Category Archives: Neuroscience

Neuroscience

Mother of five now nursing critically ill coronavirus patients – NOLA.com

People across St. Tammany Parish are coping with the many changes the novel coronavirus has brought to the community. Each week, we will feature a person on the front line of the fight against it.

Today, we put the spotlight on Kimberly Booth, a registered nurse who, after working as a stay-at-home mom for 16 years, began nursing school at 42 years old. For the past six-and-a-half years, she has been working at St. Tammany Health System, where she is a charge nurse in neuroscience and has been working as part of the hospitals critical-care COVID-19 team.

What made you decide to go into nursing?

I love to take care of people, whether it be physically or emotionally, so being a nurse was the perfect choice for me. Also, I have five children between the ages of 15 to 26, so working only three days a week in a hospital was a huge deciding factor.

What does your typical day look like?

I am usually running around, helping my co-workers and assisting the patients. As charge nurse, I respond to all rapids and code blues in the hospital. We have such an amazing team between CCU, ICU and neuroscience.

How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected the way you do your job day to day?

My job has changed dramatically because of COVID-19. I took the second suspected COVID-19 patient (at STHS) to help alleviate the fears of my co-workers. I am now part of the critical-care COVID-19 team that takes care of patients for a straight seven days on, then seven days off. We do this to expose less staff to the virus.

Whats the most challenging part of your workday now, in the age of the coronavirus?

Speaking to the families of the patients and knowing that they cannot be at their loved ones bedside as they pass. It is heart-wrenching to hear them telling their sister or mother goodbye through the phone or iPad. All the staff have cried with their patients families during this process. It breaks my heart.

What helps you keep going? Whats your motivation each day?

Every morning we have prayer at 7:15. All staff in ICU and CCU gather in the hallway and a prayer is led by our hospital chaplains Mike (Binnings) and Zac (Ritchie). This starts our morning off right because unfortunately, some days are truly tough. Also, the community support is incredible. The police, sheriffs deputies and firefighters cheering us as we came in or left work recently was inspiring and touched all of us. The incredible support the community has shown us I cant even express how grateful I am without tearing up. The donations of meals is truly our bright spot every single day.

Is there anything youd like people to know about you, your co-workers or St. Tammany Health System?

No question about it, I love my co-workers. We have such an incredible team and we lift each other up or offer emotional support during this trying time. I could not get through this pandemic without the support of my co-workers, managers and of course, the outstanding pulmonologists we have at St. Tammany. To quote (LSU) coach Orgeron: One team, one heartbeat.

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Mother of five now nursing critically ill coronavirus patients - NOLA.com

Neuroscience

The neuroscience of loneliness and how technology is helping us – The Conversation UK

Large numbers of people around the globe have been forced into solitude due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, social distancing is utterly at odds with our drive for social connection, the cornerstone of human evolution.

Suddenly confronted with a lack of social interactions, many of us are now experiencing more loneliness. We are missing that reassuring hug or shoulder pat from another human things we might normally expect in times of adversity. To cope, we try to fill the void with online social activities, such as synchronised Netflix viewings, games and video chat dance parties. But do these help?

When we spend quality time with another person, we experience intrinsic joy. Brain scanning studies show that subcortical brain regions, such as the ventral striatum, which plays an important role in motivation, are activated when receiving monetary and social rewards.

When we feel lonely and rejected, brain regions associated with distress and rumination are activated instead. This may be due to evolution driving us to establish and maintain social connections to ensure survival. Lonely people also have a more negative focus and anxiously scrutinise peoples intentions. Sometimes this can become so strong that it makes us feel even more lonely creating a vicious cycle.

Not everyone relishes social connection to the same extent though. People with a more extrovert personality type seek more social activities, have access to larger social networks, and report lower perceived loneliness. People who score highly on neuroticism tend to report more perceived social isolation.

Loneliness has for some time been recognised as a significant threat to physical and mental health and has been found to be predictive of mortality.

So how can you best cope with loneliness and isolation? Analysis has suggested that the most successful interventions find ways to address the distorted thinking that loneliness creates. So if you are feeling lonely, try identifying automatic negative thoughts such as assuming people dont want to hear from you and reframing them as hypotheses rather than facts.

Another recent review of literature found that targeting coping strategies can also be beneficial. It discovered that approaches such as joining a support group to remove feelings of loneliness work particularly well. Emotion-based coping strategies, such as lowering expectations about relationships, were not as effective.

