Summary: Intense sports training may be good for the body, but it might not always be so good for the mind. Researchers found the more intense a training session is, the lower both mood and heart rate variability are the next day.

Source: UAB

To build fitness, athletes must apply stress to the body, and then through recovery, the body adapts and is able to accommodate greater stress in the next round of training. Controlling the adequate amounts of stress and recovery is essential to ameliorate the performance of athletes, as well as to prevent injuries and problems associated with overtraining.

Researchers from the Laboratory of Sport Psychology and the Sport Research Institute at the UAB have studied the effectstrainingintensity has on road cyclists in terms of mood states and their capacity to adapt to greater training loads, assessed usingheart rate variability(HRV).

The research, published in the journalPeerJ, was conducted through a six-week analysis of the answers five amateur road cyclists gave of the physical stress they endured during training. Once completed, the cyclists also responded to questionnaires on how they had perceived the physical exertion of their training. The following morning they measured their HRV and recorded theirmood state.

The researchers argue that a change in mood and/or HRVmeasured using the HFnu (normalized high frequency band) parameterinathletesthe day after training could serve as indicator of training intensity, signaling whether the training had been adequate or too intense for the physical state of the athlete.

The study observed that the more intense the training, the lower the mood on the following day, and also the lower the HRV. In contrast, high HFnu was associated with an improvement in the mood of athletes, which indicated that there is a relationship between HRV and mood states.

The objective of the research was to explore the relation among three aspects: training, heart rate variability and mood, explains researcher of the UAB Department of Basic Psychology Carla Alfonso.

With this study we aimed to know when an athlete must rest, because their system is saturated, and when an athlete can train, with more or less intensity, because their body is ready to assimilate the training load.

The results obtained are a first step in setting up a monitoring system which takes into account both internal and external training loads, in addition to mood state and heart rate variability of the athlete, with the aim of helping them adapt to their training and prevent injuries that may come with overtraining, concludes Professor Llus Capdevila of the UAB Department of Basic, Developmental and Educational Psychology, and co-author of the study.

Author: Press OfficeSource: UABContact: Press Office UABImage: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Open access.Heart rate variability, mood and performance: a pilot study on the interrelation of these variables in amateur road cyclists by Carla Alfonso et al. PeerJ

Abstract

Heart rate variability, mood and performance: a pilot study on the interrelation of these variables in amateur road cyclists

The present study seeks to explore the relationship between measures of cycling training on a given day and the heart rate variability (HRV) and mood states obtained the following morning. The association between HRV and mood state is also studied, as is the relationship between internal and external measures of training.

During a 6-week period, five recreational road cyclists collected 123 recordings of morning HRV and morning mood, and 66 recordings of training power and rate of perceived exertion (RPE). Training power was used as an external measure of performance and RPE as an internal measure of performance. The HRV parameters used in the study were the mean of RR intervals (mean RR) and the standard deviation of all RR intervals (SDNN) as time domain analysis, and the normalized high frequency band (HFnu), normalized low frequency band (LFnu) and the ratio between low and high frequency bands, as frequency domain analysis. Mood was measured using a 10-point cognitive scale.

It was found that the higher the training power on a given day, the lower the HFnu and the higher LF/HF were on the following morning. At the same time, results showed an inverse relationship between training and mood, so the tougher a training session, the lower the mood the following day. A relationship between morning HRV and mood was also found, so that the higher mean RR and HFnu, the more positive the mood (r = 0.497 and r = 0.420 respectively;p< 0.001). Finally, RPE correlated positively with external power load variables (IF: r = 0.545;p< 0.001).

Altogether, the results indicate a relationship between training of cyclists on a given day and their morning HRV and mood state on the following day. Mood and HRV also seem positively related. It is argued that developing a monitoring system that considers external and internal training loads, together with morning mood, could help understand the state of the individual, enabling feedback to athletes to facilitate the adaptation to training and to prevent problems associated with overtraining. However, more research is needed to further understand the association between the different variables considered.

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Excessive Sports Training May Have Negative Effects on Mood State - Neuroscience News

Neuroscience

What Makes Some More Afraid of Change Than Others? – Neuroscience News

May 18, 2022 medical

Summary: Differences in gene expression in key brain areas may account for the reason some are less fearful of change than others.

Source: LSU

Humans are undoubtedly altering the natural environment. But how wild animals respond to these changes is complex and unclear.

In anew study, scientists have discovered significant differences in how the brain works in two distinct personality types: those who act fearless and those who seem afraid of new things.

Being fearless can help wildlife, specifically birds, find new food sources, explore new nesting areas and help them adapt to changes in their environment; but being afraid can also help protect them from dangerous novel things in their environment such as cars.

Our study provides interesting and important evidence that some of the behavior differences could be led by gene expression, said LSU Department of Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Christine Lattin, who is the lead author on thepaperpublished byPLOS ONEtoday.

Social creatures, such as house sparrows,can learn from each other, so having a mixture of both personality types in a flock could be part of the reason this species is so successful in human-altered environments.

Scientists have found that within the flock, the genes expressed, or turned on, in the brains of the fearless birds are markedly different from those in the birds that exhibit fear. In fact, three out of the four regions of the brain studied showed differences.

The hippocampus, which is associated with learning, memory and spatial navigation, contrasted the most amongst the two personality types.

One of the interesting things about the hippocampus is it can play an important role in decision-making. For example, when wildlife are presented with something new in their environment, the genes in their brains respond, helping them process the information, compare it to past experience and decide whether they should approach or avoid the novel object, Lattin said.

The scientists compared six wild, invasive female house sparrows: three of which acted fearless and three that seemed afraid to approach a new object at their feeding dish.

