In the pocket of Big Coffee?

Via ScienceDaily I became aware of this special supplement of Journal of Alzheimer's Disease

Therapeutic Opportunities for Caffeine in Alzheimer's Disease and Other Neurodegenerative Disorders

The special issue focuses only on the effects of caffeine on the brain, more specifically on caffeine's effect on Alzheimer and similar ailments.

What's interesting is that the issue, and the conference which lead to it, was funded by Associação Industrial e Comercial do Café - "Big Coffee" if you will. However, while the association has funded the conference and issue, they have not in any way tried to influence the research, and everyone has been entirely above board about the funding.

This is a very good way to deal with these things. Obviously, it is in the interest of the association to find any, especially positive, effects which caffeine might have, so it makes sense for them to fund this research. Yet, in order to reduce doubts about bias, everybody involved have been entirely open about the source of funding. Many other scientists and interest organizations could learn from this.

Pride as a virtue

NY Times has an article about the role of pride.

When All You Have Left Is Your Pride

"I have a new client, a laid-off lawyer, who’s commuting in every day — to his Starbucks,” said Robert C. Chope, a professor of counseling at San Francisco State University and president of the employment division of the American Counseling Association. “He gets dressed up, meets with colleagues, networks; he calls it his Western White House. I have encouraged him to keep his routine.”

The fine art of keeping up appearances may seem shallow and deceitful, the very embodiment of denial. But many psychologists beg to differ.

To the extent that it sustains good habits and reflects personal pride, they say, this kind of play-acting can be an extremely effective social strategy, especially in uncertain times.

The article goes on to explain how pride in yourself can lead to other people getting a better impression of you ("dominant but also likable").

I find the article quite interesting for several reasons.

The first reason is because it relates to myself. When I was younger, I was quite shy, and while I can still be somewhat shy in certain social settings, I doubt that anyone who works with me would consider me shy. The reason for this, is that I have a great deal of pride in my work and my abilities regarding it, and thus don't see any reason to hold back. This has helped me behave less shyly in other settings as well.

A second reason is that explains something about the dynamics around consultants. Successful consultants are not only good at their work, but they are also somewhat arrogant (prideful, if you prefer). This doesn't always go over well, but in most cases I've found that consultants get along pretty well, not only with each other (regardless of their company background), but also with their clients. The study regarding other peoples' perception could explains some of this.
Of course, consultants who show themselves to be less competent than expected, will often find themselves quite disliked. So pride is not enough, in the long run - there must also be some ability to back it up.

An end to racism?

No, I am not talking about the election of Obama, but about some new research that Wired reports on.

Researchers Try to Cure Racism

After being trained to distinguish between similar black male faces, Caucasian test subjects showed greater racial tolerance on a test designed to to measure unconscious bias.

The results are still preliminary, have yet to be replicated, and the real-world effects of reducing bias in a controlled laboratory setting are not clear. But for all those caveats, the findings add to a growing body of research suggesting that science can battle racism.

"Any time you can get people to treat people as individuals, you reduce the effect of stereotypes," said Brown University cognitive scientist Michael Tarr. "It won't solve racism, but it could have profound real-world effects."

I doubt it really surprises my readers that familiarity makes people less like to stereotype. It's the hurdle to get people to familiarize themselves with the people they stereotype that's hard to cross.

Sadly, no matter what the research shows, there is still a very long way to go before we see an end to racism. If there was any doubt of that, a quick look at the comments to the Wired article should make that clear.

Social anxiety among macaques (and humans?) explained

ScienceDaily reports this interesting story

Genetic Variation Cues Social Anxiety In Monkeys And Humans

A genetic variation involving the brain chemical serotonin has been found to shape the social behavior of rhesus macaque monkeys, which could provide researchers with a new model for studying autism, social anxiety and schizophrenia. Humans and macaques are the only members of the primate family to have this particular genetic trait.

