Category Archives: Neuroscience

Neuroscience

Arete: New Zealand’s first carbon-neutral and off-grid retreat – New Zealand Herald

As the first carbon-neutral retreat in New Zealand, Arete powers its facilities through a solar system. Photo / Supplied

Sophie Trigger finds that the towels are fluffy but the approach - albeit wholly beneficial - is anything but, while staying at Arete for its Women in Leadership Retreat.

A leadership coach and former Defence Force Flight commander has put her 30-year-career into building New Zealand's first carbon-neutral and off-grid retreat, and helping her clients find joy.

Arete Retreat is tucked away in the Tararua Forrest Park just outside Levin, around 100km from Wellington. It took its first group in late 2020.

Balancing a rustic simplicity with the indulgences of home, Arete comforts its guests with soft towels and lovingly-prepared food, while keeping them humble with solar power and non-flushing toilets.

Its creator and "experiential architect" Sally Duxfield says she treats the clients that visit much the same with empathy and warmth, but a drive to bring out the best in them.

This is not a place to come and do yoga and humming for five days, she says.

"I'm not fluffy - what I love is to inspire and drive the action and then hold them accountable," Duxfield said.

"When I'm facilitating, I'm actually really strong about the outcomes, everyone goes out with a strong action plan."

After several decades in the Defence Force and having worked as a leadership consultant with corporate clients, the idea for a retreat began because Duxfield realised she needed something off-grid.

Although she ran survival and resilience training in the wilderness, this didn't suit a lot of her corporate clients, who also needed a place where they could plan.

12 Jan, 2022 04:31 PMQuick Read

11 Jan, 2022 07:38 PMQuick Read

10 Jan, 2022 04:00 PMQuick Read

"So I looked and looked, and your options were Bali, Fiji possibly, but there was nothing in New Zealand that was completely carbon neutral and nothing where there were no electrical plugs.

"Everybody could plug in, they could plug in their hair straighteners, plug in their phones."

"They might not be on Wi-Fi but they're still playing candy crush, they're still engaging their brain in gaming, or taking photos they're not present."

She found her answer in part of a pine forest that had been smashed by a storm, near the Makahika outdoor education centre she owned.

Sitting among the tall pine trees she realised she had found the place.

"We own the whole valley bowl here and it always feels like a hand to me it feels like you're sitting in this hand, surrounded by forest."

"It feels like it's a place to sit and put yourself back together again."

To help her clients do that, Duxfield offered her expertise in neuroscience and leadership, helping high-powered professionals take control of their day.

It was crucial they learnt to manage the distractions of Wi-Fi and social media, which she said were key drivers behind a stressed and fatigued generation.

"They're saying in the neuroscience world that today's biggest crisis is that we have a very primal brain, and this technology we haven't quite caught up with," she said.

"We're using it all, but our anxiety is increasing."

Driven by her own Defence Force experience, Duxfield had been motivated to explore why some people were able to cope better with trauma and stress. She began exploring how our neuroscience affects our day-to-day lives.

Of particular concern for Duxfield is the constant stimulation from social media, which floods the brain with the addictive drug dopamine, and makes it harder to switch off, sleep and recover.

Having worked with high-performance athletes such as the All Blacks and the Silver Ferns as well as corporates, Duxfield teaches a four-quadrant model that allows clients to categorise and prioritise tasks.

Clients absorb these lessons with the backdrop of graceful but simplistic facilities - Duxfield said it was important that Arete was not excessive.

"I admire people that have wealth but I hate the excessiveness and arrogance that comes with it," she said.

"I didn't want [Arete] to be flashy or showy I wanted to have an elegance to it, with lovely sheets and beautiful pillows but you still have to walk outside with an umbrella if it's raining to go the bathroom.

"And to have to sprinkle coco-peat and sawdust on your kaka and mimi is very humbling."

"There are millions of people for whom that's their reality and they don't even have a $1300 bamboo loo to do it in they have a hole in the ground or a gutter."