The novel objects were a red wrist coil keychain wrapped around the food dish, a white plastic cover over part of the food dish, a green plastic Easter egg placed on top of the food in the middle of the dish, a normal silver food dish painted red on the outside and a blinking light hung above and directed towards the front of the dish.

The fearless birds fed at the food dish regardless of the presence of the novel objects while the fearful birds avoided the food dish in the presence of the novel objects.

Several weeks after behavior testing, the scientists examined gene expression in four brain regions in these sparrows. The genes that were expressed in the hippocampus of the fearless birds were different from the genes expressed in the hippocampus of the fearful birds.

For example, there were many more dopamine receptor 2 transcripts present in the fearless birds. Dopamine receptor 2 has been associated with boldness and exploration. In contrast, the birds that avoided the new objects had more transcripts for the estrogen receptor beta gene, which has been associated with anxiety.

The fear of new things, or neophobia, is a problem some people struggle with. The neurobiological gene receptors weve identified could help other scientists develop drugs to target neophobia or anxiety even in our own species, Lattin said.

Advances in sequencing technology have made it possible to study neurological gene expression in more wild species.

It used to be very expensive, but technology has made it faster and cheaper to do these types of analyses. Now that it has become more accessible, more scientists are doing this type of research, Lattin said.

Author: Press OfficeSource: LSUContact: Press Office LSUImage: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Open access.Constitutive gene expression differs in three brain regions important for cognition in neophobic and non-neophobic house sparrows by Christine Lattin et al. PLOS ONE

Abstract

Constitutive gene expression differs in three brain regions important for cognition in neophobic and non-neophobic house sparrows

Neophobia (aversion to new objects, food, and environments) is a personality trait that affects the ability of wildlife to adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Despite the ubiquity and importance of this trait, the molecular mechanisms underlying repeatable individual differences in neophobia in wild animals are poorly understood.

We evaluated wild-caught house sparrows (Passer domesticus) for neophobia in the lab using novel object tests. We then selected a subset of neophobic and non-neophobic individuals (n = 3 of each, all females) and extracted RNA from four brain regions involved in learning, memory, threat perception, and executive function: striatum, caudal dorsomedial hippocampus, medial ventral arcopallium, and caudolateral nidopallium (NCL).

Our analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) used 11,889 gene regions annotated in the house sparrow reference genome for which we had an average of 25.7 million mapped reads/sample. PERMANOVA identified significant effects of brain region, phenotype (neophobic vs. non-neophobic), and a brain region by phenotype interaction.

Comparing neophobic and non-neophobic birds revealed constitutive differences in DEGs in three of the four brain regions examined: hippocampus (12% of the transcriptome significantly differentially expressed), striatum (4%) and NCL (3%).

DEGs included important known neuroendocrine mediators of learning, memory, executive function, and anxiety behavior, including serotonin receptor 5A, dopamine receptors 1, 2 and 5 (downregulated in neophobic birds), and estrogen receptor beta (upregulated in neophobic birds).

These results suggest that some of the behavioral differences between phenotypes may be due to underlying gene expression differences in the brain.

The large number of DEGs in neophobic and non-neophobic birds also implies that there are major differences in neural function between the two phenotypes that could affect a wide variety of behavioral traits beyond neophobia.

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What Makes Some More Afraid of Change Than Others? - Neuroscience News

Human Behavior

The Puerto Rican Island Where 1,500 Monkeys Rule | Travel – Smithsonian Magazine

May 18, 2022 medical

Jennifer Nalewicki

Travel Correspondent

On the morning of September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, pummeling the island with 170 mile per hour wind gusts and flooding rain. It would be the first category 4 hurricane to strike the island in nearly 85 years, leaving many citizens without basic necessities like electricity, food, running water and shelter. However, in the storms aftermath, one community of residents emerged largely unscathed: some 1,500 rhesus macaques living a mile off the eastern shore of Puerto Rico on Cayo Santiago.

The island, known locally as Monkey Island, first became home to these unlikely inhabitants in the late 1930s, when primatologist Clarence Carpenter brought about 450 of the monkeys by ship from India to the 38-acre island to study their social and sexual behaviors. Through that initial pioneering research, the tree-studded enclave eventually became home to the Caribbean Primate Research Center, an educational and research facility thats part of the University of Puerto Rico. Over the years, generations of monkeys have descended from that original colony, and today those descendants roam freely around the island, playing on its sandy beaches and exploring its endless canopy of trees. The rhesus macaqueseach weighing about 20 pounds and known for their long, fluffy tails and straw-colored furlive largely independent from human intervention (minus feedings).

After the hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico, researchers from the center feared the worst for the monkeys, unsure if they would even survive the storm. (Initial news reports were saying that the human death toll was hovering at 65 casualties.) However, once it was safe to return to the island, the scientists were surprised to find that the furry inhabitants had persevered.

Two days after the storm, members of our staff took a boat to the island to feed them, says Alyssa Arre, the centers scientific director. Everyone worried that the monkeys had died, but that wasnt the case.

Arre says its impossible to say for sure if any of the monkeys succumbed to the storm, however the workers tasked with taking daily census counts of the population didnt find any irregularities.

While no cameras exist on the island to capture exactly how the macaques faired during the storm, Arre suspects that they sought shelter by climbing onto one of the islands two hills and staying low to the ground. The only buildings on the island are used by staff for storage and research purposes.

The hurricane destroyed all of the vegetation that the monkeys use to supplement their diets, Arre says. The wind was so strong [it knocked off twigs and branches], so we dont think that they climbed into trees.

The only daily human intervention that the monkeys receive are feedings, which came about as the result of the monkeys destroying much of the vegetation early on in their arrival to the island.

Originally, [Carpenter and his team] thought the monkeys would just live on the island without any human intervention, but the monkeys quickly destroyed all of the vegetation on the island and ate everything, Arre says. So, they realized they would have to start sustaining the population with food provisions, and its been that way since the beginning.