Social media is often vilified in public discourse. But many people who are self-isolating now rely on online social tools. An important aspect missing in instant messaging and social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, however, is the nonverbal cue such as a smile, gesture or glance. These allow us to gauge the tone and context of a social encounter. When this information is missing, we perceive fewer friendly cues from others.

So while online tools can be helpful during periods of isolation, embodiment and social presence are nevertheless missing. But there are ways to boost the rewards of online communication. One study used augmented reality to enable two people to interact with each others video chat images and found that they reported higher sense of social presence and a more engaging experience. Similarly, participating in shared activities benefits the formation of close relationships with others. So whether it is a virtual pub quiz or a dance party, this may be particularly valuable during lockdown.

Robots designed to engage us on a social level could also help isolated people feel less lonely, as they carry the benefit of embodiment. In a randomised control trial with Paro, a cuddly baby seal robot, residents in a care home who interacted with it reported reduced feelings of loneliness.

Research from our own laboratory seeks to identify how robotic features or behaviours influence our ability to feel socially connected to these machines. For example, a new study highlights that people conversationally engage with a humanoid robot to a similar extent as another person, and more so than with a voice assistant like Alexa or Siri.

New advances in mobile brain imaging technologies, along with the increasing social sophistication of some robots, provide opportunities for examining how people establish and maintain social connections with robots in real time.

While the rise of social robots appears futuristic, they are already moving out of factories and into our homes, supermarkets and hospitals. They even have new social roles in the coronavirus crisis for example as supermarket assistants, reminding shoppers of new health and safety rules.

Until we all have a sophisticated social robot to keep us company, perhaps the best remedy is to keep in touch with our loved ones online, especially through shared activities. And lets focus on the fact that close human contact will soon be safe again.

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The neuroscience of loneliness and how technology is helping us - The Conversation UK

Neuroscience

The neuroscience behind missing Sunderland… despite the worries and heartaches! – Roker Report

Why are we as supporters hooked on football, and live games in particular? There is a shallow answer, something along the lines of we just love football or I am Sunderland til I die or an equally true and similar phrase.

But I would like to go a little deeper - especially during this lockdown as there is more time available for reflection and even contemplation. I have worked within neuroscience research for a few decades now, so will take a look at the topic from that angle.

This virus-influenced time my wife and I are not going out aside from exercise as well as some visits to a vulnerable relative living nearby has shown me how much I love and miss football. Obviously, Sunderland is my first love, but life is just not the same without all the football chatter going on, mainly on Radio 5Live, SAFC websites and in the print media.

Although Roker Report and other fan websites are manfully providing great content in what is essentially a news vacuum, we all know that it is not the same without input from real games and the very compelling gossip that surrounds them.

Match of the Day just does not work when it is Gary Lineker, Ian Wright and the monotone Alan Shearer burbling about the beautiful game with no real action.

There is something addictive but intangible about the excitement and adrenaline rush created by being present at a big win, or even a well-executed 1-0 away result against the odds, surrounded by opposition fans when the defence held firm and needed to. Or even the occasional 3-0 away win at Newcastle...

The human brain will endure a lot of everyday dross for an occasional high and neuroscience tells us that this is dopamine driven. This notion is illustrated in this quote from the film Art School Confidential:

What do you think the artist thinks about? Do they think about fine wines or black-tie affairs? No, they live for that narcotic moment of creative bliss. A moment that may come once a decade, or never at all.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, passing on signals in the brain, and is responsible for many of the pleasure signals we experience. We go to games partly to meet with family and friends, to feel we belong to something bigger, but I would argue that the main driver is the high, or reward we feel when a great goal is scored or we see a historically great display on the pitch.

The brain has several distinct dopamine pathways, one of which plays a major role in the motivational component of reward-motivated behaviour. The anticipation of most types of rewards increases the level of this neurotransmitter in the brain, and many addictive drugs increase dopamine release.

So, as we look at the neuroscience behind being a football fan, even the anticipation of a good game, and that may be irrational, is enough to make us feel good.

I define a fan as someone whose mood is influenced by a football result and that certainly applies to all of the Roker Report writers. In my last piece for the site, I mentioned some lingering memories of the smell of Bovril and cigarettes at Roker Park. It was not that that got me hooked, but to my young brain it was the amazing atmosphere at Sunderlands home ground that had a formative effect.

