Neuroscience

A New Theory for Why We Dream – Tufts Now

Whats the point of dreams? We all have them, for hours each day of our lives, even if we dont remember. Plenty of mammals and birds dream, too. When you see Fido sound asleep with his eyes rapidly moving, his paws twitching, you know for sure that hes in dreamland.

Lots of theories have been offered: dreams are used to regulate emotion, like dealing with fears; to consolidate memory, replaying things from your day to help remember them; to solve, or on the other hand to forget, real-world problems. Another theory suggests they help the brain predict its own future states.

None of those theories seem quite right to Erik Hoel, a research assistant professor at Tufts Allen Discovery Center who studies consciousness, modeling the relationships between experiences and brain states.

In his research, Hoel works with artificial neural networksmachine learning. Think of Deep Mind, the Google artificial intelligence program that beat the best human players at the almost infinitely complex Japanese strategy game Go.

It turns out that when such machine learning programs do the same task again and again, they can become overfitable to do that one thing really well, but not to learn lessons and create general knowledge that can be applied to different tasks. To prevent that, programmers often introduce random variables, or noise in the data.

In essence, thats what Hoel thinks our brains are doing when we dream: breaking the cycle of repetitive daily tasksfilling out spreadsheets, delivering mail, tightening pipe fittingswith an infusion of discord, keeping our brains fit.

Have you ever had a problem that just seemed to defy solution? You think and think, but you remain stuck. Then you go to bed, wake up the next morning, and presto, the solution appears. It might well be, Hoel would say, that your thinking was overfitted for the taskjust like a machine learning program in need of disruption.

This fits with anecdotal reports of plateauing in terms of performance on a task, like a video game, only to sleep and have increased performance the next day, Hoel says. There is also the long-standing traditional association between dreams and creativity.

He recently published a paper on what he calls the overfitted brain hypothesis, and its been garnering attention in the pressit was the cover story for a recent issue of New Scientist magazine.

How Hoel came to the theory surprisingly begins not with neuroscience, but fiction.

When he was young, he loved reading. His mother ran the bookstore Jabberwocky in Newburyport, Mass., and he spent a lot of time there, like the proverbial kid in a candy store, immersed in fictional worlds. He always wanted to be a writer, but ended up studying cognitive science at Hampshire College, and went on to get a Ph.D. in neuroscience. (He did become a fiction writer, too: his novel The Revelations will be published by the Overlook Press in early April.)

His focus as a student was consciousness, but his love of reading also made him wonder why people are so drawn to reading novels, which always struck me from a scientific perspective as kind of a very strange activity, he says. Fictions are essentially liestheres no such thing as Hogwarts. Harry Potter never went there. Its the opposite of facts.

Fiction has all sorts of purposesaesthetic, emotional, even politicalbut probably also has an evolutionary role, Hoel says. I think that one could argue that there is a sort of deep biological need for fictions in humans, he says. Just look at all the TV shows, novels, movies, and video games we consume for an ungodly amount of our waking hours. Those diversions actually serve deep down some sort of fundamental purpose, he says.

He soon started seeing links between fiction and dreaming. Take the short stories by Jorge Borges, Hoel says. They are rife with narrative and yet quite otherworldly at the same timejust like dreams. It made him think there must be some evolved purpose of dreaming, a function seen across many species of animals.

He soon started to research sleep and dreaming. But looking closely at the scientific literature about dreaming, he came away with more questions than answers. One prominent recent theory says dreams are created for memory consolidation; but why, Hoel asks, do the dreams so rarely actually mimic those memories? Another says that dreams are for emotion processing, but theres little empirical evidence for it.

One fact that many dream theories also overlook is that while reptiles and many other animals dont dream, mammals and birds apparently do. Dreaming is so ubiquitous across mammals and even birds that there must be a good reason for it, he says.

Its widely noted in neuroscience that many traits are highly conserved, meaning that brains seem to operate in much the same way across the animal kingdom, Hoel says. The human brain, while basically getting more bang for your buck in terms of space and having some more frontal and prefrontal regions, is not significantly different in its neuroanatomy from a canines, he points out.

Its also true, Erik Hoel says, that evolution is a great multitasker, so Id be surprised if theres just one absolute reason for dreaming and no other reason.

So what does differentiate mammals from reptiles? Mothers, says Hoel. When an iguana is born, natures basically just booting up the iguana programalmost everything is just innate for them. Reptiles therefore dont actively learn. On the other hand, young mammals learn from their moms (and dads, too) as they develop and are cared for.

Its unsurprising, Hoel says, that the creatures that have to learn to survive have the most pronounced dreaming and signs of dreaming. Its likely a sign of dreamings evolutionary importance for learningand survival.