Currently, their diet includes coconuts, corn, seeds, apples, papaya and Purina Monkey Chow (yes, its a real thing!), which are yellow egg-shaped dry biscuits. Arre confirms that the monkeys are not fans of bananas despite what movies and media may depict.

They like to take the monkey chow and put it in a puddle and roll it around [so it softens] before they eat it, she says.

As a research institution that has been studying these mammals for decades, it only made sense to take a closer look into how trauma, in this case a natural disaster, affected their behavior and relationships. Researchers were surprised by their findings.

After Hurricane Maria, the monkeys had more affiliative interactions in their social networks, and their social networks expanded, so they were interacting with more individuals Arre says. Researchers also studied how trauma, especially early-life adversity like a hurricane, can affect a monkeys behavior and health.

That research would eventually become part of a study published early last year in Current Biology, concluding that the macaques became more social and monkeys that were more isolated prior to the hurricane increased social connections most after it.

Another study found that females were reproducing less frequently after the hurricane.

Since its official establishment in 1970, the center has built a reputation as a pioneer in the field of primate research and has made many important contributions to our understanding of both primate and human behavior. The late William Windle, who oversaw the perinatal physiology lab at the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness (NINDB) in San Juan, worked closely with the island as it provided resources for behavioral and reproductive studies under naturalistic conditions. Windle studied the effects that asphyxia (oxygen deprivation) can have on a monkeys brain during birth, and the permanent damage of the brain those effects can engender. His work not only changed delivery procedures in human infants, but he also went on to be awarded the Lasker Prize in 1968 for his work. More recently, the institute has been shedding light onto Covid-19 and its effects on monkeys.

A 1939 article published in Life magazine and photographed by German photojournalist Hansel Mieth also put Monkey Island on the map. One of Mieths images, known for being one of the most iconic animal photos in history, features a rhesus macaque sitting in the water soaking wet.

In a later interview, Mieth explained how she captured it, saying, One afternoon all the doctors were away and a little kid came running to me and said, A monkeys in the water I dont think [the monkey] liked me, but he sat on that coral reef, and I took about a dozen shots.

Today, the island isnt open to the general public, in order to prevent unnecessary human contact with the monkeys. Yet, each year, visiting researchers come to the island to study the monkeys and tap into the islands expansive database that contains more than 60 years worth of data, from basic demographic information (age, social groupings and maternity rates) on more than 11,000 monkeys to genetic information and a collection of more than 3,300 monkey skeletons. Their studies continue to push the needle forward in our understanding of primate behavior and how it translates to our own behavior as humans.

"Rhesus macaques make a good model for humans, as we share many characteristics of our biology and similarly live highly social lives," Arre says. "Taken together, the projects with the rhesus macaques conducted at Caya Santiago help us better understand human sociality and health, and recently, how adversity and trauma might affect the life of an individual."

Evolution of anxiety: Humans may show signs of stress to gather support – Study Finds

May 18, 2022 medical

PORTSMOUTH, United Kingdom Science has finally uncovered the evolutionary reason why we tend to bite our nails, touch our face, or fidget when under stress. To evoke support! Scientists from the University of Portsmouth and Nottingham Trent University report that showing signs of stress may make people more likable and subtly encourage others to act more positively towards them.

Monkeys and apes display similar restless behavior when stressed out as well. So, the research team set out to investigate this instinctive paradox. According to the study, actions like scratching, nail-biting, fidgeting, and touching ones face or hair all tell onlookers that you are in a weakened state. Advertising vulnerability isnt exactly conducive to surviving out in the wild.

We wanted to find out what advantages there might be in signaling stress to others, to help explain why stress behaviors have evolved in humans, says Dr. Jamie Whitehouse, a research fellow at NTUs School of Social Sciences, in a university release.

If producing these behaviors leads to positive social interactions from others who want to help, rather than negative social interactions from those who want to compete with you, then these behaviors are likely to be selected in the evolutionary process. We are a highly cooperative species compared to many other animals, and this could be why behaviors which communicate weakness were able to evolve, he continues.

The investigation found that people are indeed quite capable of accurately noticing when someone around them is experiencing stress. Additionally, those noticing that something was off reacted more positively towards the anxious individuals.

The team recorded each person in their experiment while they participated in a mock presentation and interview session. Importantly, they told each person to prepare these presentations on very short notice. Researchers then showed the interviews to a different group of people they called raters. These raters had to assess the stress level of the people in the recordings.

Sure enough, participants who admitted to feeling stress during the presentation were perceived as being more stressed out by the raters. Those who displayed more stressful behaviors like nail-biting were also rated as being more stressed.

Critically, participants who were perceived as more stressed were also considered more likable by other people. Study authors theorize this may partially explain why primates evolved to outwardly display signs of stress.

If the individuals are inducing an empathetic-like response in the raters, they may appear more likable because of this, or it could be that an honest signal of weakness may represent an example of benign intent and/or a willingness to engage in a cooperative rather than competitive interaction, something which could be a likable or preferred trait in a social partner, explains study co-author Professor Bridget Waller.

This fits with current understanding of expressivity, which tends to suggest that people who are more emotionally expressive are more well-liked by others and have more positive social interactions, she adds.

All in all, these results strongly suggest the average person can accurately detect when someone else is feeling anxious based on their physical behaviors.

Our team is currently investigating whether young children also show this sensitivity to stress states. By looking at childhood we can understand how difficult it is to detect stress, as well as identifying how exposure to adults stress might impact young children, concludes study co-author Dr. Sophie Milward from the University of Portsmouth.

