Procrastination: effective strategy or self-sabotage?

Sitting in front of my laptop, sugar-free Red Bull in hand, I stare at a blank Word document. The monotonous blinks of the cursor serve as incessantly rhythmic slaps to the face of my (as of yet nonexistent) productivity. Yes, I have another week before my research paper is due, but wouldn't it be nice if I handed it in more than 60 seconds before its deadline? Eh. I could be watching Arrested Development reruns (there's always money in the banana stand).

Sound familiar?

Like your neighbor's annoying ball of fluff (er, precious pomeranian), procrastination is the deranged pet most college students only wish they could take back to the pound.

So why is it that, despite the myriad minutes we could spend working on our final projects, papers, whatever--we choose to do otherwise?

Many students are convinced they work best under the pressure of a high-stress, time-constrained environment. Others iterate that they work more efficiently as the due date approaches. Many (and here I would include myself) have absolutely no idea why they procrastinate so inconveniently often.

One study recently published in the Journal of Accounting Education quantified the effects of procrastination in an effort to determine whether or not procrastination actually boosts academic performance or not.

Using an objective measure of 'procrastination' (as opposed to the self-reported ones on which many studies rely), students were given a set of online homework assignments. One group was asked to perform the online task early, the other was given directions to begin the assignment 'just-in-time.'

Interestingly enough (or unsurprisingly, depending on your logical progression of thought), the researchers found a positive correlation between an earlier start time and better academic performance. This is taking quality (i.e. intelligence) of the student into account, so that the task performance can be attributed only to the procrastination factor.

If you are, like me, an ardent procrastinator, this news may be shocking, appalling and altogether repulsive. But hey, who said you had to change your study habits now, this late in the semester? I mean...

...there's always tomorrow.

Kids Judge! Neuroscience Fair

The Kids Judge! Neuroscience Fair took place in Houston Hall on December 1st. Ever since was first hosted by Penn in 2004, the fair has been a highly-anticipated annual event. This year, once again, students from local elementary schools came to enjoy a day of neuroscience-filled fun.

At this science fair-esque event, the students were not the ones presenting the projects. In fact, the third and fourth graders were the judges, grading the Penn students' presentations! Penn students used creative means to teach the elementary students about various neuroscience concepts, which the elementary students may have had limited exposure to.

Above: Magic Berries. What is our taste system like?

Students learned about the basic brain structure and the importance of helmets

When we're eating, which sensory signal - the action

potential, CCK, or leptin - reaches our brain first and

tells us that we're full?

The student above above is part of the action potential

team in the relay race, passing down silver balls to

represent action potential propagation.

The students get to see real brains, thanks to the

support of the Biological Basis of Behavior Program!

Research Opportunity

The Siegel lab is looking for pre-med/pre-grad undergraduate research assistants to help out with several ongoing research projects. Our lab investigates electrophysiological, behavioral, and molecular deficits in mouse models of Schizophrenia and Autism. Undergraduates would work under direct supervision of a MD/PhD graduate student or senior post doc and are expected to become highly independent. Time commitment of 10-20 hours/week which can be done for honors thesis, credit, or work study. Undergraduates would be expected to participate in and take lead on publication of work. Potential projects include:

• Developing a behavioral task to assess working memory in mouse models of schizophrenia, followed by drug testing
• Investigation of language lateralization in mice using electrophysiological recordings
• Characterizing electrophyiological activation of amygdalar activity during social behaviors of mice
• Development of auditory EEG tasks in mice to predict deficits observed observed in schizophrenia

Previous mouse work and/or experience with signal processing is helpful. Please send a resume to mgandal@mail.med.upenn.edu.

Interview with Dr. Zach!

Dr. Zach is a professor and an advisor in the BBB department who joined the Penn community just this past summer. She currently teaches Intro to Brain and Behavior and Developmental Neurobiology. She is incredibly friendly, readily accessible, and willing to spend a significant amount of time helping students (she personally leads recitation!). She will continue to teach BBB 109 in addition to Drugs, Brain, and Mind (BBB 270) next semester, for those of you who are interested.

Q: Can you give us a brief background about yourself?

