Teaching Self-Driven Cars Morality

With the rate technology is developing at, it would be no surprise if self-driven cars started appearing in the marketplace. Although the idea sounds incredibly safe and time efficient in theory, the question of safety protocols in emergency situations must be addressed before the car is manufactured. In a New York Times article “Should Your Driverless Car Hit a Pedestrian to Save Your Life?” this dilemma is studied and discussed further. Through various surveys, researchers found that “respondents generally thought self-driving cars should be programmed to make decisions for the greatest good.” What exactly is the ‘greatest good’, however, is not exactly clear. In one particular series of quizzes, researchers found that most people would rather stay alive than spare others. Is that the choice that provides the greatest good, though?

In a talk at Loyola University Chicago, Jordan Grafman presented his research regarding the human brain and the mechanism behind making moral, legal, religious, and political decisions. Using a PET scan, brain activity was captured in patients as they judged or ranked various moral/legal/religious/political statements presented to them. Prior to the presentation, I read “The neural basis of human moral cognition”, a journal article Jordan Grafman contributed to. The journal defines morality as referring to the “consensus of manners and customs within a social group, or to an inclination to behave in some ways but not in others.” The journal attributes moral cognition as a culmination between the cortical region (anterior prefrontal cortex, lateral and medial orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior temporal lobes, superior temporal sulcus), subcortical structures (amygdala, ventromedial hypothalamus, septal area/nuclei, basal forebrain, third ventricle, rostral brainstem tegmentum), and large areas of frontal/temporal lobes, brain stem, basal ganglia, and other subcortical structures. Obviously many different parts of the brain work together in order to complete the task. In his talk, Grafman went a little more in depth about which brain structures are activated when working with a particular belief. The general conclusion, though, was that no single moral, legal, political, or God spot in the brain (nor a dedicated brain network) is unique to each specific belief. In order to better understand this relationship with the human brain, further research is necessary.

With the conclusions Grafman presented, how could we expect a machine to make a decision when we don’t even fully understand the extent to which the human brain makes moral decisions? Additionally, the journal mentions that different parts of the brain are activated for different decisions, all of which vary with cultural context. The New York Times article suggested making an assortment of car algorithms to imitate the variety of values in different societies. If there were various algorithms, it would be difficult to assess whom to blame in potential harmful incidents- the buyer or the algorithm? Rather than relying solely on the machine, researchers emphasize this must be a “partnership between the human and the tool, and the person should be the one who provides ethical guidance.” Before this invention becomes an everyday luxury, the philosophical aspects must be clearly determined prior to the technological incorporation.

References:

Markoff, John. "Your Driverless Car Hit a Pedestrian to Save Your Life?" The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 23 June 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/technology/should-your-driverless-car-hit-a-pedestrian-to-save-your-life.html?_r=0. Accessed 8 Mar. 2017.

Moll, Jorge, et al. "The neural basis of human moral cognition." Nature Reviews: Neuroscience, Oct. 2005, pp. 799-809. 

Grafman, David. "The Believing Brain." Loyola University Chicago, 28 Feb. 2017, Chicago. Lecture.

Pictures:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/images/2015/12/14/Volvo-driverless-car-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqZgEkZX3M936N5BQK4Va8RUbgHFEZVI1Pljic_pW9c90.jpg

http://robohub.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Millar_Tunnel_Problem1.jpg

Learning and Resting: The Byproducts of Sleep

In an article by Christopher Wanjek published by The Huffington Post, he brings to light how sleep is directly correlated with the retention rate of the information we learn. The work of Dr. Chiara Cirelli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center of Sleep and Consciousness, as well as her colleague, Dr. Guilio Tononi, who is also of the University of Wisconsin Madison, was used to report the relationship between the two variables. Introducing the idea of “synaptic homeostasis”, which states that, during sleep, synaptic renormalization occurs as the brain assess all ours synapses better while we are sleeping. Synaptic renormalization cannot occur while we are awake as there is always a constant stimulus engaging our brains to encode data. Upon understanding how this process works, Cirelli and Tononi called this the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, or SHY.

The neuroscience behind how synaptic homeostasis occurs is linked to the size of the synapses. Using strong visual evidence from SHY, Circelli et al describe how growth of synapses is related to greater stability and retention of what is learned while the individual was awake. Because the synapses are so enlarged prior going to sleep, sleeping is required in order to alleviate that stress from the brain in order to allow for a encoding of the data to be successful. Retention of memory while one is awake is seemingly a misconception people believe as they believe they cannot forget it if it is still fresh in their minds. But this reading suggests otherwise as a sleep helps neurons fire at a much more efficient rate as the synapses return to a state of normalcy.

