Anatomy Trains E-Magazine: Issue 9 How We Move
February 12, 2020 by Anatomy Trains
Were so excited to share Issue 9 of the Anatomy Trains e-magazine, put together by the brilliant Julie Hammond, director of Anatomy Trains Australia & New Zealand, and her fabulous team! This ninth edition, How We Move, is all about human movement. The issue includes: An article by Tom Myers, Toward a Unified Theory of Read more
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Anatomy Trains - Dynamic Education for Body-Minded ...
On March 1, 2020, NIA appointed Lisbeth Nielsen, Ph.D., as its new Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) director. Nielsen has a long history of leadership in the behavioral and social sciences at NIH: She served for 15 years as a program director and branch chief of the NIA BSR Individual Behavioral Processes Branch. She also held leadership roles in the NIH Science of Behavior Change Common Fund program and the trans-NIH Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences Opportunity Network. Prior to joining NIH, Nielsen conducted research in the affective and decision science of aging at Stanford University.
Throughout her research career, Nielsen has built bridges linking psychological and behavioral science to economics, genetics, neuroscience, biology, epidemiology, social science, and biomedicine, at all levels from basic to translational research. She was instrumental in launching new areas of research in subjective well-being and the social, affective, and economic neurosciences of aging.
Nielsen helped initiate several innovative research networks linking behavioral and population scientists to tackle questions related to the influences of stress on physical health and on the potential for midlife reversibility of health risks associated with early life adversity. She is an advocate for the study of aging processes across the full life course, including research on early life influences on later life outcomes and on processes in midlife that play a causal role in shaping trajectories of aging.
Dr. Nielsens efforts have enhanced the impact of aging-related research and created meaningful opportunities for behavioral and social scientists to participate in high-level and significant NIH scientific initiatives, said NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. Her impressive and accomplished background and experiences make her exceptionally qualified to lead this important division at a time of great scientific opportunity.
NIAs Division of Behavioral and Social Research is among the most influential and exciting behavioral and social science funding organizations in the U.S., and I look forward to leading our talented and creative staff, Nielsen said. Our work will continue to evolve to encompass a wide range of behavioral and social science approaches to understanding Alzheimers disease and related dementias, embracing life course research on the developmental origins of aging processes, extending our focus on midlife prevention of the chronic diseases of aging, and promoting a range of rigorous mechanistic approaches to understanding and advancing behavior change at the individual and organizational levels.
Nielsen also highlighted the divisions role in integrating life-span developmental and social science approaches into the broader geroscience agenda, to understand how behavior and the social environment impact the life span, health span, and the development of age-related diseases, including Alzheimers disease.
Multiple approaches from molecular to social are needed to understand individual and group differences in the pace of aging, and to tackle the growing and disturbingly large health disparities in the United States, a topic that has always been at the forefront of BSR efforts, said Nielsen.
Nielsen earned her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and cognitive science from the University of Arizona, a masters degree in psychology from Copenhagen University, and a B.A. in philosophy from Rhodes College. She is a fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Mind and Life Institute.
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Dr. Lisbeth Nielsen to lead NIA's Division of Behavioral and Social Research - National Institute on Aging
The gray matter volume of a brain region involved in fear and avoidance responses appears to predict treatment outcomes in patients with anxiety disorders, according to new research published in Neuropsychopharmacology.
Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent mental health conditions in the US and are associated with significant economic burden worldwide, explained study author Katie Burkhouse, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago and head of the Families, Affective Neuroscience, and Mood Disorders Lab.
Unfortunately, despite decades of research, many individuals do not respond to our first-line treatments for anxiety disorders, such as SSRIs (such as Prozac and Celexa) or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), especially patients presenting with more than one mental health disorder. Thus, the primary objective of this research was to identify a brain-based predictor of treatment response for patients with comorbid anxiety disorders in an attempt to use this information to guide patients toward treatments that have the highest likelihood of success.
In the study, 81 participants with a current anxiety disorder were randomly assigned to receive either 12 weeks of CBT or SSRI treatment. The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the gray matter volume of the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex prior to treatment.
After controlling for age, sex, and total brain volume, the researchers found that participants with greater nucleus accumbens volume prior to treatment tended to see greater reductions in anxiety symptoms after the 12 weeks. The results were similar for both CBT and SSRI treatment.