As part of her passion for sustainability and giving back, Duxfield envisages a legacy programme that would see her offer a discount to clients and companies who give a proportion of their retreat budget to a food bank or community group.

"And that wealth starts getting dispersed down to where it's most needed," she said.

Named for the Greek word Arete meaning the excellence or goodness of a person - Sally's retreat was not a resort, she said. She would hold her clients accountable.

"I don't have a board of directors telling me I need to be polite. I challenge people, but I also care deeply.

"I shed a lot of tears with clients because I can feel their pain, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to hold them accountable.

"I just want people to be joyful that whatever it is they are, they find joy in it."

Just as important to Duxfield is that Arete feels like family.

"The point of difference is that Sally owns this place and Sally is here, and is mother and father so that when you leave you feel like you're part of something.

"And when you come back it's like you are children coming home."

ChecklistLEVINDETAILSFor more information on Arete, go to arete.nzONLINEFor more things to see and do in the region, go to manawatunz.co.nz

Check traffic light settings and Ministry of Health advice before travel at covid19.govt.nz

Follow this link:
Arete: New Zealand's first carbon-neutral and off-grid retreat - New Zealand Herald

Neuroscience

Associate / Full Professor of Theoretical Biophysics and Machine Learning job with RADBOUD UNIVERSITY NIJMEGEN | 278686 – Times Higher Education (THE)

Associate / Full Professor of Theoretical Biophysics and Machine Learning

A world from which we demand more and more requires people who can make a contribution. Critical thinkers who will take a closer look at what is really important. As a Professor, you will perform leading research and teach students in the area of theoretical biophysics and physics-based machine learning, to strengthen the role and visibility of the international Theoretical Biophysics landscape.

As a successful candidate you will join the Department of Biophysics at the Donders Center for Neuroscience (DCN) and perform internationally leading theoretical research in an area of theoretical biophysics or physics-based machine learning. You are interested in applications of theoretical biophysics methods to neuroscience problems studied in the DCN, and you will engage actively in interdisciplinary research collaborations with other physicists in the Faculty of Science and with external partners. You will contribute to the teaching and the innovation of Radboud's popular theoretical machine learning and biophysics courses, and possibly contribute to other core undergraduate physics subjects taught at the Faculty of Science. You will supervise students' research projects at the Bachelor's, Master's and PhD levels. Finally, you will contribute to the effective administration of Radboud University and the acquisition of research funding, and will strengthen the role and visibility of Radboud University in the international Theoretical Biophysics landscape.

Profile

We are

The Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour of Radboud University seeks to appoint a Professor of Theoretical Biophysics and Machine Learning. The Donders Institute is a world-class research institute, housing more than 700 researchers devoted to understanding the mechanistic underpinnings of the human mind/brain. Research at the Donders Institute focuses on four themes:

Language and Communication

Perception, Action, and Decision-making

Development and Lifelong Plasticity

Natural Computing and Neurotechnology.

We have excellent and state-of-the-art research facilities available for a broad range of neuroscience research. The Donders Institute fosters a collaborative, multidisciplinary, supportive research environment with a diverse international staff. English is the lingua franca at the Institute.

You will join the academic staff of the Donders Center for Neuroscience (DCN) - one of the four Donders Centers at Radboud University's Faculty of Science. The Biophysics Department is part of the DCN. Neurophysicists at DCN mainly conduct experimental, theoretical and computational research into the principles of information processing by the brain, with particular focus on the mammalian auditory and visual systems. The Physics of Machine Learning and Complex Systems Group studies a broad range of theoretical topics, ranging from physics-based machine learning paradigms and quantum machine learning, via Bayesian inference and applications of statistical mechanics techniques in medical statistics, to network theory and the modelling of heterogeneous many-variable processes in physics and biology. The group engages in multiple national and international research collaborations, and participates in several multidisciplinary initiatives that support theoretical biophysics and machine learning research and teaching at Radboud University.

