We feel anxious even when making a choice from multiple good options

gettingwell4 0-1 star Wasted resources, Cerebrum, Limbic system, Lower brain

This 2014 Harvard/Princeton research studied brain areas as people made choices among multiple good options:

“Our results show that choice conflict can at least lead to substantial short-term anxiety, that this anxiety increases with the number and value of one’s options (potentially enhanced by time pressure), and that it is not attenuated by awareness of the objectively negligible costs of a “bad” choice.”

There was a problem with the way the researchers evaluated “positive feelings” through the subjects’ computerized self-reporting. The subjects’ cerebral assessments of “positive feelings” didn’t match their limbic system functional MRI measurements.

These discrepancies showed that what the subjects assessed weren’t emotions originating from their limbic system or lower brains. “Positive feelings” were, instead, constructs of the subjects’ cerebrums.

“This is what I think I should be feeling” may have been a more appropriate characterization of the subjects’ assessments.

The study had better accuracy when fMRI measurements showed that limbic system areas were more activated in people who self-reported feeling more conflicted at the time they made their choice. The conflicted subjects were also more likely than subjects whose limbic system areas weren’t similarly activated, to reverse their choice when given the opportunity.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/30/10978.full “Neural correlates of dueling affective reactions to win–win choices”

Problematic research on human happiness

gettingwell4 0-1 star Wasted resources, Beliefs, Cerebrum, Limbic system, Lower brain

This 2014 UK study provided an example of researchers inappropriately ignoring the limbic system and lower brains when allegedly researching emotions. Only cerebral areas were measured and considered in the researchers’ efforts to measure the subjects’ happiness.

Efforts to determine emotions by cerebral measurements seldom reveal what people actually feel. What’s measured is a construct of people’s cerebrums – a proxy for their emotions – that may not have anything to do with what people actually feel at the time.

It may have been more appropriate to characterize the subjects’ self-reports of happiness as “This is what I think I should tell the researchers about what I think I should feel.”

What we think we should feel is separate from what we actually feel. Limbic system and lower brain measurements need to be taken and considered when subjects self-report degrees of happiness if the researchers intend to draw conclusions about feelings of happiness.

“We show that emotional reactivity in the form of momentary happiness in response to outcomes of a probabilistic reward task is explained not by current task earnings, but by the combined influence of recent reward expectations and prediction errors arising from those expectations.”

It was the researchers’ cerebral exercise of expectations and prediction errors to find:

“Moment-to-moment happiness reflects not just how well things are going, but whether things are going better than expected.”

Informed by the Using expectations of oxytocin to induce positive placebo effects of touching is a cerebral exercise study, I consider the current study to be one big demonstration of how researchers can be fooled by a positive placebo effect!

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/12252.full “A computational and neural model of momentary subjective well-being”

Reciprocity behaviors differ as to whether we seek cerebral vs. limbic system rewards

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Cerebrum, Limbic system , ,

This 2014 Japanese human study showed which brain areas were involved in indirect reciprocity. It was mainly cerebral areas that were active in:

“Reputation-based reciprocity, in which they help others with good reputations to gain good reputations themselves.”

Previous studies found much the same with direct reciprocity, where an individual was reimbursed by someone who directly owed them a debt of cooperation.

It was mainly limbic system areas that were active in:

“Pay-it-forward reciprocity, in which, independently of reputations, they help others after being helped by someone else.”

The researchers compared and contrasted self-interested behaviors of:

  • direct reciprocity and
  • reputation-based reciprocity,

both of which sought rewards in the cerebrum, with empathetic behaviors of:

  • pay-it-forward reciprocity,

where the subjects sought emotional rewards in the limbic system.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/11/3990.full “Two distinct neural mechanisms underlying indirect reciprocity”

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Want empathy from your therapist? Don’t give a scientific explanation of your condition

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Cerebrum, Limbic system, Lower brain

This 2014 Yale study found that providing scientific explanations of patients’ conditions actually REDUCED an important part of what patients may need from therapists – empathy.

That finding summed up the malaise throughout the current dog-and-pony-show approaches in psychotherapy, where:

  • Efforts to treat symptoms are maximized, and approaches to treat causes are minimized;
  • The therapist is in charge, not the patient;
  • The cerebrum is the all-in-all, while the limbic system and instinctual parts of the patient’s brain that drive behavior are suppressed.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/50/17786.full “Effects of biological explanations for mental disorders on clinicians’ empathy”

Our early experiences are maintained and unconsciously influence us for years, if not indefinitely

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Brain development, Brain hemispheres, Memory , , , ,

This 2014 Montreal study provided more evidence of critical periods during human development:

“Clearly illustrates that early acquired information is maintained in the brain and that early experiences unconsciously influence neural processing for years, if not indefinitely.

