Money Can Buy Off Stress

They say money can’t buy happiness, but is that really the case? While I believe that money itself cannot directly buy happiness, it can buy things that bring happiness. Money (for an average American) is a need in life to pay for our basic everyday necessities and a lot of times even more. Monetary affluence opens up many doors or opportunities leading to happiness.  People argue that although money does buy happiness, it is only limited and temporary. However a recent article from e science news shows how money can help children deal with stress more effectively and therefore reducing the chances of developing of any impairments in their cognitive ability.

The article from e science news talks about two important factors influencing children’s cognitive development.  One is financial stability of the family, the other factor was the focus of a research study we heard from one of the lectures at the neuroscience seminar, which was parental responsivity. The study at University of Rochester consisted of 201 low-income mother-child pairs. They observed the level of cortisol, a hormone related to stress, at ages 2, 3 and 4 while testing for their cognitive ability. It was discovered that these children had abnormal levels of cortisol in their bodies, either too high or too low. While researches do not know exactly how cortisol activity affects the brain’s cognitive ability, many studies like the one presented in the seminar has shown relationships of abnormal cortisol levels and damaging affects on function of brain. They offered their own opinion believing that too high levels of cortisol has toxic effects on the brain and too low levels weakens the brains ability for optimal cognitive function and development.

Finance was not the only instability factor they talked about that affected the production of the stress hormone and hence the cognitive development of the child. They also mentioned having “emotionally distant caregivers” also increases the risk. This reminded me of the study done by Dr. Daniel Hackman on parental responsivity effect on how their children deal with stress and cognitive development. His research found that lower levels of parental responsivity during early childhood was connected to abnormal cortisol reactivity.  Dr. Hackman was able to make the connection between the irregular levels of cortisol and the deprived psychosocial outcome of the children. The children were more susceptible of developing impaired cognitive abilities.

The article from e science news explains how prevention programs are being establish that help these unprivileged kids and strengthens the relationship between their parents. I thought this was a clever idea and effective. If we can start making a difference at a very crucial part of the child’s development, we can surely see positive outcomes.

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.

"Stress in Low-income Families Can Affect Children's learning." Stress in Low-income Families Can Affect Children's Learning. N.p., 19 June 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

Stress And Development

Everyday millions of Americans fight their own internal battles. From job insecurity, to healthcare, most of the stress that arises in Americans caused by money related complications. Stress relates to a myriad of health problems like high blood pressure, sleepless nights, chest pain, and much more.  What is even more shocking is that now scientists have discovered that stress can hinder the livelihood of children.

An article from USNews titled Early Childhood Poverty Damages Brain Development, Study Finds states that poverty may be the cause to many developmental issues regarding mental and social development. Researchers studied 145 children ranging from six to twelve years of age. They studied this cohort since their preschool days and found that “poverty also appears to alter the physical makeup of a child’s brain”. They found that children exposed to poverty from a young age had “smaller volumes of white and cortical gray matter” other parts of their brains were different as well. This is rather alarming as it shows that brain development is affected by an external matter. From this finding they concluded that attention and nurture are even more of importance to compensate the effects of poverty. In fact, poverty can be the cause of not only low test scores at schools but also mental disorders. The article focuses on the momentous value of nurturing and caring for one’s child and says that the lack of care is just as toxic as drugs and alcohol. This is a powerful sentiment as it really drives home the message throughout the article.

In class we had the opportunity to hear Dr. Daniel A. Hackman speak about his research. Hackman and his team conducted a study where they used animals to test early life experiences. Their goal was to figure out if there was a correlation between parental behaviors and “influences [in] later-life stress.” In Dr. Hackman’s lecture, he stated that children who are exposed to poverty early on are more susceptible to experience learning and cognitive delays. Through his findings, he drew a connection between cortisol levels in a child and their exposure to poverty. Cortisol is a hormone that maintains homeostasis and it is associated with stress. Cortisol plays an integral role in blood sugar, blood pressure, heart contraction, and other immune responses. It is secreted into the bloodstream in higher dosages when the body is experiencing a stress trigger. Dr. Heckman stated that “socioeconomic position predicts a lot of outcomes. Even in childhood you can predict a child’s health years from now.” This is a startling discovery as it shows that the early years of development are the most crucial. He went on to explain how SEP patterns the access that children and adults have to life opportunities and when trying to “impact the mechanisms it is rather complex and cumulative”. This means that since more than one aspect is involved in socioeconomic determinants, it is a challenge to try and pinpoint the perpetrator.  Offering love and protection for a child is extremely important but when parents are stricken with poverty they are distracted. He said that because there are so many stressed like money and food that parents are not able to provide adequate attention to their children

The article and Dr. Heckman’s talk both stress (no pun intended here) the impact of socioeconomic factors on brain development of children. This topic on early development and stress is intriguing as it shows the negative side to stress. These studies focus on stress in extreme situations. Poverty is something that a child or even the parents cannot necessarily overcome since it is dependent on a multitude of factors. It is important to note that not all stress is bad, however. In my opinion adolescents who are faced with manageable stresses are more inclined to handle what life throws at them in a positive manner. In life there is hardship after hardship and those obstacles help shape teens and young adults as manageable stress leads to more well-rounded individuals.

