Is Mind Reading in Our Future?

If you are anything like me, you love binging True Crime dramas after a long, stressful day. However, sometimes these detective shows spark a little uneasiness in me, because putting the "perp" away all too often relies on eye-witness accounts of the crime. It's common knowledge that eye-witness accounts are unreliable, but no other options have been available, until now. Dan Nemrodov, of the University of Toronto-Scarborough, has developed a technique to reconstruct images of mental perceptions of faces using EEG.

EEG, also known as electroencephalography, uses surface electrodes to monitor the firing activity of millions of neurons in a predetermined brain region. In this study, subjects' EEG recordings were measured as they were shown images of faces; these recordings were then used to digitally reconstitute the mental image in the subjects' brains using an algorithm. This is possible because when we see an image, "our brains creates a mental percept, which is essentially a mental impression of that thing," explains Nemrodov. EEG was used to capture the mental percept and recreate a representation of how the image was processed in the brain. 

Nemrodov has also been able to use fMRI to achieve the same purpose. fMRI indirectly measures brain activity by tracking oxygen movement in the bloodstream. When an area of the brain is activated in response to the visual stimulus, oxygen is dumped into that region, which is registered by the fMRI machine; this analysis utilizes the BOLD (Blood Oxygen Level Dependent) Effect. Although fMRI has exceptional spatial resolution, temporal resolution is key in recreating mental images. Therefore, EEG's superior temporal resolution makes it the neuroimaging technique of choice for reconstruction studies. 

Implications of this study are immense. In addition to replacing eye-witness accounts, the ability to map mental representations of visual stimuli and recreate the images also has a wide range of clinical applications. This technique could be used in assisting mute individuals to communicate, and potentially provide an accurate neuronal representation of other brain processes, such as memory and imagination. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180222145037.htm 

https://www.epilepsy.com/learn/professionals/diagnosis-treatment/basic-science-eeg

By: Sarah Darnell

The Future of Sight

The Future of Sight

By: Olajumoke Bamgbose

Usually when looking at neuroscience, the idea that once the nerve has been damaged the nerve is no longer able to function has been the main narrative. Since we know that mature neurons do not divide, it makes sense that once a nerve is damaged it’s usually no longer functioning. This common principle, naturally, also applies to sight. One of the main players in the game of sight is the optic nerve. It has been accepted that optic nerve damage usually leads to blindness, which can sadly be a later symptom in glaucoma.

The good news is that the more a topic is research the more information is learned. In class, we discussed lesion studies and how this technique can aid in the advancement of knowledge. A recent study published in Nature Neuroscience has recently used the practice of killing cells in particular area of the brain, this technique allowed them to successfully regenerate the nerve that was killed. This is an example of why dissociative techniques are used in labs, they not only give insight on the function of particular parts of the brain but it can also be used to manipulate cells and try new things with them.

This study was successfully able to regenerate the sight of mice with damaged optic nerve. Neurobiology professor, Andrew Huberman and his team at Stanford University crushed the optic nerve in one of the eyes of a few mice. Since the optic nerve was crushed, the mice were no longer able to see but through the use of nerve growing chemicals and nerve visual stimulation the scientist were able to restore sight in the mice. The chemicals and stimulation of the optic nerve functioned to salvage the axons of the cell and allow them to stretch and return back to the location of their original connection. The chemicals and stimulations used on the nerve made it able to grow and connect back to the correct site was sufficient to restore vision. This discovery led to insight on regenerating neurons and now further test are being planned in hopes of one day using a similar therapy in humans with damaged optic nerves, specifically glaucoma.

http://time.com/4399255/mice-blindness-cure/

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2016/07/first-ever-restoration-of-vision-achieved-in-mice.html

How stress affects the family

Stress is something that everyone is all to familiar with.  It can be caused by all sorts of things and you should count yourself lucky if you can go one day without.  One of the more susceptible groups to stress would be families, particularly families with young children.   Parents have to deal with countless stress-causing things throughout the day.  Work, bills, sickness, and childcare are some of the more common causes of stress which parents might come across.  To add on top of all of that, managing one's time between all their various responsibilities can add even more stress.

In families in which both parents work, finding the time to deal with everything and spend time with the children is difficult.  In fact, for full-time working parents, 39% of mothers and 50% of fathers believe that they do not spend enough time with their children.  (Miller 2)  You might believe that this is another cause for concern and yet another source of stress for the parents and the children, but a little time apart might actually be beneficial for children in terms of dealing with stress.