In his presentation to the Loyola Neuroscience Seminar, Dr. Cavanaugh delved into his research regarding the homeostatic processes in Drosophila and how this correlates with humans. Explaining that one cannot accumulate a “sleep debt” as any individual would crash if racking up a large amount of no sleep, he confirms how sleep is not only necessary for one to attain rest and replenish energy, but also hits at the byproduct of retention of what has happened since the last sleep cycle. The payoff of getting sleep is described as a manner that is primitive in human nature as well as an effort to further enhance the human mind. Dr. Cavanaugh also explains the how physiological factors are seen to be inhibited to perform with an accumulation of sleep debt. Whether it be a lack of energy or the will to muster up more time to study, when the body needs sleep, it will shut down to get it, no matter what the circumstance. 

Works Cited

Cavanaugh, Daniel J., Abigail S. Vigderman, Terry Dean, David S. Garbe, and Amita Sehgal."The Drosophila Circadian Clock Gates Sleep through Time-of-Day Dependent Modulation of Sleep-Promoting Neurons." Sleep. Oxford University Press, 01 Feb. 2016. Web. 01 Mar. 2017..net/mla/cite-a-other

Wanjek, Christopher. "Your Brain Actually Shrinks While You Sleep To Help You Learn." The Huffington Post. N.p., 08 Feb. 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/J62ZaFNZVu0/maxresdefault.jpg

Camping: Nature's Natural Sleep Remedy

City life as a student becomes overwhelming with the frequent all-nighters, sacrificing a good night’s sleep to cram for that test or adding the finishing touches to a project. We always say that we’ll catch up on lost sleep, but then the next assignment comes along. Achieving a full night’s sleep is becoming more and more difficult for students. We’re staying up later and struggling to wake up the next morning. Our bodies become so accustomed to this cycle, that the only way to break it is to get away- and what better way to restore those circadian rhythms than a weekend camping out under an open sky without burden of light pollution?

Cavanaugh and colleagues (2016) administered a study to test for particular proteins and neurons involved in the circadian rhythm maintenance in Drosophila. They found that a neuron known as 201y-GAL4 activated by protein kinase A is responsible for the sleep inducing behavior integrated within our circadian cycle. After investigating what proteins were involved in producing this sleep-promoting effect, Cavanaugh and colleagues found that there are subsets within the 201y-GAL4 fly neuron known as an alpha/beta core mushroom body (MB) as well as a non MB subset. Through the various patterns of inhibition and studies with these subsets of the 201y-GAL4 neuron, Cavanaugh and colleagues observed that the non MB subset is responsible for the sleep-promoting effect. This effect directly correlates with time of day, indicating that the presence of light must be involved in the activation and inactivation of this gene.

This study demonstrates the inhibitory effects on sleep at particular times of the day, suggesting that exposure to stimuli preventing sleep is something that results in habituation of sleep patterns and an altering of the circadian response to sleep. In the hustle and bustle of our life, we see that our circadian clocks are shifting so that we are up during the dark hours of the night and sleeping through the bright hours of the morning. Emens (2017) discusses the property of electric light and its impact on our sleep cycles. He finds that our exposure to electric light; whether in the form of television screens, city lights, or tablets, affects our melatonin cycle, a cycle important in the regulation of desire to sleep. As melatonin levels increase, the drive to sleep is higher. As our circadian clock shifts, our melatonin reactions to light also shift. In our world, we are constantly exposed to the need for electric light, influencing the trend of falling asleep later in the night regardless of the lack of light. Emens suggests that a weekend camping trip under nothing, but natural light could serve to reset our circadian rhythms through melatonin response to light. Using nothing but natural light inhibits us from staying up all night because the absence of electric light means our 201y-GAL4 neurons properly respond to conditions of the day. It’s dark, we might as well sleep.