We show that internationally adopted children (aged 9–17 years) from China, exposed exclusively to French since adoption (mean age of adoption, 12.8 mo), maintained neural representations of their birth language despite functionally losing that language and having no conscious recollection of it.

We show that neural representations are not overwritten and suggest a special status for language input obtained during the first year of development.”

YES! GIVE US MORE STUDIES LIKE THIS ONE!

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/48/17314.full “Mapping the unconscious maintenance of a lost first language”

Chronic stress changes the architecture of the hippocampus, leading to depression and cognitive impairment

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Brain development, Cortisol, Epigenetics, Hippocampus, Limbic system, Memory, Neurochemicals, Stress ,

This 2014 rodent study gave further details that:

“Chronic stress, which can precipitate depression, induces changes in the architecture and plasticity of apical dendrites that are particularly evident in the CA3 region of the hippocampus.”

Other studies on the hippocampus CA3 region include:

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16130.full “Role for NUP62 depletion and PYK2 redistribution in dendritic retraction resulting from chronic stress”

The same brain areas are used for spontaneous and rehearsed speech

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Brain hemispheres, Primal Therapy

This 2014 human study found:

“..(brain) areas that respond reliably during spontaneous and rehearsed speech production of the same real-world story are the same.”

This finding highlighted the difficulty a therapist or researcher may encounter in objectively determining another person’s reality.

If the listener relied solely on words and speech, they may not be able to tell whether what’s heard was a planned narrative or if the speech had some other origin. That’s why in Dr. Arthur Janov’s Primal Therapy, for example, the therapist is trained to look beyond the patient’s words to ascertain the feeling being expressed.

Also:

“Production of a real-life narrative is not localized to the left hemisphere but recruits an extensive bilateral network.”

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/43/E4687.full “Coupled neural systems underlie the production and comprehension of naturalistic narrative speech”

Non-PC alert: Treating the mother’s obesity symptoms positively affects the post-surgery offspring

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Epigenetics , ,

This 2013 Quebec human epigenetic study found that DNA methylation – chemical modification that causes genes to express differently – as durably detectable between siblings born before and after their mother’s gastric bypass surgery.

The younger, post-maternal-surgery siblings were found to have DNA indicating reduced risks of developing diabetes and heart disease when compared with the DNA of their older, pre-maternal-surgery siblings. The mothers’ average weight loss was 103 lbs.

It was notable to see this famous research reference cited:

“Prenatal exposure to famine during the Dutch hunger winter of 1944 is associated with obesity with less DNA methylation (“undermethylation”) of the imprinted insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) gene in exposed offspring relative to their unexposed siblings.”

It was also notable to see the reactions to this non-politically-correct finding. For one example, this news article was in full-fledged denial, stating:

“Nor do investigators know whether a father’s weight loss might have a similar impact. It’s also possible that epigenetic inheritance wasn’t at play.”

Other news coverage expressed the memes that:

  • Pregnant women can abuse anything and everything with impunity without any consequent damage to their fetus, and
  • There wasn’t the tiniest chance that the mother was involved in any of their child’s adverse outcomes. When the child’s diverted developmental and behavioral consequences manifested, political correctness would dictate that these arose out of some unknown factors.

http://www.pnas.org/content/110/28/11439.full “Differential methylation in glucoregulatory genes of offspring born before vs. after maternal gastrointestinal bypass surgery”

Improvements in tracking and predicting single cell epigenetic changes during embryonic development

gettingwell4 2-3 stars Required further work, Brain development, Epigenetics, Immune system

This 2014 Harvard rodent study demonstrated improvements in tracking and predicting how, during embryonic development, a cell’s environment epigenetically changed the cell’s genetic expression. The researchers stated applicability to human B-cell development in the immune system.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/52/E5643.full “Bifurcation analysis of single-cell gene expression data reveals epigenetic landscape”

Treating the father’s symptoms of an inherited disease can epigenetically treat the son

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Brain development, Epigenetics , , ,

This 2014 La Jolla rodent study showed that treating the symptoms of an inherited disease can, through epigenetic DNA methylation, positively treat the symptoms in the subjects’ offspring.

The disease studied was Huntington’s, which is the most common inherited neurodegenerative disease:

  • The treatment induced epigenetic changes in the expression of genes on the male Y chromosome.
  • The treated male subjects were bred, and their sperm carried both the Huntington’s disease and the epigenetic changes that reduced the symptoms.
  • The male offspring showed both delayed onsets of Huntington’s disease and reductions of specific symptoms when compared with both the treated subjects’ female offspring and the control group non-treated subjects’ male offspring.

Per the definitions in A review of epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of reproductive disease and Transgenerational effects of early environmental insults on aging and disease, for the term in the study’s title “transgenerational effects” to apply, the researchers needed to provide evidence in at least the next 2 male and/or 3 female generations of:

“Altered epigenetic information between generations in the absence of continued environmental exposure.”