The study is published the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

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Evolution of anxiety: Humans may show signs of stress to gather support - Study Finds

Human Behavior

Astonished by How Much There Still Is to Learn and Do – Psychiatric Times

May 18, 2022 medical

How can wepsychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitionerswork together to move the psychiatric field forward?

COMMENTARY

Mark Twain fully grasped the folly of youth. He contrasted it with the humility that comes with experience in this memorable observation: When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in 7 years. Tongue firmly in cheek, Twain is commenting that the aging process teaches us how little we really know.

Since I started medical school in 1977, we have witnessed dramatic advances in our understanding of neuroscience, psychopathology, and numerous psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatment modalities. As the knowledge base of biological psychiatry has become more robust, a growing body of psychotherapy outcomes research has had a dramatic impact on the work lives of most American psychiatrists. Time-limited therapies were shown to be as effective as open-ended, longer-term psychotherapies. We also learned that mental health professionals who had not attended medical school were able to assist emotionally distressed patients as effectively as, and sometimes more effectively than, psychiatrists. As we became more biological in our orientation, episodes of care got shorter and shorter. At times, the assembly line moves too quickly and the flames and smoke of burnout may singe and choke us if we do not effectively balance caring for ourselves with caring for others.

With 1 eye on the patients and another on ourselves, we are also paying more attention, as we must, to the larger social picture. As I watched addiction psychiatry come together as a central psychiatric subspecialty that exemplifies the wisdom and intellectual vigor of our biopsychosocial orientation, we have all witnessed the limitations of a 1 patient at a time approach that ignores the socioeconomic determinants of mental health. Alas, the opioid epidemic rages on. Mental health parity is incomplete. Universal access to adequate care is not a reality. Far too many Americans with chronic psychiatric conditions are receiving care in the criminal justice system.

As section editor-at-large here at Psychiatric Times, I hope to partner with youpsychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners in different practice settingsto move the field forward. How do we leverage our knowledge and skills to optimize the biopsychosocial well-being of our patients and their families? How do we partner most effectively with our colleagues in other medical and mental health specialties? As stakeholders in a needlessly complex patchwork quilt of orthogonal health plans and reimbursement systems, what can we do about the vexing administrative complexities that interfere with patient outcomes and effective care coordination?

Although our field is atomized into many subspecialty areas, most of our patients experience challenges that cut across our categorical approach to psychopathology. Personally, I like nothing more than leaning into the complexity of patients with complicated presentations. I am currently treating 2 individuals with significant cooccurring anxiety, substance use, and personality disorders. In 1 case, I function as an integrative psychiatrist delivering all necessary care. In the other case, I am one of 3 mental health professionals working with the patient on a weekly basis, but the only psychiatrist. It is not simple figuring out how and when to flex ourselvessometimes as a 1-person band, other times as a member, or conductor, of a small interdisciplinary collaborative group.

Thankfully, my career experiences have been rich and varied. I invite you to reach out to me through Psychiatric Times with questions or concerns regarding the following subject areas:

Burnout: What are the best protective strategies for us and our colleagues? How can we sort out the overlap between burnout and depressive disorders?

Career development: What are the pros and cons of (1) different institutional practice settings, (2) subspecialty training and practice, and (3) private practice? What is the role of mentorship in developing your career?

Coaching and coaching psychiatry: Is coaching the new psychotherapy? Should psychiatry embrace coaching or shun this nonspecific discipline that has been defined as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential (International Coaching Federation)?

Health professional health and well-being: How does the psychiatric treatment of independently licensed health care providers and other safety-sensitive professionals (eg, aviation, transportation) differ from the usual and customary care we provide to other patients? How do we respect patient confidentiality while ensuring the safety of the public?

Integrating medical and mental health care: What practice settings are most amenable to integrated and colocated mental health care? What are our options when patients constrain us from communicating with clinicians from other specialties?

Integrating pharmacotherapy with psychotherapy: What are the pros and cons of integrated care versus split treatmentfrom the perspective of the patient, the organization, the bottom line, and the job satisfaction of different professional disciplines?

Leadership in medicine and psychiatry: How can frontline mental health professionals develop their leadership skills and gain experience in mid-level and high-level leadership roles? How can we best leverage our understanding of human behavior as emerging leaders?

Motivational interviewing: How can we use motivational interviewing to assist chronically mentally ill individuals who struggle with acceptance and compliance? What are the limitations of motivational interviewing in working with some communities and populations?

Problematic workplace behavior in medical and mental health settings: What is the role of psychiatry in assessing and treating health professionals who show up at work with rough edges? How can we effectively address a colleagues problematic behavior in a mental health setting?

Psychiatric supervision of nonphysicians, residents, and colleagues: When it comes to supervision, what best practices and pitfalls should we keep in mind?

Spirituality and psychiatry: What do spirituality-informed psychiatric assessment and treatment look like? How do our own spiritual/religious histories and practices enhance or interfere with our care of patients?

Substance use in psychiatric patients; addiction medicine; and addiction psychiatry: What advice should we be giving patients without substance use disorders about their use of legal and illicit psychoactive substances? As the general subspecialty of addiction medicine grows, what is happening to the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology subspecialty of addiction psychiatry, and where do we go from here?

Traditional psychotherapy and psychiatry: Should all psychiatrists possess knowledge, skills, and experience in psychodynamic psychotherapy? What training and skills in nonpsychodynamic psychotherapies are essential for the practicing psychiatrist?

I look forward to contributing pieces on these and other matters in forthcoming issues of Psychiatric Times. Just as I endeavor to be patient centered and client centered as a physician and coach, my goal here at Psychiatric Times is to be reader centered and learner centered. I look forward to hearing from you.

Dr Adelman is a coaching and consulting psychiatrist, and is board-certified in psychiatry, addiction medicine, and coaching (BCC). He launchedwww.AdelMED.com after 8 years directing Physician Health Services, Inc. Dr Adelman is onthe faculty of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and serves aconsultant in psychiatry in the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse of McLean Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. He serves as Psychiatric Times section editor-at-large.