Dr. Zach: I was a postdoc at Rockefeller University and I came to here to work as a lecturer. I never actually went to an American school so I learned a lot about American higher education system. I’m from Israel. I’m from suburbs of Tel Aviv but I did my PhD in Jerusalem. I came to New York to do postdoc in Rockefeller and this July I came to Penn.

Q: How have you found the education systems to be different?

Dr. Zach: I think compared to my undergraduate experience in Israel it’s a lot more focused on the experience of the student. Take small loads, take a lot of electives in different fields. When I went to school, you didn’t take any electives in different fields. You can do a minor, double major, but all this, like taking a lot o courses outside your major, is very strong here and it’s a lot of focus about having an enriched experience. I really value this. When I went to college you chose the major, that’s a choice, but once you chose it, there aren’t that many more choices. I also work as an advisor. Learning all the rules of the advising, you see that the policy is to help the students still have free time for extracurricular activities and summer programs abroad, etc. There’s a lot of emphasis of how we’d like a student to be as opposed to what you have to know to get a degree.

Q: How did your interest in neuroscience develop?

A: I always wanted to be a scientist, ever since I was a child. I grew up in a suburban environment. I remember when I was five or six they were showing a pathologist in a courtroom – I guess it was like law and order or something. I thought I would have to work with corpses. I was always fascinated with the concept – the very analytical and methodical approach. So I always kind of knew I wanted to be a scientist but this was before I knew any sciences. It was really the scientific method that I liked. As a teenager, I was really interested in the human mind. So I thought it would be perfect that I would get good biological answers instead of vague answers. I did a double major in Biology and Psychology and PhD in Neuroscience. I learned there are very few answers when you try to be rigorous about it, but I still like the effort. Even when I teach BBB109 I still rethink things that I didn’t study myself. There are many great ideas and approaches.

It’s like that in science in general. If you take biology or preliminary genetics course and then do PhD in it, it crumbles into islands of knowledge in oceans of unclarity. And you learn to focus on things you can progress in. Even when I was a postdoc, I’ve seen portions of oceans turn into islands, of people approaching, giving preliminary questions, and then developing them into better answers. It’s very exciting. I think in very few jobs you get to see a big change in knowledge. Most people’s jobs are probably not very different from 3 years ago. In science it’s very different. Even now, to keep with the work I did as a postdoc is an effort. Because things change and I sometimes hear not even the facts but how they’re organizing the theories. It’s nice to feel that the passing of time is meaningful.

Q: What kind of research have you been participating in?

Dr. Zach: In my PhD, I worked on learning new tasks and changes in the primary motor cortex that follow learning. And it was usually motor tasks and how the primary motor cortex representation changes once you learn something. Not so much memory in long term but how is memory being formed. Immediately after you learn something, there’s a process of consolidation and if consolidation is interrupted, you forget, and if consolidation is good, you retain the memory. So how could we look at consolidation and if you talk about brain activity, how are different neurons changing to enable long-term activation? We already know that representation of body changes with practice, connection between cells changes with practice. But what happens within short few hours time to enable memory is interesting and we studied that.

If you compare the primary motor cortex to the primary visual cortex, our level of knowledge is very different. Regarding the visual cortex, information about organization is a lot more known so you can talk a lot more about changes in the organization. Once you know how it’s supposed to be you can talk a lot more about how it changed, while the other the connections are not as well known so it’s a lot harder to talk about change. Therefore, when I moved to do my postdoc, I wanted to look at the same kind of questions of learning and consolidation but with a higher level of detail. In my PhD, I looked at cell activity. Now I wanted to move to a better perspective and more specific connection at the cellular level. This was more complex so in order to do that I moved to working on visual cortex, where more is known.

Q: How did you tackle the research questions you had?