While metaphors of brains as computers is a bit overdone, Hoel says, in this case, reversing the metaphor to say that brains are like neural networks is close to the mark. After all, he says, those neural networks were designed by engineers to mimic human circuitry.

The overlap between how humans dream, and how machine learning experts avoid pure memorization and help programs transfer knowledge from one problem to others lends credence to the idea that the evolved function of dreaming is for precisely these purposes, he says. It seems that the most effective way to trigger dreams about something is to have subjects perform repetitively on a novel task like Tetris, likely because the visual system has become overfitted to the task.

Sleep is widely known to have a restorative effectjust try going without it for a day or two and see how well you function. Precisely how that works is not completely known. Current thinking is that sleep evolved as some sort of metabolic housekeeping activityat one stage of sleep, the cerebral spinal fluid essentially flushes waste products through the lymphatic system.

But dreaming seems to happen during other parts of sleep, and apparently occurs more than we realize; we tend to remember our dreams only if we wake in their midst. Hoels theory is that dreaming is an exaptation, a trait that evolved for one purpose but later takes on others.

In this case, he says, sleep evolved for molecular housekeeping purposes, and only when brains had to significantly learn during the organisms lifetime did the goal of avoiding overfitting and increasing generalization become adaptive.

Another key feature of Hoels theory is that it takes the phenomenology of dreams seriously. Our nightly hallucinogenic narratives, containing fabulist and unusual events, are exactly what dreams would be if they were fulfilling the role Hoel proposesadding noise to the thinking system.

The point of dreams is the dreams themselves, since they provide departures away from the statistically-biased input of an animals daily life, which can therefore increase performance, he says. It may seem paradoxical, but a dream of flying may actually help you keep your balance running.

Have you ever had a problem that just seemed to defy solution? You think and think, but you remain stuck. Then you go to bed, wake up the next morning, and presto, the solution appears. It might well be, Hoel would say, that your thinking was overfitted for the task.

And what about dreams that seem to be speaking to ushelping us understand our lives, remember loved ones, or even scare us?

Meaning in dreams, he says, is basically a side effect. I dont think dogs are imbuing their dreams with meaning, but they still dream, he says. Humans can imbue their dreams with meaning, but dreams should still have a purpose for all mammals who regularly do it, Hoel says.

Its also true, he says, that evolution is a great multitasker, so Id be surprised if theres just one absolute reason for dreaming and no other reason.

Hoel comes back to where he started: fiction. It is worth considering whether fictions, like novels or films, act as artificial dreams, accomplishing at least some of the same function, he says.

His theory, he says, suggests fictions, and perhaps the arts in general, may actually have an underlying cognitive utility in the form of improving generalization and preventing overfitting.

The tradition of fiction goes back much further than the first novel, he saysmaybe to the first storytelling shamans. Maybe thats part of the human secretwe export some of our learning finessing outside of the body, so that you dont have to just do it through dreams, he says. You can do it through these artificial dreams that maybe even are more impactful because theyre so well structured.

Taylor McNeil can be reached at taylor.mcneil@tufts.edu.

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A New Theory for Why We Dream - Tufts Now

Neuroscience

Study provides new insight into the effects of antidepressant drugs – News-Medical.net

The effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other conventional antidepressants are believed to be based on their increasing the levels of serotonin and noradrenalin in synapses, while ketamine, a new rapid-acting antidepressant, is thought to function by inhibiting receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate.

Neurotrophic factors regulate the development and plasticity of the nervous system. While all antidepressants increase the quantity and signaling of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the brain, the drugs have so far been thought to act on BDNF indirectly, through serotonin or glutamate receptors.

A new study published this week in Cell demonstrates, however, that antidepressants bind directly to a BDNF receptor known as TrkB. This finding challenges the primary role of serotonin or glutamate receptors in the effects of antidepressants.

The international study, which was collaboratively led by the Neuroscience Center and the Department of Physics at the University of Helsinki, investigated the binding of antidepressants from different drug classes to the TrkB receptor. All the antidepressants examined, including fluoxetine (an SSRI), imipramine (a tricyclic antidepressant) and the rapid-acting ketamine interacted with TrkB.

We found that all antidepressants boost BDNF signaling by binding to its TrkB receptor. This signaling is necessary for the cellular and behavioral effects of antidepressants in our experimental models. The effects of antidepressant on plasticity do not therefore require increases in the serotonin levels or the inhibition of glutamate receptors, as previously thought."

Professor Eero Castrn, Study's Principal Investigator

The binding site of antidepressants in the transmembrane region of TrkB was identified through molecular modeling, performed in Professor Ilpo Vattulainen's research group at the Department of Physics, University of Helsinki. Biochemical binding studies and mutations introduced in the TrkB receptor verified the site.