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Astonished by How Much There Still Is to Learn and Do - Psychiatric Times

Human Behavior

Tedcore: the self-help books that have changed the way we live, speak and think – The Guardian

May 18, 2022 medical

You are a victim. A person of anxious experience, navigating a minefield of shame triggers. Research suggests that people with your attachment style are predisposed to dissociating. Some experts believe this very sentence could re-traumatize you. Its not your fault, of course. You just need to reframe your narrative.

This is the language of a coalescing sub-genre of self-help books that combine the comforting yet impenetrable language of modern therapy with pseudoscientific grand theories on human behavior. Youll recognize it from titles like Atlas of the Heart, Atomic Habits, The Body Keeps The Score, Attached, Mating in Captivity, even The Artists Way. None were bestsellers upon release, but all have slow-burned their way to the tops of bestseller lists and the bookshelves of People Who Go To Therapy. These are the new bourgeois bibles foundational texts for a generation of yuppies adrift.

These books peddle feel-good Marvel movie versions of philosophy that dont challenge our conceptions, but validate our feelings, often backing up their circular logic with dubious research and experts. They cajole and condescend, opening neural pathways that lead directly to the authors paywalled Substack.

I call this genre Tedcore. Most of these authors have given Ted talks, and much like the popular conference series, these books are accessible yet vaguely highbrow, prone to presenting the mundane as revelatory. With every new trite slogan she drops, the Ted speaker doesnt just imply, Arent I amazing? she says, Arent we amazing?! Everyone gets to leave feeling smarter and more special. Unlike its pluckier predecessors (Men are From Mars, Women are Venus or How to Win Friends and Influence People), Tedcore doesnt attempt to decode what others are thinking, instead turning the gaze to our navels, pathologizing our every thought.

These books still sing with American optimism yes, you can be happier! but it arrives in the numbing straitjacket of an analyst who swaps Freud for Myers-Briggs. Psychoanalytic concepts desire, sexuality, family dynamics are sanded down until they can be comfortably applied to not getting a promotion at work. Your anxieties are your identity now. You dont need to be fixed. Just discussed. And possibly medicated. For ever.

Few embody the genre more than Bren Brown, who boasts two podcasts; multiple Ted talks; a paid certification course for budding business consultants called Dare to Lead; eight books, including Atlas of the Heart (No 3 on Amazons nonfiction list as of Tuesday); and a new HBOMax series of the same name, where her audience nods approvingly to facile profundities like language is the greatest human portal that we have.

Her book is organized as a dictionary of emotional terms, where, in large font on glossy pages, she demystifies apparently inscrutable emotions like joy or despair by consulting Merriam-Webster then reporting back: Vulnerability is the emotion we experience during times of uncertainty, crisis and emotional exposure. On regret: Both disappointment and regret arise when an outcome was not what we wanted. Curiously, there are no entries for self-pity or narcissism.

Research and studies surface with alarming frequency and vagueness in Browns work, often burnishing her Grand Theory that different words exist: Are curiosity and interest the same thing? Researchers dont agree.

Taking the top spot on Amazon is Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, where the motivational speaker James Clear explains how to lose weight, quit smoking or finally write that screenplay, mostly by renaming things that already exist: stacking is doing something after you do another thing, such as doing yoga after you finish your morning pages. Temptation bundling is offering yourself a little treat for doing your stacked habits. All habits consist of a cue, craving, response, and reward, which he helps illustrate by explaining that when I walk into a dark room and instinctively reach for a light switch, I am satisfying my craving to see. Ah yes, my insatiable lust for vision. Presumably when I blow my nose I am satisfying my nostrils craving to feel empty.

Clear is also fond of the pseudo-fact: People who are high in agreeableness tend to have higher natural oxytocin levels. You can easily imagine how someone with more oxytocin might be inclined to build habits like writing thank-you notes. Soft qualifiers like tend to and easily imagine keep us firmly in the realm of feel-good conjecture. I did not sign up for his online Habits Academy for $299, but I imagine your time might be better spent stacking yoga on top of your morning pages.

In The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck (which apparently gives enough of one to censor its own title), the author Mark Manson leans on Bukowski and other high school male heroes to guide his simplistic mantras, mostly benign euphemisms for getting over yourself, like a Jordan Peterson podcast, or perhaps a cool pastors motivational desk calendar. He offers mild coddling with a Seth-Rogen level of naughtiness: Even if you get run over by a clown car and pissed on by a busload of schoolchildren, its still your responsibility to interpret the meaning of the event and choose a response. Here, too, is a Grand Theory: when something bad happens, its not your fault. But its still your responsibility. I imagine it would also not be your fault if you signed up his online Subtle Art School (More life lived, fewer fucks given) at $149.99 a year, but that, too, would be your responsibility.

Is anything your fault? Probably not, according to The Body Keeps The Score. Released in 2014, it has been on Amazons nonfiction list for 48 weeks now. It is perhaps more responsible than any other text for centering the word trauma in our discourse. This hefty book, by the Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, might seem at odds with Tedcore: it is highly technical, rather academic. The font size is very small. Van der Kolk is a real doctor, who spent decades working with victims of very real trauma the Vietnam war, childhood rape and was treating PTSD before we even called it that.

He argues our bodies remember traumatic events and will chemically induce anxious responses when triggered, even if we know our tragedy is behind us. We meet a woman who binge-eats on dates because of her sexual abuse as a child; a couple who cant sleep after a car accident. Van der Kolk offers evidence that with a combination of pharmaceuticals, specialized forms of CBT and other physical interventions, we might convince our brain to stop reliving trauma in a way that simple talk therapy cant accomplish.