Radboud University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion, and encourages applications from all sections of society. The university offers customised facilities to better align work and private life. Parents are entitled to partly paid parental leave and Radboud University employees enjoy flexibility in the way they structure their work. The university highly values the career development of its staff, which is facilitated by a variety of programmes. The Faculty of Science is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building a culturally diverse intellectual community, and as such encourages applications from women and minorities.

Radboud University

We want to get the best out of science, others and ourselves. Why? Because this is what the world around us desperately needs. Leading research and education make an indispensable contribution to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all. This is what unites the more than 24,000 students and 5,600 employees at Radboud University. And this requires even more talent, collaboration and lifelong learning. You have a part to play!

We offer

Additional employment conditions

Work and science require good employment practices. This is reflected in Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions. You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself, for example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports subscription. And of course, we offer a good pension plan. You are given plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.

Would you like more information?

For questions about the position, please contact Ton Coolen, Professor at +31 24 361 42 45 or ton.coolen@donders.ru.nl.

Practical information and applications

You can apply until 25 February 2022, exclusively using the button below. Kindly address your application to Ton Coolen. Please fill in the application form and attach the following documents:

The first round of interviews will take place around the end of March. You would preferably begin employment on 1 September 2022.

This vacancy was also published in a slightly modified form in 2021. Applicants who were rejected at that time are kindly requested not to apply again.

We can imagine you're curious about our application procedure. It offers a rough outline of what you can expect during the application process, how we handle your personal data and how we deal with internal and external candidates.

We drafted this vacancy to find and hire our new colleague ourselves. Recruitment agencies are kindly requested to refrain from responding.

The rest is here:
Associate / Full Professor of Theoretical Biophysics and Machine Learning job with RADBOUD UNIVERSITY NIJMEGEN | 278686 - Times Higher Education (THE)

Neuroscience

2022 needs to be the year of leadership – here’s what to expect – AdNews

Neuro-Insights CEO Peter Pynta looks at the developing trends hes seeing in marcomms and how that will change over the next 12 months

Power is gained in multiple ways. Some assume it, others aim to take it, and those who think creatively appreciate that it can be earned. From our perspective in neuroscience, the last of those three is where a brand is able to position itself and can deliver the most efficient behaviour changes in their target audience.

Ill outline three areas where I feel will require greater leadership from those in our industry.

Corporate social licence to operateGlobally over the last five years, the number of B Corps has tripled. In 2020, there was a 23% increase alone.

Consumers are increasingly looking to buy from companies that they align with their values. In fact a recent survey found that 83% of Gen Z workers consider purpose when deciding where to work.

And corporate communications have a greater focus on targeting social responsible leadership. Mike & Annie Cannon-

Brookes have come out and promised $1.5 Billion towards limiting global warming by 1.5 degrees. The idea of purpose and taking a stand may not be new in the marketing space, but other environmental factors mean that the issue has more impact than ever before for those that get it right.

Leadership - both political and corporate - is never more important than while in a crisis, and the last 18 months have left a permanent transition mentality for most businesses. Whether thats in our industry, or any other.

In fact, the biggest vacuum which has been left has come from absence of real leadership at the highest levels. The approach from government has been distinctly reactionary and slow to changes in policy and mindset. And this gridlock will continue into next year, as most are canvassing the court of public opinion for short-term ideas of vote winning policies to fit neatly within the current election cycle.

Youll have the seen that many more businesses have been creatively encouraging their customers, and Australians in general, to get vaccinated. While the government has flip flopped on the issue of vaccination rates being a race, brands have been rolling up their marketing sleeves to inject some much needed media spend on the issue. Here again, weve seen corporate Australia to be far more proactive and single-minded than most governments.

This position of authority is not without its risks. Should a brand run a single campaign on an issue and not integrate that value into the way it does business, it will be called out. Any social cause a brand supports must be done authentically and with previously earned social licence; an ad campaign is not enough for this type of approach. Weve seen that when a brand gets it right it can connect deeply with the emotions of consumers. The one theme weve seen routinely this year in communications is that the moment of truth eg. Volvos melting icebergs crashing into the sea, driving a pronounced peak in Emotional Intensity with consumers. These moments are extremely authentic and powerful!