Molecular modeling also demonstrated that the structure of TrkB is sensitive to the cholesterol concentration of the cell membrane. TrkB is displaced in cholesterol-rich membrane compartments, such as synaptic membranes.

"The drug binding stabilizes dimers, structures composed of two TrkB receptors, inhibiting the displacement of the TrkB receptors and increasing their quantity in synaptic cell membranes, which boosts the effects of BDNF. That is to say that the drugs do not directly activate TrkB. Instead, they sensitize the receptor to the effects of BDNF," Castrn explains.

In addition to findings pertaining to the effects of antidepressants, the study produced a substantial amount of new information on the structure and function of the growth factor receptor.

Ketamine, which has been used as an anesthetic, is becoming increasingly utilized as an antidepressant. The researchers were surprised to find that both slow-acting SSRIs and rapid-acting ketamine act by binding to the same site in TrkB.

SSRI drugs bind to the serotonin transporter protein much more avidly than to TrkB, but the binding of ketamine to the glutamate receptor and TrkB occurs at similar drug concentrations.

"Previous studies have shown that in SSRI therapy, drugs gradually reach the high brain concentration needed for binding to the TrkB receptor, whereas intravenously administered ketamine and esketamine as a nasal spray reach the level needed for binding quickly, in a matter of minutes. The difference in the onset of action for SSRIs and ketamine may be caused by their different capacity to reach in the brain the concentration needed for binding with TrkB receptors," Castrn says.

Source:

Journal reference:

Casarotto, P.C., et al. (2021) Antidepressant drugs act by directly binding to TRKB neurotrophin receptors. Cell. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.01.034.

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Study provides new insight into the effects of antidepressant drugs - News-Medical.net

Human Behavior

How human behavior is reshaping the world | Cornell Chronicle – Cornell Chronicle

Human decisions both large and small influence environmental outcomes in profound ways. From forest regeneration in Chinas Himalayan heights to flood responses in New Yorks Hudson Valley, human behavior reshapes the world. But how do culture, social organization, and politics influence these changes and their impacts?

As an environmental sociologist and professor of global development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences,Jack Zindaanalyzes global challenges surrounding relationships between human groups and environments. Zinda makes in-depth explorations of locales across the globe, from rural communities in China to metropolitan areas straddling the Hudson River in New York State. His work dives deep to assess two central research questions:How do people's actions and views in relation to the environment differ across individual households, communities and regions? How do these differences create varying social and environmental outcomes?

Jack Zinda, assistant professor of global development

This research homes in on a key aspect of sociology: while individual choices may seem independent, they always draw from surrounding social and material contexts. Zinda works closely with community members to understand why they respond to environmental and socioeconomic changes in certain ways. He follows these responses to understand their impacts on landscapes.

Environments are always social we meet them with cultural frames that tell us what a forest or a river is and how it might best be used or spared from use, and the political and economic pressures that we take into account, Zinda explains. To get it right, whether restoring forests or keeping people safe from flooding, you need to listen to the people on the front lines and understand how their actions interplay with bigger social and biophysical systems.

Southwest China, a vast region bordered by the Himalayas to the west and home to nearly 200 million people, has been at the center of one of the worlds largest reforestation efforts. Not surprisingly, thereforestations impact on social and economic developmentis complicated. Within these environmental programs, the Chinese government seeks torehabilitate rural landscapes, implementing policies such as paying farmers to plant trees or founding national parks. Meanwhile, authorities also boost economic development by promoting tourism, encouraging theplanting of cash crops such as walnuts, or subsidizing alternative sources of energy.

A hired worker in China tosses turnips onto a drying rack.

Understanding how people adapt to Chinas environmental conservation programs is essential. The people these interventions target dont respond to interventions in isolation. When asked to retire farmland and plant trees, people take into account all sorts of things their options for farming, whats going on in their community or whether someone in the household might take a job in the city, Zinda explains. He examines how these processes play out across scales individuals, households, communities, and regions to analyze patterns in decision making and their impacts.

The city of Troy, NY is situated on the banks of the Hudson River near the origin of the Erie Canal. There, approximately 160 miles north of New York City, residents live along rising water levels as more intense and frequent storms spurred by climate change inundate communities along the river. In collaboration with theHudson River Estuary Programand Global Development colleaguesRobin Blakely-Armitage,David KayandLindy Williams, Zinda is working to understand how individuals and governments perceive and respond to flood risk. The research team is addressing the role of flood insurance policies and government regulations, as well as inequalities in vulnerability to flooding and access to resources to prepare for floods.