The Body Keeps The Score is convincing enough. But I cant imagine that all the people who keep buying it are solely interested in its science, or have experienced the same level of trauma of its subjects. With its empathetic tone and medical seriousness, The Body Keeps The Score is deeply validating. It confirms a persistent worldview that the way forward is not looking outward, but looking in. Not seeing, but feeling seen. So when the reader is shown images of brain scans of people whove been in a car accident, they internalize this as evidence they are not crazy, that the brain hurts when we are sad: my anxieties are permanent.

Unsurprisingly, the few criticisms of the book I could find online were readers upset that its focus on people who had watched their friends die in Vietnam was not expansive enough a definition of trauma. That as a reader, merely extrapolating these horrors to your own difficulties wasnt validating enough. They want to see themselves in writing.

Those looking for a mirror will surely find it in the aggressively useless Attached, which peddles attachment theory, dividing all people on Earth into three attachment styles secure, anxious and avoidant. Thats it. The book finds endless ways to describe someone (almost always an anxious woman) who dates someone else (an avoidant man) who is simply not that into her.

From its credentialed authors, Amir Levine MD and Rachel Heller MA, we learn that attachment security directs us to the comfort zone while deactivating strategies lead us to the danger zone where our signals are viewed as threats. Translation? Being desperate is off putting. Again, pseudoscience: It is believed that each attachment style evolved in order to increase the survival chances of humans in a particular environment. Who exactly believes this goes unmentioned, as do the psychological professionals who have concluded if people do have certain attachment styles they are subject to change depending on the relationship, rendering the theory somewhat pointless.

One of the few instances of compelling writing in this genre comes from Esther Perel, a Belgian couples therapist and author of Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence. A sex-positive European, she name-checks Simone de Beauvoir and looks down on American puritanism. Unlike most of her contemporaries, she is more polemic in her worldview: good sex needs mystery. Distance breeds eroticism. She says things like sexual alchemy and the primal bog of his erotic self. What fun! Writing about sex should feel sexual. It should reference freaky swamps. This is good.

Yet while she is brave enough to speak about the bottoms desire for submission, she still studiously avoids Freud, or truly plumbing the depths of human desire. She has a mission: to get her heterosexual readers in frustrated marriages to have more sex. She doesnt want to scare them off by talking about the Oedipus complex.

It is tempting to locate the desire for the broader, 30,000-foot analyses these books offer to the collective trauma of the pandemic. But times have always been tough. Weve always wanted answers. Lifestyle gurus from Jesus to Gwyneth have always held the attention of the town square, hawking their vision for a better world. I would argue it has more to do with the embrace of therapy as a moral imperative. Tedcore is a product that falls under self-care and affirms our identity. It operates through a modality of wellness: processing your trauma is green juice (and should be just as overpriced). What it ignores is all the things that actually produce anxiety in our society: precarious economies, war, mass migration and the climate crisis, rupturing social fabric. Our families. And perhaps most of all: sex.

The specter of Freud and his greatest obsession haunts these books like a wealthy conservative dad paying for his liberal daughters wedding to a Sarah Lawrence grad; everyones partying on his dime, but no one wants to admit it. All these pathologizing theories are indebted to psychoanalysis, yet he is mentioned rarely, and only in passing. How can we ignore the anxiety of our sexual hangups? Not just does this person like me but why do I want to be slapped during sex? And in 2022 no less? Even Urban Outfitters sells hats that say Daddy. Trends in gender are rapidly evolving, culture wars are still raging, and Gen Z is having less sex than ever. Masculinity is in crisis and we cant even mention dick size? Perhaps because theres nothing pseudo about that science. Its a little too measurable.

As I scoured these pages for evidence that Tedcore was turning us all into narcissists, my own pseudoscientific Grand Theory, I found their call to self-pity increasingly infectious. I began looking for myself. Highlighting passages that could validate me, and my pain: six months ago, my ex-boyfriend left me for his co-worker. Yes, Im still processing the trauma. None of these books were particularly helpful in affirming my victimhood. I wasnt compelled by comparing our attachment styles, nor Bren Browns definition of betrayal: It can cause anger, sadness, jealousy, decreased self-worth, embarrassment, humiliation, shame and even trauma symptoms. How enlightening.

But in Mating in Captivity, I found a kernel of hope: a patient who had been having an affair for years, then finally thought to ask his wife if she ever thought about other men. She responded, Maybe I do. Maybe I dont. Her answer shocked him. Perel offers: Its easy to imagine that youre the mysterious one, the rebel, and shes Penelope sitting at her loom, waiting for you to come home. Maybe she has a few secrets of her own, fantasies of men who can give her what you cant. I realized I had cast my ex-boyfriend as Penelope, incapable of straying. Perels reframing let me take more responsibility! Not that it was my fault, of course. Yet my path to this revelation was one of fixation. I had not replaced my trauma with anything other than navel gazing.

The solutions these books offer invariably encourage us to look outward, take yoga, learn a language, get over our exes, process our trauma by directing our energy towards something new. Mason describes the value of suffering. That happiness requires struggle and something great awaits you on the other side of feeling sorry for yourself. Yet there you sit, alone in your apartment, or next to your sleeping partner, or neck-pillowed in the Delta Sky Lounge, desperately scanning the pages of a self-help book for mentions of the only thing you really care about: you.

More here:
Tedcore: the self-help books that have changed the way we live, speak and think - The Guardian

Human Behavior

Relevance of sleep and associated structural changes in GBA1 mouse to human rapid eye movement behavior disorder | Scientific Reports – Nature.com

May 18, 2022 medical

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Human Behavior

Heart Rhythm 2022 Highlights | DAIC – Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology

May 18, 2022 medical

May 17, 2022 Heart Rhythm 2022 has come to a close, and the Heart Rhythm Society has released some stats regarding this year's conference.More than7,700+ heart rhythm professionals from around the worldwhose participation during Heart Rhythm 2022, along with their shared ideas and expertise, helped make this year's annual meeting a success.

