Morality: Can a Person be Influenced to be More Moral?

Vokuv, in his lecture to my NEURO 300 class, talked about how him and his team looked at moral judgments in people in people’s lives. He expressed a great interest in how people have an unconscious difference in judgment after events. He also looked at the critical areas of the brain, their associated chemicals, and how they lit up in times of moral judgement. In my opinion his most interesting application of the science was looking at purely correlation findings of parole judges giving out reduced sentences or being more willing to grant parole; after a recess or after lunch.

Although this matter is not life threatening with new laws are currently being put into place by the Trump administration, that would make it legal to refuse a patient treatment on personal moral grounds. While this is currently the case with religious issues, such as abortion, which gives the doctor the right to refuse to do any and all abortions for religious reasons, this does not allow doctors to pick and choose which patients they want to treat. The author of the New York times article, Can Doctors Refuse to Treat a patient by Dr. Sandeep Jauhar describes a situation he ran into where a patient needed a new heat valve, his current one was infected because of his heroin use, and his doctors didn’t want to give him a new one. Presumably because the effort would be futile, a waste of their time, and just get infected again because of his ongoing heroin use. The doctors when to the courts and the decision was made that under current law they could not refuse him and the surgery went on anyway. Without the surgery the patient would probably be dead.

Although Vakuv’s research and findings show that snack breaks help lawyers be more lenient, this may not be the most useful in asking doctors to take snake breaks throughout their day. However, there may be some merit to Vakuv’s research and how it needs to be applied to the medical field especially with a broadening movement to allow doctors to reject anyone who they deem unworthy of their services. This could cause many deaths and be a major problem for the healthcare industry. For example: what if the only doctor covered by your insurance decides that they do not want to treat you because you are not an enough of an interesting case or that you smoke and therefore don’t deserve to be treated?

I would argue that Vakuv’s research needs to be expanded to look at the morality of doctors specifically. There’s a joke in the United States that to be a doctor you have to be full of yourself and incredibly smart. These, along with other characteristics in doctors, often parallel lawyers, and as such I think it would be most imperative to educated doctors or figure out more ways such that every doctor and lawyer understands that their action affect another human beings life, not just their track record.

Sources:

Jauhar, S. (2019, May 13). Can Doctors Refuse to Treat a Patient? Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/opinion/can-doctors-refuse-patients.html.

Crockett, M. J. (2016). Morphing morals: Neurochemical modulation of moral judgment and behavior. In S. M. Liao (Ed.), Moral brains: The neuroscience of morality (p. 237–245). Oxford University Press.

The Missing Link; PTSD and Sleep

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder also known as PTSD is a lifelong mental illness, that is non-curable with an array of symptoms. PTSD is caused by a traumatic event that is witnessed or experienced by a person. Victims of PTS often suffer from sleeping disorders from recurring nightmares, constant flashbacks and sever anxiety that is often triggered by stressors.  The most common treatments are therapy, cognitive processing theory, and prolonged therapy. All of which require patients to talk about their trauma, often making those who suffer from PTSD shy away from treatment all together. Leading to severe anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and sleep problems. But what if there was another way? What if you could sleep your way through trauma?

Although we are still far from finding the cure to PTSD new research has pointed in the direction of sleep for a possible form of treatment. The work of Hørlyck says that a new treatment for PTSD could possibly be sleep. Which isn’t so different from the findings of Schouten, although the use of TMR and enhanced cognition has yielding promising results it may be possible to enhance negative memory control, essentially making the brain forget a memory. 

Hørlycks work in the article “Rest May Help Reduce PTSD Symptoms” suggested that since sleep increases the processing in the hippocampus there by strengthening the contextual memory system is an important factor in preventing unwanted flashback of a traumatic memory. “The coherence of memories is often compromising when people are exposed to psychological trauma, resulting in emotional memory popping up involuntary and out of context. However, the binding of an event memory with its context may be partly restored with rest, facilitating deliberate control of the memory.”(Hørlyck). Similarly, the work Schouten’s work in the paper “State of the Art on Targeted Memory Reactivation: Sleep Your Way to Enhanced Cognition.” Suggest that while associating an item or something with an auditory or olfactory cue and replaying those cues while under SWS or REM sleep could prove to enhance cognition in the brain. Although we are far from implementing TMR researching as PTSD treatment it’s an exciting prospect to think about. Schechtman-Drayman suggest that it may be possible to enhance forgetting. Which if possible, would be amazing for curing PTSD instead of simply treating symptoms the symptoms, we may one day through sleep therapy be able to completely rid the symptoms from the source and forget extremely traumatic events. 

Although we don’t have the answer on how to cure PTSD one thing is for sure sleep seems to be the missing link. With new sleep study research underway and its importance in memory we may just be one step closer to curing PTSD.

