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Immunology

COVID-19 kills more men than women. The immune system may be why – Science News

With more men than women developingsevere illness and dying from COVID-19, sex differences that influence theimmune system may offer answers.

The bias in COVID-19 deaths appearedin the first reports out of China and has also been revealed in countries thatbreak down their mortality data by sex. Of Italys 21,551 deaths recorded as ofApril 20, 64 percent were men. In Spain, 59 percent of the 12,634 deaths as of April 21 occurred in men. Germany had recorded 4,598deaths by April 21, with 58 percent in men.

The United States does notseparate out national COVID-19 mortality by sex, but some states do. New York hasthe highest number COVID-19 deaths in the country, and as of April 21, 60 percent of 15,302 deaths were in men.

Some of that discrepancycould be because men are more likely than women to have other health problems,such as hypertension and diabetes. These are among the underlying conditionsthat raise the risk for severe COVID-19 disease, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventionreported April 3.

Another possible culprit isthe immune system itself. The many proteins that work together to defend thebody against viruses do not operate exactly the same way in males and females. Thosebiological differences, driven by sex hormones and genes, may be guarding somewomen from the deadliest complications of COVID-19.

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In general, females mount astronger immune response than males, studies have found. This makes womenoverall less susceptible to viral infections than men, although how each individualfares is another matter. A stronger immune response also means females are morelikely to develop autoimmune diseases, when the immune system attacks ones owntissue; conversely, a toned down immune response makes males more prone tohaving a host of malignant cancers.

The sources of the stronger femaleimmune response can be found in both the innate and adaptive immune systems,says Sabra Klein, a virologist at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Schoolof Public Health. The innate system provides the first response against a virus,while the adaptive systems contribution is slightly delayed by the time neededto ramp up antibody production against a new intruder.

One component of the innateimmune system is called toll-like receptor 7. This protein can recognizemolecules found on viruses, thereby outing the pathogens as foreign. The genefor toll-like receptor 7 resides on the X chromosome. Because females have twocopies of the X, the body silences one (SN: 4/8/03),allowing for the right dose of X chromosome genes. But some genes escape the shutdown, and there is evidence that this is true for the gene for toll-likereceptor 7, researchers reported in Science Immunology in 2018. That canlead to more of the protein being made, giving females more guards looking outfor intruders.

Having more toll-likereceptor 7 can help jump start and enhance the next steps of the innate immune system.You want fast recognition, you want fast responses, Klein says. This is howyou start to activate the army of immune responses that are going to be neededto clear an infection. One of those steps is the release of interferons,proteins that direct major factions of the bodys immune response. In studiesthat measure levels of interferons in blood or in cells grown in a dish, researchersoverall see greater production of these interferons in females as comparedwith males, says Klein.

As the adaptive immunesystem gears up, women can get a boost over men again. The amount of antibodyproduced, as well as the quality of those antibodies, or the strength withwhich they bind to the virus, tends to be greater in females compared withmales, Klein says. Female mice produced more neutralizing antibodies the type which stop an infection by preventing thevirus from entering cells and more total antibodies against influenza A virus after infection comparedwith males, Klein and colleagues reported in Vaccine in 2011.

The female hormone estrogenalso influences the innate and adaptive immune systems. The hormone can regulatea variety of different genes for immune system proteins. For example, estrogen canstimulate the production of interferons, says Klein. And some of the genes thatare associated with directing the response of B cells, which make antibodies,are regulated by estrogen.

All of these findings comefrom research with other viruses, and havent yet been studied in the contextof COVID-19, Klein says, but they provide us with some clues. At this point,some of the best clues as to why there are discrepancies in how men and womenfare with COVID-19 may come from a study of the disease SARS in mice. The virus that causes SARS shares similarities with the culprit behind COVID-19,SARS-CoV-2 (SN: 2/3/20). And there isevidence that during the SARS epidemic of 2002-2003, which had close to 800deaths, men had a higher case fatality rate than women.