I remember Sunderlands 1968 last day of the season win at Old Trafford really clearly I was very young and had just been to my first Sunderland home game, a 0-0 draw the week before against WBA by cycling from Boldon to Roker Park. The climax of the campaign was upon us and the Lads were clear of relegation, having won 4 times and drawn 4 on their travels, and got the points in 8 home games the team were on 45 points in the modern, 3-points for a win parlance.

The magic of that season-ending day in my young consciousness was that Man. City were playing at Newcastle. Sunderland were expected just to roll over and let Man. Utd. win the league, since Best, Charlton and Law were in that great team, with Man. City ending as runners-up. Well, Sunderland stunned the Reds in a 2-1 win, with goals from Colin Suggett and George Mulhall - Hurley, Todd, Stuckey, Montgomery and Porterfield also starred that day.

I was then of course hooked as a fan, seeing the game in black and white later on Match of the Day. Man. City capped it all by winning 4-3 at St. James and gaining their last title before modern Guardiola era, in an amazing climax to the 1967-68 season.

As grown-up people with jobs, I believe that we often can lead fairly humdrum lives and have to behave ourselves; wear nice clothes, be polite, go to work, rein in our true feelings, be responsible.

But when Saturday comes round, we can go to a game, let our hair down, shout at the referee and jump with joy when our team scores. In terms of neuroscience, we are moving from being affected by stress hormones such as cortisol and allowing that feel-good messenger dopamine to take over.

I am not suggesting that following Sunderland is stress-free, as recent relegations and some miserable winless runs we have endured. However, watching season two of Netflixs Sunderland Til I Die, the passion generated during games is tangible, and terrifying according to Charlie Methuen.

I would argue that neuroscience is part of that; currently we are all missing all the dopamine-driven highs that football can bring.

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The neuroscience behind missing Sunderland... despite the worries and heartaches! - Roker Report

Neuroscience

WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute first in the world to open hippocampal blood brain barrier in Alzheimer’s patients – Dominion Post – The…

WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute first in the world to open hippocampal blood brain barrier in Alzheimer's patients - Dominion Post  The Dominion Post

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WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute first in the world to open hippocampal blood brain barrier in Alzheimer's patients - Dominion Post - The...

Neuroscience

Psychiatrists review the treatment of stuttering – UC Riverside

In a recent review article in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, Dr. Gerald Maguire of the UC Riverside School of Medicine and colleagues argue that although there is no medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, for the treatment of stuttering, there is hope: Two active medications, ecopipam and deutetrabenazine, are currently going through clinical trials and may be FDA approved for stuttering if the studies yield positive results.

Stuttering, an interruption in the flow of speech, affects about three million Americans and approximately 5% of children. A psychiatric condition, it shares many similarities to Tourettes Syndrome. Both begin in childhood and affect more males than females. What exactly causes stuttering is not known.

The neurotransmitter dopamine is known to play an important role in how stuttering is caused in the brain. Because high levels of cerebral dopamine levels are associated with stuttering, medications have targeted dopamine to improve stuttering symptoms.

Ecopipam selectively blocks the actions of dopamine at its receptor. Dopamine receptors can be broadly classified into two families based on their structures: D1 receptors and D2 receptors. Ecopipam blocks dopamine only at D1 receptors.

Ecopipam has been studied for stuttering in adults in an open-label single-case experimental design funded by philanthropy, Maguire, professor and chair of psychiatry and neuroscience, and his coauthors write in the review paper. The results revealed that ecopipam significantly improved stuttering symptoms.

The authors note that deutetrabenazine decreases the release of dopamine by inhibiting a transport protein that packages dopamine into synaptic vesicles for release within the central nervous system. One drawback, however, is that the inhibition could result in patients feeling depressed.

Ecopipam on the other hand was well-tolerated, Maguire and his coauthors write, and argue for further research.

Maguires coauthors are Diem L. Nguyen, Kevin C. Simonson and Troy L. Kurz at the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience in the UCR School of Medicine. The review paper is titled The Pharmacologic Treatment of Stuttering and Its Neuropharmacologic Basis.

Maguire recently received an investigator-initiated research grant from Teva the manufacturer of deutetrabenzaine.