In our study, we explored whether brain volume of regions supporting fear and avoidance responses, which are heavily impacted in anxiety disorders, may be used to predict which individuals respond to treatment. We found that for adults with anxiety, the individuals that responded best to psychosocial or SSRI treatment were those who had greater pre-treatment volume in the nucleus accumbens, a region that plays a key role in both passive and active avoidance behavior, Burkhouse told PsyPost.
The researchers replicated their results in another experiment with 55 youth who were between the ages of 7 and 19.
The novel piece of our study was the ability to reproduce this effect in a separate sample of children and adolescents with anxiety disorders. Thus, improving avoidance responses may be one way in which these first-line treatments work for reducing anxiety among youth and adults, and these effects may be most meaningful for individuals who exhibit greater pre-treatment deficits in neural systems underlying avoidance behaviors, Burkhouse said.
But the study like all research includes some limitations.
Although the focus on patients with anxiety disorders and comorbid conditions (e.g., multiple anxiety disorders or anxiety with depression) was intentional to increase the generalizability of the current findings to the community and to understand predictors of treatment response for this population, we were unable to examine whether the effects were specific to a certain anxiety diagnosis (such as social anxiety or generalized anxiety), Burkhouse explained.
Future studies should explore whether findings are specific to comorbid anxiety profiles or are observed for specific diagnoses. Additionally, although we were able to reproduce our treatment finding in a separate sample, the total proportion of variance in treatment outcome explained by our brain-based predictor was still relatively low (approximately 20%), which is not uncommon for treatment outcome studies.
Thus, continued work in this area is needed to improve prediction models. For example, combining structural data (e.g., brain volume) with other measures of threat processing and avoidance behaviors (e.g., functional neuroimaging) may result in improved accuracy and prediction in future anxiety treatment outcome studies, Burkhouse said.
The nucleus accumbens has long been associated with motivation and reward. The brain structure might be related to vulnerability to stress as well, and it also appears to be involved in emitting or withholding a response to avoid harm.
The present study benefited from the ability to reproduce the treatment prediction finding in a distinct sample of youth with anxiety disorders. Given that anxiety disorders are most likely to onset during childhood and adolescence, identifying predictors of response to treatment for this developmental population is essential, Burkhouse added.
To our knowledge, this is the first study to include a separate independent sample when testing neural predictors of treatment response. The ability to reproduce findings in separate samples is critical for advancing the field of precision medicine.
The study, Nucleus accumbens volume as a predictor of anxiety symptom improvement following CBT and SSRI treatment in two independent samples, was authored by Katie L. Burkhouse, Jagan Jimmy, Nicholas Defelice, Heide Klumpp, Olusola Ajilore, Bobby Hosseini, Kate D. Fitzgerald, Christopher S. Monk, and K. Luan Phan.
By Jennifer Micale
March 17, 2020
You cant outrun cancer, as Annalise Jarski well knows.
She never met her grandfather, who died of lung cancer shortly after her birth. Still, he remained a presence, the center of a yearly family ceremony at the beachside rock where his ashes were strewn.
Through the years, the disease touched the sophomore integrative neuroscience major in other ways. Her family adopted a neighbors cat, after the woman succumbed to the illness. A family friend and an aunt passed away, and her grandmother also faced a diagnosis.
Thats why Jarski is lacing up her sneakers this summer and running across North America as part of 4K for Cancer.
A lot of people I know have been diagnosed with cancer, so its good to be doing something that has a larger impact, she said.
A program of the Ulman Foundation, which benefits young people with the disease, the run is far longer than the 5K races that Jarski competed in as part of her high school cross-country team in Westwood, N.J. The 2,800-mile trek is completed relay-style by three teams of 18- to 25-year-olds; two other teams bike the route. Each participant has to raise $4,500 to participate or $1 per kilometer, Jarski explained.
The run lasts from June 21 through August 8, and spans the distance between Baltimore and San Francisco. Participants go from town to town, with each runner completing anywhere from 6 to 16 miles a day and resting in the accompanying van in between.
Jarski is also a leg leader, responsible for arranging accommodations at host sites such as churches or community centers. There are other stops, too, including hospitals to award scholarships to cancer patients.
While she will share the burden with fellow runners, she acknowledges the journey will be a hard slog at times.
I know there will be days when Im going to want to stop. So Im going to think about the people who cant do what Im doing right now.
Binghamton University sophomore Annalise Jarski stands on the campus track. Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen.