: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.

"Early Childhood Poverty Damages Brain Development, Study Finds." US News. U.S.News & World Report, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

Emotions Make the World Go Round

Emotions are a very powerful thing. They are what make us humans human. They capture our mood, feelings, and current state of mind. Imagine a world without joy, love, or even sadness. Without emotions our humanity would be lost. We're not robots, we need emotions! Usually a person shows emotion to show others how they feel in that moment. Laughing or crying are both normal emotional responses. But there are individuals that have very little to no control of these  responses. Looking at the seminar given by Dr. Koenigs, he spoke about how patients with damage to their ventralmedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) directly effects amygdala actitvity. Hypoactivity of the vmPFC leads to an inhibited activity of the amygdala and results in higher levels of abnormal emotional responses. It is observed that these patients showed potentiated amygdala responses to negative images and had elevated resting-state amygdala functional connectivity. The amygdala can be described as your brain's emotional control center. If you've ever seen the Pixar film Inside Out, it's a good example of how you could envision your amygdala. So if these patients have an elevated emotional state, they will have much more elaborate displays of emotion. This can lead to mood swings, anxiety, and other emotional disorders. Furthermore, in my article it discussed how there is a particular modification in the gene ADRA2b that is also involved in this process. This gene regulates how we encounter and respond to certain situations. What if these individuals respond to different situations the way they do because they see things much differently than the average person? In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers have found a that this certain modification in the gene ADRA2b relates to perceptual vividness. Not only does the individual have more concise recall of an experience, researchers discovered that they literally see things more clearly and vividly. Different themed pictures were shown to the subjects and their neurological activity was measured. Emotionally enhancing pictures such as desserts, pets, and erotica were ranked categorically as vivid and others were ranked as neutral. Participants who had this gene modification showed much more visual enhancements for this imagery. It was found that these participants had a deletion in the ADRA2b gene, which correlated to higher activity in the vmPFC. The reason being that individuals with this deletion lack some receptors to the neurotransmitter norepinephrine and therefore have a different exposure to it. This in turn leads to an enhanced perception and vividness of certains events or experiences, therefore leading to an extreme emotional response. This could be especially true for someone who has undergone a traumatic experience. People in the military for example, have trouble returning home and living a normal life because they have developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These individuals vividly remember whatever tragedy they have undergone. Often times if they encounter a stimulus that sparks their recall of the event, such as hearing a loud noise or seeing a violent movie, they will have an abnormal emotional response. This may be due to their vmPFC activity which is linked to elevated amygdala activity, therefore inducing this emotional response. It's fascinating to me how such a small part of your brain has so much control over you.

Works Cited

Locwin, B. (2015, November 20). How vividly do you see and feel the world? It's in your genes. Retrieved December 10, 2015, from http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/11/20/how-vividly-do-you-see-and-feel-the-world-its-in-your-genes/

Motzkin, J., Philippi, C., Wolf, R., Baskaya, M., & Koenigs, M. (n.d.). Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Is Critical for the Regulation of Amygdala Activity in Humans. Biological Psychiatry, 276-284. 

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex and Its Role in PTSD

According to the Nebraska Department of Veteran's Affair, approximately 30% of those who serve in the military will experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Not only that, those with PTSD tend to have anxiety, are more likely to exhibit substance abuse, more likely to be less social, and more likely to have stress which causes depression and results in a higher risk of suicide. It is a debilitating mental illness that encompasses many emotional aspects, but the most prominent of them all is fear. Fear is important, in an evolutionary aspect, because it stresses our body to heighten our senses and causes changes to it so it can respond by running or fighting. However, fear only comes when our life is in danger or when we are experiencing a traumatic event. With PTSD, it seems that the fear and stress stays when there is no danger or trauma.

