The Future of Environmental Neuroscience starts with Greenspace for the Human Brain

The study of environmental neuroscience looks into how the environment around us impacts our behavior and mental health. This could involve everything from the design of our homes and workplaces to the noise and pollution in our cities. Environmental psychologists strive to understand how our physical environment affects our cognitive and emotional well-being. In recent years, there has been evidence showing how the environment has a significant impact on our brain development and mental health. On a similar note, environmental neuroscience aims to specify and manipulate how different environments affect organisms on large spatial scales (the organization of a city) to small spatial scales (the amount of perceived fractalness in the environment), and from long temporal scales (a human life span) to short temporal scales (exposures on the order of seconds). Marc G. Berman, a researcher who studied the effects a natural setting had on people compared to an urban setting found interesting results with how the different environments had an influence on working memory (M. Berman et al. 2019). Those who had the nature walk were able to perform better in working memory tasks than those who hadn’t, which heightened a societal focus on greenspace.

Greenspace is a designated area of land where vegetation and other green infrastructure are encouraged to grow and flourish. This can include parks, gardens, nature reserves, and other areas where people can enjoy time outdoors in nature, similar to the experience of the participants mentioned in Berman’s study. Greenspace has a number of benefits for the developing human brain, which is something Berman noted in their presentation. However other studies have shown how exposure to nature can reduce stress, improve mood, and increase attention span. On another note, time spent in greenspace allows increased levels of physical activity, which is an important factor, especially in brain development. The benefits of greenspace extend beyond just the individual though. In cities, greenspace can help to improve air quality, reduce noise pollution, and provide a sense of community (Nieuwenhuijsen, 2021). For society as a whole, investing in greenspace is a crucial step in creating a sustainable future, especially in developing children's mental health.

One study found a strong correlation between the amount of greenspace a child is exposed to during their childhood and their risk of developing a psychiatric disorder later in life. Specifically, it found that the risk of developing a psychiatric disorder was 15-55% higher for those who had the lowest exposure to greenspace compared to those with the highest exposure (Engemann, 2019). This simply demonstrates the importance and effectiveness of greenspace not only for reducing psychological disorders but also in working memory, referring back to

Berman’s study. This simply shows us a stronger emphasis on the importance and potential improvement. Discussing possible mechanisms which could explain the link between greenspace and mental health, including the role of greenspace in reducing stress, the positive impact of green space on brain structure, and the role of green space in providing a restorative environment, all aid in the overarching study of environmental neuroscience.

CITATIONS

Berman, Marc G., et al. “Environmental Neuroscience.” The American Psychologist, vol. 74, no. 9, 2019, pp. 1039–52, https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000583.

Engemann, Kristine, et al. “Residential Green Space in Childhood Is Associated with Lower Risk of Psychiatric Disorders from Adolescence into Adulthood.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, vol. 116, no. 11, 2019, pp. 5188–93, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807504116.

Nieuwenhuijsen, Mark J. “Why More Green Space Is Essential for Cities - Blog.” Barcelona Institute for Global Health, 28 Oct. 2021, https://www.isglobal.org/en/healthisglobal/-/custom-blog-portlet/why-more-green-space-i s-essential-for-cities/4735173/0#:~:text=Green%20space%20is%20associated%20with,t he%20elderly%2C%20and%20healthier%20babies. 

Using Language Through Our Hands

One of the most distinct ways that make human beings uniquely different from other organisms is in the way that we communicate and share information with each other. Our ability to use language takes on many forms, such as through speech or through the written word, and is used for many different reasons, one of the most important being learning information from one another. In the field of neuroscience, there is still very little understanding of the way that humans communicate and use language with each other. One of the reasons is that there isn’t yet a way to study how other species communicate that would be similar enough to accurately apply it to our use of language. However, there have been recent findings on the way humans learn through language, and this research suggests that part of the answer to the mystery of language is in our hands. 

Many findings of how humans communicate come from research on how we learn as children, which is a heavily researched topic in the field of developmental psychology. Dr. Wakefield’s research gives us more information on the significance of using hand movements when learning new concepts. In this study, eye-tracking data was collected between a pretest and posttest from children while they watched a video of a teacher explaining how to solve a math problem. Half of the children watched a video in which the teacher stood and used speech alone to solve the math problem, and the other half watched a video where the teacher used hand gestures to point out different parts of the equation while using the same speech as the other video. After analyzing the eye-tracking data and comparing posttest results, it was found that children tended to focus their visual attention on the math problem shown in the video when hand gestures were used (Wakefield et. al., 2018). The researchers used this data to infer that gestures affected the relationship between speech and visual information and that children were able to better apply the teacher’s directions to the task of solving the math problem when gestures were used. 