Dr. Zach: So the methods were a big change for me when I began my postdoc. I moved to a method that is still relatively new, called two-photon microscopy. You use a microscope to track changes in fluorescence. What is special about this technique is the “two-photon: part because you project light on tissue and when two photons of light converge, they change wavelength and the meaning of this is that you can detect changes of one photon, allowing very fine resolution. What we did was, we used viruses with construct that will only be expressed in certain cell types – and what will be expressed are fluorescent molecules. So specific cell types in the brain produce genes that give out specific products and now some are fluorescent and we can therefore track these cells. We looked at the shape of the axons of these cells. We looked at them before and right after learning and then looked at them after every week for two months to see the changes formed and every week to see if they were retained. We trained animals to learn something to see changes in connection between cells and to see if they’re maintained throughout the long period of time.

Q: Have you had any interesting discoveries in your research?

A: There are two sides of the spectrum regarding theories on this matter. One theory is that every cell represents a small region. For example, in the primary motor cortex, a cell will control a small group of muscles computing some small subsets of activity. Other theory is that the cells act together to compute all possible movements. According to this theory, one cell can, in different context, generate different movements. We tried to advocate for a different theory that different cells take on different properties at different times. So for example, if a brain region is responsible for the arm movement and you’re trained to move your hand when you see the color green as opposed to the color red or you’re told to move to a certain sound, the cells in the motor cortex will respond to color green or sound with movement. So system will respond to whatever is important for behavior; they respond to whatever guides movement. But this changes in different contexts. Cells in the primary motor cortex originally didn’t respond to green light but after learning that it guides movement, the cells suddenly respond to green more than red. And if [monkeys] move to another task in which green light is meaningless cells don’t respond at all. If [monkeys] go back to the same task, then cells respond immediately. So we showed that the behavior of cells is dynamic, they represent different things at different times.

Why Babies Are Better Than You (and me)

Sitting in front of your potential future boss, staring attentively into his (or her) eyes, nodding with affirmation--look at you Ms. (or Mr., or Mrs....Mz.?) Hotshot, putting this interview to shame. You are Michael Jordan in the 90's.

Wait. No. No, no no. Stop it. Do NOT open your mouth and yawn. Deep breaths, eyes watering, can't focus and...you give up. Surreptitiously covering your mouth with your hand, you attempt a pose reminiscent of Rodin's Thinking Man (you sly fox, you) and suffer the blow to which so many of us succumb.

Alright, so that was probably a bit (or, you know, a lot) overdramatic, but we've all been there. That moment when a yawn sneaks up on you, and you simply can't suppress it. Whether it was sparked by the sight of someone else yawning, hearing the word 'yawn,' a lack of oxygen or fatigue, all of us experience the phenomenon that is yawning on a daily basis.

Though scientists are still uncertain about the origin of this mysterious biological behavior, a recent study by Ailsa Millen and James Anderson posited that, before age five, we are not susceptible to what scientists call 'contagious yawning.' (the yawns that happen when you hear the word 'yawn' and then yawn--try reading that five times without yawning. Sucker.)

The infants and toddlers tested still experienced a normal pattern of yawning: an increase in the morning, decrease in the afternoon and then another increase just before bedtime. However, when exposed to videos of other people yawning, or when in the presence of their yawning parents, these infants and toddlers did not spontaneously yawn, as many of us would.

So why are adults, but not children, able to catch these allegedly 'contagious' yawns? James Anderson (the same James Anderson referenced above, no less) was quoted by The Telegraph saying this on the subject:

"People who score highly for empathy are significantly more likely to show contagious yawning. What we know from other research is that one part of the brain that continues to develop throughout childhood is the frontal cortex and that the frontal lobe plays a role in social decision making and the ability to empathise...That would tie in with the gradual development of contagious yawning during childhood."

Are you an empathetic victim to this harmless monster? Let us know!

An Evening with Dr. Stocker

At this year's BBB Society movie night on Tuesday, Dr. Alan Stocker introduced The Prestige with a brief discussion of perception. The Prestige is a great movie about the rivalry between two magicians; the deceit, illusion and plot keep you guessing until the very end. To better understand the science behind the magic, Dr. Stocker discussed the creation of visual illusion and why it is that we can be tricked so easily, things that magicians depend on in their acts. Here is a video he used to demonstrate how awareness is essential to the things we notice (it sure as heck got me!):




Now you know why magicians use beautiful, scantily clad women as their assistants (enter Scarlet Johansson)- slight of hand is easy when the audience is busy drooling over a gorgeous woman!