The brain anatomy of those with PTSD differ from normal healthy people, especially in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), amygdala, and hippocampus. Those with PTSD have a smaller hippocampus (link in distinguishing past and present memories), smaller vm(PFC) (responsible for regulating negative emotions in the amygdala), and a hyperactivity in the amygdala (responsible for emotions). With PTSD, the changes in the vmPFC, which may be caused by chemical changes due to stress, causes a failure in extinction of fear. A study by Koenings and his colleagues has shown that the vmPFC is indeed associated with inhibition of the amygdala illustrating that when examining individuals with vmPFC damage and their resulting anxiety and other negative affect.

A recent study has been published by researchers in Uppsala University are postulating how serotonin and substance P. may be involved in PTSD that cause these changes in the brain. According to them, their study “shows that it is the imbalance between the two signaling systems which determines the severity of the symptoms suffered by the individual […] Others have previously speculated that the biological basis of psychiatric disorders such as PTSD includes a shift in the balance between different signaling systems in the brain but none have yet proved it.” Though there is no cure, PTSD can be treated to help diminish the effect of PTSD through psychotherapy and certain drugs.

Sources

Motzkin, Julian c., Carissa L. Philippi, Richard C. Wolf, Mustafa K. Baskaya, and Michael Koenigs. Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Is Critical for the Regulation of Amygdala Activity in Humans. Rep. N.p.: Biological Psychiatry, 2015. Print.

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." NIMH RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

Uppsala University. "Posttraumatic stress disorder reveals an imbalance between signalling systems in the brain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 December 2015.

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http://cannabisnowmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/coping-with-cannabis-ptsd.jpg

Psychopathy and Anxiety: A Shockingly Similar Connection in the Brain

Picture a person with social anxiety, perhaps struggling to introduce themselves to a new group or having a panic attack in a crowd, worrying about what everyone thinks and how everyone feels about him or her. Now, picture a psychopath - someone who could kill with little to no empathy or guilt regarding their act of murder.

Though these people seem like emotional opposites, their brains show one similarity: the amygdala, a center for emotional response to stimuli, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (or vmPFC), which processes negative emotions' effects on mood and anxiety, have less functional connectivity than a person without anxiety or mood disorders. The research behind this, such as Dr. Koenigs', note that the connection between centers like the amygdala and the vmPFC are bidirectional, which likely explains why this connection is similarly impaired - though an anxious person may have a more functional amygdala than a psychopath, the connection to the emotional processing centers (such as the vmPFC) may be similarly impaired in both individuals.

Dr. Koenigs has done research on the connection between the amygdala and the vmPFC by doing MRIs on many prisoners categorized as psychopathic through a psychological exam and interviewing veterans who had experienced injuries to their vmPFC. The veterans who had injuries to their vmPFC had lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as compared to veterans who had not sustained injuries to this part of their brains, which was parallel to psychopaths who show low levels of PTSD due to a reduced connection to their vmPFCs.

To examine the brain and psychopathy, the New York Times examined callous-unemotional (CU) children and concluded that because of lower levels of cortisol and decreased function in the amygdala, even children as young as nine years of age could be categorized as psychopaths, because psychopathy originates in the brain. The children showed behaviors such as impulsivity, aggression, manipulativeness and defiance, all characteristics that point to impaired vmPFC and amygdala connection. The amygdala also produces emotions such as fear and shame, which the CU children lacked. 

Time Magazine further investigated the origins of psychopathy in the brain by contrasting psychopath's brains with those of people with disorders such as anti-social personality disorder (ASPD). Though both were more likely to make violent decisions, the psychopaths showed almost no anxiety, PTSD, or fear surrounding their violent actions in comparison to the ASPD individuals who often showed PTSD or guilt following such actions. Not surprisingly, the psychopaths showed less volume in certain parts of their pre-frontal cortex (including the vmPFC) in comparison to the ASPD individuals. 

It is clear that psychopaths have an impaired connection between their emotional centers of the brain and the prefrontal cortex that processes the emotions because they have less emotional output to those centers, but what about individuals with anxiety?

Science Direct found that the vmPFC, in a normally-functioning brain, minimize the effect of anxiety and threats on performance in a video game. It is likely that in individuals with anxiety, the vmPFC's reduced connectivity to the amygdala causes threats and stress to impair the individual's normal function, which helps to explain why both psychopaths and people with anxiety disorders have reduced vmPFC and amygdala connectivity. 

All in all, research like this shows that to understand neuroscience and our brains more adequately we cannot only examine its centers - many of the answers to the diseases and mental disorders that impair people lie in the connectivity and communication between specific centers of the brain. Externally, people with anxiety disorders and psychopaths seem very different - yet this particular connection in their brains is similarly impaired. Clearly, there are many mysteries are hidden within the intricate web of each and every person's brain that science has yet to work to understand. 

