Neuroscience

New Neuroscience Reveals Three Secrets That Will Make You Emotionally Intelligent – Observer

The latest research shows that the little we know about emotions is actually all wrong. Pexels

Emotional Intelligence. Its everywhere. They wont shut up about it. And yet nobody seems to be able to explain what it really means or how you develop it.

Face it: you dont even know what an emotionis. Most people would say an emotion is a feeling. And whats a feeling? Umman emotion? Yeah, nice work there, Captain Circular.

And it turns out the latest research shows that the little we know about emotions is actually all wrong. And I meanreallywrong.

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Her new bookHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brainturns everything you know aboutthe feelsupside down.

Buckle in. Were gonna learn the real story behind how emotions work, why theyre so difficult to deal with, and why the secret to emotional intelligence might just be the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Time to fire up Occams chainsaw. Lets get to work

Your fundamental emotions are hardwired and universal, right? We all have a crayon box with the same set of colors: anger, fear, happiness, sadness, etc.

And the latest research says thatsall wrong.W-w-w-w-what? You heard me. Actually, some cultures dont have the full crayon box of emotions.

People in Tahiti dont have sadness. Yeah, if you lived on a gorgeous island in the Pacific youd probably feel sadness alotless often but the Tahitian people literally dont possess that emotion.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

Utka Eskimos have no concept of Anger. The Tahitians have no concept of Sadness. This last item is very difficult for Westerners to accept life without sadness? Really? When Tahitians are in a situation that a Westerner would describe as sad, they feel ill, troubled, fatigued, or unenthusiastic, all of which are covered by their broader termpeapea.

And other cultures have crayon colors you and I have never seen before.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

I know what many people are thinking:Youre cheating. Wanting to hug Hello Kitty isnt arealemotion. And peape-whatever is just sadness by another name.

But thats insisting that emotions are hardwired and universal. And research pretty convincingly shows theyre not.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

Where emotions and the autonomic nervous system are concerned, four significant meta-analyses have been conducted in the last two decades, the largest of which covered more than 220 physiology studies and nearly 22,000 test subjects. None of these four meta-analyses found consistent and specific emotion fingerprints in the body.

There is no set crayon box. Emotions arent hardwired or universal. Theyre concepts that we learn. And so they can differ from culture to culture.

If you think thatpeapeaand sadness are the same thing, let me ask you a question: would you mistake regret for heartache? Would you confuse disappointment with mourning?

I didnt think so. Could you call them all sad? Iguess But would that feel remotely accurate to you? Again, I doubt it.

You dont feel Forelsket for the same reason you dont speak Norwegian: you were never taught it.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

Fago, litost, and the rest are not emotions to you. Thats because you dont know these emotion concepts; the associated situations and goals are not important in middle-class American culture. Your brain cannot issue predictions based on Fago, so the concept doesnt feel automatic the way that happiness and sadness do to you Yes, fago, litost, and the rest are just words made up by people, but so are happy, sad, fearful, angry, disgusted, and surprised.

If you had been raised somewhere different, you mightfeelsomething different. Emotions vary between people (do you simmer when you feel angry or do you break furniture?). And they vary dramatically between cultures.

But if you only have concepts for anger, happiness, and sadness then thats all youre ever going to see.

Often we pick these concepts up just from living in a culture, others were taught explicitly as children. And theyre transmitted from one person to the next, from one generation to the next.

When we experience a sensation, an emotion concept is triggered like a memory and actually constructed by the brain. Its nearly immediate and youre largely unaware of the process.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

I felt sadness in that moment because, having been raised in a certain culture, I learned long ago that sadness is something that may occur when certain bodily feelings coincide with terrible loss. Using bits and pieces of past experience, such as my knowledge of shootings and my previous sadness about them, my brain rapidly predicted what my body should do to cope with such tragedy. Its predictions caused my thumping heart, my flushed face, and the knots in my stomach. They directed me to cry, an action that would calm my nervous system. And they made the resulting sensations meaningful as an instance of sadness. In this manner, my brain constructed my experience of emotion.

(To learn more about the science of a successful life, check out my new bookhere.)

So now you know how emotions work. And that leads us to how we can develop that fabled emotional intelligence everyone keeps yammering about. So whats the first step?

Its a big understatement to say that if the only emotion concepts you recognize are me feel good and me feel bad youre not going to be very emotionally intelligent.

I see red, blue and green. An interior decorator seesperiwinkle, salmon, sage, magenta and cyan. (And that is only one of many reasons you dont want me decorating your house.)

