, being confined to social mammals including chimpanzees andperhaps dogs. In humans, spontaneous yawning develops while we are still in the womb, but the contagious variety does not appear until a child is 4 or 5. This is also roughly when children start being able to attribute mental states to themselves and others, strengthening the idea that contagious yawning is linked with sociality. Although the neurobiology of this curious behaviour is little understood, it is clear that when it occurs we become mindless beasts of the herd. As a yawn propagates through a group, it drives a ripple of physiological and emotional connection, transforming individuals into a superorganism.

Itching

Itching is an exquisite torment that earned a place in Dante’s Inferno, but it has its virtues. The skin is our body’s first line of defence against invasion and we are neurologically primed to maintain its integrity. So, when threatened by insect pests, toxic flora or other irritants, an itch guides us to the problem area and motivates us to scratch, in an attempt to dislodge the invader and quell the discomfort. Only the skin, not internal organs, gets itchy. We also respond to tactile false alarms when we itch in response to skin conditions such as eczema, athlete’s foot and psoriasis and, even more mysteriously, as a result of thyroid disease, diabetes and some neuropathologies. Itching isinhibited by pain, but while vigorous, tissue-damaging scratching can offer blessed relief in the short term, it can produce even more itching, locking us into a self-perpetuating itch-scratch cycle.

Like yawning, itching is contagious. You can “catch” an itch from observing someone scratching, attending a lecture about itching, or viewing slides ofitch-producing pests such as lice. Even reading this may make you itchy. Contagious itching makes evolutionary sense: your neighbour’s pesky flea may jump from its host to you but won’t get far if you are already scratching.

Hiccupping

Hiccupping starts with a sudden inhalation produced by a downward jerk of the diaphragm and contraction of the muscles between the ribs, and ends almost immediately by glottal closing to produce the “hic” sound. Although of unknown purpose, this enigmatic act is one of the most common prenatal behaviours, suggesting a developmental role. Hiccupping starts at around 8 weeks of gestation, peaking between 10 and 13 weeks, then declines through the remainder of life. For an unfortunate few, however, hiccups return with a vengeance in later life in the form of persistent bouts lasting 48 hours or longer. Men are nine times more likely to suffer this than women. The record for chronic hiccupping is held by Iowa farmer Charlie Osborne who hiccupped for over 67 years. Fortunately, hiccups usually stop during sleep.

A “hiccup generator” in the brainstem choreographs the widely distributed neurological and muscular components of a hiccup when it receives certain cues. These causes can range from distension of the stomach and irritation of the oesophagus to various thoracic and nervous disorders. Remedies are even more diverse. In his Symposium, Plato listed breath holding, gargling and sneezing. Other purported cures include eating sugar, drinking water upside down, being frightened and putting your fingers in your ears. During the course of my research I have discovered another. The audio recorder cure simply entails my standing expectantly, microphone in hand, next to the hiccupper. It is particularly effective on children and shows the power of social inhibition over an ancient, instinctive act.

Vomiting

If you ingest a toxic substance, your body uses an effective and violent response to try to eject it: vomiting. However, you are also prone to retch at the mere sight, smell or sound of someone else doing it. Why? I became fascinated by this phenomenon as a child on a particularly nauseating family road trip when my cousin Karen was sick in the car, causing the other passengers to vomit. Decades later I got a chance to investigate contagious (or hysterical) vomiting. I found that girls of middle-school and high-school age are especially prone. Bouts usually occur during a group event that provokes anxiety. They tend to involve reports of vague smells such as vehicle exhaust fumes or sewer gas, or odd tasting or smelling food or drink. Symptoms are likely to be vague and the illness will resolve quickly and have no adverse effects.

Although contagious vomiting seems like a prime example of a bodily malfunction, in evolutionary terms it is adaptive, permitting everybody in a group to benefit vicariously from the reaction of the person who takes the first taste of something toxic. Messy false alarms are a small price to pay for a potentially life-saving gut reaction. Indeed, some Central and South American peoples intentionally induce communal vomiting by drinking the ritual emetic ayahuasca, in their quest for purification and bonding. Cheers!

Tickling

Tickling is exceptional in its philosophical, neurological, psychological and practical significance – impressive credentials for a behaviour that is often relegated to a footnote.

Everything starts with the observation that we cannot tickle ourselves. This is fortunate, otherwise we would go through life in a giant chain reaction of goosiness, confused about whether we touched something or it touched us. The neurological process that inhibits our response to self-touching also computes our discrimination of self and other. Who would have thought that the lowly tickle could offer a solution to the ancient and thorny philosophical problem of personhood?

This amazing insight even has a practical application. If computer scientists could create an algorithm to differentiate touching from being touched, they would increase the fine motor control of robots and be on the way to producing a machine with personhood.

The fact that we cannot tickle ourselves makes tickling inherently social. It is an important means of tactile communication and bonding, and, I would argue, the basis of a baby’s earliest preverbal conversations with carers. Although self-professed tickle-haters abound, my surveys indicate that we usually tickle and are tickled by friends, family and lovers, with the motive of showing affection and getting attention. The capacity for mutual tickling enables the neurologically programmed choreography of tickle battles, physical play and sex play. The laboured breathing this produces is the origin of laughter, with the ancestral “pant-pant” – still produced by chimpanzees when tickled – evolving into the modern human “ha-ha”. I will further suggest that feigned tickle – the basis of the “I’m going to get you” game – is the most ancient joke.

Farting

No investigation of our quirky bodily behaviours would be complete without considering flatulence. This uncouth act has attracted interest from scholars and the general public alike since antiquity. A growing appreciation of the importance of our gut microfauna has brought farting to the attention of gastroenterologists. My interest in the subject is more esoteric: given the rich variety of sounds entailed, I wondered why we speak through our mouth rather than our butt.

This is not as frivolous as it first seems, given that no part of the human body evolved specifically for speech. We speak through the same orifice through which we breathe, eat, drink and vomit, and the vocal cords are two flaps of tissue that act as a seal to keep food and drink out of the airway when we swallow. So why did evolution not take the alternative option of using the abdomen and lower bowel as bellows – some people do have such control – and the anal sphincter as the vibrating seal? Well, a major weakness of this idea is that while the oral vocal tract has the mouth, tongue, teeth and throat to shape sounds, the anus lacks such features. That hasn’t stopped herring using farts to communicate, but the fish are an exception, and even then it causes problems. Flatulent herring attract the attention of hungry killer whales that home in on the sound of their breaking wind. Alas, buttspeak turns out to be a weak contender in the speech evolution sweepstakes.

(Image: La Promessa, 2010, Bronze. Matteo Pugliese) 

Photo
Single A Theme :: Version 1.1.4 :: By Business Bullpen