The effect of using gestures while communicating on how we learn has been shown to apply across different subjects in various languages. A news article titled “How Certain Gestures Help you Learn New Words” reports the findings of a study from the Journal of Neuroscience that gives us more information on the role that gestures can play in learning a new language. In the study, German-speaking participants were asked to learn a list of made-up vocabulary words and memorize their meanings along with the gestures that accompanied those meanings. Five months after learning them, participants were tested to see if they remembered the vocabulary list and their meanings while the experimenters sent interfering signals to their primary motor cortex via transcranial magnetic stimulation. The participants found it harder to remember the words when there were signals being sent to the motor cortex and easier to remember when they weren’t, which suggests that the primary motor cortex played a role in remembering new, foreign words (Mathias et. al., 2021). 

The significance of gestures in learning concepts and communicating with each other is important to consider if we want to figure out what makes the way that humans use language so unique and how language is connected in our brains. How we associate words and concepts with one another in our brains is still very unknown, but these findings on the role of gestures in language could imply that in many cases, using our hands could be one of the middle pieces that connect words and concepts with each other and allow us to understand and remember what they mean. Further research can dive more deeply into how the motor cortex and other regions of the brain can work together in developing our ability to use gestures in our language.

Works Cited

Gelitz, C. (2021, November 12). How certain gestures help you learn new words. Scientific American. Retrieved October 14, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-certain-gestures-help-you-learn-new-words/ 

Mathias, B., Waibel, A., Hartwigsen, G., Sureth, L., Macedonia, M., Mayer, K. M., & von Kriegstein, K. (2021). Motor cortex causally contributes to vocabulary translation following sensorimotor-enriched training. The Journal of Neuroscience, 41(41), 8618–8631. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.2249-20.2021 

Wakefield, Elizabeth, et al. “Gesture Helps Learners Learn, but Not Merely by Guiding Their Visual Attention.” Developmental Science, vol. 21, no. 6, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12664.

 

The Gut Microbiome and Its Relationship to Sleep and Mental Health.

 

                In recent years research concerning the gut microbiome and its effects on the brain has become more prevalent. Sleep is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle and is usually the first to be neglected in a stressed environment; a couple of factors can help increase sleep quality.

                The gut microbiome has been heavily implied to impact sleep (Smith et al., 2019). In a research study in which gut microbiome composition was obtained and compared to sleep physiology factors (i.e., neurobehavioral assessment, immune system biomarkers), there was a positive correlation between these two factors (Smith et al., 2019). This suggests that sleep can be modulated by manipulating the gut microbiome. This is further supported by the study of Bowers et al. (2022), in which they managed to improve sleep in rats by administering a GOS/PDX (galactooligosaccharides/polydextrose) diet for four weeks. What was observed is the increase in REM and non-REM sleep regardless of sleep disruption that was being caused compared to the control group. This impact can be considered on a different scale, meaning that mental health independently modulates sleep. Mental health can also benefit from the manipulation of the gut microbiome.

                The article “Depression in sleep disturbance: A review on a bidirectional relationship, mechanisms, and treatment” identified an association between mental illness and sleep (Fang et al., 2019). Sleep disturbance is said not to be a result of depression but an independent factor in developing depression. In another article by Clapp et al. (2017), a link between the gut microbiome and mental illnesses has also been found. These connections lead to the belief that treatment for mental illness (i.e., depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s) can be managed not only by medication but by manipulating the gut microbiome.