The more time you take to distinguish the emotions you feel, to recognize them as distinct and different, the more emotionally intelligent you will become. This is called emotional granularity.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

So, a key to EI is to gain new emotion concepts and hone your existing ones.

Similar to the interior decorator, emotionally intelligent people dont say me feel good. They distinguish between happy, ecstatic, joyful and awesome.

Theyre like the oenophiles of emotions:This sadness is bittersweet, with fine notes of despondency and an aftertaste of lingering regret.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

if you could distinguish finer meanings within Awesome (happy, content, thrilled, relaxed, joyful, hopeful, inspired, prideful, adoring, grateful, blissful...), and fifty shades of Crappy (angry, aggravated, alarmed, spiteful, grumpy, remorseful, gloomy, mortified, uneasy, dread-ridden, resentful, afraid, envious, woeful, melancholy...), your brain would have many more options for predicting, categorizing, and perceiving emotion, providing you with the tools for more flexible and functional responses.

And the people who wont shut up about the importance of EI are right. Having lower emotional granularity is associated with a lot of bad things like emotional and personality disorders.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

People who have major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, eating disorders, autism spectrum disorders, borderline personality disorder, or who just experience more anxiety and depressed feelings all tend to exhibit lower granularity for negative emotion.

More importantly, when youre able to finely discern what youre feeling, youre able to do something constructive to deal with the problems causing them.

If the only negative emotion concept you have is me feel bad youre going to have a difficult time making yourself feel better. So youll resort to ineffective coping methods like, oh, bourbon.

Note: The results of my exceedingly thorough study on the topic of bourbon as an ineffective emotional copingtechnique (n=1) will be forthcoming.

But if youre able to distinguish the more specific I feel alone from merely me feel bad youre able to deal with the problem: you call a friend.

And having a higher level of emotional granularity leads to good things in life.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

Higher emotional granularity has other benefits for a satisfying life. In a collection of scientific studies, people who could distinguish finely among their unpleasant feelings those fifty shades of feeling crappy were 30 percent more flexible when regulating their emotions, less likely to drink excessively when stressed, and less likely to retaliate aggressively against someone who has hurt them.

(To learn 6 rituals from ancient wisdom that will make you happy, clickhere.)

Okay, so youre taking the time to distinguish your feelings. Youre going from white belt me feel bad to black belt I am consumed by ennui. Great. How do you take it to the next level?

I dont mean you can find the word emotional intelligence in the dictionary. Well, yeah, you can, but thats not what I mean. I mean a dictionary can actually help you develop emotional intelligence.

If you dont know what ennui means, youre not going to be able to distinguish it. Learning more emotion words is the key to recognizing more subtle emotion concepts.

FromHow Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain:

Youve probably never thought about learning words as a path to greater emotional health, but it follows directly from the neuroscience of construction. Words seed your concepts, concepts drive your predictions, predictions regulate your body budget, and your body budget determines how you feel. Therefore, the more finely grained your vocabulary, the more precisely your predicting brain can calibrate your budget to your bodys needs. In fact, people who exhibit higher emotional granularity go to the doctor less frequently, use medication less frequently, and spend fewer days hospitalized for illness.

Now being a Scrabble champ, by itself, doesnt necessarily make you emotionally intelligent. You still need to sit with your emotions and spend the time to distinguish them and label them.

So are you angry, furious, or just cranky? Recognize your emotions. Make the feelings distinct.

(To learn the 4 rituals neuroscience says will make you happy, clickhere.)

But what if the dictionary aint cutting it? What if no word does justice to something you feel on a regular basis?

No problem. Emotions arent hardwired. Theyre concepts. And that means something really, really cool: you can make your own

I know, sounds crazy. ButLisa Feldman Barrett says this is another excellent way to increase emotional intelligence. And its not as hard as you think.

Ever feel out of it or just off? You had sensations but no concept bucket that fit them. So your brain shrugged and threw it in the miscellaneous pile.

So give those feelings a name. That dread you feel on Sunday night knowing you need to go to work tomorrow? Sunday-nitis. Or that special something that you feel around your partner? Passion-o-rama.

Those are unique sensations. Give them an emotion. Learn to distinguish them from the other forms of dread or elation.

Yeah, it might feel a little silly at first but dont let that hold you back. In Japan they have age-otori The feeling of looking worse after a haircut. Weve all felt that. It just took one emotionally intelligent genius to give it a name. Be that genius.

And if you want to make it more real: share the emotion with someone. Tell your partner the name of that unique feeling they give you. Maybe they feel it too.