Schouten, Daphne I., et al. “State of the Art on Targeted Memory Reactivation: Sleep Your Way to Enhanced Cognition.” Sleep Medicine Reviews, vol. 32, 2017, pp. 123–131., doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2016.04.002.

Hørlyck, Lone D. “Rest May Help Reduce PTSD Symptoms.” Neuroscience News, UCL, 9 Oct. 2019, https://neurosciencenews.com/ptsd-rest-15049/.

Neurochemical Variability

In Dr. Vukov’s research on Neurochemical Variability, Vukov conducts a variety of several experiments to show how changes in the flux of neuromodulators could impact an individual’s moral perceptions. An increase of serotonin could positively impact an individua while a depletion of serotonin could cause an individual to act unethically in comparison to how they normally would. Upon conducting the various experiments, Vukov and his team approached this study from the viewpoint of philosophy-based biology. They were able to conclusively conclude that moral judgements are not fixed, they are dependent on the neuromodulator levels and more factors including stress levels. Moral judgements are also not fixed in the sense of history, our beliefs are based off of ideas that we cannot control, we are influenced by our parents and our culture.

In The New York Times news article, Is Morality Hard-Wired Into Our Brains, it is reported that a researcher’s findings support that our moral learnings are dictated by early brain developments, starting as far back as the separation between cold-blooded creatures and warm blooded creatures. Through analyzing various neurochemicals and how they affect our social interactions, the overall hypothesis suggests that the development of our deciphers a moral guideline. The experiences of our primitive ancestors molded our brain’s today, thus creating a framework for the moral guideline. The idea that the decisions our ancestors made heavily impact our moral judgements today was explained more by alluding to the idea that altruism originated from sharing food.

As both studies focus on how different systems of our brain work together to create our moral judgements as well as historical evidence, it brings me to the question of criminal justice. In Dr. Vukov’s sense, if an individual has a deficient level of various neuromodulators, could one argue that their decision was based off of their neurochemical imbalance and plead an insanity case. In The New York Times article, could one argue that the development/structure from their upbringing altered their decision? In regard to both, could the structure of the brain hinder/increase the production of neuromodulators?

Works Cited:

Crockett, Molly J. “Neurochemical Modulation of Moral Judgement.” Moral Brains, 2016, pp. 237–245., doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199357666.003.0011.

Goldhill, Olivia. “Is Morality Hard-Wired Into Our Brains?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 June 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/books/review/conscience-patricia-churchland.html?searchResultPosition=10.

Sleep and Academic Performances

Sleep and Academic Performances

As the semester progressed and after attending more neuroscience seminars, I was able to develop new methods and ways of reading and analyzing research papers and had a better understanding of what to pay attention to and what is more relevant. This helped me personally learn more about the different methods of research and ask better questions regarding application of research and how to possibly use the result of one research/study to come up with the next steps and further studies.

As a neuroscience student, I have learned a lot about about sleeping cycles and patterns. This was a topic that I had a special interest in. I was excited when I learned that researcher Eitan Schechtman was our speaker during our las neuroscience seminar on Tuesday, December 10^th.

Dr. Eitan Schechtman gave a presentation in which he showed us a clinical review study called “State of the art on targeted memory reactivating: Sleep your way to enhanced cognition”. This study showed the importance of the effect of sleep on memory reactivating. The study focuses on how getting more adequate amount of sleep helped improving memory reactivation; this is due to the fact that sleep permits memory consolidation. He also mentioned that cues given during sleep helped benefit memory consolidation. Researchers believe that all of this is possible because sleep allows for a process called hippocampus replay; a process where the neurons fired during a task are activated again during sleep. This allows the brain to recall information regarding the cognitive tasks performed by the individual before sleep. This study is very useful to many people because it highlights the importance of sleep and how it can affect memory in individuals. It especially important to me as a student as we learn to get a good night’s sleep before an exam to be able to retain information during an exam or a test.

As this interested me as a student who pulls all-nighters on an exam night, I started looking more into it. I came across a study that compared academic performances based on how many hours of sleep a student got before an exam. Dr. Andrew J. K. Phillips conducted a study titled “Irregular sleeping patterns linked to poorer academic performance in college students ( Timing of sleep found to be as important as number of hours slept)” at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In his research, Dr. Andrew J. K. Phillips studied 61 full-time students from Harvard College over the period of 30 days. He used sleep diaries where students recorded how many hours of sleep they got as well as when did they sleep/ wake up. He used these sleep diaries and applied the sleep regularity index, SRI,  to be able to quantify sleep regularity. He then looked at the relationship between SRI, sleep duration, distribution of sleep throughout the day, and one semester’s academic performance of these 61 students. The results indicated that irregular sleep and circadian rhythms correlated with poorer academic performance and lower GPA due to the delaying of timing of sleep and waking time that delayed the release of melatonin, a sleep-promoting hormone. This is very interesting because it means that pulling an all-nighter has the opposite effect/outcome that the student is seeking in doing so. A student might think that staying awake for the whole night to study might only have a little impact on his health and is willing to sacrifice that in order to perform better on an exam; however, as it turns out, pulling an all-nighter can cause more serious problems, according to students, which is unable to perform well on an exam. 