Its helpful to study sexdifferences in mice because it takes behavioral influences out of the equation,says Stanley Perlman, a virologist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Forexample, as reports from China indicated that more men than women were havingsevere cases of COVID-19, some also noted this could be due to the fact thatmore Chinese men than women smoke. China was also among the five countries thatSARS cases were concentrated in.

Perlmans team compared how male and female mice did when infected with a mouse-adapted version of SARS-CoV,the virus that causes SARS, and reported the results in the Journal of Immunology in 2017. Among middle-agedmice, those 8 to 9 months old, all of the males died within eight days of beinginfected, but only 10 percent of the females did by day 12. Males had higheramounts of the virus in their lungs than females did, suggesting the maleswerent clearing the virus effectively. The males also had a prolonged,unhelpful inflammatory response.

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When the research teamremoved the ovaries from 12 female mice to prevent estrogen from being made, about85 percent of the mice died after infection, compared with close to 20 percentof 12 females with their ovaries. Without estrogen, the female mice were nowas sensitive to the infection as male mice, Perlman says. While I wouldntclaim its the whole story, estrogen is a big part of the story.

Klein and Perlman both haveplans to study differences in the male and female response to COVID-19. In caseswhen the bodys own immune response contributes to a viral disease, it might beexpected women would fare worse, Klein says, because a strong immune responsecan lead to too much damaging inflammation. And with COVID-19, theres a lot ofconcern about the detrimental effect of increased inflammation in the lungs.

But what happens during COVID-19might be different. This aberrant inflammation might be higher in males thanfemales, Klein says.

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COVID-19 kills more men than women. The immune system may be why - Science News

Immunology

Sallie Permar: Who Are Your Trusted Sources on COVID-19? – Duke Today

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the question of where to turn for solid information has never been more important.

Many Duke experts are being approached now for their expertise and insight. But where do they turn for guidance and the latest information? In this ongoing series, Duke Today asks Duke experts to share their preferred sources.

Dr. Sallie Permar is a physician scientist who focuses on prevention and treatment of neonatal viral infections. A professor of immunology, pathology, pediatrics, molecular genetics and microbiology and associate dean for physician-scientist development, she recently wrote about the effect of the pandemic on medical research.

To stay abreast of how the infectious diseases field is responding to the novel coronavirus, she consults a mix of websites, podcasts and social media.

This Week in Virology, hosted by Vincent Racaniello and fellow virologists, has featured recent guest hosts who are stars of COVID-19 research, such as Drs. Daniel Griffin, Ralph Baric, Mark Denison, Stanley Perlman and Christian Drosten.

Immune, hosted by immunologists Cindy Leifer, Stephanie Langel, Vincent Racaniello, carried a recent two-part series on COVID-19 immunology with Dr. Brianne Barker that was especially compelling.

I also listen to COVID-19: Commonsense Conversations on the Coronavirus Pandemic, with host Dr. Ted OConnell, a family physician and writer.

For the latest on numbers by region, I check Johns Hopkins Universitys COVID-19 map.

COVID-19 guidelines can be found on the Centers for Disease Control website.

For the latest on viral sequence dynamics, I check gisaid.org.

For recent COVID-19 research reports, I consult bioxiv.org and medrxiv.org. The Twitter sources below provide real-time critical reviews of the newly posted manuscripts.

For the latest on epidemiology and case series reports, I consult: - the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and - World Health Organization situation reports.

And for compilations of the latest research I check: - Duke Pharmacist Elizabeth Dodds-Ashleys Daily Digest. - The American Association of Medical Colleges Novel Coronavirus Update by chief scientific officer and former Duke faculty member Dr. Ross McKinney. - Publons compilation of latest research manuscripts, which includes some crowd-sourced reviews.