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Psychiatrists review the treatment of stuttering - UC Riverside

Neuroscience

Blood Pressure Medication Solves Spasticity in Mice With Spinal Cord Injuries – Technology Networks

Spinal cord injury can be highly debilitating and affect motor skills, the sensation as well as autonomic brain functions. Besides, the injury will often lead to the development of spasticity which manifests itself in involuntary, sustained or rhythmic muscle contractions. It is estimated that 70 percent of those who have a spinal cord injury will develop spasticity.Now, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have discovered a possible treatment tested on mice against the development of spasticity following a spinal cord injury. After the treatment, the mice showed no or only modest signs of spasticity.

The researchers treated the mice with the drug nimodipine, which is an already approved drug that has been used since the 1980s.

We show that nimodipine by and large can prevent the development of spasticity after a spinal cord injury if administered soon after the injury and for an extended period of time. One of the most surprising and interesting elements in the study is that the effect continues, even after treatment has stopped, says co-author Ole Kiehn, Professor at the Department of Neuroscience.

The new results have been published in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine.

In addition, the treatment must continue for an extended period of time. In the experiment, the mice were treated with the drug for six weeks and then observed for nine weeks, where they developed no or only mild signs of spasticity.

The most surprising thing to the researchers was that the effect was long-lasting.

We had guessed that the spasticity would be blocked for as long as the pharmacological treatment was ongoing. But we were positively surprised to see that the development of spasticity remained blocked even after we stopped the pharmacological treatment, says co-author Carmelo Bellardita, Postdoc at the Department of Neuroscience.

In the study, the researchers show that the effect of nimodipine is due to the blocking of one specific L-type calcium channel, the so-called CaV1.3 channel. By genetically removing that type of calcium channels in the spinal cord of mice, they achieved the same result: the development of spasticity was blocked.

According to the researchers, the results could potentially also be relevant to other diseases where spasticity may develop. For example, in connection with multiple sclerosis and stroke.

It is still uncertain whether nimodipine will have the same effect on human spasticity as all experiments have been done on mice. The researchers will now study this question.

We are quite optimistic that nimodipine will have the same effect in humans. But we cannot be certain. Nimodipine is an approved drug that easily enters the brain, and we will now begin trials together with other researchers where we test nimodipine on healthy test subjects to study the effect on various reflexes and motor skills. Subsequently, it may potentially be possible to test the drug on people with spasticity, says Ole Kiehn.ReferenceMarcantoni et al. (2020) Early delivery and prolonged treatment with nimodipine prevents the development of spasticity after spinal cord injury in mice. Science Translational Medicine. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aay0167

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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Blood Pressure Medication Solves Spasticity in Mice With Spinal Cord Injuries - Technology Networks

Neuroscience

Focus on what you will do. With Beau Henderson & Dr. Evian Gordon – Thrive Global

Retirement offers the unprecedented stage of life to boost the quality in the moment experiences, deepen existing social connections and choose new ones that nurture the brain, mind, soul and purpose.

I had the pleasure to interview Evian Gordon MD, PhD. Evian is Chairman of the Board for Total Brain. He has over 30 years experience in brain research and considered to be one of the originators of field of integrative neuroscience. He has authored more than 300 peer reviewed publications.

Thank you so much for joining us Dr. Gordon! Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

MyPhD was focused in serum lipids and heart attacks, in the days when cardiology was the golden highway of medicine. I was on a roll. And by chance, my PhD supervisor showed me the missing link fossil of the first hominids (primates) that stood upright. He pointed out to me that in the past 5 million years, the hominid brain has tripled in size. No other species has done anything like this.

I completed my PhD and switched my medical and science goals to set up a Standardized International Brain Function and Performance Database and use the insights from the database to build tools for self-transformation. That has remained my daily mission for 30 years.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Most of my early applied integrative neuroscience team had science and medical backgrounds. We were immersed in rational thinking and built a system to simultaneously measure electrical brain function, heart rate variability, sweat rate, breathing and response time to a range of activation tasks.

Tasks included nonconscious presentation of face emotions that were presented so rapidly (in a hundredth of a second) that the viewer was not aware of what was being presented.

We showed the viewers all the different face emotions (fear, disgust, sad, happy etc.) and analyzed the brain-body measures.

The first time we saw that nonconscious fear stimuli, it was processed 30 thousandths of a second faster than other emotions, we realized two shocking things:

Ever since that moment, those discoveries put a different lens into how we approach the function of the brain. More so, it shifted the focus to the motherload of the brains operating system how to best align nonconscious emotion intuition and conscious rational thinking.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

I always thought I was the smartest person in the room.