Happiness and sadness and even age-otori are all constructed concepts. They become real because we have agreed on them with others. Dollars are just green paper rectangles until we all agree they have value.

Add new colors to your emotional crayon box and you can draw a better emotional life for yourself and others.

(To learn how to make friends as an adult, clickhere.)

Alright, weve learned a lot about emotional intelligence. Or emotional smarts. Or emotional genius. (Hey, words matter. Make distinctions.) Lets round it all up and find out the best way to get started

Heres how to be more emotionally intelligent:

I post on this blog weekly. I have not missed a week for the eight years this blog has been in existence. But I have not posted anything new in a month. Because *I* have been dealing with some very icky emotions.

To all who reached out to me, I offer you a heartfelt thanks. (And Jason, Lisa, Jodie, Debbie and Trisha all get gold stars for going above and beyond the call of duty.)

The specifics of how I have been feeling is of little consequence. But the emotion I am feelingnowmay be of some use to you: I feel gratitudinous.

Yeah, thats my own new emotion. Because grateful just aint gonna cut it.

Grateful is how you feel when someone loans you a dollar. Gratitudinous has awe. Its when you get help you didnt expect. At levels you didnt think were possible. And from people who, frankly, you piss off with frightening regularity.

Gratitudinous also has hope and optimism in its recipe in a way grateful doesnt. Autocorrect doesnt like it much, but it works for me just fine. Ive shared it with you. That makes it real.

Whats the emotion that describes how you feel around the people closest to you? Dont reply with one word. I want a concept. A constellation of feelings. Give it a name.

Share this post with those people and tell them your new emotion.The utterly unique way they make you feel. Hopefully it will become a word you use regularly.

Emotions are fleeting. But they are unavoidable and they are the most human of all things.They are not universals; they are arbitrary. But if we feel them deeply and we share them with others, nothing in this life is more real.

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Eric Barker is the author ofBarking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong. Eric has been featured in theThe New York Times,The Wall Street Journal,WiredandTIME. He also runs theBarking Up the Wrong Treeblog. Join his 290,000-plus subscribers and get free weekly updateshere.

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New Neuroscience Reveals Three Secrets That Will Make You Emotionally Intelligent - Observer

Human Behavior

Book Review: A handy guide to human behavior – India New England

By Vikas Datta

Title: Hands: What We Do with Them and Why; Author: Darian Leader; Publisher: Penguin Random House UK; Pages: 128; Price: Rs 499

If you think the current trend of people, publicly and privately, paying ferocious attention to their smartphones or other hand-held devices and furiously typing, clicking or scrolling away is technology making a travesty of human nature, you may well be wrong. For these habits may represent its crucial parts latest preoccupation.

While the radical effect of the internet, the smartphone and the PC is said to be on who we are and how we relate to each other and whatever we make of the changes, psychoanalyst Darian Leader notes that experts stress that these are changes which have made the world a different place and the digital era is incontestably new.

But what if we were to see this chapter in human history through a slightly different lens? What if, rather than focusing on the new promises or discontents of contemporary civilisation, we see todays changes as first and foremost changes in what human beings do with their hands? he poses.

For while the digital age may have transformed many aspects of our experience, but its most obvious yet neglected feature is that it allows people to keep their hands busy in a variety of unprecedented ways.

Leader, in this slim but more than a handful of a book, contends that the body part that most defines us humans is not our advanced brain but rather our restless upper pair of limbs. Thus, a considerable amount of our history and habits can be related to what we can do or cannot do with our hands and why we must keep them busy.

This, he says, brings us to examine the reasons for this strange necessity to know why idle hands are deemed dangerous, how their roles for infants changes as they grow, what links hands to the mouth, and what happens when we are restrained.

The anxious, irritable and even desperate states we might then experience show that keeping the hands busy is not a matter of whimsy or leisure, but touches on something at the heart of what our existence embodies.

And to ascertain this something, Leader goes on to draw from popular culture (especially films, mostly horror and science fiction but also classics like Dr Zhivago), language, religion, social and art history, psychoanalysis, modern technology, clinical research, the pathology of violence and more to find the what, why, and how.

In this process, we come to know why zombies and monsters (like Frankenstein) are shown walking with outstretched arms, why newborns grip an adult finger so tightly that they can dangle unsupported from it, the reason for prayers beads in various religions (Leader misses out Hinduism), why nicotine patches may not help smokers, the constant preoccupation (for some of us) with texting, tapping and scrolling and our behaviour on public transport.