Evolving media metricsWeve all known the limitations of relying on volume metrics for advertising campaigns. Sure, while 3 million people may have had a chance to see your ad, honestly how many took the time to consider, or even view it in the first place?The demand from clients is rightly heating up, which is why weve seen a lot of investment in greater efforts to capture the true value of an advert.

The out-of-home industry undertook an industry changing research project in 2019. And from January next year, the information media planners will have access to will dramatically change, as the Neuro Impact Factor will be implementable across every single outdoor site in the country. Two years working together with the OMA and its members, neuroscience has been able to assign a value metric on the effectiveness of a given campaign which can be implemented at the planning stage of a campaign.

Will it guarantee outcomes? Well measurement is not a simple task. And creative has a strong role to play. But from the years of research weve found evidence that when you commit something to long-term memory (in essence, the Neuro Impact Factor), it has an 86 per cent correlation with real-world sales. Thinkbox UKs Payback series provides additional independent validation of the link between real-world sales and our neuro metrics. The Neuro Impact Factor will become the routine way to evaluate and buy media in the OOH space.

Elsewhere weve seen developments in attention. Many national and even international businesses have been backing attention-based metrics. Which is great that theres so much demand from clients to challenge the status quo. I expect this trend to mature over the next 12 months, as we see what investors are able to glean from the projects into the field.

And yes, while its true, you will need to see an advert before it can be committed to long-term memory, you dont need to look directly at it. Peripheral vision allows a significant degree of cognitive processing. The most fascinating findings come from campaigns that benefit from cross-channel priming - where we routinely find higher Memory Encoding (approx +15%) with lower levels of visual attention. Neuroscience found that the brain reacted to the stimulus of an OOH ad within a split second and could store that information in long-term memory. It was defined as the power of a glance.

Attention may be the new buzzword, however the last two decades of research in the neuroscience industry has found that its only explains about 15 per cent of what makes a person likely to store in memory; creative, context and priming all help explain the wider 85 per cent of the picture.

Context is King & Currency!Deliver the right message, at the right time to an appropriate customer and youve got yourself a winning marketing formula. Which is simple to appreciate, but in reality there are many other invisible environmental factors at play that affect the effectiveness of your ad.

Whilst weve heard a lot lately about privacy, crumbling cookies and the renaissance of context, the business case for context will be a real focus in 22 and beyond. Receptivity and real effectiveness will be centre stage! A recent project with IAS found that matching messages to media contextually has a significant payback. A good example of this is the finding that the effectiveness increases by anywhere from 25-40% when messages are congruent to a surrounding context.

Effectiveness in this project was measured by looking directly at brain activity - long term memory encoding - as messages were exposed during natural online browsing behaviour. This is the type evidence that will propel advertisers and agencies to routinely apply contextual criteria to media buys.

Weve recently discovered a great deal more on how media context works - adding weight to a whole new media language - again, beyond TRAPS, R&F, viewability, CTR etc etc When a message is matched to its surrounding environment, it can increase effectiveness (Long Term Memory Encoding) by up to 40%. Thats serious payback.and worth all the effort to engineer the alignment in the first place!

This new media language should also become a trading currency. If this happens then advertisers will have a dramatically more meaningful way of planning and buying media. Ideally the same techniques can be applied to the creative execution to ensure the fit between media and message. The emergence of better standards of media governance from outside and inside the industry will demand more accountability and transparency on media budgets. To deliver on that increasing desire from regulators and clients, I expect to see more rigour applied for campaigns which can objectively quantify the results; ideally standardising across media and creative using the same methodology. Clients have always needed to be able to demonstrate the fit and effectiveness of their campaigns and now technology is giving more options to better answer those questions.

We now see that as an ad walks through the doorway to memory, a rich assortment of media attributes simultaneously join the message.helping the brain to store those brand memories in the most relevant way. The media attributes that link with the ad are what we refer to as shared contextual equity. This is exactly how the surrounding media environment helps to shape the meaning of an ad at the moment of exposure. Not all impressions leave the same impression.

