Category Archives: Neuroscience

Neuroscience

Neuroscientists find the importance of dopamine in relationships – The Jerusalem Post

If you want to remain in love with your partner, your brain had better keep the dopamine flowing. The same hormone that is behind cravings for sugar, nicotine, and cocaine apparently infuses your brains reward center, motivating you to keep that unique bond alive.

But if you are spending time in a businesslike way with an acquaintance at work, the hormone will probably look more like a trickle instead of a flood, according to new research by neuroscientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

What we have found, essentially, is a biological signature of desire that helps us explain why we want to be with some people more than other people, said senior author and behavioral neuroscience Prof. Zoe Donaldson. The study was just published in the journal Current Biology under the title Nucleus accumbens dopamine release is necessary and sufficient to promote the behavioral response to reward-predictive cues.

The nucleus accumbens is part of the neural circuit that controls reward-seeking in response to reward-predictive cues. Dopamine release in the accumbens is essential for the normal functioning of this circuit.

The team didnt study human couples but prairie voles cute rodents with greyish-brownish fur on their backs and yellowish fur on their abdomens, a short tail, and small ears. Unusually for mammals, they pick a partner with whom they monogamously share their whole lives and raise their young. Only three to five percent of non-human mammals are monogamous. Because of predators and natural factors, however, their life expectancy is only about two years, and they even experience something like grief when they lose their partner.

By studying voles, Donaldson sought to gain new insight into what goes on inside the human brain to make intimate relationships possible and how we get over it, neurochemically speaking. The new study looked for answers to both questions, showing for the first time that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a critical role in keeping love alive.

As humans, our entire social world is basically defined by different degrees of selective desire to interact with different people, whether its your romantic partner or your close friends, said Donaldson. This research suggests that certain people leave a unique chemical imprint on our brain that drives us to maintain these bonds over time.

For the study, Donaldson and her colleagues used state-of-the art neuroimaging technology to measure, in real time, what happens in the brain as a vole tries to get to its partner. In one scenario, the vole had to press a lever to open a door to the room where her partner was. In another, she had to climb over a fence for that reunion.

Meanwhile a tiny fiber-optic sensor tracked activity, millisecond by millisecond, in the animals nucleus accumbens, a brain region responsible for motivating humans to seek rewarding things, from water and food to drugs of abuse. Human neuroimaging studies have shown it is the nucleus accumbens that lights up when we hold our loved ones hand.

Each time the sensor detects a spurt of dopamine, it lights up like a glow stick, explained first-author Anne Pierce, who worked on the study as a graduate student in Donaldsons lab. When the voles pushed the lever or climbed over the wall to see their life partner, the fiber lit up like a rave, she said, and the party continued as they snuggled and sniffed one another.

In contrast, when a random vole is on the other side of that door or wall, the glow stick dims. This suggests that not only is dopamine really important for motivating us to seek out our partner, but theres actually more dopamine coursing through our reward center when we are with our partner than when we are with a stranger, said Pierce.

In another experiment, the vole couple were kept apart for four weeks -- an eternity in the life of these rodents and long enough for voles in the wild to find another partner. When reunited, they remembered one another, but their signature dopamine surge had almost vanished. In essence, that fingerprint of desire was gone. As far as their brains were concerned, their former partner was indistinguishable from any other vole. We think of this as sort of a reset within the brain that allows the animal to now go on and potentially form a new bond, Donaldson said.

This could be good news for humans who have undergone a painful break-up or even lost a spouse, suggesting that the brain has an inherent mechanism to protect us from endless unrequited love, the authors suggested. They stressed that more research is necessary to learn whether results in voles translate to their bigger-brained humans. But they believe their work could ultimately have important implications for people who either have trouble forming close relationships or those who struggle to get over loss a condition known as prolonged grief disorder.

The hope is that by understanding what healthy bonds look like within the brain, we can begin to identify new therapies to help the many people with mental illnesses that affect their social world, Donaldson concluded.

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Neuroscientists find the importance of dopamine in relationships - The Jerusalem Post

Neuroscience

Insights from a Leading Pain Expert – Dr. Sean Mackey on HubermanLab Podcast – Medriva

Insights from a Leading Pain Expert

Dr. Sean Mackey, a renowned pain expert and professor at Stanford University, recently featured on the HubermanLab podcast. This episode offers a deep dive into the fascinating world of pain management and neuroscience, providing valuable insights that could benefit anyone interested in these topics. The podcast, hosted by Dr. Andrew Huberman, explores various aspects of human performance, neuroscience, and pain through in-depth interviews with field experts.

During the podcast, Dr. Mackey presents an enlightening discussion about different pain types and the latest treatments available. He addresses chronic pain, a condition impacting millions worldwide, and shares practical advice on managing it to improve overall well-being. Dr. Mackeys expertise offers a unique perspective on our understanding of pain, helping demystify this complex physiological and psychological phenomenon.

One of the highlights of the episode is Dr. Mackeys discussion on the neuroscience of pain. He explains how the brain processes pain, enhancing our understanding of this crucial aspect. The podcast also delves into the impact of emotions on pain perception, a topic that is garnering increased attention in the field of neuroscience.

In addition to discussing the science of pain, Dr. Mackey also touches on the placebo effect and non-pharmacological treatments for chronic pain. These topics are particularly significant given the current opioid crisis and the need for effective, non-addictive pain management strategies. Dr. Mackeys insights into these areas offer hope for those suffering from chronic pain.

The conversation also covers the impact of stress and anxiety on pain perception, another crucial aspect of pain management. As Dr. Mackey explains, understanding the role of these factors can significantly influence how we approach pain treatment.

Looking towards the future, the podcast explores the potential of technologies like virtual reality to alleviate pain. As research progresses, these innovative solutions could revolutionize the field of pain management, offering new hope for those living with pain.

The HubermanLab podcast episode featuring Dr. Sean Mackey offers an enlightening look into the complex world of pain and neuroscience. Whether youre a professional in the field, a patient seeking understanding, or simply interested in the subject, this episode is a valuable resource.

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Insights from a Leading Pain Expert - Dr. Sean Mackey on HubermanLab Podcast - Medriva

Neuroscience

What neuroscience says about the connection between music, the brain and mental wellbeing – Scroll.in

When I hear Shania Twains Youre Still The One, it takes me back to when I was 15, playing on my Dads PC. I was tidying up the mess after he had tried to [take his own life]. Hed been listening to her album, and I played it as I tidied up. Whenever I hear the song, Im taken back the sadness and anger comes flooding back.

There is a renewed fascination with the healing powers of music. This resurgence can primarily be attributed to recent breakthroughs in neuroscientific research, which have substantiated musics therapeutic properties such as emotional regulation and brain re-engagement. This has led to a growing integration of music therapy with conventional mental health treatments.

Such musical interventions have already been shown to help people with cancer, chronic pain and depression. The debilitating consequences of stress, such as elevated blood pressure and muscle tension, can also be alleviated through the power of music.

As both a longtime music fan and neuroscientist, I believe music has a special status among all the arts in terms of the breadth and depth of its impact on people. One critical aspect is its powers of autobiographical memory retrieval encouraging often highly personal recollections of past experiences. We can all recount an instance where a tune transports us back in time, rekindling recollections and often imbuing them with a range of powerful emotions.