The original study was published in PLoS One

Serotonin Transporter Genotype Modulates Social Reward and Punishment in Rhesus Macaques

Background

Serotonin signaling influences social behavior in both human and nonhuman primates. In humans, variation upstream of the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) has recently been shown to influence both behavioral measures of social anxiety and amygdala response to social threats. Here we show that length polymorphisms in 5-HTTLPR predict social reward and punishment in rhesus macaques, a species in which 5-HTTLPR variation is analogous to that of humans.

Methodology/Principal Findings

In contrast to monkeys with two copies of the long allele (L/L), monkeys with one copy of the short allele of this gene (S/L) spent less time gazing at face than non-face images, less time looking in the eye region of faces, and had larger pupil diameters when gazing at photos of a high versus low status male macaques. Moreover, in a novel primed gambling task, presentation of photos of high status male macaques promoted risk-aversion in S/L monkeys but promoted risk-seeking in L/L monkeys. Finally, as measured by a “pay-per-view” task, S/L monkeys required juice payment to view photos of high status males, whereas L/L monkeys sacrificed fluid to see the same photos.

Conclusions/Significance

These data indicate that genetic variation in serotonin function contributes to social reward and punishment in rhesus macaques, and thus shapes social behavior in humans and rhesus macaques alike.

Since there are so big similarities between humans and macaques in this regard, they probably serve as a good animal model for human behavior, which makes this finding very interesting indeed.

One interesting thing about this, is that there are quite different frequencies of the different genetic variation among different human populations, which could help explaining different social behavior in different cultures.

Aggressive people might get pleasure from the pain of others

ScienceDaily reports on a new study that indicates that aggressive youth get a kick out of seeing other people in pain.

Bullies May Enjoy Seeing Others In Pain

Scans of the aggressive youth's brains showed that an area that is associated with rewards was highlighted when the youth watched a video clip of someone inflicting pain on another person. Youth without the unusually aggressive behavior did not have that response, the study showed.

The youth were picked because they had a record of aggressive behavior, while the control group didn't have such records.

The study is interesting because it indicates that aggressive people don't just lack empathy, they actually enjoy seeing other people in pain. In other words, they are sadists (though not necessarily with the sexual connotations that word sometimes contains).

There is more about the study at the website of the University of Chicago, which also links to a pdf version of the paper which is published in Biological Psychology.

So, what does this mean? Well, I guess it will be easier to determine whether aggressive behavior by someone is an one-time occurrence, or it might be symptoms of a general tendency towards aggression. In the later case, it might be important to work with the aggressive person, so they can try to behave in a socially acceptable manner. It cannot be stressed enough that just because someone get pleasure from something, it doesn't mean that they cannot avoid doing that thing. So, in other words, this knowledge must never become a tool for judging people, though it could perhaps be used as migrating circumstances in first-time juvenile cases.

BBC also writes of the study, and they bring up an important point.

Dr Michael Eslea, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Central Lancashire said the research was interesting but needed to be repeated in a larger sample.

"A better understanding of the biological basis of these things is good to have but the danger is it causes people to leap to biological solutions - drugs - rather than other behavioural solutions."

Yes, just going for drugs is not a good long-term solution, but in some cases it could perhaps be a short-term solution.

When do people start learning from their mistakes?

Well, for some people, the answer to that question would be never, but generally it happens when children grow older. The question is of course, how old?

According to a new study, the answer to that question is after they've turned 12.

ScienceDaily reports the story.

Learning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12, Study Suggests

Eight-year-old children have a radically different learning strategy from twelve-year-olds and adults. Eight-year-olds learn primarily from positive feedback ('Well done!'), whereas negative feedback ('Got it wrong this time') scarcely causes any alarm bells to ring. Twelve-year-olds are better able to process negative feedback, and use it to learn from their mistakes. Adults do the same, but more efficiently.

This would indicate that different teaching strategies are needed for different age-groups. Pre-teens should be taught through positive feedback, while teens and older should also have negative feedback mixed in.