A fascinating parallel exists in medical science as well. Improvements in the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals is being driven by more targeted application of drugs and treatments that are tuned to patients individual characteristics. The idea of Precision Medicine seeks to customise the drug to reflect the environment in which its consumed. Its recognised as one of the Top 10 Trends in Pharma Industry Innovations of 2021. We see this being eminently achievable in the media and communications industry as well - if you can tune your medicine to its environment then it will become more potent.

Likewise if we can get the right fit between message and medium I suspect the same advancements can be expected in our industry.

We will see this part of the media ecosystem becoming far more prevalent in 22 and beyond. It will take on renewed importance in the advertising economy of the future.

Read the original post:
2022 needs to be the year of leadership - here's what to expect - AdNews

Neuroscience

First impressions count, and have an impact on the decisions we make later on – The Conversation AU

Picture yourself standing at the edge of a road, trying to decide if its safe to cross. Its night time and rain is falling, making it difficult to see whats up ahead. After looking both ways, you step onto the road.

But what if this was a poor choice? Perhaps youve misjudged the speed of an approaching car. How does your brain realise its error and correct things before its too late?

Experiments in cognitive psychology and neuroscience have taught us we make decisions by integrating information over time that is, our brains collect and add up information across a very brief window of time, often only tens to hundreds of milliseconds, to form a clearer picture before committing to an action.

But when we need to judge how appropriate a decision actually was, for example when we already have one foot on the road, we suddenly become selective. Our new research shows that when changing our minds, not all information is considered equally, and our first impressions count.

A useful analogy for how our brains make decisions is that of a courtroom judge. Rather than passing a judgement after hearing from a single witness, they wait to hear from multiple witnesses to avoid acting on false or misleading testimony.

Similarly, our brains sample sensory information for a while before deciding what to do. From the brains perspective peering through the veil of our senses the world is much hazier than you might think. As a result, we dont always choose the most appropriate courses of action, despite our best efforts.

When mistakes are made, we need to be able to rapidly change our minds. Just as appeal processes are a critical part of the judicial system, the ability to reverse decisions is a critical function of our brains.

Imagine being unable to overrule the decision to step onto the road after grossly underestimating the speed of an approaching car. Even small delays in the time it takes you to reconsider can have serious consequences.

Read more: Changing your mind about something as important as vaccination isn't a sign of weakness being open to new information is the smart way to make choices

In our work at the Decision Neuroscience Lab at the University of Melbourne, we investigated how people sample information across time to change their minds.

Specifically, it has been unclear whether information used to inform an initial decision is also used in the process of reconsideration (and whether the weight given to information is constant or differs over time).

Think of a judge presiding over an appeal. The dominant perspective has been that only testimony heard after an initial decision has been made determines whether that decision is reversed. Another possibility, however, is that testimony from both before and after influence whether the decision is overturned.

To investigate this, we ran an experiment in which participants watched two rapidly flickering squares (that varied in brightness) for a short time, and made decisions about which was brighter on average.

We carefully manipulated the exact brightness of each square at all times, noting how peoples perceptions changed throughout. Usually, people stuck with their decisions, but every so often they changed their mind.

Contrary to current theories, we found information used to inform an initial decision (the brightness difference between the squares early on) also influenced whether that decision was later reversed.

Most strikingly, the very first snapshot of brightness information participants saw had a large and lasting influence over whether, and how quickly, they later changed their mind.

If this first snapshot of information strongly supported participants initial decisions, they tended to exhibit greater decision inertia. That is, they were slower and more resistant to changing their mind, even in the face of evidence they had made a mistake.

If it was the other way around, however, participants were more likely and quicker to change their mind. It appears greater weight was given to the first snapshot of evidence, and the strength of this evidence influenced subsequent assessments, biasing decisions made thereafter.

Read more: To what extent are we ruled by unconscious forces?

On first consideration, deciding if its safe to cross a road seems simple. Yet our research reveals complex and unexpected dynamics underlie even these rapid decisions.