Use CURF!!!

As first semester creeps slowly to a close, it is important to begin thinking about where second semester will take you. Freshman, now that you've had a chance to settle in to Penn a little bit, you may want to consider getting some research experience in a lab. Upper classmen, it's never too late to start. If you're not interested in doing research with any of the professors you've taken classes with, CURF is a great resource to help connect you with other potential mentors.

The research directory on CURF's website can help you search for proffesors who are looking for volunteers, independent research projects and work study students.

Another important way that CURF can help you get started in research is, of course, funding. Although faculty may already have grant money to conduct research, if you're starting your own project or traveling this summer you may need to get funding of your own. Here is a list of the grants that CURF offers. If you're still confused or just want help finding out which grants are appropriate for you, don't hesitate to sign up for a research consultation at CURF.

Good luck!

BBB Movie Night - Tues. November 30th, 7pm

The BBB Society's Annual Movie night will be held on Tuesday, November 30th at 7pm in Meyerson Hall B2. Psychology professor Dr. Alan Stocker will kick off the night with a short talk on human perception of illusions and magic. Then we'll be showing the 2006 hit thriller The Prestige starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. Free food (popcorn!) and drinks will be provided.

The Benefits of Butter

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, today's post is about the neural benefits of, you guessed it--FOOD. Fatty, delicious food.

But seriously, a recent article in the New York Times discusses something called the Ketogenic Diet, which has been purported to significantly decrease the number of seizures in people suffering from epilepsy.

Though alleged "food cures" have been around for over a century (diabetes, anyone?),

the Ketogenic Diet is especially notorious for its apparently indulgent facade. To put it in perspective, a hypothetical day spent practicing the Ketogenic Diet would have you gorging approximately 90% of your calories from fat, 8% from protein and the last 2% from carbohydrates (as visually displayed in the pie-no pun intended-chart below).

Yeah. I know. This sounds bizarre. But, according to this scientific article published in Epilepsia, it actually works. Though it does not actually "cure" epilepsy, per se, it has been shown to dramatically reduce the number of seizures experienced in epileptic patients, especially those who are children.

The Ketogenic Diet, or Keto (as called by its loyal fans/practitioners) works by forcing the body to burn fat instead of carbohydrates, a trait typically seen in people suffering from starvation. For reasons not yet completely understood, this starvation mode the body enters has some sort of antiepileptic effect. Jong Rho, a prominent researcher at the University of Calgary, has posited that Keto works because ketone bodies, which are produced en masse by the liver when the body burns fat, act as a protective measure from brain cell damage.

So yes, more research needs to be done. But can't that be said of all cutting edge science? The future of the Keto Diet is one of optimism--check out Charlie Abrahams on youtube to put an inspirational face to the success of this avant-garde methodology.

Sing Me A Memory

You can often recognize it on the very first beat. The melody starts to consume you, as you feel a rush from head to toe…and all of the sudden you begin to sing, uncontrollably, whether in the shower, the car, or sometimes even in public! There is no better feeling when you catch a familiar tune that was a classic "back in the day", or even a song that used to be your favorite, especially if it has been a while since you’ve heard it. I’m the first to admit that I would sometimes take the long way to drive home if a song came on the car radio that I wanted to listen to in its entirety, and I’ve never been embarrassed by my shower voice.

I’ve always found it fascinating how songs have the ability to change our moods, and so I was intrigued when I heard that songs have been found to possess memory-evoking capabilities. Throughout our lives, many songs tend to be affiliated with a period of particularly strong emotion, from couples recollecting a song playing when they first met, to a student remembering a song from his senior year in high school. It is no surprise that music is strongly tied to memory, since memories are more easily recalled during periods of intense emotional experience. "What seems to happen is that a piece of familiar music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our heads," said Petr Janata, a cognitive neuroscientist at University of California, Davis.

Jamata recognized that the medial pre-frontal cortex actually tracks chord and key changes in music, an area of the brain that is also activated in response to self-reflection and autobiographical recall. So, when an autobiographically related song was played to subjects in Jamata’s study, it is no surprise that this brain region was activated.