 

Work Cite

Bowers, S. J., Summa, K. C., Thompson, R. S., González, A., Vargas, F., Walker, C., Jiang, P., Lowry, C. A., Dorrestein, P. C., Knight, R., Wright, K. P., Fleshner, M., Turek, F. W., & Vitaterna, M. H. (2022a). A Prebiotic Diet Alters the Fecal Microbiome and Improves Sleep in Response to Sleep Disruption in Rats. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16(889211). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.889211

Clapp, M., Aurora, N., Herrera, L., Bhatia, M., Wilen, E., & Wakefield, S. (2017). Gut microbiota’s effect on mental health: the gut-brain axis. Clinics and Practice, 7(4). https://doi.org/10.4081/cp.2017.987

Clement-Carbonell, V., Portilla-Tamarit, I., Rubio-Aparicio, M., & Madrid-Valero, J. J. (2021). Sleep Quality, Mental and Physical Health: A Differential Relationship. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(2), 460. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020460

Fang, H., Tu, S., Sheng, J., & Shao, A. (2019). Depression in sleep disturbance: A review on a bidirectional relationship, mechanisms, and treatment. Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, 23(4), 2324–2332. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcmm.14170

Smith, R. P., Easson, C., Lyle, S. M., Kapoor, R., Donnelly, C. P., Davidson, E. J., Parikh, E., Lopez, J. V., & Tartar, J. L. (2019). Gut microbiome diversity is associated with sleep physiology in humans. PLoS ONE, 14(10). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222394

 

 

 

The Importance of Gestures in Learning

    Determining the importance of utilizing gestures in learning and how they shape learning outcomes has been a question that neuroscientists have been working to answer. Whether it is using gestures to solve a math problem or learn a new language, neuroscientists seek to know the benefits of using gestures. At Loyola University Chicago, Dr. Elizabeth Wakefield and her colleagues study how Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual attention. They worked with elementary school aged children who had been taught how to solve missing addend equivalence problems. Tracking their visual attention during gesture and non-gesture learning, they aimed to determine if the use of gestures could positively predict learning outcomes. In 2022, Natalie Wexler, a senior contributor for Forbes, discussed How Gestures Can Help Students Learn. Looking closely at the impact of gestures when learning a new language, Wexler uncovered similar results. Both articles identified how gesture-based learning produced favorable results in learning and cognition versus speech alone based learning. Let us look deeper at why gesture-based learning has the ability to positively impact learning and how results have proven it to be measurable.

The first study we will discuss is Gesture Helps Learners Learn, but Not Merely by Guiding Their Visual Attention by Dr. Elizabeth Wakefield and her colleagues: Miriam A. Novack, Eliza L. Congdon, Steven Franconeri, and Susan Goldin-Meadow. In contrast with other studies, this paper discussed the impact of gesture-based learning through the tracking of visual attention and where students' eyes were when the gesture was taking place. They set up 3 zones within the screen: Instructor, problem, and gesture space. During the strategy segments, when the gesture was taking place, students focused significantly more on the problem than the instructor when the gesture was present. Looking at the posttest scores, students who received instruction with gestures solved 1-2 more problems correctly in the posttest than the students who received verbal instruction alone. Although this isn’t the first work to be done looking at gesture-based learning, this study was the first to evaluate cause and effect on a relatively short time scale. In addition to providing a better understanding of how gestures can direct the learner's attention and help them depict ambiguous speech, ultimately improving posttest importance.

    Shifting focus to Natalie Wexler’s article in Forbes, How Gestures Can Help Students Learn, Wexler elaborates on the impacts of using gestures in a variety of classrooms. In one first grade classroom, the use of gestures when talking about layers helped students visualize the word and provided context that enabled them to recall the word later in the school year when it came up in another subject. In fact, students subconsciously made the hand gesture without being prompted. In Australia, an anatomy professor had her students learn body parts and systems by acting out and pointing to their own bodies while learning. As a result, their professor, Kerry Dickson, has observed a significant increase in test scores by 42%. In the final study, Wexler discusses how third and fourth graders who were taught math in various ways, one which involved gesture-based learning. Initially, all students performed similarly but after four weeks the performance in those who had received gesture-based learning improved more than the other students. Overall, her findings led her to the conclusion that gesture-based learning can enable children to “understand a story better” (Wexler 2022) and when evaluated on performance, perform significantly better than those who learned without gesture. 

Both studies emphasize the positive impact gesture-based teaching has on learning. Dr. Wakefield and Natalie Wexler, highlight just some of the numerous studies, such as missing addend math problems, layers in Earth’s surface, or our human anatomy, which have produced results in support of the use of gesture-based learning in classrooms. Evidence supports that gestures enhance the learning process, and they also direct the learner’s attention to the specific concept at hand. Going forward, the use of gestures in learning has the potential to become a key factor in the success of students' ability to learn new concepts and retain information further in time. 