In some sense, the variations in decision inertia participants displayed are reminiscent of confirmation bias, wherein a person will downplay evidence that does not support their initial conclusion.

Our findings are an important reminder that similar biases affect the processes in our brains which determine how we perceive, and act upon, the world around us.

Visit link:
First impressions count, and have an impact on the decisions we make later on - The Conversation AU

Neuroscience

‘Your Brain on Dance’ Waltzes into Theater – University of Houston

LiveWire explores the latest neuroscience discoveries with each of its five movements showcasing a different process of the human brain while artists wear brain caps. Photo courtesy: Lynn Lane

Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal, director of the BRAIN Center at UH, has been pioneering nonsurgical brain-machine interfaces for rehabilitation and restoration of movement and to understand the brain in action in clinical, artistic and classroom settings.

For two decadesMusiqaandNobleMotionDance have been breaking artistic boundaries in Houston and winning national acclaim for their adventurous programming. At the same time,Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professorof electrical and computer engineeringJose Luis Contreras-Vidal,director of the BRAIN Center atUH,has been pioneering nonsurgical brain-machine interfacesfor rehabilitation and restoration of movementandto understand the brain in action in clinical, artistic and classroom settings.

On Jan. 21 and 22, for the first time, the groups converge to present the world premiere ofLiveWireat the Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston.LiveWireis an innovative collaboration between scientists, musicians and dancers who will wear EEG skull caps (brain caps), while performing a new work centered around a new string quartet by artistic director Anthony Brandt, set to choreography by Andy and Dionne Noble.

LiveWireexplores the latest neuroscience discoveries with each of its five movements showcasing a different process of the human brain.

The performance also includes the Houston premieres of Pierre Jalberts Piano Quintet and Carlos Simons Loop for String Trio, as well asNobleMotionspremiere of The Spiders Den set to Lei Liangs Gobi Gloria.NobleMotionsdynamic Rhythm Study and artwork by Houston-based visual artist Emily Fens round out the program.

Two years in the making, the evenings titular work is a two-phase collaboration that begins in Houston and then goesto Virginain April as part of an international Brain and Dance conference.

LiveWirewill be performed again this spring at the 2022 International Workshop on the Neural and Social Bases of Creative Movement at Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Virginia, said Contreras-Vidal. Our January performance provides Houston audiences with the chance to see this exciting new work before it reaches an international audience.

The choreography and projection design respond to the music and are abstract visual representations of the brains plasticity. Soloist Evelyn Toh, wearing a brain cap, guides the audience through the inner landscape of her mind. Additional dancers reveal her brains activity as they glide and carve out new pathways, much like neurons alive inside our heads. Contreras-Vidals team will deploy mobile brain-body imaging technology to listen, map and record the dancers brain activity as part of his project, Your Brain on Dance, which furthers research into how the mind initiates spontaneous and prepared movement and internalizes artistic experiences. Audience members will watch this experiment take place in real time. EEG recordings of the dancers will be used as part of University of Houston research.

What:World premiere ofLiveWire, an innovative collaboration between scientists, musicians and dancers who will wear EEG skull caps (brain caps), while performing a new work

Who:Musiqa,NobleMotionDance, Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal, director of the BRAIN Center at the University of Houston and professor of electrical and computer engineering

When:Friday, Jan. 21, 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 22, 7:30 p.m. Buy ticketshere

Where:Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston (MATCH), 3400 Main Street, Houston TX 77002

Details:Learn more about Jose Luis Contreras-VidalhereLearn more about the BRAIN CenterhereLearn more about the Noninvasive Brain-Machine Interface Systems Laboratoryhere

See original here:
'Your Brain on Dance' Waltzes into Theater - University of Houston

Neuroscience

Neuroscience Graduate Group

Application Deadline

Prospective graduate students may apply for admission to ourPh.D. program.

Applications are accepted for fall quarter admission onlyand should be submitted as early as possible.