But enhanced recollection can also occur in dementia patients, for whom the transformative impact of music therapy sometimes opens a floodgate of memories from cherished childhood experiences and the aromas and tastes of a mothers kitchen, to lazy summer afternoons spent with family or the atmosphere and energy of a music festival.

One remarkable example is a widely shared video made by the Asociacin Msica para Despertar, which is thought to feature the Spanish-Cuban ballerina Martha Gonzlez Saldaa (though there has been some controversy about her identity). The music of Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky appears to reactivate cherished memories and even motor responses in this former prima ballerina, who is moved to rehearse some of her former dance motions on camera.

In our laboratory at Northumbria University, we aim to harness these recent neuroscience advances to deepen our understanding of the intricate connection between music, the brain and mental wellbeing. We want to answer specific questions such as why sad or bittersweet music plays a unique therapeutic role for some people, and which parts of the brain it touches compared with happier compositions.

Advanced research tools such as high-density electroencephalogram, or EEG, monitors enable us to record how the brain regions talk to each other in real-time as someone listens to a song or symphony. These regions are stimulated by different aspects of the music, from its emotional content to its melodic structure, its lyrics to its rhythmic patterns.

Of course, everyones response to music is deeply personal, so our research also necessitates getting our study participants to describe how a particular piece of music makes them feel including its ability to encourage profound introspection and evoke meaningful memories.

Ludwig van Beethoven once proclaimed: Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind, but which mankind cannot comprehend. With the help of neuroscience, we hope to help change that.

Musics ancient origins predate aspects of language and rational thinking. Its roots can be traced back to the Paleolithic Era more than 10,000 years ago, when early humans used it for communication and emotional expression. Archaeological finds include ancient bone flutes and percussion instruments made from bones and stones, as well as markings noting the most accoustically resonant place within a cave and even paintings depicting musical gatherings.

Music in the subsequent Neolithic Era went through significant development within permanent settlements across the world. Excavations have revealed various musical instruments including harps and complex percussion instruments, highlighting musics growing importance in religious ceremonies and social gatherings during this period alongside the emergence of rudimentary forms of music notation, evident in clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia in western Asia.

Ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle both recognised musics central role in the human experience. Plato outlined the power of music as a pleasurable and healing stimulus, stating: Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination. More practically, Aristotle suggested that: Music has the power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young.

Throughout history, many cultures have embraced the healing powers of music. Ancient Egyptians incorporated music into their religious ceremonies, considering it a therapeutic force. Native American tribes, such as the Navajo, used music and dance in their healing rituals, relying on drumming and chanting to promote physical and spiritual wellbeing. In traditional Chinese medicine, specific musical tones and rhythms were believed to balance the bodys energy (qi) and enhance health.

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Christian church was pivotal in popularising music for the masses. Congregational hymn singing allowed worshippers to engage in communal music during church services. This shared musical expression was a powerful medium for religious devotion and teaching, bridging the gap for a largely non-literate population to connect with their faith through melody and lyrics. Communal singing is not only a cultural and religious tradition, but it has also been recognised as a therapeutic experience.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, early investigations into the human nervous system paralleled the emergence of music therapy as a field of study. Pioneers such as American physician Benjamin Rush, a signatory of the US Declaration of Independence in 1776, recognised the therapeutic potential of music to improve mental health.

Soon afterwards, figures such as Samuel Mathews (one of Rushs students) began conducting experiments exploring musics effects on the nervous system, laying the foundation for modern music therapy. This early work provided the springboard for E Thayer Gaston, known as the father of music therapy, to promote it as a legitimate discipline in the US. These developments inspired similar endeavours in the UK, where Mary Priestley made significant contributions to the development of music therapy as a respected field.

The insights gained from these early explorations have continued to influence psychologists and neuroscientists ever since including the late, great neurologist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks, who observed that:

Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears. It is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.

Music was my profession, but it was also a special and deeply personal pursuit Most importantly, it gave me a way to cope with lifes challenges, learning to channel my feelings and express them safely. Music taught me how to take my thoughts, both the pleasant and the painful ones, and turn them into something beautiful.

Studying and understanding all the brain mechanisms involved in listening to music, and its effects, requires more than just neuroscientists. Our diverse team includes music experts such as Dimana Kardzhieva (quoted above), who started playing the piano aged five and went on to study at the National School of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria. Now a cognitive psychologist, her combined understanding of music and cognitive processes helps us delve into the complex mechanisms through which music affects (and soothes) our minds. A neuroscientist alone might fall short in this endeavour.

The starting point of our research was the so-called Mozart effect the suggestion that exposure to intricate musical compositions, especially classical pieces, stimulates brain activity and ultimately enhances cognitive abilities. While there have been subsequent mixed findings as to whether the Mozart effect is real, due to the different methods employed by researchers over the years, this work has nonetheless triggered significant advances in our understanding of musics effect on the brain.

In the original 1993 study by Frances Rauscher and colleagues, participants experienced enhancement in spatial reasoning ability after just ten minutes of listening to Mozarts Sonata for Two Pianos in D.

In our 1997 study, which used Beethovens second symphony and rock guitarist Steve Vais instrumental track For the Love of God, we found similar direct effects in our listeners as measured both by EEG activity associated with attention levels and the release of the hormone dopamine (the brains messenger for feelings of joy, satisfaction and the reinforcement of specific actions). Our research found that classical music in particular enhances attention to how we process the world around us, regardless of ones musical expertise or preferences.

The beauty of EEG methodology lies in its capacity to track brain processes with millisecond accuracy allowing us to distinguish unconscious neural responses from conscious ones. When we repeatedly showed simple shapes to a person, we found that classical music sped up their early (pre-300 millisecond) processing of these stimuli. Other music did not have the same effect and nor did our subjects prior knowledge of, or liking for, classical music. For example, both professional rock and classical musicians who took part in our study improved their automatic, unconscious cognitive processes while listening to classical music.

But we also found indirect effects related to arousal. When people immerse themselves in the music they personally enjoy, they experience a dramatic shift in their alertness and mood. This phenomenon shares similarities with the increased cognitive performance often linked to other enjoyable experiences.

In a further study, we explored the particular influence of program music the term for instrumental music that carries some extramusical meaning, and which is said to possess a remarkable ability to engage memory, imagination and self-reflection. When our participants listened to Antonio Vivaldis Four Seasons, they reported experiencing a vivid representation of the changing seasons through the music including those who were unfamiliar with these concertos. Our study concluded, for example, that:

Spring particularly the well-recognised, vibrant, emotive and uplifting first movement had the ability to enhance mental alertness and brain measures of attention and memory.

Musics emotional and therapeutic qualities are highly related to the release of neurochemicals. A number of these are associated with happiness, including oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. However, dopamine is central to the enhancing properties of music.

It triggers the release of dopamine in regions of the brain devoted to reward and pleasure, generating sensations of joy and euphoria akin to the impact of other pleasurable activities such as eating or having sex. But unlike these activities, which have clear value related to survival and reproduction, the evolutionary advantage of music is less obvious.

Its strong social function is acknowledged as the main factor behind musics development and preservation in human communities. So, this protective quality may explain why it taps into the same neural mechanisms as other pleasurable activities.