Finally, great sources to follow on Twitter include:@NIAIDNews; @CEPIvaccines;NIH Vaccine Research Center scientist Kizzmekia Corbett (@KizzyPhD);The laboratory of UNC-Chapel Hills Dr. Ralph Baric (@Baric_Lab);The laboratory of Vanderbilt Universitys Dr. Mark Denison (@Denisonlab);Florian Krammer, an immunologist who is developing antibody assays (@florian_krammer); Virologists Dr. Benhur Lee (@VirusWhisperer) and Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen);COVID-19 drug developer Timothy Sheahan (@timothysheahan);David Martinez, a former Ph.D. student who is now testing vaccine and therapeutic antibodies in the lab of Ralph Baric (@David_RMartinez).

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Sallie Permar: Who Are Your Trusted Sources on COVID-19? - Duke Today

Immunology

How To Check Your Fever Without A Thermometer, According To Doctors – Women’s Health

PhotoAlto/Frederic CirouGetty Images

Whether youre dealing with a sudden wave of chills and aches and pains, or you just feel *a little* hotter than usual, the desire to know if you have a fever ASAP is understandable. After all, a fever tends to serve as an indicator that your body is fending something off (like a virus or a bacterial infection) and trying to return to its normal, according to the Mayo Clinic.

But if you dont have a thermometer laying around, or the only one you could find was buried deep in some bathroom drawer and youre not sure just how long its been in there, you might be wondering: Is there any legit (or at least somewhat legit) way to gauge whether your temperature is above normal without a thermometer?

Read on to learn what to do if youre feeling feverish, no matter your thermometer situation, with insight from immunology docs.

The only way to know for sure that you have a fever (meaning a temp above 99 to 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit or 37.2 to 37.5 degrees Celsius) is by taking your temperature with a thermometer, confirms David Erstein, MD, an allergist and immunologist based in New York.

Unfortunately, your chances of accurately guessing whether or not you have a fever without a thermometer are fair at best, he says. Case in point: Patients who self-reported feeling feverish at a rural teaching hospital in India had a 58 percent chance of *actually* having a fever, according to a study in Tropical Medicine and International Health.

If youve managed to dig up an old thermometer, digital and old-school glass thermometers alike should do the trick (as long as theyre not damaged or out of juice), says Robert Eitches, MD, an allergist-immunologist and fellow of the American Board of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. But if theres any indication that your old-school thermometer is cracked or broken, wrap it up in a Ziploc bag and throw it away. Mercury (a silvery white liquid still present in some household thermometers) could leak out, and its toxic.

Of course, before you pop a thermometer under your tongue, youll want to clean it. Here's how to clean a thermometer properly: Lather up some soap and water in your hands, scrub down the part of the thermometer you put in your mouth for 20 seconds, and rinse it off. After that, if you have rubbing alcohol on hand, wipe down the thermometer applicator with a cotton ball soaked with rubbing alcohol to sanitize it, then rinse it off again to remove the alcohol, advises Dr. Erstein. If you dont have any rubbing alcohol at home, no worrieswashing it off with soap and water is absolutely fine (as soap alone can break down and remove bacteria and viruses, including the novel coronavirus), he says.

If you dont have immediate access to a thermometer but youre feeling, well, warm and icky, there are a few ways you can make an educated guess as to whether or not you actually have a fever.

Both digital and old-school glass thermometers are fine to use to measure fever.

Again, though, the only way to be totally sure your temperatures off the charts is to use a thermometer.

If you feel ill and youve got a moderately high fever (think: above 102 degrees Fahrenheit or 38.9 degrees Celsius), thats your cue to call a doctor to figure out next steps, says Dr. Eitches. Otherwise? In general, if youre experiencing fever associated with other symptoms such as shortness of breath, a rash, or confusion, its probably best to seek medical attention, he says.

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How To Check Your Fever Without A Thermometer, According To Doctors - Women's Health

Embryology

Cork clinic hoping to resume some fertility treatments in May – Echo Live

The Sims Clinic, which operates a facility at City Gate in Mahon, says it is hoping to resume some of its fertility treatments next month, but it awaits government guidance on the situation.

