What Makes SuperAgers So "Super"?

             We’ve all experienced what it’s like to forget. That moment of walking into a room and completely forgetting why you came there. Or, thinking to yourself during the commercial breaks, “What was I watching again?”. You’d think that this type of forgetfulness occurs in older individuals. And you’d be right. But why have I, a healthy 21-year-old, also experienced these moments? Why is it so hard for me to remember what I did last month, last weekend, or even last night? Even more importantly, why are there 85-year-old individuals with memory better than my own? Maybe I’m stressed and overworked, but how does this explain older people who have exceptional memory capacities? Dr. Tamar Gefen had an opportunity to study these amazing individuals whom she calls SuperAgers.

            SuperAgers are 80-year-old (or older) individuals with episodic memory function at a level equal to, or better than individuals twenty to thirty years younger (Gefen et al., 2015). So what makes these SuperAgers so amazing and how is it possible that their memory can be better than someone who is 50 or 60 years of age? In his article for the New York Times, “Studying Oversize Brain Cells for Links to Exceptional Memory”, Carl Zimmer explores the work of Dr. Gefen and her research into these SuperAgers in life, and even in death.

The participants of Gefen’s study were individuals all over the age of 80 who had volunteered for the study at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. During the course of the study, Dr. Gefen had her participants complete various memory and recall tasks and found that they performed better than most younger adults on the same tests. Unfortunately, some of the SuperAgers passed away before the study could be completed. However, some of them had donated their brains for research, so Dr. Gefen was still able to study their extraordinary abilities even after death. She examined the brains of the deceased SuperAgers, and compared them to brains of normal individuals, and found that there was a significant difference in the number of von Economo neurons. But what are von Economo neurons, and what are their functions in terms of memory and learning?

Von Economo (VE) neurons are large brain cells that branch and stretch all over the brain. Although it is not clear what the specific purpose of VE neurons are, researchers like Gefen have predicted that perhaps they are responsible for fast relay in the brain, which is related to memory and learning capabilities. By comparing the number of VE neurons in SuperAgers to that of normal people, Gefen discovered that SuperAgers had a significantly larger amount of VE neurons. So, what does this mean? Do more VE neurons mean better memory? Not exactly…

Doctor John M. Allman has studied VE neurons in great detail for twenty years now. According to Dr. Allman, perhaps VE neurons help us “manage impulses and stay focused on long-term goals” (Zimmer, 2015). So, maybe SuperAgers don’t really have exceptional memory capacities, but exceptional focusing capacities. Whatever the reason, it is no doubt that SuperAgers are an extraordinary group of individuals who defy the normal aging process. Perhaps with further research, scientists will be able to figure out how to increase production of VE neurons in the brain’s of normal individuals so that we all can become SuperAgers.

Works Cited:

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/science/studying-oversize-brain-cells-for-links-to-exceptional-memory.html?_r=0

Study: Gefen, T., Peterson, M., Papastefan, S. T., Martersteck, A., Whitney, K., Rademaker, A., . . . Geula, C. (2015). Morphometric and Histologic Substrates of Cingulate Integrity in Elders with Exceptional Memory Capacity. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(4), 1781-1791. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.2998-14.2015

Images: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JXOOOtnow-U/maxresdefault.jpg

http://www.awaken.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/von-Economo-neuron.jpg

Is Medication More Effective Than Talk Therapy or Vice Versa?

Mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression have become increasingly prevalent within society. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, "Nearly one-half of those diagnosed with depression are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder." The controversy between talk therapy and antidepressants as effective treatments are still being debated to this day, and one study finds that the effectiveness of talk therapy may be overstated. According to the NPR article, "Studies May Overstate the Benefits of Talk Therapy For Depression" by John Hamilton, "researchers found that the apparent effectiveness was inflated by publication bias" (Hamilton, 2015). Essentially, studies that showed positive effects of a treatment were more likely to be published than those with a negative outcome. Many studies have bashed on medication as treatment but it was only these biased studies that were published versus other experiments with contradicting findings that were not. Similar research have shown the opposite results, where medication may be overstated to help people with these disorders.