Here is a look at the conference by the numbers:

The Top 10 sessions included:

During Heart Rhythm 2022, more than 750 international experts from the field will serve as faculty and abstract presenters for over 250 sessions. Meeting highlights include:

10 Education Tracks: Attendees will be able to choose sessions from 10 tracks with topics including Allied Professionals, Basic/Translational Science, Cardiovascular Implantable Electronic Devices (CIEDs), Catheter Ablation, Clinical EP, Digital Health & Innovation, Health Policy, Heart Failure, Pediatrics & Adult Congenital Heart Disease, and Practice Management.

Keynote Speaker, Dr. Steve Robbins: Special keynote speaker Dr. Steve Robbins will explore the neuroscience of transformational change during the Opening Day Ceremony on Friday, April 29, from 3:30 4:30 p.m. PT. Robbins, author of What If? and artful storyteller, captivates audiences worldwide with his keen insight into human behavior. His presentation style has been described as a mix of Bill Nye the Science Guy, Saturday Night Live, and The Big Bang Theory.

Improved Online Experience: HRS will livestream select sessions from San Francisco from Friday, April 29 Sunday, May 1. The remaining sessions (100+ hours) presented will be available on-demand within 24 hours of their initial presentation time, which means attendees may watch the full suite of educational programming on demand as early as May 2, 2022.

Heart Rhythm TV: Coverage of Heart Rhythm 2022 science, including interviews and commentary, will air on HRS flagship YouTube channel.

For more information: http://www.HRSonline.org

Find more information on HRS22

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Heart Rhythm 2022 Highlights | DAIC - Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology

Human Behavior

PhD. Thesis Presentation – "The Behavior of Pitfires" by Veronica Kimmerly – WPI News

May 18, 2022 medical

Fire Protection Engineering Department

PhD Thesis Presentation

9:00-10:00am

Zoom:https://wpi.zoom.us/j/320855113

The Behavior of Pit Fires

Veronica Kimmerly

WPI Fire Protection Engineering

In the past few years research has emerged that identifies open-air waste fires as a significant contributor to global greenhouse emissions and human health hazard with long-term consequences from exposure. Clearly these fires need to be addressed but the context of these fires in low-infrastructure or impoverished regions limits the potential solutions. Given that for many people open-air fires are the only way they can dispose of their waste besides landfilling, it is unlikely that these fires can be eliminated. So, if these fires can't be stopped is there a way they can be improved? Open-air waste fires are typically burned in a pit to limit fire spread and provide thermal protection. Previous research into the effects of a fire in a partially filled pit (ullage is the term for the distance between the fill level and the top of the pit) has found burning is enhanced for some ullage to diameter ratios. If altering the pit geometry and the fuel location within in the pit can improve these fires, either by reducing emissions or reducing exposure time, then it is a highly implementable solution to this hazard.

To investigate the effects of ullage on pit fire behavior, a series of small-scale and meso-scale experiments are performed in conjunction with the development of a one-zone model. The small-scale experiments (9 cm and 10 cm diameters) decoupled the burning rate from the air flow by using a methane gas burner. The first set of experiments analyzed the characteristics of a fire in a pit using an experimental set up comprising of a square burner with fuel (methane) injected into the burner at different ullages (U) with three flow rates (2, 4, and 6 g/min) to vary the heat release rate. The flame dynamics are captured using high-definition video. Air entrainment is measured using a vent hood, where the products of combustion are collected and detailed temperature measurements within the hood are used to determine the location of the steady smoke layer height. At all fuel flow rates, the flame fluctuates inside the ullage, opening up at the central portion at one time instant and closing down to a conical flame at another time instant. Based on the value of fuel flow rate and ullage value, the frequency of this flame fluctuation varies. At a fuel flow rate of 2 g/min, the flame is diffusion controlled. As the fuel flow rate is increased, convection begins to dominate. Based on the ullage and fuel flow rate, partial premixing of air and fuel occurs within the ullage and a bluish flame is observed showing highly efficient combustion behavior. In summary, for a given ullage, there is a range of fuel flow rates where the airflow into the ullage is strong enough to impart partial premixing. Thus, based on the fuel flow rate or the heat release rate, an appropriate ullage can be chosen to improve the burning performance. The air entrainment depends directly on the heat release rate and inversely on the ullage and fluctuation frequency values. Based on this an engineering correlation based on a similarity analysis is proposed and experimental and theoretical values of air entrainment are within reasonable agreement. The correlation is limited because assumptions of negligible radiation and decoupling of mass transfer are made when using a gas burner in the experiments. However, the correlation is valuable as it led to a systematic study of air entrainment effects on heat release rate in a pit.

The second set of small-scale experiments are conducted to study the effect of pit depth on flame pulsation, anchoring, oxygen penetration, and temperature in buoyant diffusion flames of methane in a cylindrical burner. Depending upon the ullage (i.e., pit depth), four stages of flame behavior are identified. Stage I exhibits stable flames anchored close to the porous plate with vertical pulsation. At higher ullages, the flame also exhibits a U-shaped flame with a certain pulsation frequency (termed as stage II). At even higher ullages, the anchoring location begins to vertically oscillate in the pit while still exhibiting both vertical and U-shape pulsation (termed stage III). At the highest ullages, oxygen cannot penetrate very far into the pit, causing the flame to anchor towards the top of the pit and only exhibit small vertical oscillations (termed Stage IV). Temperature, vertical pulsation frequency, flame height, and penetration depth determine that Stage III flames are the optimal flame stage and exhibit enhanced burning. A parameter characterization study has also been conducted to explain the diffusive and convective time scales in pit fire. This work indicates that an open-air pit fire can be designed with a certain ullage to diameter ratio that could have Stage III flame behavior and enhance the efficient burning of waste in these pits.