In a study that observed children at 4 years old and then again as teens, it was found that children who had less parent interaction actually experienced less stress.  The study tested cortisol levels in saliva when the subject was presented with a stressor.  Subjects who had a high amount of parent interaction had higher cortisol levels than those who had a lower amount of parent interaction.  (Hackman 6)

This could be due to the children with less parental interaction experiencing more stress throughout their early lives and thus are more accustomed to the experience to the point at which it has become "blunted" as the study puts it.  Having said that, should parents still be concerned about spending too little time with their children?  One could suggest that these children will be more prepared for adult life because they will experience less stress.  Maybe that small sacrifice of spending less time with your children will pay off in more than just money.

Works Cited

Hackman, Daniel A., Laura M. Betancourt, Nancy L. Brodsky, Lara Kobrin, Hallam Hurt, and Martha J. Farah. "Selective Impact of Early Parental Responsivity on Adolescent Stress Reactivity." PLoS ONE 8.3 (2013): n. pag. Web. 9 Dec. 2015.

Miller, Claire Cain. "Stressed, Tired, Rushed: A Portrait of the Modern Family." The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Nov. 2015. Web. 09 Dec. 2015.

Lazy individuals aren't putting in the effort but their brains are!

Lazy individuals aren't putting in the effort but their brains are!
By Eva Rusnak

Should I get out of bed and trudge through the snow to get to my 8 am class or should I just sleep in? Perhaps this question sounds all too familiar to you. Or maybe you’re the type of person that is up early in the morning trying to fit that seven mile run in before class.  It’s okay. Thats not me either.

 We all know friends that are either highly motivated and those that who may operate with very little motivation, interest, or concern.  Turns out while it may seem “lazy” individuals aren’t putting in the effort, their brains are.

In a recent 2015 study published in the Oxford Journal, a group of scientists at  University of Oxford studied the brains of young healthy individuals to better understand pathological apathy. Masud Husain, Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford, explained that more extreme apathy is often experienced by people with Alzhiemers or Dementia. These individuals tend to show a lack of interest, poor initiation, and low social engagement over time as their brains experience physical change. He and his team  hoped to gain some new insight into apathy by comparing MRI scans of healthy individuals and their differing levels of apathy.

In his study, participants were observed under an MRI machine as they played a game. Researchers made several offers to participants that differed in physical effort required by the participant and reward obtained. Apathetic participants were characterized as less likely to accept offers that required more effort while motivated participants took these offers.

 Much to their surprise, it turns out that the brains of healthy apathetic people exhibited more effort than motivated participants. The MRI scans showed that more apathetic individuals had more activity in the pre-motor cortex.  As we discussed in class, this is region lies anterior to the primary motor cortex and plays a major role in planning movement.  The secondary motor area has a strong reciprocal connection with the parietal lobe which integrates our sensory information.

 Dr. Husain expected that apathetic individuals would actually show less activity because they were less likely to choose effortful tasks. He and his team of researchers believe that apathetic individuals showed more activity in this region because their brains were less efficient in turning decision into action. Apathetic individuals had to exhibit more energy because their brain structure is not as efficient.

More apathetic people require more energy in planning actions, and therefore it is more “costly” to complete that action. Understanding mild apathy in healthy individuals can help find ways to treat more extreme apathy and lack of interest in pathological cases. In the meantime, maybe you can use this as an excuse the next time your roommate asks why you still haven't washed your dishes.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-11-13-brain-structure-may-be-root-apathy-1

Is Obesity Tied with Memory Loss?

By: Lauren Rozanski

 According to the article “Rise in Weight Linked to Cognitive Decline in Older Adults” by Traci Watson; being over weight may be tied to the shrinking of the hippocampus. There was a study done that observed people in their 60s and followed them throughout their life. Among these participants, there were both people of a healthy weight and those that would be considered to be obese. What they discovered was that in the hippocampus in the obese participants was shrinking by two percent each year. Healthy weight participant’s hippocampus also shrank every year, but only half as much as the obese participants. 

 
       This is important because the hippocampus is known to be associated with memory, especially long-term memory. To give a better idea, the rate in which the obese participants’ hippocampus is shrinking is very similar to the are of those with Alzheimer’s disease. In the beginning of the study 400 people in their sixty’s had their brain looked at using an MRI machine. Even in the beginning of the study it was already apparent that obese participants even had smaller hippocampus’ than those who were considered somewhat overweight. 