The brains reward system consists of interconnected regions, with the nucleus accumbens serving as its powerhouse. It is situated deep within the subcortical region, and its location hints at its significant involvement in emotion processing, given its proximity to other key regions related to this.

When we engage with music, whether playing or listening, the nucleus accumbens responds to its pleasurable aspects by triggering the release of dopamine. This process, known as the dopamine reward pathway, is critical for experiencing and reinforcing positive emotions such as the feelings of happiness, joy or excitement that music can bring.

We are still learning about the full impact of music on different parts of the brain, as Jonathan Smallwood, professor of psychology at Queens University, Ontario, explains:

Music can be complicated to understand from a neuroscience perspective. A piece of music encompasses many domains that are typically studied in isolation such as auditory function, emotion, language and meaning.

That said, we can see how musics effect on the brain extends beyond mere pleasure. The amygdala, a region of the brain renowned for its involvement in emotion, generates and regulates emotional responses to music, from the heartwarming nostalgia of a familiar melody to the exhilarating excitement of a crescendoing symphony or the spine-tingling fear of an eerie, haunting tune.

Research has also demonstrated that, when stimulated by music, these regions can encourage us to have autobiographical memories that elicit positive self-reflection that makes us feel better as we saw in the video of former ballerina Martha Gonzlez Saldaa.

Our own research points to the hippocampus, crucial for memory formation, as the part of the brain that stores music-related memories and associations. Simultaneously, the prefrontal cortex, responsible for higher cognitive functions, closely collaborates with the hippocampus to retrieve these musical memories and assess their autobiographical significance. During music listening, this interplay between the brains memory and emotion centres creates a powerful and unique experience, elevating music to a distinctive and pleasurable stimulus.

Visual art, like paintings and sculptures, lacks musics temporal and multisensory engagement, diminishing its ability to form strong, lasting emotional-memory connections. Art may evoke emotions and memories but often remains rooted in the moment. Music perhaps uniquely forms enduring, emotionally charged memories that can be summoned with the replaying of a particular song years later.

Music therapy can change peoples lives in profound ways. We have had the privilege of hearing many personal stories and reflections from our study participants, and even our researchers. In some cases, such as the memories of a fathers attempted suicide elicited by Shania Twains Youre Still The One, these are profound and deeply personal accounts. They show us the power of music to help regulate emotions, even when the memories it triggers are negative and painful.

In the face of severe physical and emotional challenges, another participant in our study explained how they had felt an unexpected boost to their wellbeing from listening to a favourite track from their past despite the apparently negative content of the songs title and lyrics:

Exercise has been crucial for me post-stroke. In the midst of my rehab workout, feeling low and in pain, an old favourite, What Have I Done To Deserve This? by the Pet Shop Boys, gave me an instant boost. It not only lifted my spirits but sent my heart racing with excitement I could feel the tingles of motivation coursing through my veins.

Music can serve as a cathartic outlet, a source of empowerment, allowing individuals to process and cope with their emotions while supplying solace and release. One participant described how a little-known tune from 1983 serves as a deliberate mood inducer a tool to boost their wellbeing:

Whenever Im down or in need of a pick me up, I play Dolce Vita by Ryan Paris. It is like a magic button for generating positive emotions within myself - it always lifts me up in a matter of moments.

As each person has their own tastes and emotional connections with certain types of music, a personalised approach is essential when designing music therapy interventions, to ensure they resonate with individuals deeply. Even personal accounts from our researchers, such as this from Sam Fenwick, have proved fruitful in generating hypotheses for experimental work:

If I had to pick a single song that really strikes a chord, it would be Alpenglow by Nightwish. This song gives me shivers. I cant help but sing along and every time I do, it brings tears to my eyes. When life is good, it triggers feelings of inner strength and reminds me of natures beauty. When I feel low, it instils a sense of longing and loneliness, like I am trying to conquer my problems all alone when I could really use some support.

Stimulated by such observations, our latest investigation compares the effects of sad and happy music on people and their brains, in order to better understand the nature of these different emotional experiences. We have found that sombre melodies can have particular therapeutic effects, offering listeners a special platform for emotional release and meaningful introspection.

Drawing inspiration from studies on emotionally intense cinematic experiences, we recently published a study highlighting the effects of complex musical compositions, particularly Vivaldis Four Seasons, on dopamine responses and emotional states. This was designed to help us understand how happy and sad music affects people in different ways.

One major challenge was how to measure our participants dopamine levels non-invasively. Traditional functional brain imaging has been a common tool to track dopamine in response to music for example, positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. However, this involves the injection of a radiotracer into the bloodstream, which attaches to dopamine receptors in the brain. Such a process also has limitations in terms of cost and availability.

In the field of psychology and dopamine research, one alternative, non-invasive approach involves studying how often people blink, and how the rate of blinking varies when different music is played.

Blinking is controlled by the basal ganglia, a brain region that regulates dopamine. Dopamine dysregulation in conditions such as Parkinsons disease can affect the regular blink rate. Studies have found that individuals with Parkinsons often exhibit reduced blink rates or increased variability in blink rates, compared with healthy individuals. These findings suggest that blink rate can serve as an indirect proxy indicator of dopamine release or impairment.

While blink rate may not provide the same level of precision as direct neurochemical measurements, it offers a practical and accessible proxy measure that can complement traditional imaging techniques. This alternative approach has shown promise in enhancing our understanding of dopamines role in various cognitive and behavioural processes.

Our study revealed that the sombre Winter movement elicited a particularly strong dopamine response, challenging our preconceived notions and shedding light on the interplay between music and emotions. Arguably you could have predicted a heightened response to the familiar and uplifting Spring concerto, but this was not the case.

Our approach extended beyond dopamine measurement to gain a comprehensive understanding of the effects of sad and happy music. We also used EEG network analysis to study how different regions of the brain communicate and synchronise their activity while listening to different music. For instance, regions associated with the appreciation of music, the triggering of positive emotions and the retrieval of rich personal memories may talk to each other. It is like watching a symphony of brain activity unfold, as individuals subjectively experienced a diverse range of musical stimuli.

In parallel, self-reports of subjective experiences gave us insights into the personal impact of each piece of music, including the timeframe of thoughts (past, present, or future), their focus (self or others), their form (images or words), and their emotional content. Categorising these thoughts and emotions, and analysing their correlation with brain data, can provide valuable information for future therapeutic interventions.

Our preliminary data reveals that happy music sparks present and future-oriented thoughts, positive emotions, and an outward focus on others. These thoughts were associated with heightened frontal brain activity and reduced posterior brain activity. In contrast, sad tunes caused self-focused reflection on past events, aligning with increased neural activity in brain areas tied to introspection and memory retrieval.

So why does sad music have the power to impact psychological wellbeing? The immersive experience of sombre melodies provides a platform for emotional release and processing. By evoking deep emotions, sad music allows listeners to find solace, introspect, and effectively navigate their emotional states.

This understanding forms the basis for developing future targeted music therapy interventions that cater to people facing difficulties with emotional regulation, rumination and even depression. In other words, even sad music can be a tool for personal growth and reflection.