Campus connections
A member of both the running and triathlon clubs on campus, Annalise discovered 4K for Cancer while researching trail runs near home. At first, the distance seemed insurmountable, but she was lured by the challenge.
They gave me a training plan and Im following it loosely. Im also doing cross-training to get stronger and prevent injuries, she said. Ive been trying to step up my mileage. I signed up for a half-marathon in April at home; Im trying to do something every day.
She contacted friends and family for her fundraising efforts, and also held a sneaker drive in her hometown. Binghamton University President Harvey Stenger also donated to the cause. Community members who would like to contribute can visit her online fundraising site.
I think its going to be one of those things you only do once, she said of her epic run. Everyone has been so supportive.
When it came time to choose a college path, she initially thought small-scale, drawing on her experiences at a small high school. A cousin who attends Binghamton University recommended its top-notch science programs, and Jarski found a larger university to be the right choice, both academically and personally.
I really love the outdoors and the Nature Preserve was a selling point, she said. I looked at smaller schools, but this seemed large and homey. I know I could have a lot of experiences I could partake in.
So far on her educational journey, she has found inspiration in David Werners drugs and behavior class, which led to her current major, and environmental studies adjunct faculty member and advisor Susan Ryan, who helped cultivate her interest in that field.
Jarskis interests span both neuroscience and environmental science, and shes currently considering a double-major. At Binghamton, she has enjoyed classes in both subjects, and is weighing potential career paths as a physicians assistant, perhaps, or as an environmental epidemiologist.
Environmental preservation and the conservation of resources are really important to me. Im looking for a way to combine the two, she explained. Im looking into the healthcare field and seeing how it relates to the environment.
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Cross (the) country: Sophomore will go the distance for cancer patients - Binghamton University
The human brain exhibits amnesiawhen called upon to reexperience the blows from sticks and stones. With humiliation and indignity, however, the brain is a steel trap of merciless memory.
It should come as no surprise that victims of hate crimes suffer greater emotional distress and cumulative psychological harm than victims of non-bias-motivated crimes. Indeed, five years after the traumatic encounters, they experience greater levels of depression and anxiety than other crime victims. The impact to both mind and body lingers much longer. The incidence of severe trauma from hate crimes requires a lengthier recovery periodif recovery is even possible at all.
Similarly, hate crime victims report that their reintegration into society is much more difficult to achieve. Deprived of self-respect after experiencing ordeals of indignity, victims of hate speech struggle with the everyday tasks of socialization. One obvious outcome is in trying to be less visible, which the hate crime victim achieves by moving to an entirely different environment.
In this way, hate speech serves to undermine free speech itself precisely because it silences the targeted group, compelling them to disappear socially.
Moreover, even watching someone else experiencing pain can create greater sensitivity in ones own pain perception. So finely calibrated is the processing of emotions in the human brain, it turns out that showing empathy to a fellow human being carries some emotional risk. In a 2009 study conducted simultaneously at the universities of Arizona and Maryland, researchers discovered that the anterior cingulate cortex, the region of the brain that regulates emotional reactions, responds to an emotional insult by unleashing a wide variety of physical responsesstress-induced sensations in the chest, muscle tightness, an increased heart rate, and stomach painsall triggered from the same sector of the brain. Another study undertaken by two professors from the University of Virginia in 2006 supported the finding that activation in the anterior cingulate cortex coincides with the onset of chest pains. The researchers concluded that emotional pain involves the same brain regions as physical pain, suggesting that the two are inextricably linked.
In fact, medical evidence abounds showing how emotion and physical harm share the same circuitry in the human brain. The New England Journal of Medicine published a research study in 2013 on how subjects experienced both physical and emotional pain by looking at a photo of a cherished person who died. Brain scans indicated the same neural activity when a subject was exposed to heat on his or her forearm as when shown a photo of a lost loved one. Experiencing physical pain did not yield a separate neural response that was distinguishable from emotional pain. A burned forearm and an aggrieved heart elicited identical neural reactions. One of the researchers on the study, Tor Wagner, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Boulder, explained the reasons for this unexpected outcome, stating [t]hat may be why social pain is so painful: every time you remember it, you feel it all over again and that is not true for physical pain. Of all the things Ive observed in the brain, nothing is more similar to physical pain than social pain.