Our goal is to provide useful information to inform households and local governments about flood risk and tangible actions that they can take, such as implementing preparedness measures or acquiring flood insurance policies, Zinda says.

While flooding is a persistent risk to the region, the deadly Covid-19 crisis presented an immediate and unexpected risk in 2020 just as the researchers began their work. The emergence of the new risk raised important questions: How do peoples perceptions change in therisk of flood compared to risks rising from the coronavirus pandemic? What drives those perceptions and responses? The team adapted their approach to incorporate the pandemics risk impact into their research.

As environmental crises loom larger than ever, Zinda encourages his students to face real world challenges holistically. In his Environmental Sociology course, students produce public-facing articles about issues that interest them, analyzing reasons that produced the issue and also offering potential solutions (check out the2018,2019and2020submissions). In my classes I want my students to know that meaningful solutions deal with the full complexity of a problem, Zinda says. Oftentimes the fetishization of finding a solution quick gets in the way of us actually approaching environmental concerns in ways that address whats fundamentally driving them.

This article also appeared in the CALS Newsroom.

Kelly Merchan is a communications specialist in the Department of Global Development.

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How human behavior is reshaping the world | Cornell Chronicle - Cornell Chronicle

Human Behavior

NSF-supported researchers achieve two-way communication with dreaming people – National Science Foundation

The breakthrough creates a new method for studying the human mind that could lead to innovative ways of learning and problem-solving

Recorded electrical signals from a sleeping participant as they communicated with scientists.

February 18, 2021

Researchers supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation have successfully achieved two-way communication with dreaming research participants sleeping in a laboratory at Northwestern University, creating a new method for studying the human mind.

The breakthrough was also achieved at Osnabrck University in Germany, Sorbonne University in France and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, where researchers independently tested methods for two-way communication in dreams. The collective results from all the laboratories are published today in the journal Current Biology.

The Northwestern University scientists played randomly selected audio recordings of simple math problems as their research participants were asleep and lucidly dreaming. A lucid dream is one in which the sleeper is aware that they are dreaming. Participants then perceived the scientists' questions within their dream. By monitoring electrical signals from the sleeping participants' brain and eyes, the researchers showed that participants successfully answered the questions while remaining in REM sleep. The breakthrough challenges current paradigms of human consciousness.

"We know that a great deal of cognitive processing takes place during sleep. This discovery points to an entirely new way to explore not only how sleep affects our memory but also how we solve problems and think creatively when we're awake," says Betty Tuller, co-director of NSF's Perception, Action and Cognition program, which supported the research. The program funds theoretically motivated research on a wide range of topic areas related to human behavior, with particular focus on perceptual, motor and cognitive processes and their interactions.

"NSF investments in fundamental science research like this study are critical to understanding what goes on behind the scenes in our brain," said Mike Hout, program co-director. "This study challenges what we think we know about human consciousness, and there is still a great deal more to uncover."

For the full story, check out NSF's Science Matters blog: "Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams."

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NSF-supported researchers achieve two-way communication with dreaming people - National Science Foundation

Human Behavior

Internet trends suggest COVID-19 spurred a return to earlier values and activities – UCLA Newsroom

American values, attitudes and activities have changed dramatically during COVID-19, according to a new study of online behavior.

Researchers from UCLA and Harvard University analyzed how two types of internet activity changed in the U.S. for 10 weeks before and 10 weeks after March 13, 2020 the date then-President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency. One was Google searches; the other was the phrasing of more than a half-billion words and phrases posted on Twitter, blogs and internet forums.

The study is the lead research article in a special issue of the journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies dedicated to the pandemic.

Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and senior author of the research, said the study determined that the pandemic inspired a resurgence of community-oriented values, with people thinking more about supporting one another. Use of the word help on Twitter increased by 37% in the period after March 13, while use of the word share increased by 24%.

Thinking about others

The research also found that use of the word sacrifice more than doubled on Twitter from before the pandemic to the period after March 13.

Sacrifice was a complete nonstarter in U.S. culture before COVID, Greenfield said.

The change, the authors wrote, signified that Americans were placing more value on the welfare of others even if it meant putting their own lives at risk. One example was peoples willingness to participate in the large Black Lives Matter demonstrations, even in the midst of a pandemic, said Noah Evers, a Harvard undergraduate psychology major and the studys lead author.

At the same time, there was strong evidence of the nations collective mindset returning to a more rural form of society. The use of words referring to basic needs for food, clothing and shelter increased significantly across Google searches, Twitter, internet forums and blogs. For instance, Google searches increased by 344% for grow vegetables and by 207% for sewing machine, while Twitter mentions of Home Depot increased by 266%.