Even more interesting is the potential for music in areas such as Alzheimer’s research. These are individuals who suffer significant amounts of memory loss, but are still able to recognize songs from their pasts. "What's striking is that the prefrontal cortex is among the last [brain regions] to atrophy," Janata noted. Even if these patients cannot recall the memory that the song was affiliated with, the emotion associated with that experience is still evoked, evidenced by Alzheimer’s patients often singing along and reporting feelings of happiness when listening songs familiar to them. This just goes to show that when all else has left our minds, music will still be with us. Perhaps one day, this may lead to a method of retrieval of those memories we once thought permanently inaccessible, or lost forever, by the degenerative disease.

Also refer to the book by world-famous neurologist Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia

See Inside a Cell

This visual representation of the inside of a cell is quite incredible. The video from The New York Times describes the work of interdisciplinary scientists combining film and molecular biology in an attempting to depict what it would be like to be a microscopic particle traveling through a cell. Their newest work, Powering The Cell: Mitochondria, shows how cells use the food that we eat to create their own energy currency- ATP.

Brainstorm Staff Meeting

Hi All,

Have you enjoyed reading Brainstorm? Would you like to become invloved or write for the blog? Do you have ideas for improving Brainstorm?

Come to the Brainstorm staff meeting Tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov 16th at 8:00 in JMHH F86.

aaand on a completely unrelated note, check out this interview with Jane Goodall in the New York Times. She's just the coolest person ever.

Nama-say whaaa?

Down dog, chaturanga, up dog, vinyasa. Oh, excuse me, I was just practicing a little Ashtanga (and increasing my thalamic GABA levels).

If this sounds to you like a pickup line from some foreign film noir, you're not alone. Au contraire, mon ami (French for "on the contrary, my friend"), all of the above (excluding GABA, which is a neurotransmitter associated with increased positive affect and decreased anxiety) are actually postures routinely practiced in the age old exercise of yoga.

The physical benefits of yoga are prolific and well-known--increased flexibility, improved circulation and decreased muscle tension to name a few--however, its neuronal benefits have, up until now, been relatively unexplored.

A study published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine last week documented a significant increase in mood and decrease in anxiety when comparing two experimental groups of people: one that practiced an hour of yoga three times a week and another that did one hour of metabolically comparable walking exercises three times a week (this was all done over a twelve week period). Marked improvements, confirmed by self-reports and quantitative measurements of GABA levels in the brain immediately after each session, were observed in the yoga-practicing group.

Though exercise is inherently associated with an increase in positive affect and decrease in anxiety, comparing two events that involve equal increases in metabolic activity controls for any confounding factors. Thus, more credibility can be attributed to the notion that practicing yoga is the cause of these improvements.

Take a deep breath; you don't have to practice two hours of hot yoga a day to reap its brainy benefits (not to mention the amount of laundry you'd accrue doing that). Just keep in mind that it's never too late to try out a class at your local gym, buy a DVD or even use videos online to learn (Hulu has some great ones).

Click here to read more. Namaste!

Robbed by the One – Armed Bandit

Over the course of evolution, our brains have adapted to try and predict the outcomes of certain events. We make predictions, compare them to what actually happens, and then learn from error and adjust. When we make correct predictions, our body possesses a mechanism to ensure that we continue to do so: the reward areas of our brain. The brain’s reward circuitry releases the neurotransmitter dopamine, the chemical responsible for the pleasures we feel from sex, drugs, alcohol, music, chocolate, love, and even gambling. If we receive a positive outcome as a result of our actions (reinforcement), then we will repeat our behaviors.

The more “off-target” that our predictions are, the faster we will learn because as a species, we don’t like to be wrong. In fact, human beings do not like being wrong so much, that the fear of losing can be considered even greater than the pleasures of winning. Loss-aversion is a key factor that drives our everyday decisions; we are much more willing to settle for a lesser, guaranteed reward, than a reward of greater magnitude for which there is a risk of losing. So it is within the boundaries of human nature to avoid losses at all costs…with the exception of one circumstance: the “near-miss”.