      This is something that needs to be looked at and taken very seriously  in the United Stated considering how many obese people we have in our population. Its scary to think that about one third of Americans are obese, if not more. Exercising and taking care of this problem would have so many health benefits. It would not only help with the many known diseases that we know are tied with obesity, but would even help keep a person’s brain very healthy and active as well. If we were to address this obesity problem at a young age, the benefits that it would have on a person's life would be endless.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141118-obesity-brain-memory-alzheimers-aging-health-science-ngfood/

A Student's Guide to Immortality

Over the history of our species, humans have desired to be remembered. Going back to ancient Greece, wealthy rulers would pay bards, or singers, to tell tales about their life story in hopes of being remembered. As religions changed, and literacy increased, the desire to be remembered changed. Today, an example of human's desire to be remembered is the gravestone. As bard singing became obsolete with writing, so may gravestones become obsolete with brain mapping. 

Amy Harmon's article, "The Neuroscience of Immortality" in The New York Times, talks about the possibility of immortality through brain mapping and other means. The thought of preserving our brains immediately makes me think of the jars of floating, living heads in the popular television show Futurama. I do believe near-immortality is in our future (barring no environmental-caused extinction), but I hope the methods of preservation are less barbaric than the proposal made by Futurama. 

Harmon boils immortality down to a few key goals: preservation of the brain through plastic resin or cold temperatures, scan synapses, trace the connections, interpret, make a simulation, and finally connect all this to a virtual or robotic body. Only six steps? Wow, this does not sound too difficult! In reality, this feat is extremely tough. Regarding interpretation, Harmon says, "Imagine looking at the wiring diagram of a radio with no means to power it on, except that instead of a radio it's the most complicated machine ever invented." Harmon also elaborates that at Harvard, it took scientists thousands of hours to compile images of a small portion of a mouse's brain. Along with taking too much time, a major setback of immortality will be our ability to create a working model based off images and knowledge of the brain. 

By my own biased and illogical reasoning alone, I would speculate that if we can develop the technology to image a brain, we should have the capacity to, eventually, be able to interpret interconnectivity and make a working model to use for our preservation.

Many techniques that are used in steps towards immortality have relevance in our class. Mapping the connectivity of the brain, down to its very last synapse is very representative of David Marr's hardware level of analysis. To understand this would open up doors to learning how information is organized and operated on using interconnectivity. Furthermore, this understanding could lead to more fully analyzing the brain on a computational level (i.e., the goal or guiding principles of certain behaviors).

Lastly, I think it will be very interesting to see what, if any, virtual life dominates humanity. Will we choose to place ourselves in an Oculus Rift-like virtual reality? Or will we be able to preserve our brains within a virtual body?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/03/us/13immortality-explainer.html 

You No Longer Have to be Young to be Hyperactive

Old age tends to be linked with dementia and Alzheimer’s.  Grandma not being able to remember the conversation she just had ten minutes ago is brushed off as a “perk” of getting older.  The fact that she cannot keep focus while trying to finish a task is acceptable because that’s what we have been told happens when someone gets older, but what if there was another cause to her lack of attention?  There have been many cases of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (A.D.H.D.) in children, but what if I told you there are cases of A.D.H.D. in adults?

According to the article in the New York Times, Is It Old Age or A.D.H.D.?, by Judith Berck doctors have been diagnosing more and more elderly people with A.D.H.D. Within the article we take a look at a 73-year-old widowed patient of Dr. David Goodman, an assistant professor in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.  This woman was often losing her pocketbook and keys and had trouble remembering a conversation minutes after it took place.  Upon reading this I was solely taking her age into consideration and writing it off as dementia or memory loss due to getting older, but Dr. Goodman had a different idea.

The article stated that the doctor had taken her past into consideration when diagnosing her. Apparently she had never had a good attention span, and would usually have to sit in the front of the class because of it.  Through this information the doctor concluded that she had adult A.D.H.D. and he prescribed Vyvanse to her. Within weeks she had a better attention span and finished things that she started. 

This was so fascinating to me.  I was always taught that attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were disorders prevalent in childhood.  Even in my neuroscience class we went over the fact that A.D.H.D. is a childhood disorder full of impulsivity, hyperactivity, and motor impersistence.  I never really saw this as a disorder in adulthood, but now this article has opened my mind to a new way of thinking.  According to Berck’s article doctors are not well trained on the disorder so adult cases get overlooked.  Grandma and grandpa may not be succumbing to the terrors of old age they may just be dealing with an undiagnosed disorder.  This would open up a whole new world for these adults.  Imagine being able to live your life in an entirely different way than how you have been living it for the last 73 years.  It would be amazing to be able to get these people the proper medications in order to aid in their attention disorders. 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/28/is-it-alzheimers-or-a-d-h-d/