The clinic, like others across Europe, had deferred fertility treatments following recent recommendations from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) that assisted reproduction treatments such as IVF should temporarily not be carried out in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ESHRE has now reviewed these recommendations and says that once the risk of COVID-19 infection is decreasing, treatments can be resumed in line with local regulations.

It has urged however that "vigilance and measured steps must be taken for safe practice and to minimise the risks related to SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19-positive patients or staff during treatment."

The Sims Clinic said it would look to resume some of its treatments in May, adding "however, we still await government guidance on the situation."

It said the resumption of services would be on a phased basis.

The safety of patients and staff is of paramount importance to us and we are making all preparations necessary. We have sourced PPE equipment and are ensuring our clinics are prepared for social distancing, the Sims Clinic said.

The clinic said that this would take some time and that staff will start to contact patients regarding their treatment next week.

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Cork clinic hoping to resume some fertility treatments in May - Echo Live

Embryology

Ag in the Classroom lessons in the bag – Agri News

HENRY, Ill. University of Illinois Extension Marshall-Putnam Agriculture in the Classroom Program and the Marshall-Putnam Farm Bureau collaborated to provide Ag-Bag lessons to school classrooms.

Due to the stay-at-home order, students are not able to participate in their regular Ag in the Classroom lessons. Abrianne Holler, University of Illinois Extension Ag in the Classroom community worker, and Tiffany Moody, executive director of the Marshall-Putnam Farm Bureau, provided four different lessons focusing on agriculture for students who pick up a weekly lunch at school.

Lets Grow at Home was the first Ag-Bag. In this bag, students were given pots, seeds, magnifying glass or ruler, along with a way to mark their plants. A brief lesson about plants was enclosed with the supplies, including a germination journal to keep track of what they did each day with the plant.

Lets Get Poppin lesson was based on the Illinois state snack: POPCORN! Each bag had popcorn facts, a small bag of popcorn, and a popcorn craft.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? lesson was focused on the embryology project most students would have experienced first-hand in the classrooms with Extensions incubator project. This bag included a snack that was made to look like a chicken, chicken activities, and 4-H resources to watch chicks hatch online.

The fourth Ag-Bag was Calling all Conservation Superheroes. This bag was focused towards Earth Day. The lesson focused on resources on how to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

University of Illinois Extension Ag in the Classroom and the Marshall-Putnam Farm Bureau will continue to work together to support students, teachers, schools and parents, with the Ag-Bags and to provide experiential lessons highlighting the importance of agriculture.

For more information or questions, contact Holler at 815-224-0889 or by email at anholler@illinois.edu.

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Ag in the Classroom lessons in the bag - Agri News

Embryology

The Impact of Suspended IVF Treatment On Women – GLAMOUR UK

At the moment, it feels like life has been put on pause... Literally. The government has advised us to stay at home to help control the spread of coronavirus. So what does this mean for women who are struggling to fall pregnant and embarking on IVF?

IVF is already a daunting, stressful and emotionally-draining process. But now, there are a whole new cohort of people with the added layer of uncertainty of whether they will ever get pregnant because treatment has been postponed indefinitely.

On 24 March, the official regulator for fertility clinics, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) announced no new treatment can begin. It means patients whod already started an IVF cycle can finish it, but all treatment after 15 April has been stopped.

On the face of it, HFEAs measures are simply complying with government social distancing advice to flatten the curve and ease the burden on the NHS which is already under huge pressure. Sounds reasonable. But that doesnt change how upsetting this is for so many who now feel helpless in their pursuit of parenthood.

We have had many calls from patients who are upset and distressed by the indefinite delay, said Dr Geeta Nargund, Medical Director at CREATE Fertility and abc IVF. Not knowing when they're able to start treatment brings with it a potentially serious mental health impact, particularly when patients know that time is of the essence and that it may impact upon their chance to become biological mothers.