The lesson I learned, was how little I knew then. And more so now.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Peter Cooper is the Founder of Cooper Investors, a $12 billion equities fund that only invests in long range opportunities (and whose team has interviewed over 1,000 CEOs to select their long range value latency strategies).

My company had set up the worlds largest standardized brain database (over a million datasets and featured in 300 publications) and built an online brain fitness platform to better understand your key brain capacities, train and track new habits, and generated what is likely to be the first objective test to predict treatment response in depression. We succeeded beyond our expectations, with over 30 highly-respected US companies using the online product.

However, by under-resourcing along with experiencing slow revenue growth, it resulted in stretching the company in too many directions to keep the mission on track. Therefore, it was leading investors to run out of patience and the company was running out of money.

Peter introduced me to Louis Gagnon and persuaded him to become the CEO of Total Brain. Louis has not only scaled the company but has brought fresh approaches to help destigmatize mental health around the globe.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

Work strategically harder.

But with a focus on finishing tasks!

Burnout is not about hard work.Its about being too stretched and a lack of finishing tasks.

And I would also advise them to only work with people with whom you are authentically aligned. Misalignment is the motherload of burnout.

If its not aligned, cut the chord as soon as possible.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

3 things:

1) A differentiated mission real differentiating ideas matter.

2) People alignment and be vigilant about not hiring self-righteous opportunists.

3) A growth mindset and a respectful, deep understanding of innovation and implementation of groundbreaking ideas.

With that in place: a differentiating product, a good product-market fit and the quickest paths to sustainable revenue, are more likely to happen.

Ok thank you for all that. Now lets move to the main focus of our interview. Retirement is a dramatic life course transition that can impact ones health. In some cases, retirement can reduce health, and in others it can improve health. From your point of view or experience, what are a few of the reasons that retirement can reduce ones health?

Can you share with our readers 5 things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

We live in the era of increasing awareness about age related memory mental health deterioration. There is however, growing evidence that although the brain diminishes in some tasks as it ages, it gains in other ways. Here are five factors that can help improve mental health after retirement.

1. Self-Awareness

Retirement inevitably increases the opportunity for self awareness and self reflection. The insights can be enhanced by a check-in of brain capacity strengths and mental health challenges, to magnify strengths and protect against mental health negativity.

2. Emotion Regulation

The widespread negative reality is that memory usually declines with age. However, neuroimaging evidence shows that emotional stability and negativity bias improves with age. The increased personal bandwidth of retirement provides an opportunity to magnify that strength.

3. Wisdom

The ability to see the patterns that matter increases with age. This ability allows an enhanced ability to make rapid and effective decisions that could increase the ability to savor ones retirement new opportunities. It is not coincidental that many great inventions and artistic outcomes have occurred late in late.

4. Quality Time and Social Connections

Retirement offers the unprecedented stage of life to boost the quality in the moment experiences, deepen existing social connections and choose new ones that nurture the brain, mind, soul and purpose.

5. Gratitude

The Positive Psychology Movement have highlighted the benefit to mental health of magnifying strengths, a positive solution focused attitude and the power of gratitude. When better to immerse in gratitude for what worked, than in retirement?

In your experience, what are 3 or 4 things that people wish someone told them before they retired?

1. Focus on what you will do, not what you wont do.

2. Dont generate self limiting age related beliefs. Go for it.

3. Its time to use your life learnt wisdoms.

4. Have deep gratitude for what is working for you, in health and life.

5. Stay on your lifes mission.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

Daniel Khaneman (2011): Thinking Fast and Slow. Macmillan.

I was shocked to discover the extent to which nonconscious emotions, intuition and biases drive most of our decisions.

In this book, Nobel Laureate Kahaneman and his collaborator Amos Tversky highlight through simple but elegant experiments, how unambiguously small random nudges nonconsciously shape most of our decisions.

This book has helped many people think afresh about how to best be aware and align their nonconscious intuition and their rational conscious thinking, to make better decisions.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Democratize the brain.

By providing the most engaging, impactful, intuitive and concrete online brain platform to align your nonconscious and conscious brain powers.

Can you please give us your favorite Life Lesson Quote? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

The only good is knowledge.

The only evil is ignorance.

Socrates (469399 BC).

This was one of the earliest seeds of the current brain revolution. It regularly inspires me on my 30 year journey, since I set up the worlds largest standardized brain function, performance database and applications Total Brain.com.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them

Jim Kwik.