Dr. Stewart Shankman presented research findings at Loyola University Chicago on the study, "A Psychological Investigation of Threat and Reward Sensitivity in Individuals with Panic Disorder and/or Major Depressive Disorder." The study differentiated between panic disorder and major depressive disorder as well as both of them together. He discussed how anxiety disorders encompass a heightened sensitivity to predicted/unpredicted threats, whereas depressive disorders portray a reduced sensitivity to reward. A study was conducted to measure sensitivity to threat based on startle responses, and four different groups of people aged between 18 and 35 participated in a virtual slot-task machine. The researchers measured the frontal EEG asymmetry for people diagnosed with panic disorder, depression, co-morbidity (both panic disorder and depression) as well as control groups. The panic disorder group stood out in the sense that it portrayed a heightened sensitivity to both predicted and adverse stimuli, whereas major depressive disorder was associated with EEG asymmetry while participants anticipated winning money from the slot machine. The study found, however, that the comorbidity condition did not show amplified characteristics of both the panic and depression disorders. It concluded that the panic disorder and depression comorbidity condition demonstrates greater levels of distress and negative temperament in the afflicted individuals.

The results from this study suggest that treating individuals with both panic disorders and depression should not be limited to anxiety and depression treatments. However, the findings from Hamilton's article brings to light the issue of biased research and how perhaps talk therapy versus medication have their own benefits. Hamilton's article also discussed that regardless of the type of treatment patients receive, the mere fact of beginning a treatment creates a placebo effect that has shown to decrease symptoms of their disorders. Recent research has indicated that both medication and talk therapy seem to be most effective for people struggling with anxiety and depression, but there is ample room for discovery on guaranteed helpful treatments. The most important take-home message is that individuals suffering should take advantage of both forms of treatment, especially because many people have a variety of causes and factors that contribute to their disorder, and therefore may require a complex form of treatment.

Sources:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/30/444789771/studies-may-overstate-the-benefits-of-talk-therapy-for-depression

http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics

Citation:
Shankman, S.A., Nelson, B.D., Sarapas, C., Robison-Andrew, E.J., Campbell, M.L., Altman, S.E., ...& Gorks, S.M.(2013). A psychophysiological investigation of threat and reward sensitivity in individuals with panic disorder and/or major depressive disorder. Journal of abnormal psychology, 122(2),3.
2.

SuperAgers and Computers- Arguments about Memory Capacity

     Who says elderly folks have terrible memories? In some cases, the elderly may have even better memories than 50 and 60 year olds! When most people think of Alzheimer’s they think of only elderly people suffering from this disease; however, younger people may suffer from it as well (this is known as early onset Alzheimer’s). However, instead of deteriorating memories, some elderly people show no sign of deterioration and, indeed, have better memories than younger adults. These people are known as “SuperAgers”, and they are discussed in Tamar Gefen’s lecture and the article, "Morphometric and Histologic Substrates of Cingulate Integrity in Elders with Exceptional Memory Capacity", written by Tamar Gefen, Melanie Peterson, Steven T. Papastefan, Adam Martersteck, Kristen Whitney, Alfred Rademaker, Eileen H. Bigio, Sandra Weintraub, Emily Rogalski, M.-Marsel Mesulam, and Changiz Geula. This article discusses the fact that there are a fair amount of elderly people who still maintain the memories of 20 year olds. In normal 60 year olds there is evidence of normal age-related decline in memory functioning; nevertheless, this is not enough to warrant them demented. Gefen discusses Alzheimer’s and how it is an impairment in memory functioning and the people who suffer from this have very poor memories and have trouble in day-to-day functioning. SuperAgers, on the other hand, defy typical trajectories in aging over 80 and show simply outstanding memory performance. In her lecture, Gefen provided an example of Jeanne Calment, a woman who lived to be 122. She described that even though Jeanne enjoyed smoking cigarettes, she was in perfect health and only quit smoking when she couldn’t see well enough to light her own cigarettes. In the experiment described by Gefen, healthy 80 and 50 year olds were gathered and their cortical thicknesses examined. When compared, the 80 year olds showed a lot more atrophy. This finding makes sense because older people tend to have more degeneration than younger adults. When the researchers compared 80- year old SuperAgers, they saw that the 80 year olds compared to the SuperAgers showed much more thinning. The interesting part of this study shows itself when the 80 year old SuperAgers were compared to the normal 50 and 60 year olds. There was relatively no difference between the two groups; in fact, the brains of the SuperAgers showed even more Anterior Cingulate Cortex thickness than the 50 and 60 year olds. This suggests that there is some type of anatomical feature associated with SuperAging and the increased thickness has to do with the neurobiological signature of these SuperAgers.