The ScienceDaily article goes into more details, and is well worth reading. The original study by van Duijvenvoorde et al., Evaluating the Negative or Valuing the Positive? Neural Mechanisms Supporting Feedback-Based Learning across Development, can be found here at The Journal of Neuroscience, but is unfortunately behind a paywall.

I think this will be great news for people working under deadlines

Via ScienceDaily, I see that researchers reverse effects of sleep deprivation

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have shown that the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance can be reversed when the naturally occurring brain peptide, orexin-A, is administered in monkeys.

This is a very interesting finding, since earlier research has shown that it's possible to reach a state where it's no longer possible to catch up on sleep when sleep deprived. See Youngsoo Kim et al (link takes you to the abstract, but if you click on the pdf link in the right side, you can get to the full article).

This is obviously more Coturnix's field of expertise, but I would guess that it will need more research into the long term harmful effects of 'catching up' with this peptide has been investigated. It might be that it's 'cost free' so to speak, but before used on humans, we have to be certain about this (or at least know the costs).

The research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience, and the abstract can be found here. The full article is unfortunately hidden behind a pay wall.

Seems like exercise can be good for the brain

The always interesting Abel Pharmboy from Terra Sigillata, brings our attention to some research on the effect of binge-drinking on the brain: Binge-drinking, brain damage, and potential reversal by exercise

The fact that alcohol intake can affect your brain badly is hardly news, but the idea that exercise might reverse this effect, is quite interesting. So far it has only been demonstrated on rats, but it seems to me that it's another good reason to get some more exercise.

Why don't people learn from their mistakes?

Newsweek has an interesting piece by Wray Herbert, who has the blog We're Only Human ...

Oops, I Did It Again

Benjamin Franklin was no brain scientist. He was a keen observer of human behavior, and of the natural world, but he was a couple centuries too early to explore the intricate neuronal interplay of physics and biochemistry that makes us the people we are: healthy, wise, quirky, self-destructive. So, when he famously defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results," this 18th-century polymath was really being more intuitive than rigorously scientific.

Yet it looks like he got it right. New neuropsychological research is now suggesting that the inability to learn from one's mistakes may indeed be at the root of a broad range of human problems, ranging from childhood bullying and truancy to aggressive acts like road rage to all manner of substance abuse. And this cognitive aberration, deep-wired into the neurons and genes, may even underlie the vagaries of normal human behavior and personality. (It's important in the wake of the tragic events at Virginia Tech to emphasize that this column is not about such deeply disturbed psychology.)

I'm glad that he pointed out that inability to learn from mistakes are only related to milder types of problems, and not the stronger type of problems with causes the headlines in the newspapers.

Now, for the background for the research.

The research starts with electricity, appropriately enough. A while back, psychologists discovered a new and very faint electrical signal coming from the brain, specifically from a region of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex. This particular conglomeration of neurons is important, because it appears to light up when we are faced with especially demanding mental tasks. Moreover, the recently discovered brain signal appears to peak just milliseconds after we have made a mistake, suggesting that in the normal brain it plays a role in anticipating, spotting and correcting errors. In other words, it's the neurological engine that let us learn from our mistakes.

Psychologists call this electrical pulse ERN, for "error related negativity," but the neurological jargon is not all that important. What's important is that an abnormal pulsation may be the neurobiological underpinning for a serious cognitive deficit, which in turn may lead to a host of pathologies related to lack of impulse control.

I wasn't aware of this feature in our brain, but that's hardly surprising, since I don't follow neuro-science that closely.

The study that Herbert is writing about, found that people who showed signs of having the highest impulsivity and antisocial behavior, had the least activity in the ERN.

I always find it great when newsmagazines like Newsweek brings a good article about science, that actually explains the theory and thinking behind it.

Brains....

PLoS Biology has two essays about recent brain research, which I thought might be of interest to people.