Then meso-scale experiments (57 cm diameter) were conducted with a condensed fuel (kerosene) where mass loss rate is coupled to the air entrainment and radiative heat flux. A constantly replenishing pool system was used to maintain a constant ullage below the fire. These experiments were conducted to determine if stage II fires are still enhanced at the meso-scale and if the trends in plume temperatures from the small-scale persist. The results confirm that stage II flames are enhanced, with comparable mass flux to that seen at 0D (pool fire) but with shorter flames, indicating reduced flame necking leading to a cylindrical shaped flame. The temperature profiles showed a similar trend to that seen at the small-scale with 0.75D having the highest plume temperature despite the shortest flames (and thus further from the TC tree). Finally, the experimental results are compared to data from a simple 1-D model and the model is shown to be accurate enough to use as a tool for designing future large scale experiments with condensed fuels.

In the future, more experiments are needed to determine the fire behavior at the large scale (D 1 m) and what ullage to diameter is optimal, to better visualize and model the flow field of the flame with PIV and advanced modelling, to further the understanding of radiative heat flux in the pit with more temperature measurements inside the pit cavity, and finally to determine the chemistry behind the reduction in CO production and if this reduction is significant enough to impact the health and environmental hazards presented by waste fires.

Committee

Prof. Ali Rangwala, WPI Fire Protection Engineering

Prof. Albert Simeoni, Department Head, WPI Fire Protection Engineering

Prof. Michael Timko, Chemical Engineering, WPI

Prof. Jose Torero

Prof. Laureen Elgert, Department Head, WPI The Global School

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PhD. Thesis Presentation - "The Behavior of Pitfires" by Veronica Kimmerly - WPI News

Human Behavior

Concerns over goose poop may lead this Bay Area city to kill off hundreds of Canada geese – San Francisco Chronicle

May 18, 2022 medical

Activists and concerned residents in Foster City plan to protest the citys proposal to potentially euthanize more than 300 Canada geese and goslings that some say are taking over and contaminating the city.

The animal activists behind the protest, planned for Tuesday evening outside of City Hall, said the citys interest in partnering with the U.S. Department of Agricultures Wildlife Services to control the citys swelling goose population would be a massacre that is both inhumane and temporary at best.

From 2020 to 2021, Foster Citys goose population doubled to the largest its ever been, city officials said, with 323 reported as of last June. The overpopulation has sparked ire from residents who say the birds, and their droppings in particular, are posing a threat to health and safety. Foster City officials said they intend to reserve euthanization as a last resort.

Where theres water, theres waterfowl, said protester and Larkspur resident Erik Allen, who organized Tuesdays protest along with the group In Defense of Animals. Its a waste of taxpayers dollars to do this, and its also horribly cruel, Allen said.

Protest affiliates such as Allen say the city, which has increasingly struggled over the last decade like many others to control its goose population, should only focus on nonlethal strategies, such as changing human behavior, landscape modifications, and more practical things, like purchasing a tow and collect machine to clean up droppings.

At least 14,000 people have signed a petition to stop the city from euthanizing the geese, according to In Defense of Animals campaigns director Lisa Levinson. The Marin County organization formed a National Goose Protection Coalition in 2019.

Activists say theyre worried city officials in Foster City, who have said in the past that euthanization is their last resort, will soon contract with the USDA to move forward with a depredation plan.

In 2021, the City Council voted to allow both nonlethal and lethal options to control the geese, and in last fall, the city applied for a permit with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service to move forward with a step that could include depredation or killing the geese because the birds are protected under federal law. The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Services did not respond to a request for comment.

None of the members of the Foster City Council, including Mayor Richa Awasthi, responded to requests for comment, but they told news organizations that residents have long complained about goose droppings around public spaces, near their homes and schools, and in the water.

High bacteria levels in the water have been identified in the Foster City lagoon areas and have resulted in at least several temporary closures of beaches, including Erckenbrack Park Beach, said Foster City parks manager Frank Fanara. The city is also spending more money each year $21,500 from 2019 to 2020 to power-wash areas of the city besmirched by goose poop, Fanara said.

In a document titled Canada Geese Population Mitigation Plan, the city detailed several of its nonlethal strategies to control the geese population, which include dog hazing (where dogs harass and stalk geese to scare them away); strobe lights (placed at one of the citys parks); egg addling (a type of birth control); fence barriers (to block the geese from entering water); and goose deterrent (liquid placed on lawns that is repulsive to geese). The city has tried all of these methods already, officials said.

According to the document, nearly all of those methods, except for the strobe lights, worked, but only temporarily. Egg addling, a method of birth control, is a promising option that other cities, such as Santa Clara, have also experimented with, but its effects can take years.

City Council members have also said theyre concerned about greater health risks such as avian flu in the future if the droppings continue to proliferate around highly trafficked areas of the city.

The city says its planning to contract with a lagoon water management company to attempt several methods at clearing bacteria out of the water.

But activists such as Allen seem unfazed by the concerns and say that there are still cheaper options the city could consider, like ultrasonic repellers. Or better yet, Allen says, reconsider whether the geese, no matter how annoying, are a problem worth spending thousands to eradicate at all.

One of my earliest memories is my grandma taking me to feed the geese and ducks at Roberts Lake, said Allen, who added that the potential for hundreds of them being taken away was a thought he couldnt bear.

Annie Vainshtein (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: avainshtein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annievain

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Concerns over goose poop may lead this Bay Area city to kill off hundreds of Canada geese - San Francisco Chronicle