The Bright Side of the “Depression-Risk Gene”

By David Dobbs of Wired:

Faithful readers will recognize this as an idea I explored in my Atlantic feature last year, The Orchid Children: that certain ‘risk’ genes, among them the s-allele version off this serotonin transporter gene, create not just risk but an overall heighten sensitivity that can create upsides. Many papers have provided data supporting this view. But other than reviews from psychologist Jay Belsky, who was one of the first to assert this idea, few scientists have articulated this idea as boldly and plainly as Judith Homberg and Karl-Peter Lesch do here. That Lesch was the researcher who first discovered the stress-reactivity created by the s-allele back in 1995 — opening the door to the ‘depression-risk-gene’ view of the s-allele — only heightens the impact of this call to see this ‘depression gene’ differently.

Falling in Love Requires 0.20 Seconds

A new meta-analysis study conducted by Syracuse University Professor Stephanie Ortigue reveals falling in love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain. Researchers also found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.Results from Ortigue’s team revealed when a person falls in love, 12 areas of the brain work in tandem to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression. The love feeling also affects sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation, metaphors and body image.

Other researchers also found blood levels of nerve growth factor, or NGF, also increased. Those levels were significantly higher in couples who had just fallen in love. This molecule involved plays an important role in the social chemistry of humans, or the phenomenon ‘love at first sight.’ “These results confirm love has a scientific basis,” says Ortigue.

Harbinger

Of the 160 subjects tested, 33 per cent developed Alzheimer’s disease within five years. Sixteen per cent developed other forms of dementia, while the remaining half stayed at the level of ‘mild forgetfulness’. The risk markers made a quite clear distinction between those who would later suffer from Alzheimer’s and those who were not at risk.

“The ‘positive connection’ was 71 per cent, which is not sufficient to definitely predict who will get the disease. The ‘negative connection’, on the other hand, was 94 per cent, which means that it is possible to predict who in all likelihood will not get the disease,” says Oskar Hansson.

Incidence of Alzheimer’s disease is increasing rapidly all over the world. In Sweden there are currently around 120 000 people with the disease, but the number is expected to increase in line with the aging population. Because patients require a lot of care, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are estimated to cost society as much as cardiovascular disease, cancer and stroke combined.

You Are Your Connectome

A Gradual Spectrum of Self-Awareness: Macaques and the Mirror Test

So-called mirror self-recognition is thought to indicate self-awareness, which is required to understand selfhood in others, and ultimately to be empathic. Researchers measure this with the “mark test.” They paint or ink a mark on unconscious animals, then see if they use mirrors to discover the marks.

It was once thought that only humans could pass the mark test. Then chimpanzees did, followed by dolphins and elephants. These successes challenged the notions that humans were alone on one side of a cognitive divide. Many researchers think the notion of a divide is itself mistaken. Instead, they propose a gradual spectrum of cognitive powers, a spectrum crudely measured by mirrors.

Mind-reading Marketing

It’s not just that people are inclined to say what they think others want to hear, and to give answers that they think reflect favourably upon themselves. According to Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, the problem is that much of the decision-making process happens at a subconscious level, and experiments reveal that people are generally not very good at explaining the thinking behind their choices. “Sometimes they simply don’t know why they chose things,” he says. “They concoct explanations after the fact, or make up explanations that are socially acceptable. I do think there’s loads of information contained in the brain that simply doesn’t make it out.”

The great hope of neuromarketing is to extract this hidden information directly from people’s brains. “We’re not asking questions at all – we’re recording responses at a deep subconscious level,” Noble says.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Illusion of Free Will

The elephant in the room.

The Argument:

1) I do what I do because of the way I am. If I want to eat Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast, or listen to Blonde on Blonde, it’s because I prefer, at this moment, the taste of that cereal and the sound of that album.

2) If I’m going to be responsible for my choices, then I also have to be responsible for the way I am.

3) But I’m not responsible for the way I am! At some point, my wants and needs – the stew of factors behind my preferences – are beyond my control. They’ve been programmed by natural selection and embedded in my genes; they’ve been influenced by my parents, and shaped by my siblings and peers and all those commercials on television.

4) Ergo, I can’t be ultimately responsible for my choices. I don’t want Cheerios because I want them. Instead, my preferences have been shaped by a million little forces that have nothing to do with me. I can’t be the cause of myself.

How Preschool Changes the Brain

How does preschool work its magic? Interestingly, the Perry Preschool didn’t lead to a lasting boost in IQ scores. While kids exposed to preschool got an initial bump in general intelligence, this dissipated by second grade. Instead, preschool seemed to improve performance on a variety of “non-cognitive” abilities, such as self-control, persistence and grit. While society has long obsessed over raw smarts – just look at our fixation on IQ scores – Heckman and Cunha argue that these non-cognitive traits are often more important. They note, for instance, that dependability is the trait most valued by employers, while “perseverance, dependability and consistency are the most important predictors of grades in school.” Of course, these valuable skills have little or anything to do with general intelligence. And that’s probably a good thing, since our non-cognitive traits are much more malleable, at least when interventions occur at an early age, than IQ. Preschool might not make us smarter – our intelligence is strongly shaped by our genes – but it can make us a better person, and that’s even more important.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/how-preschool-changes-the-brain/#ixzz0v7yJt98b

Size of brain structures predicts success on video game task

The new study, in the journal Cerebral Cortex, found that nearly a quarter of the variability in achievement seen among men and women trained on a new video game could be predicted by measuring the volume of three structures in their brains.

Research has shown that expert video gamers outperform novices on many basic measures of attention and perception, but other studies have found that training novices on video games for 20 or more hours often yields no measurable cognitive benefits.

These contradictory findings suggest that pre-existing individual differences in the brain might predict variability in learning rates, the authors wrote.

Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘non-human persons’

Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.

Studies into dolphin behaviour have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.

Supercilious way of saying that their brains are similar to ours.  I would start getting used to the idea that self-awareness/consciousness is a quantitative, not a qualitative, phenomenon in the natural world.  As the science improves and the experiments become more comprehensive, clarification on this point should be provided.

Consequently, a backlash against non-human animal research and demand for more humane treatment of experimental subjects would not be surprising, not to mention harsh condemnation of any industry that thrives off of animal byproducts.