And the consequences of social pain are even more severe. The pain from social exclusion and indignity, which begins with emotional distress, ends up rendering a person physically sick. The two regions of the brain once thought to be the epicenter for the processing of physical pain show similar patterns of neural activity when the mind focuses on a photograph reminiscent of rejection or loss. A research team from the University of Kentucky set out to demonstrate this neural overlap between social and physical pain systems. Apparently, the same behavioral and neural mechanisms are at work in processing what many would believe to be disparate manifestations of pain. Psychology professor C. Nathan DeWall explained the significance of his teams findings in 2009: Social pain, such as chronic loneliness, damages health as much as smoking and obesity. We hope our findings can pave the way for interventions designed to reduce the pain of social rejection. He also speculated about the reasons why the human brain evolved in this manner. Instead of creating an entirely new system to respond to social hurt, he said, evolution piggybacked the system for emotional pain onto that for physical pain. The evolution of the human brain allowed emotional injury to take a free ride on the circuitry associated with physical pain.
And not surprisingly, when it comes to hate crimes and their origins in racial bigotry, the overall bodily damage arising from such injurious speech tends to be even worse. Law professor Richard Delgado noted that, [i]n addition to these long-term psychological harms of racial labeling, the stresses of racial abuse may have physical consequences. There is evidence that high blood pressure is associated with inhibited, constrained or restricted anger . . . American blacks have higher blood pressure levels, and higher morbidity and mortality rates from hypertension, hyper-intensive disease, and stroke than do white counterparts. Further, there exists a strong correlation between degree of darkness of skin for blacks and level of stress felt, a correlation that may be caused by the greater discrimination experienced by dark-skinned people.
Psychology professor Geoff MacDonald, from the University of Toronto, has charted the trajectory of bodily and psychological harm caused by social insult. He noted that, not unlike damage done to the body, the initial sensation of emotional hurt produces a surge of stress hormones. In the context of a physical injury, the purpose of this hormone is to brace the body for yet another attack. It provides confidence to both body and mind that the individual can actually take and survive a punch. The release of these stress hormones accounts for why a person can actually walk away on a broken leg or manage to speak despite having a shattered skull. After the surge of this energy dissipates, the pain ensues. The same release of stress hormones occurs when a person faces severe emotional, social pain. Proving the Talmudic injunction not to humiliate a fellow human being because it is tantamount to draining him of his blood, neuroscience can now account for how the ancients knew something about what happens, physiologically, to human beings who have experienced severe indignity. The brain discharges a sufficient amount of stress hormones to handle the first blow. When the damage is done and the insult has subsided, the body will begin the process of dissipating the pain, and the blood flows away from the afflicted area.
The difference, however, is that, unlike physical pain, where bones will ultimately heal, and the pain of the experience will become wholly forgotten, social pain can beand often isrelived over and over again. The sensation of the pain is instantly recalled and reexperienced. This is the consequence of how our memories cope with traumatic stress, resulting in a cruel admixture of the mind. Physical pain, by contrast, can be remembered as once being painful, but the pain itself cannot be reclaimed. The human brain exhibits amnesia when called upon to reexperience the blows from sticks and stones. With humiliation and indignity, however, the brain is a steel trap of merciless memory.
With sets of patients who had experienced physical injury and another group that suffered from emotional harm, researchers at Purdue University did a five-year study and checked back in with the participants each year after the incidents that caused them such pain. The focus of the study was to determine how they felt about what they had experienced five years earlier. The results, published in 2008, were not surprising to neuroscientists but surely would be perplexing to emotionally adverse judges. Those participants who had experienced emotional injury reported higher levels of pain than participants who experienced physical harm. They were still feeling the emotional effects of the harm. Psychology professor Kip Williams of Purdue stated that, While both types of pain can hurt very much at the time they occur, social pain has the unique ability to come back over and over again, whereas physical pain lingers only as an awareness that it was indeed at one time painful. A few law professors had been making similar points over the years, with much skepticism from their colleagues and the courts. It must have just seemed intuitively obvious. Arkes, for instance, once presciently wrote during the Stone Age of such speculations (in 1974), There is in fact such a thing as a psychological injury, which may be quite grave . . . as an assault on ones body or a broken leg.
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What We Can Learn From How Emotional Pain Affects the Brain - Thrive Global
The coronavirus pandemic is creating stress in the global population. Empty store shelves, fear about the disease and quarantine or self-isolation can negatively impact depression and anxiety. The mental health implications of the pandemic will impact everyone differently, and clinical psychologists at Flow Neuroscience have offered a guide to support andmanage ones mental health and those of others during these times.