And as Leader is a founding member of the Centre for Freudian Research and Analysis, people will expect sex to figure somewhere and they will not be wrong or fully right. For he only tackles one aspect, which involves the hand.

He recalls when friends and others asked him what he was working on during the preparation of this book, my reply that it was to be an essay about hands produced the almost invariable response, Oh! A book about masturbation!'. He dryly notes that the association appeared to be so intractable that it seemed foolish not to at least devote a chapter to this.

His observations on hands and their motivations and manifestations break new ground and it will suffice to say that you will never look at fairy tales, from those of the Grimm Brothers to Arabian Nights to J.R.R. Tolkien, the same way again.

His chapter on violence seems a bit out of place, but Leader brings his argument a full circle as he closes on the compulsive use of technological devices what we (and their makers) must know about them.

More of a long essay than a book, it brings to fore to the issue that, despite all our technical prowess, we are still to plumb the mysteries of our mind and body, which can be more complex than anything we invent. (IANS)

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Human Behavior

This Start-Up Wants To Use CCTV Footage To Develop Self-Driving Car Technology – Jalopnik

Autonomous tech start-ups have offered a number of waysall of which they believe to be the most appropriate and correctto approach the development of self-driving cars. A new company out of the United Kingdom, FiveAI, has a fresh take, though: CCTV cameras.

What to do when you get rear-ended: remain calm and exchange information. What not to do:

The company has raised about $31 million, and its hoping to deploy autonomous cars on the streets of London by 2019, according to Wired UK. Like most developers in the field, FiveAI is going to use LiDAR and other sensors to make their cars function appropriately, but it has to figure out how to handle a similar issue that makes perfecting the technology difficult: what to do with big, dumb humans.

Theres a big difference in human behavior and the human behaviors in one city vary to the next city, Stan Boland, FiveAIs CEO, told Wired.

So, Boland and his firm want to lean on Londons existing, insanely expansive CCTV camera system.

Heres more from Wired:

A lot of London, for example, does have CCTV camera footage which we can use. By transforming CCTV footage to a birds-eye view, using computer simulations, Boland says it will be possible to build models of what happens at street junctions.

The self-driving car race is going to be a heated bloodbath thats going to cost billions in failed investments, and who knows where FiveAi is going to come out in the end. Its still early! But relying on an endless stream of CCTV footage is novel, so FiveAI at least has that going for it.

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This Start-Up Wants To Use CCTV Footage To Develop Self-Driving Car Technology - Jalopnik

Human Behavior

Wild dogs in Africa engage in unmistakable voting behavior – Ars Technica

Wild dogs in Botswana are an endangered species, and they offer us a rare window into undomesticated dog behavior. Researchers followed five packs of them for a year, recording their social interactions.

Neil Jordan

When they greet each other, wild African dogs often jump around, bark, and touch each other playfully. This is called a "rally."

Andrew King

One of the major reasons for dog rallies is to gather up pack members and start on a new hunting mission. Researchers found that the dogs were "voting" on whether to hunt again by making a sneezing noise.

Andrew King

The more "sneezes" the researchers recorded, the more likely it was that the pack would move along and start hunting. If a pack leader initiated the rally, fewer sneezes were needed to get started.

Andrew King

Though humans like to think of themselves as the only creatures on Earth who vote on what to do, they aren't. Many social animals engage in consensus-seeking behavior, from meerkats to honeybees to Capuchin monkeys. In these species and more, members of the group weigh in about what their next move should be.

Now, a new study of African wild dogs in Botswana adds another animal to the voting pool. It turns out that these endangered, undomesticated dogs "vote" on whether to start hunting by making noises that sound just like sneezes.

Neil Jordan, a fellow at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, worked with a team to follow five packs of these dogs for roughly 11 months, observing their behavior and recording the sounds they made. Based on previous research, he and his colleagues were fairly certain that the dogs had to reach a consensus before setting out on a collective hunt. The scientists already knew that the dogs had a very specific social pattern, called a "rally," wherein the pack would come together and boisterously greet each other. Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Jordan and his team describe how they figured out that rallies were generally initiated by one dog, who "rose from rest in the distinctive initiation posture: head lowered, mouth open, and ears folded back."

After witnessing several rallies, the researchers noticed something strange. They started hearing patterns of sneezes. Jordan said in a release that they "noticed the dogs were sneezing while preparing to go." So the researchers went over recordings of 68 rallies and "couldn't quite believe it when our analyses confirmed our suspicions... The more sneezes that occurred, the more likely it was that the pack moved off and started hunting. The sneeze acts like a type of voting system."