      A similar article called “Forget about forgetting: Elderly know more, use it better” discusses memory and how our cognitive abilities change as we age. An example of a computer was used in describing declining cognitive abilities in which if the computer was only allowed to read a certain small amount each day, the computer’s performance or “cognitive ability” resembled only a child. However, when the computer was allowed to read and absorb more information, its performance resembled an older adult because it was allowed to accumulate more information. Interestingly, because there was more information to absorb and process, the computer’s functioning became slower due to the sheer amount of information present in the database. The computer’s processing ability did not decline; rather, “increased ‘experience’ had caused the computer's database to grow, giving it more data to process- which takes time”. This article also discusses why it is more difficult for older people than younger people to recall names. This is because there is more variety of names present today than there was years ago and this makes recalling a name in an already packed memory far more difficult. In this article the researchers provide explanations for why the brains of older people seem slower at processing information as well as more forgetful in general than the brains of younger people. Michael Ramscar argues that instead of elderly memory declining, the cognitive tests used to assess memory are intrinsically flawed and therefore assume that elderly people simply have degenerating memories. An example of such a test is “paired-associate learning” in which young and old must connect words such as “up” to “down” or “necktie” to “cracker” in memory. The research reveals that younger adults do better when attempting to pair “up” with “down” because they appear more frequently together than “necktie” and “cracker”. However, young adults notice less than older adults when words do not go together and this, according to Ramscar, shows older adults’ superior understanding of language. The main point of this article states that “the brains of older people do not get weak… on the contrary, they simply know more”. So, just like the computer example in the beginning of the article, older folks simply have more information to process than younger folks, and this requires more time.
     
     These two articles, "Morphometric and Histologic Substrates of Cingulate Integrity in Elders with Exceptional Memory Capacity" and “Forget about forgetting: Elderly know more, use it better” relate to one another in the fact that they both discuss memory capacities but utilize different methods of doing so. Tamar Gefen's article specifies that the reason SuperAgers have amazing memory capacity is because of a neurobiological signature, and this signature is not present in the brains of those suffering from Alzheimer's. Michael Ramscar's article specifies that the elderly do not have slowly deteriorating memories; in fact, their memories are only not as sharp as those of younger people because they have more experiences, memories, and information in their minds causing slower processing (just like a computer). 

Sources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140120090415.htm

https://luc.app.box.com/v/neuroscienceseminar/1/5783522273/49078412269/1

http://www.google.com/search?q=superagers&safe=strict&nord=1&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJvavs6rnMAhUruoMKHc_zDLsQ_AUIDCgA#imgrc=roZ5UtJ83nja0M%3A

http://www.google.com/search?q=superagers&safe=strict&nord=1&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJvavs6rnMAhUruoMKHc_zDLsQ_AUIDCgA#safe=strict&nord=1&tbm=isch&q=anterior+cingulate+cortex&imgrc=OJ5HKbkind5aSM%3A

Gefen, T., Peterson, M., Papastefan, S. T., Martersteck, A., Whitney, K., Rademaker, A., . . . Geula, C. (2015). Morphometric and Histologic Substrates of Cingulate Integrity in Elders with Exceptional Memory Capacity. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(4), 1781-1791. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.2998-14.2015