Globalconcern about coronavirus means its very important to keep the normal routineas much as possible when it comes to sleep, nutrition and exercise,particularly in people with existing mental health problems, says DanielMansson, clinical psychologist and co-founder of Flow Neuroscience. In thecurrent situation, finding ways to maintain your normal routine is essential toreducing stress and potential depressive thoughts that may appear.
Theconstant news about the pandemic can feel relentless and may exacerbate existingmental health problems. Be careful about the balance of watching important newsand the news that could cause you to feel depressed. Seek trusted information,such as the NHS website, at specific times to take practical steps to protectyourself and loved ones. Have breaks from social media and mute triggeringkeywords and accounts.
Somepeople might feel that talking about their depression and anxiety requires noadditional attention during these unprecedented times. People should beencouraged to talk about their feelings. Various support helplines areavailable, including Samaritans, as well as mental health crisis services, details ofwhich can be found via the mental health charity Mind.
Anxietyis likely to increase during the current crisis, but a well-nourished body isbetter at handling stress. Traditional Mediterranean food, sometimes referredto as the anti-depression diet, for its anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatoryproperties, includes whole grains, vegetables (particularly green leaves),fruit, berries, nuts (including almonds), seeds and olive oil. The Flow app,free to download on iOSand Android, can help people to improve their nutrition and reduce the risk ofdepression at home.
90%of depressed people struggle with sleep, which is likely to increase with fearsover coronavirus. Good quality sleep is a form of overnight therapy, andincreases the chance of handling strong emotions. Try to wake up and go to bedat the same time every day. Achieving 8 hours of sleep, taking a hot bath,setting the bedroom temperature to 18 degrees and having no screen time 2 hoursbefore bedtime will also help.
Withmonths of the coronavirus pandemic ahead, it is important to keep exercising.Clinical studies show that regular exercise produces chemicals, such asdopamine and serotonin, which are as effective as antidepressant medication orpsychotherapy for treating milder depression. Most people will not have accessto a gym during the crisis, so it is important to create a daily exerciseroutine at home. Experts recommend between 30-40 minutes of exercise, 3-4 timesa week to work up a sweat. People with depression often struggle with exercise,so start small with a 10 minute walk, then add a few minutes daily.
Ifyou are suffering from clinical depression, it is important to contact your doctoror psychologist should your symptoms worsen.
Asthe coronavirus epidemic approaches though, many NHS services will be strainedto cope with the demand to save lives. A modern drug-free treatment fordepression, which does not require NHS services, is available in the UK sinceJune of 2019.
Createdby Flow Neuroscience, the brain stimulation headset is the only one in the EUto be medically approved as a home treatment for depression. The headset usestDCS, a type of brain stimulation which is now listed as a treatment fordepression on the NHS website. Clinical studies published in the New England Journalof Medicine and the British Journal of Psychiatry showed that the type of tDCSbrain stimulation used in the Flow headset had a similar impact toantidepressants 1,2,3 More information about the Flow headset can befound here.
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How to protect your mental health during the coronavirus pandemic Northern Life - Northern Life magazine
New insight on what happens in brain cells to cause tremors in mice has been published in the open-access journal eLife.Uncontrollable movements called tremors are common and debilitating, but scientists have previously struggled to pinpoint their exact cause. The new study reveals the neural activity behind tremors, and suggests that targeting deep brain stimulation (DBS) to the cerebellum can help treat the condition. DBS is a technique used to treat movement disorders in patients who do not respond well enough to medications.
While abnormalities in different brain cells in the cerebellum, particularly Purkinje cells, have previously been associated with tremors, it wasnt certain if and how Purkinje cells cause this condition, says lead author Amanda Brown, a graduate student in the Department of Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, US.
To investigate this further, Brown and her colleagues studied mice with Purkinje cells that were unable to signal correctly. They then treated the mice with a drug that usually causes tremors and found that the animals did not develop the condition.
Next, they administered the drug to healthy mice and measured what happened in their Purkinje cells. They found that the animals tremors coincided with abnormal bursts of activity in these cells. Using a technique called optogenetics, the team recreated these abnormal bursts in the Purkinje cells in untreated, healthy mice and found that this also led to tremors.