Because his mission is to create a smarter and more caring world by helping you rebuild our brains.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

YouTube Channel:https://www.dreviangordonsbrain.com/

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/evian-gordon-a94bbab1/Facebook,https://www.facebook.com/dr.evian.gordonTwitter,https://twitter.com/dreviangordon?lang=en

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Focus on what you will do. With Beau Henderson & Dr. Evian Gordon - Thrive Global

Neuroscience

Researchers’ Analysis Confirms Effects of Cognitive Training for Older Adults – University of Texas at Dallas

As more people live to advanced ages due to health care innovations, more also are dealing with the decline in mental acuity that can come late in life. Cognitive training is often touted as a way of treating or even preempting these issues, but there is significant disagreement on the effectiveness of various methods.

Researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas Center for Vital Longevity (CVL) conducted a large-scale analysis of the benefits of multiple training types for individuals who are aging healthily, as well as those with mild cognitive impairment.

Dr. Chandramallika Basak

Dr. Chandramallika Basak, associate professor of cognition and neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, is the corresponding and first author of the study published in February in Psychology and Aging. She said her meta-analysis which assessed the results of 215 previous studies published in 167 journal articles will have a large-scale impact on a controversial field.

Effective cognitive training during late adulthood can help maintain, or even enhance, our cognitive abilities, said Basak, the director of the Lifespan Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratoryat CVL. Credit this cognitive plasticity to our brains ability to recover some core abilities that decline with age with practice, such as processing speed, executive functions and working memory.

Cognitive training in older adults refers broadly to activities designed to maintain or improve cognitive abilities that typically decline in late adulthood, such as short-term memory, attention, problem-solving and executive functions. Although techniques and tests vary widely, they usually involve a professional who administers a standardized test, supervises a training module designed to improve the skill or skills used on that test, and then retests to see if a subject has improved.

Training modules are designed for the subject to relearn an ability that may have declined in a way that is both engaging and scientific, said CVL research associate Shuo (Eva) Qin PhD19, another author of the study.

Basak said that the results from this meta-analysis supported the benefits of cognitive training, albeit limited to specific training modules: Those who were given any type of training outperformed their related control groups on post-training cognitive tests. The results support the idea that even an aging, slightly impaired brain can still make positive changes.

Though healthy participants showed more robust cognitive improvements than those with mild cognitive impairments, there was widespread improvement across all groups, Basak said. One key finding was that cognitive training was found to significantly improve everyday functioning in older adults, which in turn can provide additional years of independence and potentially delay the onset of dementia.

Effective cognitive training during late adulthood can help maintain, or even enhance, our cognitive abilities. Credit this cognitive plasticity to our brains ability to recover some core abilities that decline with age with practice, such as processing speed, executive functions and working memory.

Dr. Chandramallika Basak, associate professor of cognition and neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Her analysis compared the effectiveness of two prominent cognitive-training modules and gathered significant data on which techniques accomplish the most in older patients with mild cognitive impairment as well as those aging healthily. It also differentiated between what are called near-transfer and far-transfer effects.

Though the primary goal was to compare single-component training to multicomponent training, this is also an important distinction, Basak said. We want to understand not only the effects cognitive training has on the specific abilities participants are trained on these are near-transfer effects but also on unrelated abilities that are not specifically trained during that specific training, which is far transfer.

Basak explained that one way to describe far-transfer effects is learning a set of cognitive skills that results in improved performance on tasks under different contexts and that are very different from the learned task. For example, someone who is learning to play a computer game may end up improving their driving or someone practicing aerobic exercise may have an improved memory.

The Lifespan Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory, directed by Dr. Chandramallika Basak, uses both behavioral and brain-imaging techniques to understand the mechanisms of memory and complex skill and how these abilities may change and be enhanced across the lifespan. The research is particularly focused on the interaction between working memory and attentional control, sources of individual differences of enhanced learning and memory, and how these skills are affected by age and memory disorders.

While single-component training studies focus on a single function, such as short-term memory, multicomponent studies either target multiple abilities sequentially or nonspecifically and simultaneously.

The most important finding was that all modules of multicomponent training yielded significant near and far transfer suggesting that, in older adults, multicomponent training is a more effective general tactic than most single-component training modules. However, single-component training that targeted executive functions and working memory showed a very robust near and far transfer.

Specifically, multicomponent training that combines core cognitive abilities, such as executive functions and processing speed, may be most promising, Basak said.