Dr Nargund says that once a patient is given medication to stimulate ovaries, it can take up to two weeks to mature the eggs and prepare them for egg collection. First, she is given stimulation medication and monitored with ultrasound scans and blood tests, before an egg-collection procedure is booked in. Next, the eggs are fertilised with sperm in a lab to create embryos. Embryo/s are either transferred as fresh embryos three or five days later or frozen for later use.

Nargund says the treatment suspension has been particularly hard for women who have waited a long time for IVF or those diagnosed with a very low egg reserve, for whom time is of the essence.

Matilda*, 37, from Cheshire has a low Anti-Mullerian hormone level for her age, indicating a decreased egg reserve. Shes had two unsuccessful rounds of NHS-funded IVF, in August 2019 and January 2020. She and partner Eric*, 41, scraped together savings and borrowed from family and friends for private treatment, costing around 7,000.

At first, I was reluctant, Matilda says. If you have another round of heartbreak, you lose all that money. But you also feel, if I dont do it, will I live the rest of my life in regret?

We decided, finding all the funds, going into debt, using our life-savings, its such a huge risk. Sometimes I feel physically sick about spending that amount on a small chance and potentially ending up with nothing at all, she explains.

The clinic put Matilda on the pill and scheduled her egg collection for 17 April. But her treatment was cancelled as it had surpassed HEFAs deadline by two days. As Matildas turning 38 in a couple of months, shes concerned the delay for someone her age could mean not having a biological child.

Your chances diminish every month. This could have been my month, this could have been my cycle. Im losing that chance and its getting less likely it will ever work. If this lasts six or twelve months, Ive spent all that money and its going to be pointless, she says. Ive lived from appointment-to-appointment for close to a year, trying to keep healthy, not drinking alcohol, doing things to prepare and now theres no appointments, theres nothing. I dont know how to carry on. Im depressed and angry at just how hopeless you are as a woman in this situation.

Matilda says she will try again once the suspension lifts, but knows her chances will be slimmer.

Leanne Jones, 31, from Hampshire is having pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) IVF because her husband Kyle, 30, has a genetic disorder called PKD1 which affects life-expectancy and has a 50% chance of being hereditary..

During five years of treatment, Leannes had two cycles resulting in early miscarriages in September 2019 and February 2020. When you have a positive pregnancy test, a door opens. Youre planning the next 35 years of your life and your emotions run away with you. Then someone goes nope and shuts the door. Its grief. My emotions were like someone had died. I felt like someone had taken my right to breathe and I couldnt catch my breath at all, she explains.

As a midwife, Leanne sympathises for NHS staff, both in the face of COVID-19 and the suspension: It must be horrendous. Its hard but its the right thing.

What can you do if youre in a similar situation?

Dr Nargund suggests:

1. Use this time to make sure your body is ready for treatment. Make sure you're maintaining a healthy weight, getting regular exercise and following a balanced diet. While it may be difficult during this time, trying to stay relaxed and giving up vices such as smoking will all help to optimise your fertility status.

2. Do your research. There are multiple discussion groups and webinars being hosted that will allow you to better understand the treatment suspension and what it means for you, as well as ask questions of experts and decide on what treatment is right for you.

3. Explore getting treatment started online. Some clinics are offering virtual consultations that can be conducted over video call and using hormonal blood tests conducted at home. This will allow you to get the process moving and ensure that once the lockdown is lifted treatment can be started as soon as possible.

Help:

HFEA are updating patient guidance on their website.

The Fertility Network UK support line (0121 323 5025) is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 10am-4pm.

Professional Infertility Counselling Association(BICA) have a Find A Counsellor section on their website.

Professor Dr Geeta Nargund at CREATE Fertility is hosting webinars twice a week to provide information and guidance for all those considering starting treatment after the suspension.