References:

https://luc.app.box.com/v/neuroscienceseminar/1/15900190760/121926721181/1

Cavanaugh, D.J., Vigderman, B.S., Dean, T., Garbe, D.S., & Sehgal, A. (2016). The drosophila circadian clock gates sleep through time-of-day dependence modulation of sleep-promoting neurons. Sleep, 39, 345-356. doi: 10.5665/sleep.5442

http://www.sciencealert.com/can-t-sleep-a-weekend-of-camping-can-help-reset-your-circadian-rhythm-study-suggests

http://www.sciencedirect.com.flagship.luc.edu/science/article/pii/S0960982217300143

Emens, J.S. (2017). Circadian rhythms: The price of electric light. Current Biology, 27, R144-R145. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.01.014

Sleeping for Two? Sleep Debt and Pregnancy

If you know anyone who has had children, I'm sure they have told you how TIRED they are! Dr. Cavanaugh, Ph.D. spoke about something called sleep debt, and an accompanying phenomenon, sleep rebound. Although sleep debt has become something of a buzzword, sleep rebound is perhaps more controversial. Dr. Cavanaugh affirmed my assumption, based on what I personally have read, that there are split camps when it comes to sleep rebound. Some believe that you can make up for lost sleep, others aren’t so sure. As a college student, my own experience leads me to believe that you can “catch up” on sleep, so to speak.

Sleep changes when a woman is pregnant. According to the National Sleep Foundation's 1998 Women and Sleep poll, 78% percent of pregnant women experience sleep disturbances that they didn't experience before becoming pregnant. How do these disturbances affect sleep while pregnant, and how much do they contribute to the overall sleep deficit that pregnant women and parents of young children -in this case, I'll focus on the women- experience as parents of infants and young children?

Unfortunately, the sleep debt begins accumulating in pregnancy, maybe even in the first trimester, and doesn’t end until the child is, at the very least, sleeping through the night routinely. Sleep debt, like any debt, is said to accumulate. If a mother of a 2-month-old infant slept 8 hours before pregnancy, 6.5 (interrupted) hours during her pregnancy, and is now sleeping only 5 hours a night, due to her newborn child- her sleep debt is roughly 585 hours of sleep. All before the child’s first half-birthday! In America, most workplaces are asking that (read: making) mothers go back to work sooner than they’d ever have the chance to pay their sleep debt off!

So, you’re in sleep debt. Maybe for me, a college student, the accumulation of sleep debt isn’t as consistent as the debt accumulated by a pregnant woman or young mother- for me, it looks like a few hours here, a few hours there. Sometimes, it’s a Saturday night of going out with friends and the subsequent sleep-in session the next morning- an example of the sleep rebound. The sleep rebound, as Dr. Cavanaugh described to us, is the period in which the body “pays off” sleep debt.

How can we use this knowledge to help pregnant women in sleep debt? Finding ways to make sleep more comfortable during pregnancy, splitting childcare between partners, and increasing the duration of maternity leaves all seem like viable options to me!

References

Pregnancy and Sleep, from https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/pregnancy-and-sleep

Webster, M. (2008, May 06). Can You Catch Up on Lost Sleep?, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-can-you-catch-up-on-sleep/

Cavanaugh, D. (2017, February 14). The Drosophila Circadian Clock Gates Sleep Timing Through Interactions with Sleep-Promoting Neurons. Lecture presented at Neuroscience Seminar in Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL.

Night Light Sleep Tight

            Sometimes it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything you need to get done, and on top of that get an adequate amount of sleep. Yet, sleep is crucial to our health and affects different aspects of the body such as weight loss, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, some cancers, libido, and mood swings. Although,  mood swings might seem to you as a normal side effect of sleep deprivation adequate sleep patterns are much more complex than that.         

           In the scientific paper, The Drosophila Circadian Clock Gates Sleep through Time-of-Day Dependent Modulation of Sleep Promoting Neurons, by Dr. Daniel Cavanaugh et al, the objective of the experiment is to study the relationship between homeostatic mechanisms and circadian processes involved in sleep. Homeostatic mechanisms influence sleep by determining the intensity and how much sleep one gets, while the circadian processes determine the timing of when we sleep. Dr. Cavanaugh’s works looks at the specific influence the circadian clock has on sleep, in an attempt to shed light on the largely unknown mechanism of the circadian clock. Through inhibition and activation, of certain neurons known to influence sleep, this experiment analyzed the effects this manipulation would have on the sleep cycle of the fly Drosophila. Sleep was visualized via video tracking and was assessed before and after temperature inhibition and activation. Based on this study, the circadian clock neurons of the Drosophila fly are spread over the large and small ventrolateral neurons, and three groups of dorsal neurons. 