As older adults become physically frail, cognitive training can be conducted without demands on physical abilities from the comfort of ones home, she said.

Whether youre trying to fend off the effects of cognitive aging from the beginning or are hoping to halt an existing deficit, cognitive training helps.

Margaret OConnell MS16, PhD18, now a clinical research associate at Medpace, was also an author of the study.

The research was supported by grant R56AG060052 from the National Institute on Aging, a component of the National Institutes of Health.

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Researchers' Analysis Confirms Effects of Cognitive Training for Older Adults - University of Texas at Dallas

Neuroscience

U of A Sophomore Named Goldwater and Amgen Scholar – University of Arkansas Newswire

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Sabrina Jones is a recipient of the prestigious Goldwater Scholar and Amgen Scholar awards.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. Sabrina Jones, a sophomore at the University of Arkansas, has been named a 2020 Barry Goldwater Scholar. The Goldwater Scholarship is the nations most prestigious award for undergraduate students who plan doctoral studies and research careers in the fields of science, mathematics, or engineering.

Jones, an honors student from Russellville, will receive a scholarship of up to $7,500 from the Barry Goldwater Scholarship Foundation.

In addition to being selected as a Goldwater Scholar, she has also recently been selected as a 2020 Amgen Scholar. She will receive a $6,420 stipend for a 10-week summer research experience at Caltech.

The Goldwater Scholarship is the most competitive undergraduate STEM award in the country, said U of A Chancellor Joe Steinmetz.The program selects students who are asking and answering important questions in their fields. Sabrina Jones is joining an august group of Goldwater Scholars from across the country and from our campus, who have gone on to distinguished research careers. The Amgen Scholars Program is also a research-centered award, and very, very competitive. Both of these awards recognize Sabrinas stellar academic record and her extensive and productive research, and both will help launch her post-graduate career. I look forward to soon be reading about her discoveries in neuroscience.

Jones is an honors physics, psychology, and Spanish major in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. She is a Bodenhamer Fellow, Arkansas Governors Distinguished Scholar, National Hispanic Scholar, and National Merit Finalist. She plans to pursue a career conducting clinical neuroscience research at a medical research institution.

I am truly honored to be recognized as a 2020 Goldwater Scholar, Jones said. Being a part of this class of researchers, innovators, and future scientists is an amazing recognition. I am forever grateful to the individuals who introduced me to the field of research, including my mentor at UAMS, Dr. Ryoichi Fujiwara, and my mentor at the University of Arkansas, Dr. Woodrow Shew. Though research is at times frustrating and tedious work, this pursuit has been, and will continue to be, one of the most fulfilling experiences in my life.

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship was established by Congress in 1986 to honor the United States senator. Nearly 400 students from across the United States were named Goldwater Scholars this year. The purpose of the program is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields. Universities and colleges may nominate up to four students per year.

On campus, Jones performs research with Dr. Woodrow Shew, associate professor of physics, on neuronal networks. She has also conducted research with Dr. Ryoichi Fujiwara, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and this summer she will research with Dr. Carlos Lois, research professor of biology at Caltech in Pasadena, California.

Sabrinas current research project is aimed at understanding how the activity of very large populations of neurons in cerebral cortex is related to complex body movements, said Dr. Shew. She is working with data recorded from more than 10,000 neurons simultaneously in mouse cortex. This data set is rather mind-blowing five years ago it would have been impossible to obtain data like this. Her research questions require state-of-the-art data analytical skills and computer programming.

Though she aims to become a neuroscientist, she is obtaining a degree in physics, which develops skills ideally suited to handling the heavy data analysis that is absolutely required in neuroscience. I expect her work to result in an impactful publication within a year. She is only a sophomore and already an accomplished researcher. I can only imagine her caliber once she reaches the Ph.D. stage.

A big congratulations go out to Sabrina, her mentors, the Department of Physics, our college faculty, and those at UAMS, said Todd Shields, dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.Mentoring is such an essential part of student research and is at the core of the work we do in Fulbright College. There is no question that because of her talent, dedication and research experience with professors Shew and Fujiwara, Sabrina will thrive in a competitive M.D. or Ph.D. program. We cant wait to see the positive impact she makes in her field of neuroscience, and how she will mentor and inspire other new scientists as well.