Combining the two researches together, it is safe to conclude that regular sleep patterns are essential in a student’s life routine. Students who get adequate amount of hours of sleep and have a regular “bed time” and waking up at a specific time everyday can and will perform better academically due to its impact on memory and cognition. Hopefully more students will look into theses researches and start making the change to a healthier lifestyle that will have a positive impact on their health as well as their academic performances, which is the goal for most students. 

Reference:

Schouten DI, Pereira SIR, Tops M, Louzada FM. “State of the Art on Targeted Memory Reactivation: Sleep Your Way to Enhanced Cognition.” Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2016 April.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2016.04.002

Phillips AJK, Clerx WM, O’Brien CS, Sano A, Barger LK, Picard RW, Lockley SW, Klerman EB, Czeisler CA. “Irregular sleep/wake patterns are associated with poorer academic performance and delayed circadian and sleep/wake timing.” Scientific Reports, 2017 June.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170612094045.htm

Historical and Neurochemical Influences on Decision Making

           

On November 5th, Dr. Joe Vukov facilitated a discussion that focused on the idea of philosophy-based biology that related to making decisions. By covering this article, Dr. Vukov brought to light a new angle that tackled the theories of neurochemical and historical influence on decision-making. During the seminar, students were able to engage with one another on their own beliefs and where the foundation for their ideologies lied. During the discussion, the term historical variability was brought up and defined as an idea of free will and autonomy. It stated that our morals and beliefs came from historical ideas outside of our control. We want to believe that our beliefs about morality, religion, politics, etc. are deeply personal but can often be attributed to the social climates and historical influences perpetrated through our environment. There is a counterargument to this belief that our environment dictates our thought processes and it comes in the form of neurochemicals. Neurochemical vulnerability states that our judgments and decisions align directly with the neurochemical environment in our brain. When the levels of our neurotransmitters fluctuate, it is said that our thought processes are affected and our actions differ in course. People can then use the excuse that their neurochemical composition dictated their unwarranted actions rather than their actual beliefs. The number of neurotransmitters present or not present in your brain is mostly out of your immediate control. Humans do not have the luxury to reflect on how we would have acted if our neurochemical levels were adjusted to a specific range. Even the cultural and historical background information that we are given throughout the course of our lives is also out of our control. We cannot go back and place ourselves in a time period and change a course of events. However, we are able to reflect on our own ideologies and change biases and invalid information that was presented to us. This can be done through what Dr. Vukov called the symmetry response. Through this response we are able to sort through the behaviors we want to hold onto and the ones we must let go of through historical variability. This same method would not work for neurochemical variability since you cannot choose to have keep the version of you that has more serotonin and throw away the version of you that may be lacking serotonin. Even though it is interesting to see how humans act under certain neurochemical conditions, it is not justifiable to base someone’s actions solely on their brain’s chemistry. There are many factors that play into decisions that people make whether they are virtuous or not. 

            Similarly, in the article “The Problem With Believing What We’re Told”, Gary Marcus and Annie Duke, delve deeper into the idea of historical variability and provides methods to help us all become better skeptics. The two authors first provide information on a study by Daniel Gilbert in which he asked undergraduates students to go through a series of information that was marked true or marked false. He then tested them to see if they could differentiate between the true facts that were given and the false ones. He found that the students did well at remembering which facts fell under each category. However, when a distraction was added participants were seen to say that false information on the list was actually true. Marcus and Duke also touch on the subject of believing what we receive through our scenes. They talk about how before the development of language, humans used their 5 senses to explain their experiences and often did not question them. We have now developed the human language as a sense in a modern-day context which makes it more open to being exploited and manipulated. 

            One form of manipulation uses credibility through pictures that are accompanied by false information. When pictures are attached people can be easily diverted into thinking that the headline of an article might be true. The example that was given included people having a picture of a giraffe with an article titled “the only mammal that can’t jump”. Even though there are other mammals that cannot jump, since there is a picture it may disrupt previous knowledge and you may not be able to recall other mammals that can also not jump. Information can also be manipulated through emotional tactics such as using words with strong connotations such as “hate” and “destroy". There was a study done on information spread through Twitter that contained this tactic of emotional manipulation. These kinds of false tweets that dug into the emotion of the users garnered more attention and had more engagement than true stories. This exploitation is seen to feed on the gullibility and vulnerability of the users. It takes our own collective effort in order to combat these kinds of manipulative behaviors. We have to ask ourselves to question what is true, take extra time to do the research, and engage in activities that will help up become more critical thinkers. We must be more aware of what we choose to engage with online and challenge the views of people we meet in our day-to-day lives. 