You can hear some sneeze votes in this video.

Even more interesting, however, is that dog democracy is as imperfect as the human version. When a dominant male or female dog called the rally, fewer sneezes were needed to start the hunt. Study co-author Reena Walker added, "If the dominant pair were not engaged, more sneezes were neededapproximately 10before the pack would move off." In other words, some votes count more than others.

Walker told The New York Times that the noise they called "sneezes" isn't really like a human sneeze. There's no inhalation, just an "audible, rapid forced exhalation through the nose." We also aren't sure that this noise is involuntary, like a sneeze, or more like a person making a grunt of assent. What is certain is that the more of these sounds you hear during a dog vote, the more likely they are to move along to do some dog business together.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2017. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0347 (About DOIs).

Listing image by Andrew King

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Wild dogs in Africa engage in unmistakable voting behavior - Ars Technica

Embryology

Stars’ tributes pour in for inspirational Birmingham student who has died at 21 – Birmingham Mail

Tributes have been pouring in for an inspirational Birmingham student and journalist after his death from cancer at 21.

Dean Eastmond shared his battle with Ewings Sarcoma, a rare form of bone and soft tissue cancer, on social media and his blog.

And he also managed to change the rules regarding equal fertility rights.

Condolences have been paid by heartbroken celebrities including Judge Rinder, Sir Matthew Bourne and Zoe Ball.

And before his death, stars including Nicole Scherzinger, Dua Lipa and Michelle Visage sent him messages of support.

Today his close friend, Birmingham publicist Amy Stutz, said: Dean was the most selfless, kind and humble person Ive ever known.

He made such an impact on so many people. He would be really touched by the messages flowing in.

He was such a fighter. Even at the end he was determined he wasnt going to die.

Dean was recognised at the 2017 Attitude Pride Awards, where he met Gok Wan and Nick Grimshaw, for his work with the LGBT community.

He launched the gay lifestyle magazine HISKIND and campaigned for a change in the rules regarding fertility.

During chemotherapy, Dean was advised to store his sperm as it was likely to make him infertile. But he was shocked to be told that his boyfriend, Adam Packer, would not be able to access the sperm because of their same-sex relationship.

He was furious and contacted the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and, after several discussions, his request changed the rules to allow all people, regardless of sexual orientation, to stipulate who can use their sperm after death.

Dean was studying English Language at the University of Birmingham when he discovered a large lump in his chest.

He was forced to drop out after the second yet but was treated in Birmingham because of the reputation of Queen Elizabeth Hospital and its Teenage Cancer Trust ward.

Dean wrote regularly for Redbrick, the paper for Birmingham University students, and for The National Student.

He was particularly well known in Birminghams theatre scene as he reviewed productions at Birmingham Hippodrome and Birmingham Royal Ballet.

BRB tweeted: We are saddened to hear of the passing of a friend. An inspirational person who will be missed.

Dance supremo Sir Matthew Bourne tweeted after his death: A true hero RIP sweet Dean - you made a difference. Today I feel heartbroken.

Zoe Ball said: Heartbroken. Incredible force, truly inspired so many.

And Judge Rinder posted: You are proof that its not the years in your life that count, its the life in your years.

Guardian columnist Owen Jones said: An amazing, courageous, inspirational queer young journalist. He moved so, so many people.

BBC broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire, who has been treated for breast cancer, retweeted what Dean said when she asked: In a sentence, what would you write to cancer?

He replied: #DearCancer though youve stripped me of my identity as I enter my last weeks of life, youve been a gift in so many ways and taught me so much.

To which Victoria had replied: Ive just been reading some of your articles. Beautiful, visceral, searingly poignant. Coherent, well-written, honest, and by sharing what you experience, you help others.

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Embryology

Older wombs linked to complications in pregnant mice – Medical Xpress

A fluorescent microscopy image of the womb of an elderly mouse. The areas in green show cells which respond to pregnancy hormones. As a mouse ages, the womb becomes less sensitive to hormones, as shown by the uneven, patchy areas of green. This is reflected in the developmental problems we see in the offspring from these older mothers. Credit: Ms. Laura Woods

Deciding to start a family later in life could be about more than just the age of your eggs. A new study in mice suggests the age of a mother's womb may also have a part to play. This work, led by Dr Myriam Hemberger at the Babraham Institute and the Centre for Trophoblast Research in Cambridge, UK, is one of the first to look at the effects of age on womb health and it is expected to lead to new research into human pregnancies.