Works Cited

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html

2. http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/14/understanding-the-psychopathic-mind/

3. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322314002650

Time to Cram for that Final!... or Not?

         

          

           Many research studies in the recent years have been interested in the process of learning and memory within the brain.  To understand memory formation and consolidation researchers have been studying both neuronal synapses through neurobiology methods and behavioral methods.  It is one thing to see the formation of strong synapses, but quite another to see the behavioral implications.  Researcher Barbara Knowlton is a member of the Psychology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.  Recently, she gave a talk about neural substrates of desirable difficulties in motor sequence learning.  According to the study, Knowlton found statistical significance in the implementation of interleaved learning in terms of memory consolidation.  Knowlton’s results suggest that cramming for an exam is not as effective of a study method as studying throughout a longer period of time.  The concept of interleaved practice comes into play in the sense that actually studying many different things over a period of time shows greater memory retention.  Therefore, the most effective form of studying would not just include spreading the material across a period of time, but also involves incorporating different subjects into every study period.  Retrieval practice is seen to be beneficial to long-term learning.  Doing different things in between learning actually forces information retrieval at a later time. 

In a simple example and one of Knowlton’s early studies, a group of participants underwent “blocked practice” while another group underwent “interleaved practice”.  Blocked practice refers to learning information one group at a time.  For example, it would be like memorizing the list AAA, BBB, CCC, etc.  Interleaved practice is similar to memorizing the list ABC, BCA, CAB, etc.  Each letter refers to a separate group or subject.  According to Knowlton’s results, after a delay of even ten minutes post memorization, the second group actually did much better.  At first, the performance of the second group looked much worse, but after a longer period of time, the second group seemed to have the best results.  An example involving a motor skill would be like playing the piano.  It is better to learn three songs at the same time in different parts than to learn one song fully and then move on to another song. 

Similarly, Knowlton and researchers conducted an fMRI study on subjects who experienced both blocked and interleaved practice.  The fMRI results showed that interleaved practice leads to better results than repetitive practice. The disadvantage to interleaved practice is that constant retrieval of information is very difficult; however, it does pay off in the long run!  According to Knowlton, “The extra pain during practice gives you more of a gain during retention” (quoted during talk).  Results also showed that increased activation in the superior frontal gyrus during interleaved practice was significantly correlated with a subsequent behavioral benefit.  When cerebellar function was manipulated with tDCS, cerebellar activity was seen to be positively correlated with individual transfer ability scores.  The general trend showed that cerebellar structure was beautifully suited to learning in that plasticity at the synapses facilitate in the formation of strong connections. The overall conclusions of this study demonstrate that interleaved practice is beneficial for both retention and transfer of motor sequence learning. 

A related study at Carnegie Mellon University in the summer of 2013 analyzed synaptic formation and synaptic strength in mice. This study was also published in the Journal of Neuroscience.  Mice with one whisker were studied in different environments in order to analyze one brain region at a time.  (In mice, each brain region controls the opposite whisker as a form of environmental perception. I find it similar to how the right side of the brain controls the left side of the human body and vice versa.)  This method is based off a specialized transgenic mouse model.  Previous research has shown that learning is best incorporated when it is cumulative over a long period of time.  Many studies have also shown that synapses in the brain become much stronger when exposed to a stimuli multiple times.  However, this may not be the only case.  According to neuroscientist Alison L. Barth, synapses that are recently strengthened due to intense memorization or learning are actually very fragile and vulnerable to increased stimulation.  This activity could actually wipe out the effects of learning.  Data from Barth’s study shows that synapses do strengthen with increased stimuli in the short term; however, after a transitional phase predicted to involve consolidation of the new information, the synapses quickly weaken!  

Both Knowlton and Barth have similarities in their studies in that they are looking beyond the effects of long-term, cumulative practice in terms of memory and learning.  Knowlton focuses on the behavioral aspects while Barth studies the same phenomenon from a neuronal perspective.  Even with the efforts of both Knowlton and Barth, there is still so much to be learned in terms of memory formation.  When looking at future endeavors, I would love to see a combinatorial study using the skill sets of both researchers.  This study could implement interleaved learning in terms of analyzing memory retrieval ability as a whole and the same data could be analyzed for cues of synaptic strength at varying periods of time.  Overall, both studies exemplify the importance of pushing beyond what previous research shows in order to understand if there is more to the picture than what we may actually see.  Plus more research on memory formation and consolidation means better exam scores, and I’m sure we could all use a lot more of that!

References:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130529144327.htm

https://luc.app.box.com/neuroscienceseminar/1/5156277954/43889818573/1

(file:///C:/Users/shibu/Downloads/Lin%20(2).pdf )

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