While not a panacea, music listening offers substantial therapeutic effects, potentially leading to increased adoption of music therapy sessions alongside traditional talk therapy. Integrating technology into music therapy, notably through emerging app-based services, is poised to transform how people access personalised, on-demand therapeutic music interventions, providing a convenient and effective avenue for self-improvement and wellbeing.

And looking even further ahead, artificial intelligence (AI) integration holds the potential to revolutionise music therapy. AI can dynamically adapt therapy interventions based on a persons evolving emotional responses. Imagine a therapy session that uses AI to select and adjust music in real-time, precisely tailored to the patients emotional needs, creating a highly personalised and effective therapeutic experience. These innovations are poised to reshape the field of music therapy, unlocking its full therapeutic potential.

In addition, an emerging technology called neurofeedback has shown promise. Neurofeedback involves observing a persons EEG in real-time and teaching them how to regulate and improve their neural patterns. Combining this technology with music therapy could enable people to map the musical characteristics that are most beneficial for them, and thus understand how best to help themselves.

In each music therapy session, learning occurs while participants get feedback regarding the status of their brain activity. Optimal brain activity associated with wellbeing and also specific musical qualities such as a pieces rhythm, tempo or melody is learned over time. This innovative approach is being developed in our lab and elsewhere.

As with any form of therapy, recognising the limitations and individual differences is paramount. However, there are compelling reasons to believe music therapy can lead to new breakthroughs. Recent strides in research methodologies, driven partly by our labs contributions, have significantly deepened our understanding of how music can facilitate healing.

We are beginning to identify two core elements: emotional regulation, and the powerful link to personal autobiographical memories. Our ongoing research is concentrated on unravelling the intricate interactions between these essential elements and the specific brain regions responsible for the observed effects.

Of course, the impact of music therapy extends beyond these new developments in the neurosciences. The sheer pleasure of listening to music, the emotional connection it fosters, and the comfort it provides are qualities that go beyond what can be solely measured by scientific methods. Music deeply influences our basic emotions and experiences, transcending scientific measurement. It speaks to the core of our human experience, offering impacts that cannot easily be defined or documented.

Or, as one of our study participants so perfectly put it:

Music is like that reliable friend who never lets me down. When Im low, it lifts me up with its sweet melody. In chaos, it calms with a soothing rhythm. Its not just in my head; its a soul-stirring [magic]. Music has no boundaries one day it will effortlessly pick me up from the bottom, and the next it can enhance every single moment of the activity Im engaged in.

Leigh Riby is Professor of Cognitive-Neuroscience , Department of Psychology, Northumbria University, Newcastle.

This article was first published on The Conversation.

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What neuroscience says about the connection between music, the brain and mental wellbeing - Scroll.in

Neuroscience

New neuroscience research provides fascinating insights into the mystery of moral cognition – PsyPost

In a new study, neuroscientists have delved deep into the human brains approach to moral judgment. Their findings reveal that our moral decisions activate various, distinct areas of the brain, challenging the notion that morality is processed in a single moral hotspot. The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, also uncovered intriguing variations in moral perception based on political ideology.

The motivation behind this study lies in one of moral sciences most heated debates: whether our moral reasoning is a monolithic process or a diverse one. At the heart of this debate is the Moral Foundations Theory, which argues for the latter. According to this theory, our moral compass is not guided by a single north star but by multiple, contextually variable moral intuitions.

These foundations include care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and more recently identified, liberty. Essentially, this theory suggests that our moral judgments stem from different mental processes, evolved to tackle specific social challenges. The researchers sought to investigate whether our moral judgments about different areas like care, fairness, or loyalty are processed in separate neural systems or whether they converge within a unified framework.

Complex and context-dependent moral judgment is a unique human capacity and at the core of most social interactions among humans, either directly person to person, or mediated. As such, it is an important and fascinating topic to study for a cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, and communication scientist, said study author Ren Weber, a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara and director of UCSBs Media Neuroscience Lab.

To explore this, the researchers conducted an experiment involving 64 participants, mainly young adults from the University of California, Santa Barbara community. Participants underwent a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scan, a technology that visualizes brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow.

During the scans, participants engaged in a task involving Moral Foundations Vignettes short descriptions of actions violating specific moral foundations. The vignettes also included non-moral social norm transgressions, such as eating cereal with water instead of milk, which served as a control. Participants rated these actions based on their perceived moral wrongness. This setup allowed the researchers to observe which parts of the brain were activated during different moral judgments.

As expected, the moral violations (physical care, emotional care, fairness, liberty, authority, loyalty, and sanctity) were judged as more morally wrong than social norm transgressions. Judging moral transgressions also took longer on average than judging social norm transgressions, suggesting a deeper cognitive process involved in evaluating moral actions.

The researchers found that different brain areas were activated for moral violations compared to social norm transgressions. A distributed network involving areas like the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, temporoparietal junction, and primary visual cortex showed common activation across all moral foundations. This suggests that these areas of the brain are pivotal in discerning moral judgments from non-moral social norm transgressions.

When examining how specific moral foundations were processed in the brain, the researchers discovered that each of these moral categories elicited unique patterns of brain activity. This finding is particularly significant as it aligns with the Moral Foundations Theory, which posits that different moral considerations are rooted in separate cognitive processes.

A significant achievement of the study was the development of a decoding model capable of predicting which specific moral foundation or social norm an individual was judging, based on the activity patterns across their brain. This level of prediction would not be feasible if all moral categories were processed uniformly at the neurological level.

Our findings indicated that there are very specific neural signatures of different moral dimensions or foundations, Weber told PsyPost. These signatures can even be used to decode moral judgment, that is, to predict individuals moral judgement from their brain activation pattern. The accuracy with which this can be done was surprising to us. We are currently testing moral decoding across different datasets and problems and try to replicate our findings in our Nature Human Behavior article.

The researchers also found that liberals and conservatives exhibited distinct patterns of brain activation when making moral judgments. This suggests that an individuals political orientation is not just a reflection of their social and moral beliefs, but it also influences the fundamental neural processes underlying these beliefs.

Liberals showed more pronounced neural responses to moral transgressions related to care/harm and fairness/cheating. These foundations typically protect the rights and freedoms of individuals. The heightened sensitivity of liberals to these moral dimensions was reflected in the specific activation patterns in their brains.

On the other hand, conservatives displayed greater neural engagement when processing moral issues related to loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. These categories generally operate at the group level, emphasizing group cohesion, respect for authority, and purity. The brain scans of conservatives showed that they are neurologically more attuned to these aspects of moral reasoning.

For example, in judging individualizing versus binding moral foundations, the lingual gyrus, visual cortex, anterior prefrontal cortex, and superior temporal cortex showed significant differences in activity between liberals and conservatives. These areas are associated with various cognitive functions, including semantic processing and intention attribution, suggesting that ideological differences might affect fundamental cognitive processing during moral judgments.

Together, the findings challenge the idea of a singular moral hotspot in the brain. Instead, it suggests that our moral judgments are the result of a more distributed neural process.

Morality or moral judgment is not just one thing or arises from just one concern (e.g. from harming or caring for other individuals), Weber told PsyPost. At its core, moralitys function is to facilitate (group) cohesion and cooperation among humans. Because there are many cooperative problems to solve, moral judgement is diverse, and different individuals develop different moral sensibilities.