The risks of complications during pregnancy all increase with age. A woman in her late 30s is twice as likely as a younger woman to have a stillbirth, she is also 20% more prone to giving birth prematurely and more likely to experience conditions such as pre-eclampsia. Many of these effects have been linked to the deteriorating quality of ageing egg cells. Yet, this new research, published in Nature Communications, reveals that older wombs also have more trouble adapting to pregnancy.

By examining first pregnancies in aged mice, the team showed that, for mice as for humans, the risk of complications increases with age. Closer examination revealed that the wombs of older mothers are less able to support the growth of a placenta, meaning the developing young have poor blood supply, which slows their growth and can cause birth defects.

The co-first authors were Ms Laura Woods and Dr Vicente Perez-Garcia. Speaking about the findings, Ms Woods said: "We wanted to enhance our understanding of the increased risks of pregnancy in older mothers. When we compared mice who have their first litter in middle age to their younger counterparts, we found that the lining of the uterus does not respond as well to pregnancy hormones and this delays placenta formation. By identifying the key pathways affected by age in mice we have a better idea of what to look for in humans."

Understanding the potential risks of pregnancy with age is an increasingly important issue. In the UK, more and more women are starting families later and in 2015, 53% of UK births were to women aged 30 or over. A 2016 report by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority showed that freezing eggs for later use is also growing in popularity. In 2001, just 29 women opted for the treatment, rising to 816 by 2014.

Lead author, Dr Hemberger, Group Leader in Epigenetics at the Babraham Institute, said: "Overall, our study highlights the importance of the ageing uterine environment as a cause of reproductive decline in female mice. This is one of the first times that the considerable impact of age on pregnancy has been studied in detail beyond the effects of egg fitness. More research will be needed to establish if and how our results translate to humans."

The shorter lifespan of mice means that they are useful for studying the effects of age on pregnancy but these results cannot always be directly applied to human pregnancies. These new results will help to guide long-term studies in humans but it is not yet clear what the implications of these findings will mean for family planning and human healthcare. It is clear that other factors besides egg quality may need to be considered when planning a family.

As a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Ashley Moffett, Professor of Reproductive Immunology at the University of Cambridge and expert on placenta formation, said: "We know that the so-called Great Obstetrical Syndromes, in particular pre-eclampsia are more common in older women but it's still not clear why. Although more work is needed to demonstrate this effect in humans, this study could help advance research into these important questions".

Explore further: Weight gain between pregnancies linked to increased risk of gestational diabetes

More information: Laura Woods et al, Decidualisation and placentation defects are a major cause of age-related reproductive decline, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00308-x

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Embryology

Aberdeenshire young farmer hails SAYFC trip to Canada – Press and Journal

Amy Ingram

A well-known young farmer from the north-east has hailed a recent trip to Canada as a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet other young farmers from across the world.

Amy Ingram, whose family are well-known sheep breeders at Logie Durno, near Pitcaple, Inverurie, attended the 4H Summit in Ottawa thanks to financial support from the Gregor Award Trust.

Ms Ingram, who is currentlying studying embryology and developmental biology at university, said: From a very young age the Canadian Rockies and the cowboy lifestyle has always fascinated me.

This summer I was lucky enough to be selected with two other Scottish Association of Young Farmers Club (SAYFC) members to represent Scotland in the 4H summit in Ottawa and to visit Canada.

She said the trip not only gave her the chance to meet her peers from across the globe, but also improve her presentation skills. Myself and the other Scottish delegates presented a 90-minute talk on SAYFCs mental health campaign, Are Ewe Okay, in association with Scottish Association of Mental Health, said Ms Ingram.

She said the trip has inspired her to look into the possibility of going back to Canada next summer to work on a ranch. When she is not studying, Ms Ingram works full-time on the family farm helping take animals around the summer show circuit and preparing for the familys on-farm tup sale.

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Aberdeenshire young farmer hails SAYFC trip to Canada - Press and Journal

Embryology

‘Yayasan scholarships to do Masters and PhD by research’ – The Borneo Post

KUCHING: Sarawakians are encouraged to apply for scholarships from Yayasan Sarawak to do Masters and PhD by research.

SUPP Youth chief Tan Kai said the state government recently announced that the foundation would offer scholarships to several courses related to research.

We are supportive of the move and feel that young Sarawakians should grab this opportunity, he said at a press conference here yesterday.