What is a “near miss”? Imagine yourself in front of a slot machine, pulling the arm, as you’re watching the colors of each of the characters whiz by in a blur. Bing...Bing...Bing. You’ve managed to match two pictures in a row, but the third one is just one away from the desired spot, and now you’re itching to try for it again. That is a “near miss”. “Near misses” are extremely addictive, because they raise activity in the exact same reward circuitry of the brain as wins do (perhaps suggesting that if the behavior continues, a win is soon to follow). Wins activate reward pathways in the midbrain, as well as losses that could be considered a “near-misses”. People will continue to return to the slots after a near miss due to a sense of reward, leading to addictive behavior. For problem gamblers, the activation of these specific brain areas is even more enhanced than in casual gamblers.

Our evolutionary flaw is that, while the brain is efficient in most circumstances, it will try desperately to fit occurrences of “random chance” into a predictable model, striving to figure out explanations for what there is simply no explanation for. Unfortunately, this makes our brains fully capable of misinterpreting information, and so we may be fooled into making a decision that is not logically sound, overwhelmed by a rush of emotion from dopamine.

“Although near-misses while playing a slot machine felt less pleasant than wins, they increased the desire to play just as much as long as players felt they had some control over their spins—supporting the idea that the illusion of skill underlies the phenomenon,” says Luke Clark of the University of Cambridge. People who play the lottery or stock machines often confuse phenomena resulting from pure chance (wins/losses) with those that are caused by personal skill and ability. The key here is that the gambler believes that he is at least partially in charge: that some type of his personal skill is involved. This convinces gamblers to try their luck, even after several consecutive “near-misses”.

Think about it. This is essentially the power to convince someone, at least at the neurological level, that they have won without actually letting them win…a dangerous idea, but a reality that has not gone unnoticed by business. Businesses (particularly casinos) and slot-machine makers actually use virtual reels to create a high number of “near-misses”. While your neurons desperately attempt to decode the “logic of luck”, you keep emptying your bucket, feeding the one-armed bandit more quarters...business is booming.

It is common belief that emotions derail us from logic, inhibiting us from our ability to reason. Yet, without emotion we would be indecisive, forced to analyze every possible option. Emotions may provide us with the impetus to make our decisions, but when our emotions are out of control, perhaps we are just as good without them.

To read more click this link:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/11/hit-me-again-the-gambling-brain.html

Brain Music

Some of you may know Dr. Mike Kaplan as a professor of BBB251 or BBB492. Others may have only heard the legend of this singing professor. Today we provide you with a link to his smash hit Brain in a Jar. Gotta love the creativity coming out of the BBB department!

For other "Songs in the Key of Brain", check this out.

Can't Read My P-p-p-poker Face

As the title suggests (extracted from Lady Gaga's massively overplayed single), a good poker face is one that is unreadable: apathetic but not disinterested, intense but not concerned, aloof but not too lofty. You get the idea. Basically, the best poker players are the ones who can manipulate everyone else without being manipulated themselves.

So, the burning question at hand: what lies (no pun intended) inside the brains of these deceptive Rico Suaves that differentiates them from the everyday David Hasselhoffs?

According to a study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the best "strategic deceivers" are more apt to utilize the parts of the brain related to complex decision-making, goal achievement and understanding the beliefs of those surrounding them. These areas--the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left Brodmann area 10 and right temporoparietal junction, respectively--were identified via functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) while subjects participated in an interpersonal bargaining game. The subjects who did the best were those who bid higher when the true value was lower and lower when the true value was higher; however, to maintain a sense of believability, they also had to bid realistically. The subjects who performed worse in the bargaining task were those who were honest in their bidding and those who bid numbers only weakly related to the true value.

While it's true that most of us were raised giving credence to honesty as the best policy, this data may warrant an excuse to consider otherwise (especially if you're that guy walking home shoeless from Texas Hold 'em).

Click here to read more!

Glia!

For the majority of neuroscience's history, glial cells have been thought to merely serve a structural role. Glial cells help regulate the extracellular concentration of specific neurotransmitters and ions. External concentrations of ions are key to the proper functioning of neurons. However, more recent research is suggesting that glial cells pay an extremely important role the overall functioning of the brain. The most recent Science magazine for November 5th focuses on the function and importance of glial cells. For example, glial cells form the association cortices between major systems of neurons. Our ability to associate different types of information (such as a smell with a memory) forms the basis of our cognition. Recent research cited in Science explores the structure and function of different types of glial cells--astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia.