Jones has published in the journals Pharmacology Research & Perspectives and Xenobiotica, as well as presented her work at conferences in Pittsburgh and Montreal. She was awarded a 2020 Honors College Research Grant, and she is also an active member of the Society of Physics Students, Conversation Club, and Honors College Ambassadors. In summer 2019, she studied Spanish at Universidad Nebrija in Spain.

Jones is the 57th University of Arkansas student to be named a Goldwater Scholar, with U of A students receiving awards for 24 of the last 25 years. Previous Goldwater Scholars have gone on to become Rhodes, Marshall, Gates Cambridge, Fulbright, and Udall Scholars, as well as National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows. They have pursued doctoral work at prestigious programs including the University of Virginia, University of Michigan, University of California-Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University, Columbia University, Cornell University, MIT, St. Andrews (Scotland), Oxford University, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Washington University.

University of Arkansas students interested in applying for competitive scholarships like the Goldwater Scholarship should contact the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards at awards@uark.edu.

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U of A Sophomore Named Goldwater and Amgen Scholar - University of Arkansas Newswire

Neuroscience

Is There a Cure for Cabin Fever? – University of Virginia

Find the latest information on the Universitys response to the coronavirus here.

Feeling trapped? Are the walls closing in? Do you have a strange urge to do something a little crazy? Maybe its not that bad, but after more than a month of distancing yourself from co-workers, classmates, friends and even members of your family, you might be showing signs of a troubling illness: cabin fever.

Of course, cabin fever isnt a genuine psychological disorder. Its a folk term for that combination of anxiety and exhaustion you experience when you begin to feel trapped in your own home. But while the disease may not be real, the symptoms certainly are, and treating those symptoms early can make all the difference.

According to James Coan, an associate professor of clinical psychology and director of the Virginia Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Virginia, our natural habitat is not a cabin, a living room or a home office; its other people.

Were designed as a species to be around other people, he said. Were extremely adaptable. Thats why were all over the world. We can live anyplace, and we live on almost any kind of food. Weve even walked on the moon. But the reason that were so adaptable is that weve picked up our ecological niche, our habitat, and taken it with us. Weve turned it into each other.

Remove that access to others that we expect on a daily basis, and we start to go crazy, Coan said. And the nature of that crazy is really that our bodies and our brains are so thoroughly designed to work with other people that they dont work very well on their own.

Coan likened it to driving around an unfamiliar city while looking for an address. When you have someone in the passenger seat, he said, they can look for the address and navigate while you just operate the car. Its so much easier. Because if Im not looking for the address, I can devote all of my attention to driving. When youre deprived of that person in the passenger seat, your bandwidth is cut. When your bandwidth is cut, you start getting exhausted. And when you start getting exhausted, your world gets more chaotic, more obtrusive, and more miserable.

For some, the experience leads to nothing more than irritability, but for others who struggle with the effects of social isolation, it can trigger feelings of loneliness and depression, and thats when cabin fever can become something much more serious.

Adrienne Wood, an assistant professor of psychology at UVA who studies the impact of emotions on our behavior, said that social isolation, and in particular the experience of being lonely, is an extremely unhealthy state.

Chronic loneliness is on par with smoking a pack of cigarettes a day in terms of its health repercussions. Not just for your mental health, but also for your physical health, Wood said. Just the subjective feeling of being lonely increases inflammation in the body, which is the bodys sickness state. Your body will physically be treating itself as if it were sick, which, in the long term, is bad for it.

Wood suggested that if youre beginning to feel the effects of exhaustion or depression, there are things you can do, like spending time in the sunlight every day, finding creative activities that keep you from becoming bored and establishing a routine that can bring some predictability to your day. The most important thing you can do is to find ways to minimize your feeling of isolation.

Phone calls, videoconferencing, playing online games and actively building your network through social media are all good ideas, and Wood added that laughter remains one of the best things you can share with the people in your life.

Laughter is associated with positive emotions, Wood said, but it also has therapeutic effects on the body and is linked to the release of endorphins, which you get after exercise. Laughter increases your pain threshold, but it also helps build resiliency.

This is a very draining time that were all experiencing. Its very emotionally draining; its physically draining and its cognitively draining. Positive emotions and, in particular, humor are ways of rebuilding the resources we have available to us.

But, Wood cautioned, if youre starting to feel anything akin to depression, dont wait to take steps to connect with friends, family and colleagues and laugh a little.

Once things get bad, she said, its going to become harder for you to reach out to others. Then it becomes really hard to fix the problem.

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Is There a Cure for Cabin Fever? - University of Virginia