In many ways, I think our findings clarify that monism and pluralism are not necessarily mutually exclusive approaches, added first author Frederic Hopp, who led the study as a doctoral student in the Media Neuroscience Lab. We show that moral judgments of a wide range of different types of morally relevant behaviors are instantiated in shared brain regions.

Despite these significant findings, the study has its limitations. For one, the sample size and demographic (mostly young, university-affiliated adults) might not represent the full spectrum of moral cognition across different ages, cultures, and backgrounds. Also, while fMRI is a powerful tool, it has its constraints in pinpointing the exact neural mechanisms at play.

Future research might focus on broadening the demographic diversity of participants or employing even more advanced neuroimaging techniques. Furthermore, exploring how moral decision-making develops over time and in different cultural contexts could add another layer of understanding to this complex facet of human cognition.

There are dozens of additional questions to be addressed, Weber said. The question of why and how moral judgment works has been an important topic for scholars from diverse backgrounds for millennia, and it will keep scholars busy for a long time. For us, our next goals are testing different theories of moral judgment against each other and to replicate our findings in our Nature Human Behavior article in more diverse populations.

The study, Moral foundations elicit shared and dissociable cortical activation modulated by political ideology, was authored by Frederic R. Hopp, Ori Amir, Jacob T. Fisher, Scott Grafton, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and Ren Weber.

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Neuroscience

Protein Discovery Sheds Light on Circadian Rhythms – Neuroscience News

Summary: Researchers identify a crucial protein, Tenm3, in mices visual system that stabilizes circadian rhythms by modulating the brains response to light. This discovery has significant implications for treating sleep disorders and jet lag.

Circadian rhythms play a vital role in regulating sleep, alertness, and other cyclic behaviors, and disruptions can lead to health problems.

By understanding Tenm3s role, researchers aim to develop interventions for sleep disorders and jet lag, ultimately benefiting human health.

Key Facts:

Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health have identified a protein in the visual system of mice that appears to be key for stabilizing the bodys circadian rhythms by buffering the brains response to light.

The finding, published Dec. 5 inPLoS Biology, advances efforts to better treat sleep disorders and jet lag, the study authors say.

If circadian rhythms adjusted to every rapid change in illumination, say an eclipse or a very dark and rainy day, they would not be very effective in regulating such periodic behaviors as sleep and hunger.

The protein we identified helps wire the brain during neural development to allow for stable responses to circadian rhythm challenges from day to day, says Alex Kolodkin, Ph.D., professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Neuroscience and deputy director for the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences.

Kolodkin co-led the study with Samer Hattar, Ph.D., chief of the Section on Light and Circadian Rhythms at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Scientists have long known that most living things have a circadian clock, a set of biological rhythms that operate on about a 24-hour cycle and that affect alertness, sleepiness, appetite and body temperature, among other cyclic behaviors.

Upsetting this system through shift work or long-distance travel over multiple time and light zones in humans, for example can have severe consequences.

Previous studies link persistent upsets in circadian rhythm to increased risk of cancer, depression and a host of other medical problems.

Circadian systems are essentially trained by exposure to light. Although researchers have made significant headway over the last few decades in outlining the mechanisms responsible for circadian rhythms, it has remained unclear how the brain becomes wired for them.

To learn more, Kolodkin and Hattar, along with study first authors John Hunyara and Kat Daly and their colleagues, searched a database for biological molecules present during development in the mouse brains control center for circadian rhythms the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN).

Located deep within both the mouse and human brain in the hypothalamus, the SCN sits near areas that control vision and makes connections with brain cells that lead to the retina, the light-sensing part of the eye.

The research team quickly zeroed in on a cell surface protein called teneurin-3 (Tenm3), part of a larger family of proteins that play key roles in the visual system circuit assembly and more generally in other central nervous system circuits.

When the researchers genetically altered mice to prevent Tenm3 production, the animals developed fewer connections between the retina and the SCN, compared with animals with intact Tenm3.

However, the mice lacking Tenm3 developed far more connectivity between cells in the core and shell of the SCN, where Tenm3 tends to localize.

To see how Tenm3 might stabilize circadian rhythms or subject them to disruption by even a tiny bit of light, the scientists designed a set of experiments.

First, they trained mice lacking Tenm3 on a 12-hour light/dark cycle, then shifted the dark period ahead by six hours. Mice with intact Tenm3 took about four days to readjust their circadian rhythms to the shift, as measured by activity patterns diagnostic of normal sleep cycles. The animals without Tenm3, however, adjusted far more rapidly, in about half the time.

When the researchers performed a similar experiment with light twice as dim as in the earlier test, it took the Tenm3-intact mice about eight days to adjust their circadian cycles, but only about four days for the mice without Tenm3.

Even just a 15-minute pulse of dim light triggered the Tenm3-lacking mice but not the mice with normal Tenm3 protein to produce a brain chemical that serves as a proxy for light exposure, suggesting a heightened sensitivity to light cues necessary for setting or resetting the circadian clock.

These findings suggest to the authors that Tenm3 helps wire the brain to maintain stable circadian rhythms even when light exposure is variable. By learning more about this system and Tenm3s role, says Hattar, researchers may eventually be able to diagnose and treat glitches that lead to insomnia and other sleep disorders in people, or possibly develop treatments for jet lag.

There are very clear implications for human health, he says.

Other Johns Hopkins researchers who contributed to this study include Katherine Torres.

Funding: This study was funded by grants from the NIH (R01EY032095) and the Intramural Research Program at the NIMH (ZIAMH002964).

Author: Vanessa Wasta Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine Contact: Vanessa Wasta Johns Hopkins Medicine Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

Original Research: Open access. Teneurin-3 regulates the generation of non-image-forming visual circuitry and responsiveness to light in the suprachiasmatic nucleus by Alex Kolodkin et al. PLOS Biology

Abstract

Teneurin-3 regulates the generation of non-image-forming visual circuitry and responsiveness to light in the suprachiasmatic nucleus

Visual system function depends upon the elaboration of precise connections between retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons and their central targets in the brain.

Though some progress has been made in defining the molecules that regulate RGC connectivity required for the assembly and function of image-forming circuitry, surprisingly little is known about factors required for intrinsically photosensitive RGCs (ipRGCs) to target a principal component of the non-image-forming circuitry: the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN).

Furthermore, the molecules required for forming circuits critical for circadian behaviors within the SCN are not known. We observe here that the adhesion molecule teneurin-3 (Tenm3) is highly expressed in vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) neurons located in the core region of the SCN.

Since Tenm3 is required for other aspects of mammalian visual system development, we investigate roles for Tenm3 in regulating ipRGC-SCN connectivity and function.

Our results show that Tenm3 negatively regulates association between VIP and arginine vasopressin (AVP) neurons within the SCN and is essential for M1 ipRGC axon innervation to the SCN. Specifically, inTenm3-/-mice, we find a reduction in ventro-medial innervation to the SCN.

Despite this reduction,Tenm3-/-mice have higher sensitivity to light and faster re-entrainment to phase advances, probably due to the increased association between VIP and AVP neurons.