*Matilda and Eric are fictional names

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The Impact of Suspended IVF Treatment On Women - GLAMOUR UK

Embryology

Care home boss who exposed full horror of coronavirus in video diary reveals 16 of her residents have died – The Sun

A CARE home boss who exposed the full horror of coronavirus in a video diary has revealed that 16 of her residents have now succumbed to the disease.

Nicola Richards warned earlier this month that supplies of personal protective equipment were getting dangerously low as 39 of her residents and staff fell ill.

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Her grim update came as the World Health Organisation said those in long-term care facilities account for up to half of Europes coronavirus-related deaths.

Nicola, who recorded the diary for Sky News, is director of Palms Row Healthcare in Sheffield.

She said in her video diary, recorded earlier this month: Theres a lot of panic, unrest, apprehension, concern around.

Weve got staff really fretting about this.

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Words cannot describe how difficult it is on the front line.

The impact has been something else.

Weve never been faced with anything like this.

The challenges have increased daily.

Nicola said infection rates at the firms three care homes in the city have slowed in the past week, but still urged authorities to provide more help.

She added: We do stress that we need this help now and that other providers need the support we have been lacking during the last month."

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The WHO admitted a deeply concerning picture was emerging of the bugs impact in care homes.

Its regional director for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge, said: According to estimates from countries in the European region, up to half of those who have died from Covid-19 were resident in long-term care facilities.

He added that 50 per cent of the worlds Covid-19 cases more than 1.2million have been in Europe, and they have resulted in more than 110,000 deaths.

Stopping IVF 'was so hard'

A FERTILITY watchdog boss said halting all IVF during the outbreak was the most difficult decision in its 30-year history.

Sally Cheshire, head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said safety and shortages of key staff and equipment were behind the decision.

We have huge sympathy for the thousands of patients who are not able to continue treatment, Mrs Cheshire said.

We are working on an exit strategy to allow treatment once restrictions are lifted, she added.

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Care home boss who exposed full horror of coronavirus in video diary reveals 16 of her residents have died - The Sun

Neuroscience

3 things you can do today to beat work stress, according to neuroscience – CNBC

Nearly every aspect of living and working has been upended by the coronavirus pandemic.

Running essential errands, checking on friends and family, caring for kids while school is shut down andstaying healthy have all become harder. On top of all that, workers are simultaneously worried about job security and may be logginglonger, more distracted hoursin their new work-from-home arrangements.

"In the brain, it's like we woke up one day in a war zone with no training or skills, and our brains are not dealing well with it," says David Rock, founder and CEO of NeuroLeadership Institute, a science-based leadership development company.

While it may feel like stress is coming at you from every direction, Rock tells CNBC Make It that it's important to boil down the root causes of stress to three main points: feelings of uncertainty, a lack of autonomy and a decrease in positive social interaction.

"Those three things combined make this the most stressful experience of most people's lives by many multiples," Rock adds.

The good news is that knowing these three root causes of stress is the first step to overcoming it at work and at home. Of course, if you're feeling particularly overwhelmed, you may want to talk to a mental health professional.Your workplace may offer teletherapy and counseling services through an employee assistance program, and some states have made free mental health hotlines available to residents.

Here are Rock's suggestions for simple ways to start combating stress today.

"You might feel like the news is making you more certain," Rock says, "but it's actually making you more anxious."

To that end,you may want tolimit the amount of time and energy you focus on the news, other than essential details of how to keep you and your family safe.

First, try to limit the number of times you scroll through your news feed or turn on the TV news channel for example, in the morning before work and in the evening before dinner. When you do check the news, set an alarm for when you have to stop.

"It can be good for mental health to be productive and not focus on the news too much," Rock adds. Be intentional with how you spend your time consuming news, doing work and pursuing personal interests and hobbies.

For a lot of people, working from home means working with a host of new distractionshousemates, partners, kids, errands all of which can make you feel like your days are slipping away from you.

