I love technology! Watching things from afar
Here’s what we are reading today:
“Barclay Morrison III, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering, has led the first study to determine underlying biological mechanisms that promote functional recovery of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) after blast injury. The research demonstrates that treatment with the glucocorticoid, dexamethasone, after primary blast injury promotes rapid recovery of an in vitro model of the BBB, a highly restrictive semi-permeable barrier whose primary function is to maintain the brain’s microenvironment and protect it from potentially toxic substances. The study is published in the March 11 Advance Online Publication of the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism.”
“This discovery “takes the field leaps and bounds forward,” says entomologist Andrew Suarez of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who wasn’t connected to the study. “It’s providing a better understanding of how genes interact with the environment to generate diversity.””
“The new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, investigated how pairs of people with differing competence weighted their own judgements against each other’s.
Researchers split 98 men from Denmark, Iran and China into pairs and asked them to complete a visual perception task, repeated 256 times per pair. Participants were asked to look at a screen for two consecutive intervals, with a subtle target appearing in either the first or second interval. Each person, separated from the other by a screen, indicated whether they thought the target was in the first or second interval and how confident they were. When they disagreed on where the target was, one of the pair was randomly assigned as arbitrator and asked to make the final joint decision.”
animals can be given FALSE memories
“Scientists trained bumblebees to expect a droplet of sugar water from two artificial flowers: one that was solid yellow, the other looking like an archery target of black and white rings. A few minutes later, the insects were allowed to choose between those two flowers and a third one that had yellow rings, a combo of the previous patterns. In this short-term test, the bees correctly showed a preference for the petals they’d seen had the sweet stuff.
But when challenged a few days later, the bees got bamboozled. They began selecting the yellow-ringed flower, even though it had never given them anything. It was like their memories had merged—or so conclude the authors in their paper in the journal Current Biology. [Kathryn L. Hunt and Lars Chittka, Merging of Long-Term Memories in an Insect]”
“We’ve found that cells communicate, even across long distances in the embryo, using bioelectrical signals, and they use this information to know where to form a brain and how big that brain should be,” says the paper’s corresponding author Michael Levin, Ph.D., who holds the Vannevar Bush Chair in biology and directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts. “The signals are not just necessary for normal development; they are instructive.””
“Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Queensland analysed almost 10,000 people recruited from the general population of Scotland. Individuals were tested for general cognitive ability and had their DNA analysed.
The team found that even among people who never develop autism, carrying genetic traits associated with the disorder is, on average, linked to scoring slightly better on cognitive tests.”
“The research shows that CHD8, a gene that is strongly linked to autism, acts as a master regulator in the developing human brain and controls the expression of many other genes. Many of the genes it targets have also been implicated in the disorder, the researchers found.
The study, led by James P. Noonan, associate professor of genetics and of ecology and evolutionary biology, is published March 10 in the journal Nature Communications.”
“According to survey data published in 2010 by psychiatrist Mark Olfson of Columbia University and psychologist Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania, about 3 percent of Americans are in psychotherapy, with most of them also receiving medication. Moreover, as psychiatrist Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, observed in a 2014 strategic plan, the incidence of a number of mental health conditions, including autism spectrum disorder and major depression, has soared in recent years, although the significance of these rising rates remains a matter of controversy.”
6 Comments
jwatso02 · March 12, 2015 at 11:32 pm
The study about high intelligence being linked with autism seems to make sense in many ways. I work with foster and at-risk kids, and one girl with autism in particular. She is focused, passionate about what she cares about instead of what others expect her to care about, socially awkward but sees people for who they are (rather than caring about external factors), honest and isn’t afraid to call it like she sees it. I think if I listed these traits, it would sound like qualities of a CEO!I think many of the most intelligent and successful individuals (the innovators in our society)have trouble with verbal and social skills, traits sometimes associated with autism. Due to the plasticity of our brains, it seems possible that these weaknesses are made up for by other areas of the brain that involve visual problem solving and critical thinking without relying on language. I believe that successful individuals who show traits consistent with high functioning autism tend to match this picture, and it seems now that this may be due at least in part to higher cognitive functioning, which is very interesting.
smorri07 · March 13, 2015 at 11:22 am
In response to the article on how to spot mental illness, I fully agree that knowing more about mental health and illness is becoming more and more important. Since people are becoming more aware of mental illness, as certain illnesses increase in number such as autism spectrum disorder and others are being increasingly medicated such as major depressive disorder, the general public is being confronted with these cases more and more frequently. However, more often than not, the general public is becoming aware of these growing conditions with an unequal growth in our own knowledge and scientifically-based evidence surrounding these mental illnesses. There needs to be a healthy balance of not only being aware of the mental state of those around you, but also having the actual knowledge of what that mental state means and how to best deal with that person in various circumstances. I agree with the article that “mainstream” topics are not always the most reliable or science-based truths. We need to shift the focus from what might just be interesting or eye-catching to what the actual evidence suggests and what the truth is surrounding different mental illnesses.
OwenHevrdejs · April 4, 2015 at 6:37 pm
I really enjoyed the article about false memories in animals.
I’m really interested in this sort topic, as I’ve had experience with false memories in the past!
However, I’m a little confused about how the bee experiment was carried out.
Were all three of the flowers still there when they tested again?
I’m just having trouble understanding how “false memory” explains why they went to the mixed flower!
The experiment with the mice was fascinating. I’m curious to see where false memory research takes us. It seems like it could be used positively. For example, if we can stimulate the brain to feel pleasure when we are in places or situations we didn’t used to like, that would be incredibly helpful. Though, I could see where some problems might occur.
Really neat to read! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
mehicks · April 7, 2015 at 4:40 pm
I enjoyed reading the article about “how to spot mental illness”. This article is a reminder that not everything that you hear or read is true, and we must constantly remind ourselves to not ‘judge a book by its cover’. I think that the example of the psychological impact of divorce on kids is the easiest to relate to for many people and really shows the many misconceptions about psychological health and how easily they are spread. Due to many recent events, however, I think that the general public is becoming more aware of the fallacies involved with the news, which may be beneficial for many misconceptions that we read about and hear about. Also, as you age, you or someone you know may experience some type of mental illness and in many cases it takes a personal experience to truly understand mental illnesses. This means that many misconceptions may be lost with age. I really enjoyed this article, as I think that it touched upon points that you often don’t read about or really pay attention to. It was refreshing.
slippp3 · May 4, 2015 at 1:41 pm
I read the article about how we can make animals believe they remembered things that didn’t actually happen. This makes me think about classical conditioning and how we can condition our minds to feel certain ways about certain things based on rewards and punishments. I thought this was a very interesting article.
hannahburgardt · May 8, 2015 at 1:19 pm
It is crazy to think that 3% of Americans are in Psychotherapy. That is quite a bit of the population! Also it makes me wonder if the reason why the rates of Autism and Major Depressive Disorder are increasing because the fact that more people are educated about the disorders. Now that there is a general knowledge and an acceptance of these diseases, more people might be willing to admit that they need help and seek psychotherapy or drug treatment. Or maybe there is some environmental factor such as different food intake, air pollution, or UV radiation that are causing such an increase in these disorders.