Finally, they showed that targeting DBS to the cerebellum where Purkinje cells are located could stop tremors in mice treated with the tremor-inducing drug. DBS that targets part of the brain called the thalamus, which receives messages from the cerebellum, is already used to treat movement disorders in people, Brown explains. But these findings highlight the cerebellum as a more direct potential target.
Our study hints at a potential treatment option to reduce or curb tremors and other movement disorders involving the cerebellum, adds senior author Roy Sillitoe, Associate Professor of Pathology at Baylor College of Medicine. Our next step is to explore whether cerebellar deep brain stimulation works as well in humans with tremors as in mice.ReferenceBrown et al. (2020) Purkinje cell misfiring generates high-amplitude action tremors that are corrected by cerebellar deep brain stimulation. eLife. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.51928
This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.
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The Neural Basis of Tremors - Technology Networks
When fake news, misreporting and alternative facts are everywhere, reading the news can be a challenge. Not only is there plenty of misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and other scientific topics floating around social media, you also need to read science stories, even well-known publications, with caution.
We have already seen headlines suggesting that coronavirus vaccines are imminent, while scientists desperately try to manage expectations that its more likely to take more than a year for vaccines to be suitable for use. So how do we approach science news like a scientist, to see past the sensational and find the facts?
In a recent study, we and our colleagues analysed 520 academic papers and the media articles that reported their findings. We wanted to trace how the presentation of scientific knowledge as it makes its way from researchers to the general public via the media.
Read more: We're climate researchers and our work was turned into fake news
We found that scientific knowledge is sometimes reproduced but is most often reinterpreted and its meaning is frequently lost in translation. Based on this study, we think there are some key things that readers of the news can do to spot when science is being reported in a misleading or inaccurate way, and get to what the evidence really shows.
In our research we saw that content transformation can happen in a number of ways. The main focus of a study is often changed in a way that makes assumptions about how the results might effect people, even in cases when this was not an aim of the research. For example, research in rats is often taken to have implications in humans.
Highly technical language can be changed not just to more common phrases but also more evocative or sensational descriptions. Charts and graphs are replaced with images that make articles appear more related to human experimentation or applications, even where this isnt the case.
One example we looked at in detail was a report on the Mail Online website from 2016 that said brain implants could soon help us develop superhero night vision. The report stated that scientists have used brain implants to give rats a sixth-sense that enables them to detect and react to the normally invisible light source. It added that would make it possible for the adult brain to adapt to new forms of input and opens up the possibility of enabling humans to gain an array of superhuman senses.
An exciting revelation indeed. But if this was such a groundbreaking and impactful development, why did so few other news publishers cover it?
The research the story was based on had originally been published in the Journal of Neuroscience by a team of scientists at Duke University Medical Centre in the United States. Their work explored how easily you could change the sensory processing of adult rats by implanting them with a brain device to teach them to identify the location of infrared light sources. Surprisingly, the implanted rats learned to do so in less than four days.
The scientists who conducted the research suggested their findings could have important implications for basic neuroscience and rehabilitative medicine. But the Mail Online article took this to another level and interpreted this as the possibility of giving people a number of superhuman senses.
The experiment had previously been reported in New Scientist, which appeared to be the main source of information for the report published in the Mail Online. The New Scientist article did focus on the rats but said the research paved the way for human brain augmentation. The article used images representing human mind control. It was then less of a leap for the Mail Online to report the research as a move towards giving people superhuman powers.
All this leaves ordinary readers to try to work out what is accurate and what isnt. This requires them to read like a scientist but without the same training.
So how do we read this way? Based on our research, we have put together six steps to help you read in a critical way when engaging with scientific information.
The first thing to do is simply be aware of how important information in the original source may be reinterpreted, modified and even ignored altogether depending on what a journalist understands or chooses to present. This is a bit like the game telephone or Chinese whispers.
In particular, you should watch out for big or surprising claims that may be exaggerated (such as giving people a sixth sense). Such extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Check how precise and unambiguous the details presented in the article about the research are. Saying that an experiment has proven a particular fact is a lot stronger than saying it suggests that something might happen in the future.
Look for a reference or a link to the original source in the report youre reading, like the ones provided in this text. If there is one its more likely that the journalist has read the original research and understands what it does and doesnt say.
Try to check whether the arguments in the article come from the scientists who carried out the research or the journalist. This could mean looking for quotes or comparing with the original research paper, if you can do that.
Look to see if other places are reporting the same stories. If only one news outlet is covering an amazing breakthrough, it might be time to apply a little more scepticism.