To that end,"it's important for your sense of certainty and autonomy to build a schedule and stick to it," Rock says.

Many remote-work experts agree it's crucial to establish some sort of routine so the confines of work and home don't bleed into each other, which can cause burnout. Establish a clear morning, work and evening schedule, and coordinate with people in your household. Communicate some of these boundaries with work colleagues, too.

Remember that during times of stress, you'll probably become more irritable toward others. "When things feel completely out of control, even small stressors become big stressors," Rock says.

Be open with others, whether members of your household or colleagues during the workday, about what you need from each other to avoid small conflicts from getting out of hand. Practicing empathy when you're on the receiving end of feedback can also go a long way to help you feel more in control.

One thing that might feel completely out your grasp is job security. Roughly 22 million Americans filed for unemployment in the first month since the pandemic upended the U.S. economy. And according to a recent Gallup poll, 25% of American workers are worried they could lose their job in the next year, compared to 8% of workers who felt that way last year.

Rock says even in the event of losing your job, you can find a way to exercise autonomy, such as controlling your spending or preparing your job-search plan. In today's situation, that might mean acknowledging you won't be able to find a new job for the next six months, and creating a plan about how you'll use your time until that point.

"It might sound glib, but it's actually quite powerful to be proactively making choices in a situation that feels like it's been done to you," Rock says. "It can be helpful to use the opportunity of a downturn to take time to reevaluate your career interests, reconnect with loved ones and get yourself in better physical and emotional shape."

Connecting with others during the pandemic is both harder to do and more crucial than ever to combat stress.

And just like you structure time for news and work, Rock says it can make a big difference to schedule time to socialize: "If we don't put those things in the calendar first, work will expand to fill the available time," he says.

That might include having a virtual coffee break with colleagues in the morning, or setting aside an hour every week to have lunch with your partner at home. To stay accountable for your log-off time, you may commit to a phone call with a friend or family member while taking an after-work walk around the neighborhood.

The key is to make these quality and positive interactions. "We need those interactions with people every day to calm our nervous systems," Rock says.

Correction: This story has been revised to reflect David Rock's role as founder and CEO of a leadership company.

Check out: The best credit cards of 2020 could earn you over $1,000 in 5 years

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3 things you can do today to beat work stress, according to neuroscience - CNBC

Neuroscience

New Neuroscience Research Calls Where You Study Key to Faster Learning – Inc.

So what can you doif you need remember,or better yet memorize,something important?

According tonew research published earlier this month in the scientificjournalNeuron, stopstudying in your office. Or in your home. Or anywhere you're familiar. Study in a place that's new to you.

While that might seem odd, sincestudying in an unfamiliar setting sounds distractingrather thanconducive to learning, the opposite turns out to be true.

A fresh environment activatesthe dopamine system in your brain, and dopamine promotes associative learning, triggering feelings of reward that increase your brain's ability to absorb and retain information. (Associative learning is connecting a stimulus or action with a positive or negative outcome; think connecting the dots.)

In short, the naturalbuzzyou get from being somewhere new--or as the researchers call it, experiencing "inconsequential novel stimulus"--helps you learn more quickly.

"From avery practical perspective," the researchers write,"the results remind us to break our routine more often and seek out novel experiences to be better learners."

Need to nail a new sales demo? Need to nail a presentation? Need to remember a variety of facts and figures to support an idea?Study and rehearse somewhere new.

Just keep in mind that "new" really does mean new.

"Strictly speaking," the researchers write, "anything is only new the first time we perceive it."

Which means you'll constantly have to find new places to study.

Butsince new can be "inconsequential," where you go doesn't need to have a great view.Orspecial ambience.Or social cachet.

To learn better and faster, where you go justhas to be different.

Published on: Apr 23, 2020

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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New Neuroscience Research Calls Where You Study Key to Faster Learning - Inc.