            In both discussions, the idea of historical variability is seen as something that should be challenged and not taken very literally. Learning the fundamentals about a topic can be very important but going deeper into research on the validity can help you avoid false information. They both bring up the argument that we are more susceptible of believing that things are true when first presented with it since we are more likely to think people will not manipulate us. Both articles want us to question and debunk the information that is handed to us regardless of the source. There have been many instances in which information has been blindly followed such as those pertaining to the Mozart effect and theories surrounding vaccinations. These prove that it is important to go beyond the words of one or a few people and find our own converging or diverging evidence. 

            Even though Marcus and Duke’s article did not touch on the idea of influential neurochemical signals, that conversation is still important.  The manipulation of this ideology should also be taken into consideration. There are some cases where neurotransmitters can affect emotions that can then go on to affect actions but it is not a valid excuse for someone’s behavior. There are multiple factors that come together in order to produce one action and cannot be blamed on one kind of methodology. It is interesting to learn more about the effects of neurotransmitters on the brain and how we can develop these theories to come up with better treatments for those who suffer from the side affects of them. When discussing how impactful it can be on mental illnesses, the research on neurochemical influence holds some internal validity. Both historical and neurochemical variability are important in their own regards when it comes to decision making but ultimately the true act of decision making relies on a combination of many inside and outside stimuli. 

Crockett, M. Neurochemical modulation of moral judgment and behavior. Retrieved from: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/13j3ka06799we8d/AAC42kDptMQDUl8DHYjSF_Pia/(11.05.19)%20-%20Joe%20Vukov?dl=0&preview=Crocket_Morphing_Morals.pdf. 

Duke, A., Marcus, G. The problem with believing what we’re told. (2019, August 31). Retrieved from: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-problem-with-believing-what-were-told-11567224060?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=11. 

Understanding anti-depressant like mechanism and depression related behaviors

On November 19^th, Dr. Lauren Shapiro, who is a professor and has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Pharmacology, presented her research on studying how Rho-kinase inhibition gives off antidepressant-like effects on the spine on adolescent mice. Dr. Shapiro expresses that her study focused on the of inhibition of Rho-kinase, in adolescent mice in which they exhibited depression. The results illustrated that the inhibition had an effect on the mice, and it manifested as an antidepressant. “ROCK” inhibitor fasudil was facilitated during dendritic pruning. Fausidil decreased the behavioral effects on adolescent mice.

In the article Ketamine treatment involves medial prefrontal cortex serotonin to induce a rapid antidepressant -like activity in BALB/cJ mice,” Expresses how the functions of serotonin exhibit antidepressant-like symptoms after a dose of ketamine in a mouse. The results inferred that ketamine was more efficient antidepressant when it was compared against Fluoxetine. Behavioral tests were performed to come to the conclusion that ketamine was more effective and efficient. Researchers stated that Ketamine blocks the NMDA-R receptor, which decreases GABAergic inhibition and increases excitatory synaptic signaling in the mPFC. The mPFC works differently when it comes to both drugs due to its neural adaption that modulates the serotonergic system.

This study relates to Dr. Shapiro’s findings because in her study fasudil was used to prune the cytoskeletal pathway. Fasudil enhances the dendritic pruning of VMPFC in adolescent mice as well. However, the study from the article differs from Dr. Shapiro’s because it focused on the effects of Ketamine compared to Fluoxetine on rodents. In Shapiro’s study, it had an emphasis on both Ketamine and Fluoxetine and comparing these anti-depressants as treatment options for adolescent depression.

Both studies foreshadow the chemical the emphasis of drugs and their effects on the brain when it comes to depression treatment options. It would be beneficial to further study the effects of these drugs in older adults especially older women as they reach the period of menopause.

Work Cited 

Pham, T H, et al. “Ketamine Treatment Involves Medial Prefrontal Cortex Serotonin to Induce a Rapid Antidepressant-like Activity in BALB/CJ Mice.” Neuropharmacology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Jan. 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27211253.

Shapiro, L.P., Kietzman, H.W., Guo, J., Rainnie, D.G., & Gourley, S.L. (2019) Rho-kinase inhibition has antidepressant-like efficacy and expedites dendritic spine pruning in adolescent mice. Neurobiology of disease, 124, 520-530.