These data show that Tenm3 plays key roles in elaborating non-image-forming visual system circuitry and that it influences murine responses to phase-advancing light stimuli.

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Protein Discovery Sheds Light on Circadian Rhythms - Neuroscience News

Neuroscience

Uncovering Data Collection Practices in Student Research – Neuroscience News

Summary: A new study delves into the often opaque world of student data collection practices in research projects. Questionable and potentially fraudulent behaviors during data collection were investigated, revealing insights into student misconduct.

While 64% of students reported no problematic practices, some concerning behaviors, such as data deletion and participant manipulation, were found.

The study underscores the need for transparent communication between students and supervisors and promotes Open Science as a key element in improving research integrity.

Key Facts:

Source: Polish Association of Social Psychology

Recent efforts to improve on the openness and transparency in science have already begun paying off towards greater integrity in the way researchers do and report science. It is now common practice for scientists to pre-register their studies and share openly their materials and data, so that their research is easily available to scientific scrutiny and collaborations.

However, behaviors during data collection are still somewhat of a black box, especially when done by students. In fact, there are plenty of questionable and even fraudulent behaviors, such as telling participants the specific hypotheses of interest before starting the study or even instructing them to answer in a certain way, which are almost impossible to detect.

The major problem is that current practices and regulations are mostly ineffective in preventing or checking for problematic behaviors in the data collection process. Furthermore, detailed knowledge about the prevalence of such behaviors is relatively scarce. Past research has predominantly focused on questionable practices and misconduct in other stages of the research process like data analysis and reporting.

Importantly, questionable or even fraudulent behaviors might not only be problematic among researchers but also highly relevant in student projects. If public, the data collected from students may be reused by other students, supervisors and other researchers as part of their own work, including research articles published in journals.

Yet, there is no way for those reusers to fully be aware of what has been going during the data collection.

This is how a joint team of psychology students and researchers fromLMU Munichdecided to investigate students questionable practices and research misconduct during data collection.

We wondered: Can we trust student data? says Dr. Marlene Altenmller, corresponding author of the article.

We wanted to know whether and how students actually engage in questionable and even fraudulent practices when collecting data for their projects. And, we were interested in situational factors potentially amplifying or alleviating students engagement in such behaviors, she further explains.

The research team surveyed 473 psychology students and 199 supervisors at German-speaking universities. They asked them about 17 behaviors, ranging from questionable to fraudulent, to figure out whether and which of those the students had engaged in in previous projects. Examples include knowingly letting participants take part in the study while being aware they know the hypotheses; taking part in ones own survey; and deleting or creating data from scratch.

The researchers also sought to assess the students experiences during their projects. For example, they inquired what kind of expectations and future data use their supervisor had communicated to them.

The research team then also asked supervisors about their perceptions of students data collection behaviors and what they thought about how their students experienced their projects and their supervision.

The survey results reveal some reassuring, as well as some troubling insights into the black box of student data collection. While 64% of students did not report any problematic data collection practices, some behaviors were not uncommon: 4% admitted to having deleted data; 8% had participated in their own study; and 26% had let participants take part despite them knowing the hypothesis.

On average, supervisors had similar impressions of students questionable and fraudulent behaviors. Among the notable differences were that supervisors assumed a much lower prevalence for students to have taken part in their own survey and a lower prevalence for them to have deleted data.

Thus, the research team concluded, supervisors might be underestimating some highly problematic behaviors among students.

To reduce the prevalence of problematic data collection behaviors among students, and therefore prompt better quality of data, the researchers recommend addressing students perceptions of pressures, opportunities and rationalizations for engaging in these behaviours. Additionally, it would be helpful to make Open Science a central element of teaching.

Particularly, transparent and clear communication between students and supervisors might be one of the most important keys to high-quality, research-ready student data. Those students who knew their data would be used by others, also reported lower prevalence rates of problematic behaviors.

Supervisors should maybe consider how empirical student projects may not only be an opportunity for teaching, but also for research, concluded the authors with a positive outlook.

Author: Dimitar Boyadzhiev Source: Polish Association of Social Psychology Contact: Dimitar Boyadzhiev Polish Association of Social Psychology Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

Original Research: Closed access. Evading Open Science: The Black Box of Student Data Collection by Marlene Sophie Altenmller et al. Social Psychology Bulletin

Abstract

Evading Open Science: The Black Box of Student Data Collection

While Open Science has arguably initiated positive changes at some stages of the research process (e.g., increasing transparency through preregistration), problematic behaviors during data collection are still almost impossible to detect and pose a great risk to the validity and integrity of psychological researchespecially, when researchers use data collected by others (e.g., students).

Exploring students and supervisors perspectives, the present registered report enlightens this black box of student data collection, focusing on questionable research practices and research misconduct (QRP/M).

The majority of students did not report having engaged in any problematic behaviors during data collection, but some QRP/Mranging from somewhat questionable to highly fraudulentseem quite common (e.g., telling participants the hypothesis beforehand, participating in ones own survey).

We provide an overview of students reported and supervisors suspected data collection QRP/M, explore potential drivers for these behaviors based on the fraud triangle model (including pressures, opportunities, and rationalizations), and report how students and supervisors perceive the eligibility of student data for further uses (e.g., scientific publications).

Moreover, we explore the role of the student-supervisor relationship (e.g., communication and expectations) and Open Science practices in student projects.

In summary, our findings suggest the potential scientific value of data from student projects. Fostering transparent communication regarding expectations, experiences, and intentions between supervisors and students might further contribute to strengthening this prospect.

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Uncovering Data Collection Practices in Student Research - Neuroscience News

Neuroscience

After Battling Leukemia And Homelessness, Dallas Salas Has Earned A Neuroscience Degree At Age 18 – AfroTech

Throughout Dallas Salas life, he has been faced with opposition, including health scares and homelessness. However, despite the trials and tribulations, the 18-year-old has crossed off a major accomplishment.

At age five, Salas was diagnosed with leukemia, according to ABC News.

It was truly a wrenching and heartbreaking experience. I remember staying up at nights and just crying and just screaming, Salas told Good Morning America.

Along with Salas diagnosis, the outlet details that several of his family members were also dealing with health issues, which led him to want to learn about the science and medical fields.

Now, in the midst of challenges, ABC News reported that Salas graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelors degree in neuroscience at age 18.

If youre going through a lot of chaotic experiences, life is only 10% what happens to you and 90% of what you make of it, said Salas.

The teen credits his mother, Constance, and Kristen Rund, his success coach, for motivating him to push through with securing his degree. Constance shared that since a young age, she knew that her son was gifted.

All the time, he outsmarted me each and every time and Im like, wait a minute, hes not like the others,' she said. So I raised him the same way that I raised them, however, with a stronger, more rigorous curriculum for parenting because his brain could take it.

She continued, I would give him assignments and he would bring them back really fast.

Along with pursuing neuroscience, Constance noted that Dallas has always been passionate about the children that end up on the border in the camps. In the future, she envisions him helping to fight discrimination along with saving lives.

Regarding Dallas leukemia, he told the outlet that the cancer has gone into remission. The health update follows his bone marrow biopsy coming back clear of the disease.