Neuroscience

New Hinton Nature Paper Revisits Backpropagation, Offers Insights for Understanding Learning in the Cortex – Synced

Although Turing awardee and backpropagation pioneer Geoffrey Hintons interests have largely shifted to unsupervised learning, he recently co-authored a paper that takes a look back at backpropagation and explores its potential to contribute to understanding how the human cortex learns.

Hinton and a team of researchers from DeepMind, University College London, and University of Oxford published the paper last Friday on Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Their main idea is that biological brains could compute effective synaptic updates by using feedback connections to induce neuron activities whose locally computed differences encode backpropagation-like error signals.

Backpropagation of errors, or backprop, is a widely used algorithm in training artificial neural networks using gradient descent for supervised learning. The basics of continuous backpropagation were proposed in the 1960s, and in 1986 a Nature paper co-authored by Hinton showed experimentally that backprop can generate useful internal representations for neural networks.

The introduction of backpropagation also generated excitement in the neuroscience community, where it was viewed as a possible source of insight on understanding the learning process in the cortex. How the cortex modifies synapses to improve the performance of multistage networks remains one of the biggest mysteries in neuroscience.

Although we know that human brains learn by modifying the synaptic connections between neurons, synapses in the cortex are embedded within multi-layered networks, making it difficult to determine the effect of an individual synaptic modification on the behaviour of the system. In artificial neural networks, backprop tries to solve this problem by computing how slight changes in each synapses strength change the networks error rate using the chain rule of calculus.

The relevance of backpropagation to the cortex however had been in doubt for some time. The method was viewed as biologically problematic, as it was classically described in the supervised learning setting while the brain is thought to learn mainly in an unsupervised fashion and appears to use its feedback connections for different purposes. Moreover, decades after it was first proposed, backpropagation had still failed to produce truly impressive performance in artificial systems.

Backprop made its comeback in the 2010s, contributing to the rapid progress in unsupervised learning problems such as image and speech generation, language modelling, and other prediction tasks. Combining backprop with reinforcement learning also enabled significant advances in solving control problems such as mastering Atari games and beating top human professionals in games like Go and poker.

The successes of artificial neural networks over the past decade along with developments in neuroscience have reinvigorated interest in whether backpropagation can offer insights for understanding learning in the cortex. The new paper proposes that the brain has the capacity to implement the core principles underlying backprop, despite the apparent differences between brains and artificial neural nets.

The researchers introduced neural gradient representation by activity differences (NGRAD), which they define as learning mechanisms that use differences in activity states to drive synaptic changes.

To function in neural circuits, NGRADs need to be able to coordinate interactions between feedforward and feedback pathways, compute differences between patterns of neural activities, and use these differences to make appropriate synaptic updates. Although it is not yet clear how biological circuits could support these operations, the researchers say that recent empirical studies present an expanding set of potential solutions to these implementation requirements.

The NGRAD framework demonstrates that it is possible to embrace the core principles of backpropagation while sidestepping many of its problematic implementation requirements. And although the researchers focused on the cortex because many of its architectural features resemble that of deep networks, they believe NGRADs may be relevant to any brain circuit that incorporates both feedforward and feedback connectivity.

Many pieces are still missing that would firmly connect backprop with learning in the brain. Nonetheless, the situation now is very much reversed from decades ago, when neuroscience was thought to have little to learn from backprop. Now, the researchers believe, learning by following the gradient of a performance measure can work very well in deep neural networks: It therefore seems likely that a slow evolution of the thousands of genes that control the brain would favour getting as close as possible to computing the gradients that are needed for efficient learning of the trillions of synapses it contains.

The paper Backpropagation and the Brain is available on Nature Reviews Neuroscience. The first author is Timothy P. Lillicrap, and the research team also includes Adam Santoro, Luke Marris and Colin J. Akerman.

Journalist: Yuan Yuan | Editor: Michael Sarazen

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New Hinton Nature Paper Revisits Backpropagation, Offers Insights for Understanding Learning in the Cortex - Synced