Tan, who is also a political secretary to the Chief Minister, said the fields of research included cell structure/biology (cytology), biochemistry, embryology, genetics (molecular genetics/genomics), micro-biology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, bioprocess engineering, biorobotics and biomorphic robotics.

The others are instrumentation control engineering, image processing, sensors and actuator, mechatronic, storage, cloud computing, cognitive info communication, artificial intelligence/machine learning, cybersecurity, networking, software engineering, data analytics, big data and telemetry, and human-computer interaction (HCI).

Tan believed that these research-based courses would help produce the necessary human capital to accelerate the states development.

Our Chief Minister has a big plan to digitise Sarawaks economy and eventually turn Sarawak into a developed state, he said.

Interested applicants are advised to contact officers Zamahari Saidi at zamahari@yayasansarawak.org.my or Eliza Fazliyaton Alias at eliza@yayasansarawak.org.my.

For more information, visit http://www.yayasansarawak.org.my or email ys@yayasansarawak.org.my or call 082-441686 or WhatsApp (017-700 1971).

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Cell Biology

Split-brain fruit fly research at UNR gives insight into autism – Northern Nevada Business Weekly

A better understanding of the cause of autism may come from an unlikely source, neurological studies of the fruit fly. Neuroscientists working in the biology department at the University of Nevada, Reno have identified a new genetic mechanism they believe is responsible for disruption of the brain pathways connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain; which has separately been linked to autism.

"This is an exciting find," Thomas Kidd, associate professor in the Universitys biology department, said. "In the one striking mutant, called commissureless or comm, there are almost no connections between the two sides of the fruit fly's nervous system."

The fruit fly nervous system research was conducted in Kidd's lab over several years. Fruit flies have brains and nerve cords that form using molecules surprisingly similar to those in human brains and spinal cords. The study, published in the scientific journal PLOS Genetics, shows that the human gene, called PRRG4, functions the same way as the fruit fly Comm at the molecular level, regulating which signals neurons can respond to in their environment.

"The Comm gene was thought to be unique to insects but our work shows that it is not," Elizabeth Justice, lead author of the PLOS Genetics article and a former postdoctoral neuroscience researcher in Kidd's lab, said.

Comm is required for nerve fiber guidance and synapse formation in the fly, so PRRG4 could contribute to the autistic symptoms of WAGR by disturbing either of these processes in the developing human brain.

"PRRG4 appears very likely to control how nerve fibers link the two sides of the nervous system in humans, and this is being actively tested," Sarah Barnum, a former undergraduate researcher in the Kidd lab who worked on the project, said.

The fruit fly has no left-right connections when two copies of the gene are missing. In humans there is a condition called WAGR syndrome in which a group of genes are missing on one chromosome. When the gene Kidd's team is interested in, the PRRG4 gene, is missing, autistic symptoms are observed.

"The function of the gene was obscure but we now show that it can regulate whether key proteins make it to the cell surface when neuronal wiring is navigating," Kidd said. "This would tie it to our colleague Jeff Hutsler's work that indicates autistic changes start in utero."

Jeffrey Hutsler, in the department of Psychology, and the Cognitive and Brain Sciences Program and also in the University's neuroscience program, is an expert on autism and split-brain patients.

Split brain patients have the connections between the left and right brain hemispheres severed, usually to relieve epilepsy symptoms. The disrupted structure is called the corpus callosum, a bridge consisting of millions of nerve fibers that allows constant exchange of information between the two sides of the brain. The corpus callosum forms during pregnancy and subtle disruptions to the structure are associated with developing autism.

Hutsler, who was not involved in the study, is also very excited by the work.

"We know that brain wiring is altered in autism spectrum disorders and our own work has found similarities in the way visual information is integrated between the two brain hemispheres of split-brain patients and autistic individuals," Hutsler said. "It is therefore very plausible that PRRG4 will be found to play a part in the altered formation of the corpus callosum in individuals with autism."

The journal which published the study, PLOS Genetics, commissioned a perspective on the article because of its significance.

"Understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying the assembly of brain circuits is likely to be essential to the design of new diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies for Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD)," Jimena Berni wrote in the perspective, explaining that the study "links the genetic alterations and neural circuitry development revealing a novel role for the PRRG4 gene as a regulator."