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After Battling Leukemia And Homelessness, Dallas Salas Has Earned A Neuroscience Degree At Age 18 - AfroTech

Neuroscience

Eating with Your Eyes and Gut? How Your Brain Decides When to Eat – Neuroscience News

Summary: The science of eating behavior goes beyond hunger cues; it involves sensory stimuli, internal signals, and the gut-brain connection. External cues like food packaging and advertisements influence our eating decisions, but internal signals, such as hunger and fullness, play a profound role.

Research shows that animals, including rodents, use internal cues to shape their food-related choices. The vagus nerve, which connects the gut and brain, communicates nutrient information rapidly and can induce pleasurable states. Understanding interoceptive signals can lead to more mindful and intuitive eating during the holiday season and beyond.

Key Facts:

Source: The Conversation

The holiday season is upon us, and with it, opportunities to indulge in festive treats. The proverbial saying you eat with your eyes first seems particularly relevant at this time of year.

The science behind eating behavior, however, reveals that the process of deciding what, when and how much to eat is far more complex than just consuming calories when your body needs fuel. Hunger cues are only part of why people choose to eat. As a scientist interested in thepsychology and biology that drives eating behavior, Im fascinated with how the brains experiences with food shape eating decisions.

So how do people decide when to eat?

Food-related visual cuescan shape feeding behaviors in both people and animals. For example, wrapping food in McDonalds packaging is sufficient toenhance taste preferencesacross a range of foods from chicken nuggets to carrots in young children. Visual food-related cues, such as presenting a light when food is delivered, can also promoteovereating behaviorsin animals by overriding energy needs.

In fact, a whole host of sensory stimuli noises, smells and textures can be associated with thepleasurable consequences of eatingand influence food-related decisions. This is why hearing a catchy radio jingle for a food brand, seeing a television ad for a restaurant or walking by your favorite eatery can shape your decision to consume and sometimes overindulge.

However, your capacity to learn about food-related cues extends beyond just stimuli from the outside world and includes theinternal milieu of your body. In other words, you also tend to eat with your stomach in mind, and you do so by using the same learning and brain mechanisms involved in processing food-related stimuli from the outside world. These internal signals, also calledinteroceptive cues, include feelings of hunger and fullness emanating from your gastrointestinal tract.

Its no surprise that the signals from your gut help set the stage for when to eat, but the role these signals play is more profound than you might expect.

Feelings of hunger or fullness act as important interoceptive cues influencing your decision-making around food.

To examine how interoceptive states shape eating behaviors, researchers trained laboratory rats toassociate feelings of hunger or satietywith whether they receive food or not.

They did this by giving rats food only when they were hungry or full, such that the rats were forced to recognize those internal cues to calculate whether food would be available or not. If a rat is trained to expect food only when hungry, it would generally avoid the area where food is available when it feels full because it does not expect to be fed.

However, when rats were injected with a hormone thattriggers hungercalled ghrelin, they approached the food delivery location more frequently. This suggests that the rats used this artificial state of hunger as an interoceptive cue to predict food delivery and subsequently behaved like they expected food.

Interoceptive states are sufficient to shape feeding behaviors even in the absence of external sensory cues. One particularly striking example comes from mice that have been genetically engineered to be unable to taste food but nevertheless show preferences for specific foodssolely by caloric content. In other words, rodents can use internal cues to shape their food-related decision-making, including when and where to eat and which foods they prefer.

These findings also suggest that feelings of hunger and the detection of nutrients is not restricted to the stomach. They also involve areas of the brain important for regulation and homeostasis, such as thelateral hypothalamus, as well as centers of the brain involved in learning and memory, such as thehippocampus.

Thegut-brain axis, or the biochemical connection between your gut and your brain, shapes feeding behaviors in many ways. One of them involves thevagus nerve, a cranial nerve that helps control the digestive tract, among other things.

The vagus nerve rapidlycommunicates nutrient informationto the brain. Activating the vagus nerve can induce a pleasurable state, such that mice will voluntarily perform a behavior, such as poking their nose through an open port, to stimulate their vagus nerve. Importantly, mice also learn toprefer foods and placeswhere vagal nerve stimulation occurred.

The vagus nerve plays an essential role in not only communicating digestive signals but also an array of other interoceptive signals that can affect how you feel and behave. In people, vagal nerve stimulation canimprove learning and memoryand can be used totreat major depression.

Your bodys capacity to use both external and internal cues to regulate how you learn and make decisions about food highlights the impressive processes involved in how you regulate your energy needs.

Poor interoceptive awareness is associated with a range ofdysfunctional feeding behaviors, such as eating disorders. For instance,anorexia may resultwhen interoceptive signals, such as feelings of hunger, are unable to trigger the motivation to eat. Alternatively, the inability to use the feeling of fullness to dampen the rewarding and pleasurable consequences of eating palatable food couldresult in binge eating.

Your interoceptive signals play an important role in regulating your daily eating patterns. During the holidays, many stressors from the outside world surround eating, such as packed social calendars, pressures to conform and feelings of guilt when overindulging.

At this time, it is particularly important to cultivate a strong connection to your interoceptive signals. This can help promoteintuitive eatingand a more holistic approach to your dietary habits.

Rather than fixating on external factors and placing conditions on your eating behavior, enjoy the moment, deliberately savor each bite and provide time for your interoceptive signals to function in the role they are designed to play.

Your brain evolved to sense your current energy needs. Byintegrating these signalswith your experience of your food environment, you can both optimize your energetic needs and enjoy the season.

Author: Alex Johnson Source: The Conversation Contact: Alex Johnson The Conversation Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

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Eating with Your Eyes and Gut? How Your Brain Decides When to Eat - Neuroscience News

Neuroscience

Unveiling the Intricate Blueprint of the Mammalian Brain – A Breakthrough in Neuroscience – Medriva

Unveiling the Intricate Blueprint of the Mammalian Brain

In an extraordinary scientific breakthrough, an international team of researchers has meticulously constructed a comprehensive cell atlas of the mammalian brain. This remarkable feat, a first in the annals of science, provides an intricate map of the mouse brain, replete with detailed information on cell connectivity. The atlas presents the diverse types of cells populating each region of the mouse brain, their spatial organization, and the entire set of gene readouts in a cell.

Moreover, this intricate blueprint reveals the chemical modifications to a cells DNA and chromosomes. These insights can be instrumental in understanding how chemical signals are initiated and transmitted in different parts of the brain. As such, this groundbreaking atlas can serve as a foundation in developing precision treatments for a variety of mental and neurological disorders.

Undeniably, the human brain is an incredibly complex organ. It is a labyrinth of billions of neurons intricately connected by trillions of synapses. The understanding of this complexity requires a detailed map a genetic atlas that precisely details the genetic organization of the human brain.

Now, researchers have presented an atlas of the human and nonhuman primate brain in unprecedented detail across 21 papers in Science, Science Advances, and ScienceTM. This atlas provides an intricate understanding of the genetic organization of the human brain, offering valuable insights into the unique genetic intricacies that differentiate humans from other primates.

The implications of such a comprehensive atlas extend beyond the realm of basic science. It can serve as a powerful tool in the hands of healthcare providers by enabling precision medicine for the treatment of mental and neurological disorders. By understanding the genetic underpinnings of these conditions, healthcare providers can tailor treatments to the individual, improving outcomes and reducing side effects.