The Neuroscience program application deadline is December 1st. The application system for this graduate group will shut down at midnight on this date, US Pacific Standard Time. Admissions review will start promptly after the deadline, and incomplete applications will not be considered. Please ensure that all supporting materials (transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation) are submitted by the deadline as well.

The Neuroscience graduate group evaluates applicants using holistic review. Many criteria are considered when reviewing individual applications for admission into the Neuroscience graduate group:

Visit Grad Studies website to begin theapplicationprocess

The graduate group cannot review an application until all of the above components are received. Inquiries concerning application procedures or any other aspects of the program should be directed to:neurogradgroup@ucdavis.edu

The rest is here:
Neuroscience Graduate Group

Neuroscience

University of California, Davis – UC Davis Neuroscience …

By Evan White

Discovering how infections during pregnancy, such as COVID-19 and influenza, can lead to psychiatric illness and developmental disorders in offspring years later, and how to detect, prevent or treat these disorders, is the subject of a $15.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to the Conte Center at the University of California, Davis.

The UC Davis Conte Center, organized through the Center for Neuroscience, was originally established with an NIH grant in 2016. This grant renews the centers funding for another five years.

Link:
University of California, Davis - UC Davis Neuroscience ...

Neuroscience

Changes in brain hinder addiction recovery in those HIV positive: Study – Devdiscourse

A study by the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester studied how the brain puts the 'brakes' on behaviour in individuals recovering from cocaine addiction and who are also HIV-positive. The research has been published in the 'Neuropharmacology Journal'.

"Scientists have long known that drug abuse can cause damage to the brain. We also know HIV infection can cause brain changes," said John Foxe, PhD, director of the Del Monte Institute for Neurosciences and senior author of the study. "Since drug use is common in individuals with HIV, an important question is how brain deficits associated with both conditions might add up," he added.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain responses of cocaine addicts and patients with HIV while participants played a game that involved purposefully withholding responses to target stimuli. "The challenging thing about the game we asked participants to play isn't exactly playing it, per se," said Kathryn Mary Wakim, PhD, a recent graduate from the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Rochester and the first author of the study.

"What's really hard is not playing the game. What we wanted to measure was how the brain holds back a response under certain task conditions," she added. Difficulty withholding inappropriate responses are thought to be a central issue in addiction. Researchers found that participants diagnosed with both HIV and cocaine dependence had a difficult time holding back behavioural responses while playing the game, changes which were also reflected in brain activity. A companion study also found similar results while brain activity was measured using electroencephalography (EEG). Brain activity during response withholding in HIV+ participants in recovery from cocaine dependence was different than brain activity in HIV- participants in recovery.

"Currently, when someone who is HIV positive enters a recovery program they are treated in much the same fashion as any other person with an addiction issue," said Foxe. "But our findings show that they, very likely, need to be treated differently or more intensively. HIV and drug addiction should be a dual diagnosis when it comes to recovery, and we will need to design specific targeted intervention approaches for this population, given their unique vulnerability," Foxe added.

"When people with HIV relapse, it's a big deal. The majority of participants in our study contracted HIV - not by injecting cocaine - but by having unprotected sex," Wakim said. "Relapse is an outcome that should be minimized in this population because cocaine use is strongly associated with risky sexual behaviour, which makes the spread of HIV more likely when a relapse occurs," she added.

Additional co-authors are Edward Freedman, Ciara Molloy, Madalina Tivarus, Nicole Vieyto, and Zhewei Cao with the University of Rochester, and Armin Heinecke at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The research was supported with funding from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and by the University of Rochester Center for AIDS Research, which is funded through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Read the original post:
Changes in brain hinder addiction recovery in those HIV positive: Study - Devdiscourse

Neuroscience

Social cognitive abilities are associated with objective isolation but not perceived loneliness – PsyPost

New research provides evidence that social isolation is associated with reduced social perception and emotion recognition skills. The findings, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, suggest that social cognitive capacity predicts objective isolation but not feelings of loneliness.