The University of Nevada, Reno study will inspire members of several diverse fields and drive research forward in several ways, including:

Axon (nerve fibers) guidance a range of physical interactors have been identified for PRRG proteins and these provide promising new avenues for investigation in all axon guidance systems.Vertebrate brain development and Human Genetics the PRRG genes are expressed during brain development and in adults, but detailed surveys of expression patterns are lacking. Examination of key midline crossing structures such as the floor plate of the spinal cord and the corpus callosum is an obvious next step, but many other brain structures should be examined.Yeast protein trafficking The findings offer the intriguing possibility that yeast genetics can be used to identify the mechanisms by which Rcr/Comm/PRRG proteins regulate protein trafficking to the cell surface.The PLOS Genetics article is available on the Public Library of Science website.

The research was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The Kidd lab was part of a $10 million Center for Biomedical Research Excellence Project in Cell Biology of Signaling at the University, which is funded by the National Institute of Healths Institute of General Medical Sciences. Kidd is also a fellow in the University's Research and Innovation Office.

Both Jeff Hutsler Kidd are part of the University's Integrative Neuroscience program. In 2010, Hutsler received the Slifka-Ritvo Award for Innovation in Autism Research from International Society for Autism Research.

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Split-brain fruit fly research at UNR gives insight into autism - Northern Nevada Business Weekly

Cell Biology

UM Life Sci Institute Looks Ahead with $150M Initiative, Symposium – Xconomy

Xconomy Detroit/Ann Arbor

The University of Michigans Life Sciences Institute (LSI) is hosting its 16th annual Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium later this month, and for the first time, rather than focusing on a narrow segment of the industry, the lineup of speakers will discuss the technologies behind some of the sectors most exciting recent innovations.

Alan [Saltiel] started the tradition of a cutting-edge symposium in different areas of life sciences, says Roger Cone, who leads the LSI. Weve never focused on the technology itself, but were doing it this year because its the universitys 200th anniversary and because over the past decade, weve seen an explosion of new technologies completely changing how we do research in life sciences.

The symposiums organizers deliberately chose speakers who are pioneers focused on areas of research that dont yet have a huge presence at U-Mor anywhere else outside of the researchers lab, in some cases. The topics they will cover at the symposium include gene editing, single-cell biology, optogenetics, and cryo-electron microscopy. (More on the speakers in a minute.)

Cone feels single-cell technologies are among the most promising new innovations in biotech, especially when researchers can look at why a healthy cell becomes malignant. Thats an area where U-M has already made some inroads, he adds. Last month, U-M professor Arul Chinnaiyan published the results of a study in Nature that examined the genetic and molecular landscape of advanced cancer.

What kills people is metastatic disease, Cone explains. Its extremely important to know the changes that allow cells to become metastatic. Both in cancer and neuroscience, gene expression in single cells is revolutionary biology, and the university will absolutely play a role in developing that technology.

In fact, Cone feels this area is so important that next years life sciences symposium will be solely dedicated to single-cell innovations.

Just this week, the university announced that a multidisciplinary faculty committee has been tasked with identifying and pursuing emerging research opportunities. As part of U-M president Mark Schlissels Biosciences Initiative, a 16-member committee will have $150 million over five years to invest in new faculty hires, equipment, and other tools meant to facilitate progress and spark collaboration.

The Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium will be held on Sept. 15 at Forum Hall in Palmer Commons, on U-Ms campus. The event is free and open to the public. See below for details about the featured speakers and what theyve been working on.

George Church, a professor at Harvard and MIT and co-founder of numerous startups, wants to reanimate the woolly mammoth, edit pig genes so their organs can be transplanted safely into peopleoh, and reverse aging, according to a profile in STAT News.

Karl Deisseroth, a Stanford psychiatrist, will discuss his optogenetics technique, which the New Yorker said has given researchers unprecedented access to the workings of the brain, allowing them to observe the neural circuitry of lab animals as well as control behavior through cell manipulation.

Phillip Keller is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher whose team developed a microscope that can quickly produce 3D images of whole organisms.

University of Texas Southwest Medical Center professor Daniela Nicastro uses cryo-electron microscopy, an advanced imaging technique where human samples are rapidly frozen to preserve their structure, then an electron microscope is used to produce images that can be transformed into 3D models. This helps researchers pinpoint diseases that affect tiny structures such as cilia, the infinitesimal hairs in the human body.

David Walt, a scientist at Harvard and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has had a long career as a chemist, entrepreneur, and engineer, founding successful startups focused on genetic screening and ultra-sensitive protein analysis.

Sarah Schmid Stevenson is the editor of Xconomy Detroit/Ann Arbor. You can reach her at 313-570-9823 or sschmid@xconomy.com.

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UM Life Sci Institute Looks Ahead with $150M Initiative, Symposium - Xconomy