Furthermore, the atlas could be instrumental in the development of therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease. By providing a detailed understanding of the genetic organization of the brain, researchers can identify potential genetic targets for drug development.

The creation of this comprehensive atlas of the human and nonhuman primate brain is an unprecedented achievement in neuroscience. It represents a significant step forward in our understanding of the brains genetic organization and offers valuable insights that could potentially revolutionize the treatment of mental and neurological disorders.

As we continue to unravel the mysteries of the human brain, this atlas will undoubtedly serve as a valuable resource. It is a testament to the power of scientific collaboration and the potential of genetic research to improve human health.

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Unveiling the Intricate Blueprint of the Mammalian Brain - A Breakthrough in Neuroscience - Medriva

Neuroscience

Uncovering the Hidden Risks of Young-Onset Dementia – Neuroscience News

Summary: A new study reveals 15 risk factors for young-onset dementia, challenging the notion that genetics are the sole cause. These factors, ranging from education and socioeconomic status to lifestyle and health issues, offer hope for prevention.

With around 370,000 new cases each year, this research sheds light on a condition often overlooked. International collaboration and big data played a crucial role in advancing our understanding of dementia.

Key Facts:

Source: University of Exeter

Researchers have identified a wide range of risk factors for young-onset dementia. The findings challenge the notion that genetics are the sole cause of the condition, laying the groundwork for new prevention strategies.

The largescale study identified 15 risk factors, which are similar to those for late-onset dementia. For the first time, they indicate that it may be possible to reduce the risk of young-onset dementia by targeting health and lifestyle factors.

Relatively little research has been done on young-onset dementia, though globally there are around 370,000 new cases of young-onset dementia each year.

Published inJAMA Neurology, the new research by the University of Exeter and Maastricht University followed more than 350,000 participants younger than 65 across the United Kingdom from the UK Biobank study. The team evaluated a broad array of risk factors ranging from genetic predispositions to lifestyle and environmental influences.

The study revealed that lower formal education, lower socioeconomic status, genetic variation, lifestyle factors such as alcohol use disorder and social isolation, and health issues including vitamin D deficiency, depression, stroke, hearing impairment and heart disease significantly elevate risk of young-onset dementia

Professor David Llewellyn of the University of Exeter emphasized the importance of the findings: This breakthrough study illustrates the crucial role of international collaboration and big data in advancing our understanding of dementia. Theres still much to learn in our ongoing mission to prevent, identify, and treat dementia in all its forms in a more targeted way.

This is the largest and most robust study of its kind ever conducted. Excitingly, for the first time it reveals that we may be able to take action to reduce risk of this debilitating condition, through targeting a range of different factors.

Dr Stevie Hendriks, Researcher at Maastricht University, said: Young-onset dementia has a very serious impact, because the people affected usually still have a job, children, and a busy life. The cause is often assumed to be genetic, but for many people we dont actually know exactly what the cause is. This is why we also wanted to investigate other risk factors in this study.

Sebastian Khler, Professor of Neuroepidemiology at Maastricht University, said: We already knew from research on people who develop dementia at older age that there are a series of modifiable risk factors.

In addition to physical factors, mental health also plays an important role, including avoiding chronic stress, loneliness and depression. The fact that this is also evident in young-onset dementia came as a surprise to me, and it may offer opportunities to reduce risk in this group too.

The studys support was supported by Alzheimers Research UK, The Alan Turing Institute/Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Alzheimer Nederland, Gieskes Strijbis Fonds, the Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration South West Peninsula (PenARC), the National Health and Medical Research Council, the National Institute on Aging, and Alzheimer Netherlands.

Dr Janice Ranson, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, said: Our research breaks new ground in identifying that the risk of young-onset dementia can be reduced.We think this could herald a new era in interventions to reduce new cases of this condition.

Dr Leah Mursaleen, Head of Clinical Research at Alzheimers Research UK, which co-funded the study, said: Were witnessing a transformation in understanding of dementia risk and, potentially, how to reduce it on both an individual and societal level.

In recent years, theres been a growing consensus that dementia is linked to 12 specific modifiable risk factors such as smoking, blood pressure and hearing loss. Its now accepted that up to four in 10 dementia cases worldwide are linked to these factors.

This pioneering study shines important and much-needed light on factors influencing the risk of young-onset dementia. This starts to fill in an important gap in our knowledge. It will be important to build on these findings in broader studies.

Author: Louise Vennells Source: University of Exeter Contact: Louise Vennells University of Exeter Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

Original Research: Closed access. Risk factors for young-onset dementia in the UK Biobank: A prospective population-based study by David Llewellyn et al. JAMA Neurology

Abstract

Risk factors for young-onset dementia in the UK Biobank: A prospective population-based study

Importance

There is limited information on modifiable risk factors for young-onset dementia (YOD).

Objective

To examine factors that are associated with the incidence of YOD.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This prospective cohort study used data from the UK Biobank, with baseline assessment between 2006 and 2010 and follow-up until March 31, 2021, for England and Scotland, and February 28, 2018, for Wales. Participants younger than 65 years and without a dementia diagnosis at baseline assessment were included in this study. Participants who were 65 years and older and those with dementia at baseline were excluded. Data were analyzed from May 2022 to April 2023.

Exposures

A total of 39 potential risk factors were identified from systematic reviews of late-onset dementia and YOD risk factors and grouped into domains of sociodemographic factors (education, socioeconomic status, and sex), genetic factors (apolipoprotein E), lifestyle factors (physical activity, alcohol use, alcohol use disorder, smoking, diet, cognitive activity, social isolation, and marriage), environmental factors (nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, pesticide, and diesel), blood marker factors (vitamin D, C-reactive protein, estimated glomerular filtration rate function, and albumin), cardiometabolic factors (stroke, hypertension, diabetes, hypoglycemia, heart disease, atrial fibrillation, and aspirin use), psychiatric factors (depression, anxiety, benzodiazepine use, delirium, and sleep problems), and other factors (traumatic brain injury, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid dysfunction, hearing impairment, and handgrip strength).

Main Outcome and Measures

Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to study the association between the risk factors and incidence of YOD. Factors were tested stepwise first within domains and then across domains.

Results

Of 356052 included participants, 197036 (55.3%) were women, and the mean (SD) age at baseline was 54.6 (7.0) years. During 2 891 409 person-years of follow-up, 485 incident YOD cases (251 of 485 men [51.8%]) were observed, yielding an incidence rate of 16.8 per 100000 person-years (95% CI, 15.4-18.3). In the final model, 15 factors were significantly associated with a higher YOD risk, namely lower formal education, lower socioeconomic status, carrying 2 apolipoprotein 4 allele, no alcohol use, alcohol use disorder, social isolation, vitamin D deficiency, high C-reactive protein levels, lower handgrip strength, hearing impairment, orthostatic hypotension, stroke, diabetes, heart disease, and depression.

Conclusions and Relevance

In this study, several factors, mostly modifiable, were associated with a higher risk of YOD. These modifiable risk factors should be incorporated in future dementia prevention initiatives and raise new therapeutic possibilities for YOD.

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Uncovering the Hidden Risks of Young-Onset Dementia - Neuroscience News