The Genetics of Brain Wiring: From Molecule to Mind

What makes some people neurotic or schizophrenic or right-handed or fearless? Are these behavioural differences caused by literal differences in how individuals' brains are wired? If so, what causes those differences? This age-old question of nature versus nurture can be recast in more realistic terms based on our modern understanding of genetics, development, and neuroscience. The challenge in this area is to understand how genotype is mapped to phenotype, not just in terms of the average effects of single genes across populations but also in terms of their combined effects in shaping the phenotypes of individuals.

There is compelling evidence that many psychiatric disorders have their origins in disturbed neurodevelopment, resulting in altered connectivity [1,2]. Similarly, many behavioural or cognitive traits are both heritable, at least moderately [3], and correlated with functional connectivity differences in various circuits [2]. The study of the genetics of behavioural or psychiatric traits may thus be directly informed by an understanding of the genetic architecture of the developmental processes underlying brain wiring. This essay presents a systems-level overview of these processes, highlighting several important properties that can have large effects on how genotype is mapped to phenotype: epistasis (meaning non-additive gene–gene interactions in this context), compensation, and stochastic developmental variation.

I don't like the "nature vs. nurture", since it seems more likely that it's "nature and nurture" in most cases. Yet obviously mental disorders are more nature than nurture in most cases. So, to understand mental disorders, it's important to understand how the brain works, and how it gets developed. The synopsis explains what work has been done in that field, and what results have been found.

To be honest, it's not the easiest PLoS Biology essay I've come across.

The other essay is dealing with a similar subject.

Law, Responsibility, and the Brain

Archaeological discoveries of traumatic injuries in primitive hominid skulls strongly hint that our species has a long history of violence [1]. Despite repeated attempts throughout history, including efforts to eliminate violence through the imposition of criminal sanctions, we have yet to dispel our violent nature. Consequently, criminal violence remains a common feature of most societies. As policy-makers seek deeper understandings of criminally violent and anti-social behaviour, many contemporary neuroscientists assume that the essential ingredients of the human condition, including free will, empathy, and morality, are the calculable consequences of an immense assembly of neurons firing. Intuitively, this view opposes Cartesian dualism (i.e., the brain and mind are separate, but interacting, entities) and assumes that violence and antisocial behaviour emanate from a mechanistically determined brain

From this standpoint, the exciting discoveries of neuroscience resonate far beyond mere philosophical banter and may have important implications for the way government institutions, including education and legal systems, operate. For example, to the extent that legal systems attempt both to move behaviour in socially desirable directions and also to adjudicate transgressions fairly, the legal system's effectiveness can be improved by deepening our understandings about why people behave as they do and both how and why people respond to various changes in legal incentives. Specifically, neuroscience may have important implications for both how we understand the multiple influences on violent behaviour and how the legal system may better engage with violent criminals.

The essay is basicly about how our deepening understanding of how the brain works might effect our legal processes, though science cannot stand alone in our process to understand how criminals act and think.

They have some concluding remarks

The goals of science and of law are different. However, important legal questions such as moral blameworthiness, culpability, responsibility, and the likelihood of recidivism depend to some degree on improved understandings of human behaviour. Therefore, biological advances in understanding human brain architecture and function may overlap in important ways with legal inquiries. New studies of the criminal brain are likely to shape moral views on responsibility and free will, with possible impacts on how legal systems punish and treat criminals [60].

A growing body of research gives us good reason to believe that some kinds of brain dysfunction can affect the probability of different kinds of criminal behaviours. However, despite our growing knowledge of the brain abnormalities associated with anti-social and psychopathic behaviour, there are as yet no concrete biological markers—genetic or physiological—that can predict such behaviours. Violent and anti-social behaviours undoubtedly arise from a symphony of factors. Optimal understanding will require cooperation among many disciplines such as economics, sociology, psychology, evolutionary biology, cellular physiology, and neuroscience

I think it cannot be emphasised enough that we cannot predict criminal behaviours through science - and it is always debatable if we should try to do so, from a standpoint of free will (a concept that the article also addresses) and presumption of innocence.