More Sleep In the Mornings for High Schoolers

A team of researchers from Brown University and Lifespan health system conducted a study that monitored the sleep habits of children ages 9 to 18. They found out that children go to bed later and later as they get older, yet they continue to wake up at the same time to go to school. The result of this is a decrease in the amount of sleep every night. The Academy of Pediatrics has proposed a school starting time of 8:30 am.

As we learned in class, the amount of sleep we get is directly correlated to our cognitive performance in school and affects our mood. There have been many debates and research about how much sleep is necessary. Schools are beginning to take the results of the study into account. Fairfax Country has recommended a start time between 8-8:10 am for the next school year.

This article caught my attention because what college student doesn't love sleep?! Sleep is something that every college student values because we are up so late doing homework and studying for a big test and are very sleep deprived. All of our sleeping schedules are off and I find myself needing a nap in the middle of the day. I think that high schoolers would benefit from a later starting time because even another half hour of sleep would be beneficial. Maybe universities would even consider pushing back 8 am college classes so students can have another half hour of sleep!

Source:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/11/07/sleep-patterns-study-lends-new-support-to-proposals-for-later-school-start-times-for-teens/

This Is Your Brain on Drugs

This article immediately caught my eye because our class had been discussing drugs and their effects on the brain. Specifically, this article investigates the relationship between weed and the brain. Dr. Gilman from Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard concluded that weed seemed to have a significant effect on participants who only smoked once or twice a week. The brain had visible structural differences. The shape, density and volume of the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala were affected. There was a direct correlation between the amount of week smoked and the amount of change in brain structure.

People who smoked at a young age had a greater chance of having mental heath problems later in life. The amount of THC in the weed in years past was significantly less than the weed currently being sold. The amount of THC went from 3.75% to 13%. The potency is higher, which may lead to possible addiction and other adverse effects.

The researchers asked a student who smoked almost daily to take tests that were aimed at delayed gratification, cognitive abilities, memory and risk. These are things that THC would normally affect. When asked, the student stated that she only somewhat craved a joint. Weed also has long term effects that can lower I.Q points and can impact working memories that important for learning. More studies will be conducted to gain more information.

I thought this article was interesting because weed can be associated with college students. As young adults, it's important to know the effects. I don't think that students are aware of the damage that smoking causes and it's scary to know that the amount of THC has increased by about 10%. It's a significant amount . It's also interesting because it seems that people have different responses in cognitive, instant gratification, and risk factors even though there are similar effects on the brain.

Source :

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/education/edlife/this-is-your-brain-on-drugs-marijuana-adults-teens.html?src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article

Lost keys? Lost cat? Your brain knows how to look for them

I have a bad habit of losing my earrings, keys, retainers, and most recently, my class ring. When I saw the title of this article, "Lost your keys? Your cat? The brain can rapidly mobilize a search party" I had to click on because just a couple of days ago, I lost my class ring

A research team at UC Berkeley, led by Tolga Cukur, demonstrated how the brain functions in switching from one task to another. They concluded that the brain is much more dynamic than previously thought. It "rapidly reallocates resources based on behavioral demands, and optimizing our performance by increasing the precision with which we can perform relevant tasks".

In this study, an fMRI was used to measure the brain activity in patients as they searched for either people or vehicles in movie clips. The study showed through the fMRI images that when searching for a person, most of the brain was used. When searching for a vehicle, most of the cortex was used.

These findings help explain why it is difficult to multitask, since the brain optimizes its performance and engages most of the cortex in that one task. This also helps provide insight into what is happening inside the brain in someone with ADHD. Another reason this article intrigued me is because my little sister has ADHD and has the most difficult time focusing when she has more than one thing to do and it also takes her a very long time to switch between tasks. I would be interested in learning more about how these findings related to people with ADHD and other attention disorders.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130421153844.htm

Aerobic exercise improves memory in people with MS

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord and disrupts the flow of information between the two. Basically, the body's immune system attacks its own tissue. My favorite math teacher in high school married a woman with MS and it definitely took a toll on him, which showed in class from time to time.

In MS patients, atrophy of the hippocampus affects about 50% of patients, which is linked to deficits in memory. Unfortunately, there are no known treatments for this disease as of yet. This article discusses how aerobic exercise might be an effective way to improve memory in MS patients.

A team of researchers in Neuropsychology & Neuroscience at Kessler Foundation conducted a study on two MS patients who were randomly assigned to aerobic and non-aerobic exercise conditions. The procedure consisted of 30 minute workout sessions, 3 times a week, for 3 months. Before assessments were taken for comparison before the treatment and follow up assessments were taken afterwards for comparison. The data was measured by MRIs, fMRIs, and memory assessments. The study concluded that aerobic exercise resulted in a 16.5% hippocampal volume and a 53.7% increase in memory as compared to non-aerobic exercises which showed minimal changes in memory.