Check out the online version of science!

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/current/

The Prestige- Movie Night

Visual illusions can provide great insights into how our brains work and process information. With that in mind, I like to announce the BBB Society's Annual Movie Night: The Prestige on Tuesday, November 30th. The night will begin with an explanation of visual illusions by Psychology professor Dr. Alan Stocker, followed by some demonstrations from the film's magicians. More information to come (date/time/location/etc.) but you should all get excited for a great night!

Tpyos: How the Barin is Arwae of its Mstiaeks

The typo: every perfectionist’s worst nightmare as he looks over his paper, just minutes before handing it in. It may be true that word processing programs keep developing more advanced spell check and auto correct features, but even the best computer can miss some mistakes we make while typing. In addition, while quickly reading over our words, we are prone to not catching some of the spelling errors. It turns out that the master detectors of all keyboard related errors are our very fingers themselves.

Experimenters tested subjects (skilled typists, who could type 40 words per minute with about 90% accuracy, and used all of their fingers while typing) by creating a word processor that would secretly fix a typist’s real spelling errors, and also create new errors in words initially typed correctly. Subjects took both the blame for the errors that were not truly theirs, and the credit for the researcher’s corrections. Despite what was actually typed, the subjects believed that the words they intended to type were actually displayed on the screen, indicating inaccuracy in their conscious analyses of their individual performances.

The typists’ motor signals, on the other hand, weren’t duped so easily. It turns out that the speed at which the subjects typed was reduced for the next keystroke after hitting the “wrong” key, even if the researchers tried to deceive the subjects by correcting one of their errors on the screen. So despite the subjects’ beliefs that all of the presented error and accuracy at the end of the experiment was attributed to themselves alone, their bodies were able to distinguish their true errors. “The body is doing one thing and the mind is doing another,” says psychologist Gordon Logan of Vanderbilt University. “What we found was that the fingers knew the truth."

These results may suggest a “hierarchical method of error correction”; the motor system does the work while several cortical areas assign causal characteristics such as blame and credit. Essentially, these two processes are entirely disassociated, so that the hands and fingers can catch errors that the mind cannot. Not convinced? Try typing a paragraph with your eyes closed. Chances are you will know when you make an error, and automatically go back to fix it. It is suggested that typing is just another activity that we do on autopilot without thinking, liken to walking or doing some other familiar task. Perhaps this can be viewed as the brain's way of providing multiple methods of checking for error -- a reliable autopilot, and a proofreading/ error attributing "higher" cortical system. If our conscious places that much confidence in our "autopilot" , perhaps it is safe to assume we can trust the driver.

To read more, click the link: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/fingers-know-typos/

Sidenote: To illustrate how easy it is to miss a typo, take a look at the title above. I bet that you can easily read each word, despite the jumbled letters. This is because the mind doesn’t read every letter individually, but rather groups them together and reads the word as a whole (the only necessity is that the first and last letters are in the right place). Now imagine trying to catch a typo when reading quickly under time induced stress... not likely.

ZOMBIE MIND CONTROL

In true Halloween fashion, today's post is about none other than...ZOMBIE MIND CONTROL. Okay, not really. However, it is about how we can use our thoughts to control what appears in the external world (even cooler).

The study alleging such psychical phenomena was conducted by Christof Koch (a neuroscientist at CalTech), Itzhak Fried (a neurosurgeon at UCLA) and Moran Cerf (a graduate student at CalTech); the original intention of the researchers was to explore whether or not surgically implanted electrodes deep within the neural centers of twelve epilepsy patients could aid in identifying the cause of the patients' epileptic seizures.

What these three researchers found, however, was much more than a cause. Through presenting images to the subjects on a screen and subsequently asking the subjects to think about a different image, the researchers were able to teach the subjects to change the projected image using only their brains!