Drawing conclusions about shifting psychology from search engine and social media activity might seem to be a stretch, but Greenfield said there are good reasons to put stock in the findings. For one thing, Greenfield said, language provides a window into peoples concerns, values and behavior. In addition, the same types of shifts were evident in both types of internet activity the authors studied.

Internet activity also revealed a dramatic increase in peoples concerns about mortality. After March 13, when the death toll began increasing dramatically, search activity for the word survive increased by 47%, for cemeteries by 41%, for bury by 23% and for death by 21%.

And during the 10 weeks after Trumps emergency declaration, there were 115% more mentions on Twitter of the phrase fear of death than in the 10 weeks before.

Death went from something taboo to something real and inevitable, Evers said, adding that he frequently discussed plans for death with his family for the first time during that period.

Survival mindset

Of all the words the authors analyzed, the one whose usage increased the most during the pandemic was sourdough, as baking bread became a trendy pastime while people were instructed to stay at home.

Google searches for sourdough increased by 384% after the pandemic began, and Twitter mentions shot up by 460%. Baking bread surged as well: Google searches for the phrase increased by 265%, and Twitter mentions rose 354%.

Given that bread is considered the most basic food, the fact that increases in sourdough and baking bread were so large across Google searches and social media suggests that the survival motive is an important factor in shifting values and activities during the pandemic, Greenfield said.

Greenfield said the psychological and behavioral changes remind her of social interactions she observed in an isolated Mayan village in Chiapas, Mexico, that she has studied since 1969. When she began her work there, life expectancy was very low, approximately 35% of children died before age 4 and basic resources like food were scarce.

Death was very much a part of life, she said. People would go to the cemetery every week to put food and drink on family graves and would look after one another, she said. With greater focus on mortality and helping others, were moving in that direction.

Lauren Greenfield

Noah Evers

Its remarkable how quickly these changes have occurred in the United States during the pandemic. As mortality rose during the pandemic and people lost their jobs, the lifestyles of 21st century America began, in many fundamental ways, to increasingly resemble those of that Maya village.

How lasting will the changes be? Greenfield expects the behavioral trends will likely reverse as the threat from COVID-19 recedes and Americans feel more prosperous and safer. However, based on the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, she predicts the changes will be more enduring for American teenagers and people in their 20s, whose values are more likely to be shaped by the pandemic.

Said Evers: Perhaps this means that todays youth will, in the future, create a country more attuned to sharing and helping others, or just that baking sourdough bread will always have a special place in our hearts.

The study was a family affair: Evers conceived the idea and methodology before developing it with Greenfield, his grandmother. The papers co-author is Gabriel Evers, Noahs younger brother, a high school student at Crossroads School in Santa Monica who is spending the year at Mulgrave School in Vancouver, British Columbia. The brothers carried out the data analysis of Google Trends and social media; this is the second publication on which Noah Evers has collaborated with Greenfield.

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Internet trends suggest COVID-19 spurred a return to earlier values and activities - UCLA Newsroom

Human Behavior

How COVID-19 changed the way we use Google and Twitter, according to UCLA-Harvard study – LA Daily News

LOS ANGELES The coronavirus pandemic has changed virtually everything in the U.S., including online behavior, according to a new study.

Researchers from UCLA and Harvard University analyzed how two types of Internet activity changed in the country for the 10 weeks before and the 10 weeks after March 13, 2020 the date that then-President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency.

According to the study, one change was Google searches.

The other was the phrasing of more than a half-billion words and phrases posted on Twitter, blogs and Internet forums, suggesting a resurgence of community-oriented values and support of one another.

The study is the lead research article in a special issue of the journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, dedicated to the pandemic.

According to the study, use of the word help on Twitter increased by 37% in the period after March 13, while use of the word share increased by 24%.

In addition, sacrifice more than doubled on Twitter from before the pandemic to the period after March 13.

Sacrifice was a complete nonstarter in U.S. culture before COVID, according to Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and senior author of the research.

The studys authors said that Internet evidence also suggests Americans were placing more value on the welfare of others while coping with frightening COVID-19 statistics.

Noah Evers, a Harvard undergraduate psychology major and the studys lead author, said the idea of placing value on others welfare applied even if it meant people putting their own lives at risk.

One example Evers cited was peoples willingness to participate in the large Black Lives Matter demonstrations, even in the midst of a pandemic.

The study further found the use of words referring to basic needs for food, clothing and shelter increased significantly across Google searches, Twitter and other online platforms.

The researches reported that Google searches increased by 344% for grow vegetables and by 207% for sewing machine. On Twitter, mentions of Home Depot jumped by 266%, the study found.