Works Cited

Wakefield, Elizabeth, et al. “Gesture Helps Learners Learn, but Not Merely by Guiding Their Visual Attention.” Developmental Science, vol. 21, no. 6, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12664. 

Wexler, Natalie. “How Gestures Can Help Students Learn.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 July 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2022/07/07/how-gestures-can-help-students-learn/?sh=65a4ede438b3.

Impact of Gesturing

    Gesturing is a powerful phenomenon that has a more significant effect than what is usually recognized. Whether people are using it to teach or have a friendly conversation, it allows the listeners to be more engaged and have a visual sense of what is being told. Gesturing while speaking has a large effect on developing children and adults. 

    Elizabeth Wakefield did a study on how gesturing can help learners learn. She did this by taking 50 kids ages 8 to 10. An eye tracker was set for each participant with the control group and experimental group. The control group are the members that watched the problem with no gestures and the experimental group watched with gesturing occurring. It was founded that in the post-test, the experimental group did better than the control group. It was also founded that the experimental group would watch the problem and gesture space more while in the control group, they would look at the problem and also focus on the instructor. Using gestures while teaching helps people gain a better understanding of what is being taught.

    A study was done by Goldin-Meadow on how gesturing is able to have an impact on optical illusions. This study contained of 45 people, and they would inspect Müller- Lyer illusion. It was founded that 32 of the members that were hearing used gestures while speaking and 13 members that are classified as deaf and used American Sign Language to converse about the sticks. According to the data, the illusion became less compelling when participants were using gestures to explain the illusion. 

    With both these studies, it can be seen that gesturing is able to have an impact when it comes to comparison and learning. It is impactful of trying to figure something out whether it's solving a problem or figuring out how an optical illusion is able to work. From both, it can be determined that gesturing is able to help the brain have a better understanding of what is going on and what is trying to be processed. When speech and gesturing processing occur at the same time, the brain is able to have a visual and verbal reference which can be a factor on how it's able to cause a better understanding, which occurred for the math problem and the optical illusion. All in all, gesturing can be powerful for both the developing brain and fully grown people. 

Works Cited 

    

let-7i microRNA aids in ischemic stroke recovery.

   Ischemia, or a lack of blood flow to an area of the body, is a major cause of tissue damage and cell death. Many cell types die when deprived of oxygen and nutrients, but some, such as progenitor cells, can survive and even proliferate. The paper "Let-7i inhibition enhances progesterone-induced functional recovery in a mouse model of ischemia" by Dr. Meharvan Singh, and colleagues show that inhibiting the let-7i microRNA can enhance progesterone-induced recovery from ischemia in a mouse model. Progesterone is a hormone known to protect against cell death and promote cell proliferation. It does this by activating specific genes that promote cell survival and inhibiting other genes that promote cell death. Let-7i is a microRNA that is known to inhibit the expression of genes involved in cell proliferation. Inhibiting let-7i allows more progesterone-induced cell proliferation and survival, leading to enhanced tissue repair after ischemia. The authors first induced ischemia in the mouse hindlimb by ligating the femoral artery. This caused tissue damage and cell death in the limb. The mice were then treated with progesterone or a control vehicle. Mice treated with progesterone had significantly less tissue damage and cell death than mice treated with the control vehicle. The authors then looked at the expression of let-7i in the ischemic tissue. They found that progesterone treatment led to a decrease in let-7i expression. Inhibition of let-7i enhanced progesterone-induced cell proliferation and migration, leading to enhanced tissue repair. This study shows that inhibiting let-7i can enhance progesterone-induced tissue repair after ischemia. This study also indicates that Let-7i increased the levels of several essential genes involved in cell proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis in the ischemic mouse brain; they found that Let-7i enhanced the production of the neurotrophic factor BDNF in the ischemic mouse brain. This could potentially be used to improve outcomes in patients with ischemic diseases. 