Developing these skills could help you discern what sources you should and shouldnt trust, and how to spot when even usually authoritative outlets sometimes exaggerate or misinterpret things.
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How to spot bogus science stories and read the news like a scientist - The Conversation UK
On Saturday evening, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe introduced a new set of measures to help contain the Covid-19 pandemic in France. He and the President observed that the first measures taken to limit assemblies were "imperfectly applied". This sounds to me like blaming the people. However, individual responsibility matters. Governments, not just the French one, hold a significant responsibility as well for not using the most advanced scientific methodology to improve their communication and strategies of behaviour change.
All around the world, administrations have worked with physicians to create a set of medically sound guidelines aimed at slowing down the Covid-19 spread. As is often the case in public health communication and prevention, the belief is that informing people is sufficient to change their behaviour. False. If this were the case, no physician would be smoking.
In public health communication and prevention, the belief is that informing people is sufficient to change their behaviour. False. If this were the case, no physician would be smoking
Now, imagine a handful of government advisers that are not biologists or epidemiologists gathered in the meeting room of a ministry of health. After an intense day of theoretical work, they claim they have found a vaccine to cure Covid-19.
Do you think a vaccine developed by non-experts who conducted zero experiment would work? And would you be willing to try it? Something tells me I am not the only one who would answer a firm No to both questions. Such a methodology being insanely dangerous.
This is not how the effort on finding a Covid-19 vaccine is being conducted. But more or less the modus operandi to design public health prevention and communication strategies in times of crisis. People who really understand our behaviours are not physicians, nor are they economists or policy makers in government task forces.
Those who master the science of persuasion, engagement and behaviour change are behavioural and brain scientists working for the consumer, entertainment and big tech industries. They use biometrics and neurotechnologies to conduct experiments. The brain data they collect, combined with a wealth of other information, are at the core of the design of apps we are glued to, the TV shows we binge watch, the delivery services that ease our lives and the products we cannot put down.
Why the need for neuroscience? Because relying on what one self-reports, looks at, smiles or frowns at is the human equivalent of observing the smoke of your car, listening to its noise and sensing its temperature. It adds up to sometimes useful peripheral data but that which does not tell the whole story. Nothing beats monitoring the engine, our brain, together with the various environments altering its functioning that matters as much as the brain itself.
Governments very rightly leverage biology in the current crisis but they should not ignore the benefits of neuroscience. Especially the French government. In 2009, I became the head of the Neuroscience and Public Policy program. A world premiere at the Prime Ministers Center for Strategic Analyses. With my team, we published the first ever government report introducing how to use neuroscientific methods and technologies to improve communication and prevention in public health. Advisers to former US President Barack Obama, and the British Government, including future Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler contributed. This report was released a decade ago on March 16, 2010.
One could argue that French authorities ignored it because it was not good enough. Well, a dozen of governments and global organizations reached out to learn about our solutions informed by neuroscience, including the World Economic Forum (WEF) which later named me its global head of strategy in health and healthcare. There might have been a couple of things in this report that made sense after all.
The WEF understood early on that health and healthcare are not a just a medical matter but a systemic one. And neuroscience is of significant help to change health-related behaviours for the better.
Neuro-technologies can be used to accurately measure the effect of certain words on the reward circuit of the brain, a network that play a key role in our decisions. Being able to monitor the synchrony between the brain activity of multiple people interacting provides unprecedented insight on how trust evolves. Quite relevant to the current crisis, functional brain data was found to be a better predictor of the impact of a health-related behaviour change campaign than what people answered in a survey.
Last week, I flew from Atlanta to participate in meetings at the French Ministry of Health in Paris. The afternoon before French President Emmanuel Macron gave his address, I introduced physicians and inter-ministerial advisers to the latest benefits of using neurotech in health prevention. Most had never heard of it before and tried to shake my hand to thank me. Clearly the messaging on shaking hands had not yet sunk in.
Thanks to portable neurotechnologies brain data can now be recorded everywhere, participants no longer being stuck in medical and scientific facilities. Data processing no longer takes weeks. We can now collect and analyse brain data in real-time on thousands of workers stuck in their homes.
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, I have spoken to many neurotech entrepreneurs and neuroscience leaders. Many like us are already working pro bono to test for the most effective Covid-19 health messaging strategy.