While drawing conclusions about shifting psychology from such evidence might seem a stretch, Greenfield said that language provides a window into peoples concerns, values and behavior.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the report also found an increase in peoples concerns about mortality.

The report said that, after March 13 when the death toll began increasing dramatically search activity for survive increased by 47%, while searches for cemeteries rose by 41%, bury by 23% and death by 21%.

During the 10 weeks after Trumps emergency declaration, there was a 115% jump in Twitter mentions of the phrase fear of death compared to the 10 weeks before.

Death went from something taboo to something real and inevitable, Evers said.

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How COVID-19 changed the way we use Google and Twitter, according to UCLA-Harvard study - LA Daily News

Human Behavior

Did positive thinking boost college faculty’s online teaching? – Inside Higher Ed

With little time to prepare or plan, many instructors found last years COVID-19-induced transition to remote learning difficult. But some managed to weather the storm with a positive attitude and a willingness to learn new skills, according to a recent study.

These optimistic instructors were the ones who were better able to avoid burnout and ended up receiving stronger evaluations from their students.

The longitudinal study, conducted by researchers at the University of Augsburg and the University of Mannheim in Germany, was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. It examined the goals and attitudes of 80 faculty members in the semesters before and after the transition to remote instruction. The researchers also reviewed 703 student ratings of these faculty members teaching quality.

Authors of the study were planning to look at faculty members attitudes toward teaching prior to COVID-19, they said via email. But when the pandemic hit, the context of the higher education landscape along with that of our study changed completely," said one of the study's authors, Raven Rinas. Rinas responded to questions in an email with replies put together with the study's other authors, Martin Daumiller, Julia Hein, Stefan Janke, Oliver Dickhuser and Markus Dresel.

The study continued to explore the motivation of faculty members but added exploring how they responded to the pandemic.

We felt that gaining insights into how faculty members motivations impacted their perceptions of and experiences during the pandemic could be a catalyst for further research, with the ultimate goal of identifying those who are struggling and better supporting them, Rinas said.

Much like in the U.S., universities in Germany transferred from face-to-face to remote teaching in March 2020. For many faculty members, it was their first time teaching online, and there was little time to prepare for this new modality and learn how to approach it effectively. Though administrators did their best to support faculty members, many found the experience stressful, the study authors said. German universities are still primarily teaching remotely, and it is expected this will continue into the upcoming summer semester, though things are still relatively uncertain at this point, Rinas said.

Survey results showed that faculty attitudes toward the change from face-to-face to online teaching were generally more favorable than unfavorable, but responses varied widely. The study found that instructors who indicated a lack of willingness to learn new skills, embrace new technology or improve their teaching before the COVID-19 outbreak reported a higher perceived threat from the shift to remote learning. These instructors also experienced higher burnout levels and more negative student evaluations.

The authors were pleased with the responses from 80 faculty members, especially considering how busy they were. But they would have liked input from a larger sample.

We are also aware that faculty members who were more distressed may have been less likely to respond to our survey in the first place, meaning that the results in our study likely depict more conservative estimates, Rinas said.

A key takeaway message from our research is that also personal, especially motivational factors of faculty members are important to consider (particularly their goals and attitudes towards unexpected challenges), Rinas said. Dealing with unexpected challenges is and will continue to be an issue that has important implications for university faculty members well-being, professional learning and teaching quality.

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Did positive thinking boost college faculty's online teaching? - Inside Higher Ed

Human Behavior

For mindfulness programs, ‘with whom’ may be more important than ‘how’ – Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I.[Brown University] For people who feel stressed, anxious or depressed, meditation can be a way to find some emotional peace. Structured mindfulness-based meditation programs, in which a trained instructor leads regular group sessions featuring meditation, have been shown to be effective in improving psychological well-being.

But the precise factors for why these programs can help are less clear. A new study teased apart the different therapeutic factors of mindfulness-based meditation programs and found that the effects of the instructor and the group are often more significant than the type or amount of meditation practiced.

Willoughby Britton, an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University who led the study, says that mindfulness-based meditation programs often operate with the assumption that meditation is the active ingredient, but less attention is paid to social factors inherent in these programs, like the group and the instructor.

Its important to determine how much of a role is played by social factors, because that knowledge informs the implementation of treatments, training of instructors and much more, Britton said. If the benefits of mindfulness meditation programs are mostly due to relationships of the people in the programs, we should pay much more attention to developing that factor. This is one of the first studies to look at the significance of interpersonal relationships in meditation programs.