  Some  studies have already established that mutations in the core genes known to be part of the circadian clock lead to sleep phase syndrome in humans. Thus, Dr. Cavanaugh’s work further exemplified how mutations on homologs of Drosophila  flies also created defects in the fly sleep cycle. Some of the genes under study were the 210ly-Gal4 and UAS-dTrpAl, that when activated revealed max amount of sleep throughout the day.  Whereas flies that had only one of the genes had submaximal sleep.  Additionally, the flies that had only one gene showed evidence that sleep is influenced based on the time of day. Similarly, to the flies homologous flies, the heterozygous flies revealed maximal sleep during the day and night, but in the transition from day to night Drosophila flies with just one copy showed significantly reduced sleep.  Decreased amount of sleep in the transition from day to night reflected a theory in humans that proposed our bodies are most awake in the transition from day to night because this is when homeostatic sleep drive is at its highest.  Thus, Dr. Cavanaugh’s work studying the link between homeostatic processes and the circadian clock appear to be linked, although further studies need to be done in order to confirm it.

            Furthermore, additional sleep research has shown that activation of the large ventrolateral neurons in the brain are involved in light-induced arousal. So while Dr. Cavanaugh studied genes in neurons known to influence sleep patterns via activation and inhibition with temperature, other scientists have been analyzing how different wavelengths of light effect sleep patters.  It doesn’t take a scientist for one to realize that the nice warm yellow glow from a campfire makes one sleepy, while the buzzing fluorescent light bulbs in the doctors’ office help put you on edge. There might be some science behind this according to Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, chief of circadian and sleep disorders at Brigham Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Czeisler told The New York Times that we should be paying more attention to how different types of light influence our circadian rhythm. Studies have shown that different wavelengths of light interfere with our circadian rhythm by sending internal signals in the body to stop producing melatonin, which is one of the hormones that helps one fall asleep.  Additionally, Dr. Michael J Breus, a fellow and clinical psychologist at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, also told The New York Times that exposing oneself to light can have cascading affects on ones health because, as mentioned earlier, adequate amounts of sleep can have drastic effects on current health conditions and can also put one at risk for future diseases.

            Recently, technology experts have been jumping at the opportunity to create smart light bulbs that adjust their glow based on time of day. Even the mega corporation Apple has jumped on the bandwagon. In the IPhone 6 a new feature was introduced known as night mode that adjusts the intensity of light based on time of day. The glow goes from white/blue to yellow like a campfire when the feature is turned on. This is especially helpful when one whimsically checks their phone right before bed, and then can’t fall asleep. It is, however, not just technology experts and light bulb manufacturers who have discovered that different types of light have varying effects but also interior decorators, and architects are now being smart about where they place certain light fixtures.

            Nevertheless, lifestyle plays a big impact in regulating sleep patterns. There are homeostatic mechanisms that regulate the quality of our sleep, and circadian mechanisms that regulates when we sleep. Dr. Cavanaugh has already hypothesized there to be a group of neurons in charge of sleep patterns that link homeostatic and circadian processes. In his study, he looked at two specific genes known to influence sleep patterns where he used temperature to induce or activate sleep in Drosophila flies. It is possible that he would find the theory of different wavelengths of light influencing our sleep patterns very interesting. Before Dr. Cavanaugh’s work there was not much known about circadian clock mechanisms, but his work began to uncover some light on the subject matter. Perhaps, if one plays close attention to how different types of light influences our sleeping patterns we too can be scientists and uncover what influences the innate circadian rhythm.

Bibliography

1) Cavanaugh, Daniel, Dr., Abigail Vigderman, Terry Dean, David Garbe, and Amita Seghal. "The Drosophila Circadian Clock Gates Sleep through Time-of-Day Dependent Modulation of Sleep Promoting Neurons." Basic Science; SLEEP 39.2 (2016): 345-56. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

2.) Kaysen, Ronda. "Light Bulbs That Help You Sleep." The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 Feb. 2017. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

Images

1) https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/light-bulb-character-sleeping-8839678.jpg

2)http://nyuad.nyu.edu/content/nyuad/en/home/news/campus-community/2015/11/tired--stressed---lonely--the-totally-normal-life-of-a-college-s/_jcr_content/article/image.3.jpg/1447930713571.jpg

3)https://a.disquscdn.com/get?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.eurekalert.org%2Fmultimedia_prod%2Fpub%2Frel%2F72038_rel.jpg&key=PAfHqZK3utc-XFc1SOuZNw