The study instead provided evidence for intergenerational effects.

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/1/E56.full “HDAC inhibition imparts beneficial transgenerational effects in Huntington’s disease mice via altered DNA and histone methylation”

Activation of brainstem neurons induces REM sleep

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Acetylcholine, Brainstem, Lower brain, Neurochemicals

This 2014 MIT/Harvard rodent study provided evidence that specific brainstem neurons (cholinergic, or containing acetylcholine) regulated dream sleep.

The researchers used a more exact technique that selectively activated just one neuron. They made the neurons in this study sensitive to light using an algae protein that responded to a specific light frequency. Once expressed in the neuron, the protein activated the neuron when that specific frequency of light was shown onto it.

“Interestingly, both manipulations resulted in a change in the number of REM [rapid eye movement] sleep episodes and did not change REM sleep episode duration, suggesting that the PPT [pedunculopontine tegmentumis part of the brainstem] involved in REM sleep initiation but not REM sleep maintenance.”

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/2/584.full “Optogenetic activation of cholinergic neurons in the PPT or LDT induces REM sleep”

The brainstem nucleus locus coeruleus is the primary source of norepinephrine

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Brainstem, Cerebrum, Cortisol, Locus coeruleus, Lower brain, Neurochemicals

This 2014 rodent study provided further information on the locus coeruleus segment of the brainstem:

“The brainstem nucleus locus coeruleus is the primary source of norepinephrine to the mammalian neocortex.

Neurons in the locus coeruleus maintain segregated connections to brain regions with distinctly different functions. Specifically, cells that communicate with the prefrontal cortex, a region involved in cognition and executive function, are characterized by properties that allow for independent and asynchronous modulation of operations in this area, compared with those that project to the motor cortex and regulate movement generation.”

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6816.full “Heterogeneous organization of the locus coeruleus projections to prefrontal and motor cortices”

Problematic research: Is sleep deprivation a therapy for depression? Seriously?

gettingwell4 0-1 star Wasted resources, Limbic system

This 2013 Zurich study provided details of depression symptoms, particularly in limbic system structures.

As often happens when researchers are absorbed in studying symptoms, there was nothing about treating the causes, in this case, of depression.

Sleep deprivation as a viable therapy for enduring depression? Is that or drugs really all that science has to offer for depression?

http://www.pnas.org/content/110/48/19597.full “Sleep deprivation increases dorsal nexus connectivity to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in humans”

The thalamus’ role in coordinating REM sleep stages

gettingwell4 2-3 stars Required further work, Brainstem, Limbic system, Lower brain, Memory, Thalamus

This 2013 human study provided more details about dream sleep. The thalamus portion of the limbic system coordinates REM stages, which play critical roles in learning and memory.

This study also noted that science assigns no functions to dreams themselves, which was the first I’d heard of it.

http://www.pnas.org/content/110/25/10300.full “Rhythmic alternating patterns of brain activity distinguish rapid eye movement sleep from other states of consciousness”

Problematic research: Feigning naivety of the impact of prenatal, infancy and early childhood experiences

gettingwell4 < 0 Detracted from science, Brain development, Epigenetics, Hippocampus, Limbic system, Memory, Stress

What I found curious in this 2012 UK review of 82 studies was the reviewer’s reluctance to highly regard a human’s life before birth, during infancy, and in early childhood.

There was no lack in 2012 of animal studies to draw from to inferentially hypothesize how a human fetal environment causes the fetus to adapt with enduring epigenetic changes.

To take just one study that I won’t curate on this blog because it’s too old:

Weinstock M (2008) The long-term behavioural consequences of prenatal stress. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 32:1073–1086, “Stress, [to the pregnant mother] in rodents as well as nonhuman primates, produces behavioral abnormalities [in the pup], such as

  • an elevated and prolonged stress response,
  • impaired learning and memory,
  • deficits in attention,
  • altered exploratory behavior,
  • altered social and play behavior, and
  • an increased preference for alcohol.”

Yet the reviewer posed the question:

“There is a need to determine just what epigenetic changes do and do not account for. Put succinctly, do they explain individual differences in response to adversity and do they account for variations in health and behavior outcomes?”

I suspect that the cause of this feigned naivety was the political incorrectness of adequately placing importance in the human fetus’ experience of the development environment provided by their mother.

The PC view would have us pretend that there aren’t lasting adverse effects from human prenatal, infancy, and early childhood experiences.

The follow-on pretense to this PC view would be that later-life consequences aren’t effects, but are instead, mysteries due to “individual differences.”

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/Supplement_2/17149.full “Achievements and challenges in the biology of environmental effects”

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