Brains matter. They are our best weapon to win the war against Covid-19. Governments can no longer avoid adding neurotech to their arsenal.
Professor Olivier Oullier is the president of Emotiv, a neuroscientist and a DJ
Updated: March 17, 2020 12:13 PM
Read this article:
We can combat the virus by equipping governments with an arsenal of neurotech - The National
Published yesterday (16 March) in Nature Neuroscience, the most in-depth study of its kind is set to change the way we think about the brain and the role of cells such as astrocytes. This knowledge will have with implications for the study of neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and autism.
In the past 20 years, research has shown glial cells to be key players in brain development and function, as well as promising targets for better understanding neurological disorders. Alzheimer's causes around two thirds of dementia cases in the UK, which affects around 850,000 individuals at present*. MS is a neurological disorder that affects the central nervous system and impacts around 100,000 people in the UK**. Autism affects around one in every hundred people in the UK***.
'Glial' comes from the Greek word for 'glue' or 'putty'. At one time, glial cells were thought of as 'brain putty' - functionally similar, passive cells whose only function was to fill the space around the 'all important' neurons. However, new studies are showing their critical importance in regulating neuron functions^. Astrocytes are a type of glial cell, so called because of their 'star-shaped' structure^^.
Despite the wealth of knowledge on neuronal function and the organisation of neurons into layers, prior to this study there had been little investigation into whether glial cells across different layers showed different cellular properties. To answer this question, the researchers developed a new methodological approach to provide a more detailed view of the organisation of astrocytes than ever before.
Nucleic acid imaging was carried out on mouse and human brain samples at the University of Cambridge to map how new genes are expressed within tissue. These maps were combined with single cell genomic data at the Wellcome Sanger Institute to extend the molecular description of astrocytes. These data sets were then combined to create a three-dimensional, high-resolution picture of astrocytes in the cerebral cortex.
The team discovered that astrocytes are not uniform as previously thought, but take distinct molecular forms depending on their location in the cerebral cortex. They found that astrocytes are also organised into multiple layers, but that the boundaries of astrocyte layers are not identical to the neuronal layers. Instead, astrocyte layers have less sharply defined edges and overlap the neuronal layers.
Dr Omer Bayraktar, Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "The discovery that astrocytes are organised into layers that are similar, but not identical to, neuronal layers redefines our view of the structure of the mammalian brain. The structure of the cerebral cortex can no longer simply be seen as the structure of neurons. If you want to properly understand how our brains work, you have to consider how astrocytes are organised and what role they play."
As well as increasing our understanding of brain biology, the findings will have implications for the study and treatment of human neurological disorders. Over the past decade glial cells, rather than neurons, have been heavily implicated in diseases such as Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis.
Professor David Rowitch, senior author of the study and Head of Paediatrics at the University of Cambridge, said: "This study shows that the cortical architecture is more complex than previously thought. It provides a basis to begin to understand the precise roles played by astrocytes, and how they are involved in human neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases."
Image credit: Bayraktar lab, Wellcome Sanger Institute and Rowitch lab, University of Cambridge
In the cerebral cortex of the mammalian brain, neurons are the cells responsible for transmitting information throughout the body. It has long been recognised that the 10-14 billion neurons of the human cerebral cortex are organised into six layers, with distinct populations of neurons in each layer that correspond to their function https://www.dartmouth.edu/~rswenson/NeuroSci/chapter_11.html
* More information on Alzheimers disease can be found here: https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/about-dementia/types-of-dementia/alzheimers-disease/about/
**More information about MS can be found here: https://www.mssociety.org.uk/about-ms/what-is-ms
*** More Information on autism is available from the National Autistic Society: https://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asd.aspx
^ An overview of the changing status of glial cells is available at: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/know-your-neurons-meet-the-glia/
^^ Only half of the cells in the human cerebral cortex are neurons, the other half are glial cells, of which astrocytes are a type. The molecular signals that astrocytes provide are essential for forming synapses between neurons. They regulate synapse formation in the developing brain, as well as refining synapses in the maturing brain 'pruning' extra synapses to sculpt neuronal networks.
Omer Ali Bayraktar, Theresa Bartels and Staffan Holmqvist et al. (2020). Astrocyte layers in the mammalian cerebral cortex revealed by a single-cell in situ transcriptomic map. Nature Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-020-0602-1
Read more from the original source:
New research on brain structure highlights cells linked to Alzheimer's and autism - Cambridge Network