Loneliness has been increasingly recognized as a major societal problem population studies have shown that it has a higher impact on mortality rates than hypertension and obesity, explained study author ukasz Okruszek, the head of the Social Neuroscience Lab at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Importantly, it has been emphasized that the feeling of loneliness is driven mostly by ones perception of social relationships rather than by objective qualities of social relationships per se. The same relationship (e.g. marriage) may be perceived as either loving and caring or detached and unaffectionate, depending on ones personal experiences, attitudes, and needs.

Thus, while loneliness can be linked to objective social isolation, the former does not implicate the latter, Okruszek explained. People may often report feeling lonely even despite maintaining numerous social ties. Given the important role that cognitive processes play in our appraisals of social relationships, we decided to examine the association between both subjective and objective social isolation and cognitive processes that underlie processing and interpretation of social information.

In the study, 252 individuals (aged 1850) with no history of psychiatric or neurological disorders completed assessments of subjective loneliness and objective social isolation. Objective social isolation was measured by asking the participants the number of relatives with whom they were in regular contact, could seek help from, and could confide in. Subjective loneliness, on the other hand, was measured by asking the participants the extent to which they agreed with statements such as No one really knows me well and I feel isolated from others.

The participants also completed several validated tests of social cognitive capacity, such as the ability to recognize others emotional states and infer someone elses state of mind.

The researchers found that those with a higher level of objective social isolation tended to exhibit worse social cognitive capacity. However, this was not the case for subjective feelings of loneliness.

Contrary to our hypotheses, we observed that social perception and emotion recognition were associated with objective social isolation, but not loneliness, Okruszek told PsyPost. In contrast, a tendency to attribute hostile intentions in ambiguous social situations (a hostility bias) was associated with both objective social isolation and loneliness. This finding suggests that social cognitive biases may be among the targets for interventions that are aimed at reducing loneliness.

But more research is needed on the longitudinal associations between social cognitive abilities and social isolation.

While we have shown which cognitive mechanisms are linked with loneliness and objective social isolation, the trajectories linking these findings with health outcomes observed in lonely and isolated individuals are still to be explored, Okruszek said. Previous studies have found that structural and functional abnormalities may be observed in lonely individuals in key brain structures that are involved in the processing of social information.

In addition, the feeling of loneliness may negatively impact heart rate variability, which can serve as an indicator of the ability to regulate activity in response to unknown and potentially threatening stimuli in the environment. Thus, the goal of our further studies is to examine the relationship between cognitive mechanisms, activity of brain networks during social information processing and physiological (reduced heart rate variability) markers in lonely individuals.

As noted above, loneliness is a major public health challenge, and its prevalence and importance is even more pronounced given the global pandemic, the consequences of which will likely be felt for years if not decades, Okruszek added. We believe it is critically important to understand how loneliness influences health and quality of life, and hope that this work, along with that of others, will ultimately benefit society.

The study, Owner of a lonely mind? Social cognitive capacity is associated with objective, but not perceived social isolation in healthy individuals, was authored by . Okruszek, A. Piejka, M. Krawczyk, A. Schudy, M. Wisniewska, K. Zurek, and A. Pinkham.

Read this article:
Social cognitive abilities are associated with objective isolation but not perceived loneliness - PsyPost

Neuroscience

UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief States: ‘After Careful Examination of These Original Material, Neuroscience [Journal] Found No Evidence of Manipulation of the…

This headline-only article is meant to show you why a stock is moving, the most difficult aspect of stock trading. Every day we publish hundreds of headlines on any catalyst that could move the stocks you care about on Benzinga Pro, our flagship platform for fast, actionable information that promotes faster, smarter trading.

Benzinga Pro has an intuitively designed workspace that delivers powerful market insight, and is the solution of choice for thousands of professional and retail traders across the world.

Stop Googling for information and check out Benzinga Pro. You will never again be left in the dark on when a stock moves. Youll have what you need to act in real-time before the crowd.

Start your FREE 14-day trial of Benzinga Pro today.

Go here to read the rest:
UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief States: 'After Careful Examination of These Original Material, Neuroscience [Journal] Found No Evidence of Manipulation of the...