  Another study that links the role of microRNA let-7i in post-stroke recovery is "MicroRNA Let-7i Is a Promising Serum Biomarker for Post-stroke Cognitive Impairment and Alleviated OGD-Induced Cell Damage in vitro by Regulating Bcl-2" the authors of this paper discussed the role of the microRNA let-7i in post-stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI), microRNA let-7i is a promising serum biomarker that has the potential to alleviate cell damage caused by oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) in vitro. This is achieved by let-7i regulating the level of the cell death protein Bcl-2. In PSCI, there is an increase in microRNA let-7i in the serum. This upregulation of let-7i is thought to contribute to the development of PSCI. In vitro, microRNA let-7i can alleviate cell damage caused by OGD. This is achieved by let-7i regulating the level of the cell death protein Bcl-2. Bcl-2 is a protein that is involved in the control of cell death. When the level of Bcl-2 is high, cell death is prevented. When the level of Bcl-2 is low, cell death is promoted. In OGD-induced cell damage, the level of Bcl-2 is low. This leads to cell death. However, when microRNA let-7i is present, the level of Bcl-2 is increased. This leads to cell survival. The reason why microRNA let-7i is a promising serum biomarker for PSCI is that it can modulate Bcl-2 levels. This leads to the prevention of cell death, which is a crucial feature of PSCI. In conclusion, microRNA let-7i is a promising serum biomarker for PSCI. It can prevent cell death, which is a vital feature of PSCI.

   These two studies were both fascinating to read. The connection between the two studies is that microRNA let-7i is a promising serum biomarker for post-stroke cognitive impairment and alleviates OGD-induced cell damage in vitro by regulating Bcl-2, and let-7i inhibition enhances progesterone-induced functional recovery in a mouse model of ischemia. I hope to see future studies that expand on these results with human clinical trials to come soon.

    

Works cited:

Nguyen T, Su C, Singh M. Let-7i inhibition enhances progesterone-induced functional recovery in a mouse model of ischemia. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Oct 9;115(41):E9668-E9677. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1803384115. Epub 2018 Sep 20. PMID: 30237284; PMCID: PMC6187141.

Wang ZQ, Li K, Huang J, Huo TT, Lv PY. MicroRNA Let-7i Is a Promising Serum Biomarker for Post-stroke Cognitive Impairment and Alleviated OGD-Induced Cell Damage in vitro by Regulating Bcl-2. Front Neurosci. 2020 Mar 24;14:215. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00215. Erratum in: Front Neurosci. 2021 Jan 29;15:648121. PMID: 32265630; PMCID: PMC7105869.

Improving Mental Health One Hot Girl Walk at a Time

 As a society, facing coronavirus brought us together in a way most of us have never seen in our lifetime. Mental health got extremely real at this time because all we had was the time and space to reflect. More people have spoken up about their lockdown experiences and how it has changed their overall lives moving forward. Through this, the “hot girl walk” was born. The “hot girl walk” is an  internet trend coined by Mia Lind (Wong, 2022). While it may have made its debut during the thick of the pandemic, this trend is still very much alive. Because of its relevance, this is the first thing that came to mind when reading through Dr. Marc Berman’s research. Dr Berman and colleagues have used their research to really put roots down for the emerging field of Environmental Neuroscience. 

Environmental Neuroscience studies the relationship between organisms and their relationships with both the physical and social environments around them (Berman et al., 2019).  Among their findings they were able to find that individuals surrounded by urban environments are just as capable of reaping the benefits of those in more suburban or rural settings. This is promising information because of the stigma around urban areas and their lack of greenery or “nature”. Through their research, it was proven that treed rural areas and treed urban areas have extremely similar air quality (Berman et al., 2019). Not only are urban and rural environments fully equipped to improve mental health but they share equally as fresh air as the other. 

As a result of this universal benefit within both urban and suburban areas, as well as the simplicity of just going for a walk makes this trend legitimately helpful. When you are walking, your body releases endorphins which inhibit stress and boost your overall mood (Wong, 2022). The hot girl walk took the internet by storm at a time when most people sat on the internet all day for some sort of content to fill the void that the pandemic created. This exposure created a calling everyone to take their daily hot girl walk. Because of the simplicity of the activity, there is an option for everyone to do something they love while taking a walk. 

Self-Care does not need to consist of expensive products or classes for it to be effective. We can take care of our brains and our bodies just by using the environment around us while incorporating things we already love to make it an even more enjoyable experience. No matter where we are, who we are, or what we have, all of us can get outside. Whether it’s a breath of fresh air or a hot girl walk, our brains will thank us for it. 

Berman, M. G., Stier, A. J., & Akcelik, G. N. (2019). Environmental neuroscience. American   Psychologist, 74(9), 1039–1052. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000583. . 

Wong, Brittany. “This Is Your Brain And Body On 'Hot Girl Walks'.” Huff Post, 23 May 2022.