To Vape or Not to Vape

In February, Dr. Dan McGehee had come to talk about his work on nicotine induced changes on synaptic strength. He specifically focused on the receptor systems that are involved with nicotine, as well as the long term changes that occur because of nicotine in excitatory synaptic input to ventral segmental area dopamine neurons. McGehee discussed that nicotine activates nicotine acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) which then carries on to cause long term potentiation in ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons. This then causes an increase of glutamate through alpha-7 nAChRs on glutamate terminals. Therefore, there is a presynaptic contribution of nicotine in long term potentiation induction. In his study, McGehee and his colleagues had utilized an in vitro exposure paradigm in order to study the effects of nicotine on excitatory synaptic strength in “drug naïve rats” (Mao et al., 2011). This rose the AMPA receptor/NMDAR ratio in ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons, which gave reason to believe there was an induction of long term potentiation caused by the nicotine. They also found that there was an induction of synaptic plasticity which they thought was most likely due to the increased activity of NMDAR. As a result of their research, McGehee and his colleagues had identified receptor systems that have to do with long term changes that are caused by nicotine in excitatory synaptic input to ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons. By identifying these common receptors, addiction to nicotine as well as cigarettes can be better understood.

In a recent New York Times article by Sabrina Tavernise called, “Smokers Urged to Switch to E-Cigarettes by British Medical Group”, the argument of whether e-cigarettes are better than traditional cigarettes for the public health is brought to light. A British medical organization had come up with a report stating that the benefits of e-cigarettes are greater than the cost and that they can help people who smoke to quit. E-cigarettes deliver nicotine to the user, but do this without the use of tar or other chemicals that are found in traditional cigarettes and are what leads to cancer. According to to the director of the U.K. Center for Tabacco and Alcohol Studies at the University of Nottingham, John Britton, e-cigarettes “have the potential to help half or more of all smokers get off cigarettes. That’s a huge benefit, bigger than just about any medical intervention.” However, many experts in the U.S. strongly disagree with this.

According to a professor of medicine at the University of California, “They are turning England into this giant experiment on behalf of the tobacco industry.” Many experts in the U.S. have mentioned many potential dangers of e-cigarettes, such as the fact that they could extend smoking habits, they may be a gateway for traditional cigarettes for children, as well as the fact that since e-cigarettes are a fairly new and fast growing phenomenon, the long term effects of them are unknown. However, there are some in the U.S. who do agree with British experts in that they want policies that will reduce harm to people, not eliminate, such as e-cigarettes rather than traditional, and clean needles for drug use because people are not going to just stop smoking cigarettes or doing drugs and so we should make sure they are doing it in a safer manner. There are some U.S. experts who also say that information that benefits the argument for e-cigarettes has been lost in the midst of the rush to condemn them.

U.K. officials claim that e-cigarettes can increase the ability to quit smoking by 50% and that “long term effects [are] likely to be minimal”, where as U.S. officials claim that they will reduce the chances in quitting. McGehee’s work also contradicts the arguments of British experts in that nicotine does have a long term effect on the body. His work found that nicotine is involved in inducing long term changes in the excitatory synaptic input to ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons. Perhaps a good question to ask is what kinds of effects could this have on the body.

Tavernise mentions in the article that it seems as though the U.K. is focusing more on the hypothetical benefits of e-cigarettes and the U.S. is focusing on the hypothetical risks. The work of McGehee pointed towards identifying more effective treatments for nicotine addiction as well as other psychostimulant addictions. The use of e-cigarettes has grown so fast that the FDA is far behind on regulation on them, hopefully more work like that of McGehee will be done in order to find out if e-cigarettes truly do help with the quitting process and if there are any detrimental long-term effects.

References

Mao, D., Gallagher, K., McGehee, D. “Nicotine Potentiation of Excitatory Inputs to Ventral Tegmental Area Dopamine Neurons.” The Journal of Neuroscience 31. 18 (2011): 6710-6720. Print.

Tavernise, Sabrina. "Smokers Urged to Switch to E-Cigarettes by British Medical Group." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2016. Web. 01 May 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/health/e-cigarettes-vaping-quitting-smoking-royal-college-of-physicians.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront>

Picture: http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/blog/2013/11/21/e-cigarettes-healthy-alternative-smoking/