Interestingly, social factors werent what Britton and her team, including study author Brendan Cullen, set out to explore; their initial research focus was the effectiveness of different types of practices for treating conditions like stress, anxiety, and depression. Britton directs theClinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at Brown,which investigates the psychophysiological and neurocognitive effects of cognitive training and mindfulness-based interventions for mood and anxiety disorders. She uses empirical methods to explore accepted yet untested claims about mindfulness and expand the scientific understanding of the effects of meditation. With a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Britton led a clinical trial that compared the effects of focused attention meditation, open monitoring meditation and a combination of the two (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy) on stress, anxiety and depression.

The goal of the study was to look at these two practices that are integrated within mindfulness-based programs, each of which has different neural underpinnings and different cognitive, affective and behavioral consequences, to see how they influence outcomes, Britton said.

The answer to the original research question, published in PLOS ONE in January, was that the typeof practice did matter but less than expected.

Some practices on average seem to be better for some conditions than others, Britton said. It depends on the state of a persons nervous system. Focused attention, which is also known as a tranquility practice, was helpful for anxiety and stress and less helpful for depression; open monitoring, which is a more active and arousing practice, seemed to be better for depression, but worse for anxiety.

But importantly, the differences were small, and the combination of focused attention and open monitoring didnt show a clear advantage over either practice alone. All programs, regardless of the meditation type, had large benefits. This could mean that the different types of mediation were largely equivalent, or alternatively, that there was something else driving the benefits of mindfulness program.

Britton was aware that in medical and psychotherapy research, social factorslike the quality of the relationship between patient and providercould be a stronger predictor of outcome than the treatment modality. Could this also be true of mindfulness-based programs?

To test this possibility, Britton, with researchers Kristina Eichel, Nicholas Canby and other Brown scholars, compared the effects of meditation practice amount to social factors like those related to instructors and group participants. Their analysis assessed the contributions of each towards the improvements the participants experienced as a result of the programs.

There is a wealth of psychological research showing that community, relationships and the alliance between therapist and client are responsible for most of the outcomes in many different types of therapy, said Canby, a senior research assistant at Brown and a fifth-year Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at Clark University. It made sense that these factors would play a significant role in therapeutic mindfulness programs as well.

Working with the data collected as part of the trial, which came from surveys administered before, during and after the intervention as well as qualitative interviews with participants, the researchers were able to correlate variables such as the extent to which a person felt supported by the group with improvements in symptoms of anxiety, stress or depression. The results were published Frontiers in Psychology in January.

The findings showed that instructor ratings predicted changes in depression and stress, group ratings predicted changes in stress and self-reported mindfulness, and formal meditation amount (for example, setting aside time to meditate with a guided recording) predicted changes in anxiety and stress while informal mindfulness practice amount (such as paying attention to ones present moment experience throughout the day, Canby explained) did not predict improvements in emotional health.

The social factors were stronger predictors of improvement in depression, stress and self-reported mindfulness than the amount of mindfulness practice itself. In the interviews, participants frequently talked about how their relationships with the instructor and the group allowed for bonding with other people, the expression of feelings and the instillation of hope, the researchers said.

Our findings dispel the myth that mindfulness-based intervention outcomes are exclusively the result of mindfulness meditation practice, the researchers wrote in the paper, and suggest that social common factors may account for much of the effects of these interventions.

In a surprise finding, the team also learned that amount of mindfulness practice did not actually contribute to increasing mindfulness, or nonjudgmental and accepting present moment awareness of thoughts and emotions. However, bonding with other meditators in the group by sharing experiences did seem to make a difference.

Read more:
For mindfulness programs, 'with whom' may be more important than 'how' - Brown University

Human Behavior

With A Decarbonized Future Bearing Down, Refineries Look At The Nitty-Gritty Of The Transition – Forbes

This Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015 photo shows a Dow Chemical plant in La Porte, Texas. Dow Chemical and ... [+] the DuPont will attempt to merge in an all-stock deal that would create a colossal chemical producer worth $130 billion, before splitting into three separate companies. The deal announced Friday, Dec. 11, 2015 is being billed a merger of equals, to be called DowDuPont. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

As the Biden administration makes good on its promises to heat up the conversation on climate change, owners of refineries and chemical plants are zeroing in on ways to cut their use of carbon-emitting fuels.

Refineries and other industrial plants are widely recognized as significant contributors to carbon emissions: industrial processes accounted for 27% of all carbon emissions in 2019, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The challenge is that industrial processes require massive amounts of energy for the transformative processes that make gasoline or cement. Many of these processes require really high temperatures sometimes 1000 degrees or more; and heating is responsible for more than half of carbon emissions. The remaining emissions mostly come from the electricity required to run motors and other equipment, and from carbon dioxide produced as a byproduct in in some of the processes.

There are several reasons oil refining and chemical companies in the US are thinking hard about their carbon footprint.