In my opinion, these findings are significant. However, the study was only conducted on two MS patients, so future studies need to be done to confirm these findings. Also, aerobic exercise can be done almost anywhere at anytime and is a self-administered treatment so there is no harm in MS patients trying aerobic exercise to increase their memory!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131101125506.htm

The Human-Pet Relationship

A dog is a man's best friend. For me there isn’t a truer statement in the world. My two dogs are my favorite part of coming home, waking up every day and everything else. Dogs can be relaxing, they can bring happiness, and they can be downright great companions.

A group of researchers wanted to study the relationship between mothers and their children versus the relationship between humans and their pets. They took a group of mothers that had a child between the ages of 2 and 10 and also had a pet dog in the house for at least two years. There were a total of two sessions. In the first session, the researchers collected data from the mothers at their houses through surveys and questionnaires.  During this first session at the home, the researchers also took a picture of both the dog and the child. In the second session, the mothers were brought to a medical center where they underwent an fMRI. In the fMRI they were shown images of their children and their pets in rotation along with pictures of random children and dogs. The fMRI allowed the researchers to study activation of different parts of the brain.

Out of 16 mothers, 14 of the mother’s data were viable. Areas of the brain that are known to be important in emotion, social interaction, reward and visual processing all reacted with increased activation when the mothers were shown pictures of their own children and dogs as expected. The substantia nigra is important in bond formation and was activated with the pictures of the mother’s own child. The fusiform gyrus, important in facial recognition, was activated more in the mother’s own dog’s picture rather than their own child.

I found the most surprising part of the study was that the part of the brain responsible for facial recognition (the fusiform gyrus) was activated more by the owner’s dog than the mother’s child. The researchers hypothesized that the reason for this was that humans rely more on visual cues from dogs and rely more on verbal cues from their children when trying to recognize them.

The study was so small that the experiment needs to be repeated on a larger scale to have a significant finding or impact.

Source:

http://neurosciencenews.com/neuroimaging-human-pet-relationship-fmri-1390/

Coffee and the Brain

Coffee hasn’t always been a necessary part of my diet. I started drinking it in college and ever since only drink it for taste and not to stay awake or because I feel like I need the caffeine. I personally don’t feel like when I drink it I get much of a jolt of energy from it…which makes me feel kind of gypped!

           

A study done by Jay Hosking in the UBC’s Department of Psychology hypothesized that the effects of stimulants such as caffeine actually cause “workers with higher motivation levels to slack off”. They took rats and put them into two categories. There were “slacker” rats that dodged challenges and didn’t focus on their challenges, which were mostly food motivated. Then there were “worker” rats that were just the opposite. They would focus on the tasks in front of them.

The most interesting part is that the slacker rats that got the stimulants worked a lot harder, whereas the rats that were considered worker rats, (more motivated people in real life) actually had an opposite effect when given the stimulants. The stimulants on worker rats caused them to be less motivated. Although the study doesn’t know exactly what brain mechanisms were used, it shows that greater attention may need to be taken to the type of motivation a person has when treating a person for certain diseases.

The findings were sort of surprising to me because I would have expected that the highly motivated worker rats would have become even more motivated by using a stimulant, almost like over energized. It isn’t surprising that the slacker rats became more productive though because it seems like giving them a stimulant should increase motivation. I thought this was a very interesting take on caffeine and stimulant use in the brain. I wish they had more information on the biological aspects of what may be causing the difference between the slacker rats and the worker rats because there wasn’t much explanation as to why there was a difference when they were given the stimulants.

Source:

http://neurosciencenews.com/coffee-stimulants-high-achievers-slack-off/

Brain's GPS Findings Could Help Us Build Better Cities

As you may or may not know, the Nobel Prize for physiology/medicine was given Monday morning to three scientists who have uncovered the "GPS" aspect of our brains that helps us find our way through the surrounding environment, identifying where we are, where we've been and how to get back there again.  John O' Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Evard Moser solved the age old question "how does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment?" O'Keefe discovered the place in space, while the Mosers found the coordinates.

In 1971, O' Keefe discovered that certain nerve cells were activated in rats every time the animals passed by a particular location in a room. For example, when the rats were in one corner, certain cells in their brains activated; when they were in a different part of the room, other cells lit up. O'Keefe coined the term "place cells" to describe these activated cells and research since then has suggested that humans have these "place cells" as well. They help us construct mental maps of space, recognizing the difference between your desk and your peer's. In 2005, the Mosers added to this the discovery of "grid cells" that also allow us to determine our position in the world and navigate through it. The amazing part of it all is that this inner navigational work happens without any conscious effort.

Their findings not only shed some light on diseases such as Alzheimer's (which robs people of their spatial memory), but can also lead to new ideas as to how we design spaces more effectively. The evolving science of your "GPS" could help create buildings, transportation networks, etc. that aren't so confusing or help us understand why places we've already built are. How interesting would it be to have a major where you specialize in the psychology behind urban planning?

With all of the buzz going on about who had won the Nobel Prize, it was a very enlightening read to see exactly what their research was that had earned them this amazing accomplishment. What made this article even more interesting was how it applied these findings to other applications other than mental health. The only negative thing about this situation was that they had to split the prize money; luckily the Mosers are married!

--Sources--
Article link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/06/the-brain-science-that-just-won-a-nobel-prize-could-help-us-build-better-cities/