The first is the growing acknowledgement by the vast majority of the public that climate change exists and is a result of human behavior.

An added incentive is the very real possibility that carbon pricing might be adopted by the Biden administration, given worldwide trends.

And then there is the growing investor and shareholder interest in how companies are making the transition.

Independent refiners are absolutely feeling the same pressure and the same premise of the energy transition as majors like BP and Shell, said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James RJF . The independent refiners are also subject to shareholder pressure to decarbonize.

So, what are the options for refineries hoping to lessen their carbon contribution, other than abandoning the sector?

Theres a number of them, according to Alan Rossiter, the executive director, external relations and educational program development for UH Energy at the University of Houston. Rossiter spent much of his career as a chemical engineer advising refineries and chemical plants on how to become more energy efficient.

Energy efficiency is great place to start decarbonization, as it not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but also brings in cost savings from reduced energy consumption, Rossiter explained. And there is a range of improvements plants can make for example, operational improvements, better maintenance, and facility improvements. The first two options are relatively cheap for plants, but facility improvements typically require additions and upgrades, or even completely new plants, which can be extremely costly.

The most common applications of energy efficiency in a refinery or a chemical plant are around recovering and reusing heat, Rossiter explained. This means recovering heat that would otherwise be wasted.

As a result, improvements like upgrading an inefficient boiler system can reduce the need to burn fuel. Yet while these improvements are significant, a typical boiler upgrade, for example, only reduces energy demand by two to three percent. More can be achieved by major process revamps, but even these have limitations.

There is just so far you can go with energy efficiency, Rossiter said. These plants make chemical transformations and separations that require a certain minimum amount of energy, and well before you get to these limits, you find that the equipment gets very expensive and you run into practical problems.

Using electricity to replace natural gas or coal-fired heating is another option for plants. However, the electricity must come from low-carbon or carbon-free sources, or electrification would simply move the plants emissions to power generation facilities.

Electrification can reduce your steam demand, therefore reducing the cost of environmental upgrades, said James Turner, an executive director of process technology for engineering company Fluor FLR FLR , in a recent webinar. Burning less fuel already means that youll make less CO2, which is a strategic driver for many companies.

One of the biggest hurdles in using electricity to replace fossil fuels in industry will be the delivery of power to the industries that need it. A multibillion-dollar investment in power transmission and distribution lines will be needed, along with huge batteries.

Furthermore, Inside the plant youll need a whole lot of investment for new equipment to electrify processes that currently use natural gas or other fossil fuels for heating, Rossiter said.

In theory, about 70% of the services that currently burn fuel in these plants could use electricity to replace it.But for the oil refiners, the biggest challenge will be the costs of revamping the equipment.

Using hydrogen as fuel is another interesting option for refineries under investigation.

It is a virtually unlimited store of energy, and it is available everywhere. It is contained in water, Rossiter said. However, it takes much more energy to convert it into a fuel than you get when you burn it. This is a major challenge.

The use of hydrogen in cars is already popular in California, which now has more than 40 hydrogen fueling stations. And hydrogen is also being used as a fuel in refineries and chemical plants but only in small amounts, mixed with natural gas.

The leap to using pure hydrogen as a fuel is still under development, with companies like Shell and Dow Chemical studying the challenges involved in a transition from natural gas to hydrogen.

If you want to burn it, you can, but you might have to do a lot of redesign on the furnace, Rossiter said. Hydrogen is very corrosive, and damage can occur to conventional materials if you expose them to hydrogen in high concentrations.

Biofuels are yet another option. And while used cooking oil and algae tend to capture the publics imagination when discussing biofuels, synthetic natural gas is actually a better option for decarbonizing refineries and chemical plants, as it can directly replace natural gas. This is a big advantage, as plants can use their existing equipment pretty much as is, greatly lowering the investment bar.

Yet biofuels face production challenges, as they take precious water and land resources as well as additional energy to produce.

All of the options involve a balancing act. Its all part of the transition, while keeping an eye on containing the costs to ensure that the business itself remains competitive.

Emily Pickrellis a veteran energy reporter, with more than 12 years of experience covering everything from oil fields to industrial water policy to the latest on Mexican climate change laws. Emily has reported on energy issues from around the U.S., Mexico and the United Kingdom.Prior to journalism, Emily worked as a policy analyst for the U.S. GovernmentAccountability Office and as an auditorfor the international aid organization, CARE.

UH Energy is the University of Houstons hub for energy education, research and technology incubation, working to shape the energy future and forge new business approaches in the energy industry.

Originally posted here:
With A Decarbonized Future Bearing Down, Refineries Look At The Nitty-Gritty Of The Transition - Forbes