How does this work? Each neuron is able to function as an essentially independent unit, meaning that the patients could train themselves to trigger certain neurons to respond to specific images (of Marilyn Monroe or Bill Clinton, for example). When these corresponding neurons were triggered, a cursor on a computer screen (visible only to the experimenter) moved up or down depending on the patient's preferences, and the image was altered accordingly.

Sound like something straight out of Frankenstein? Inspiration for the next psychological thriller (ahem, a chance for M. Night Shyamalan to redeem himself)? Believe it!

Here's the proof.

New Clinical Research in Neuroscience Course!!

Dr. Sherman Stein, clinical professor of neurosurgery, is offering his first course for undergraduates – Clinical Research in Neuroscience (BIBB-409-301) – in the upcoming spring semester!

Dr. Stein has two goals for this course. The first is to give students background about clinical research and the second is to get students involved in actually doing the research. He feels that one doesn’t need expensive, elaborate setup to address some of the many unanswered questions in neuroscience and medicine in general. Instead, he seeks to teach students a philosophy of how research works, which will be especially valuable for students who decide to attend graduate or medical schools.

BIBB 409-301 is a seminar-sized, interactive class comprised of ninety minute lectures, guest speakers’ presentations on topics like ethics and translational research, and student research. Students will be divided into teams of three to five and each team will decide on a specific clinical neuroscience question among the ones preapproved beforehand by the IRB. A possible topic of investigation may be the impact of the repealed motorcycle helmet law in Pennsylvania. Has it resulted in more deaths? Dr. Stein states that students will have to dissect the available data such as the trauma database or statistics published by the state and ask more detailed questions. For example, has the demographic of motorcycle riders changed due to the change in law? Is the sample of subjects representative of the population? How much of the annual deaths can be attributed brain injuries as opposed to breaking of the neck? Each team will work on its own topic or question throughout the semester under the supervision of a graduate student or a medical resident. Students will be guided along the whole process, from accessing research libraries to learning how to read and interpret research papers, how to collect data from human subjects and available literature, and how to write research papers. Dr. Stein will have weekly meetings with each team to check on their progress and be a readily available resource.

BIBB 109 is a pre-requisite and instructor’s permission is necessary to register. Dr. Stein is looking for students with intellectual energy and motivation; he hopes that self-motivated students will put in work outside of the classroom, since students will gain from this course as much as they invest in it. These projects may serve as foundations for analyses continued by grad students that may produce publishable results. There are plenty of possibilities for students to continue their involvement in this process and eventually even contribute to the research paper.

Interested students should set up appointments to meet Dr. Stein for a brief interview by emailing him directly at Sherman.Stein@uphs.upenn.edu

WHAT A HIT!

"At the 32 on third down and 6...Kolb in trouble, gets rid of it....OOOHHH! BIG HIT ON DeSEAN JACKSON!"

One of the hottest topics bridging sports and neuroscience today is the widespread prevalence of concussions in the National Football League.

In the 6th week of NFL play (OCT 17-18), there were at least 7 documented concussions. And in a league that emphasizes toughness, who knows how many other players ignored their symptoms leaving a concussion undiagnosed? Two notable brain injuries occurred on the same play when Philadelphia Eagles' receiver DeSean Jackson and tackler Dunta Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons viscously collided while running full speed. It'll be interesting to see how recent rule changes to avoid helmet-to-helmet contact and the increased awareness of the issue affect both the game and the longevity of its players.

So what exactly is happening to the brain of each player during one of these tackles?

Below is an alarming video from Sport Science (one of my favorite shows on television!) with an explanation of the average forces experienced by the head of an NFL player during a hit.

The Smell of Fear: It's Catching

How good is the human sense of smell? Smell provides us with information about our environment, but due to evolution plays second string to our more developed senses of sight and hearing. Cortical areas in our brains are more devoted to cognitive, visual, and auditory functioning, while other species, such as rats and dogs, have increased area in their brains devoted to the sense of smell (relative to their brains' total sizes). Despite our more significant dependency on our other senses, we can actually identify a variety of scents, each discriminated by a specific and intricate combination of chemicals to our olfactory receptors. While humans can get by just fine without a sense of smell, it adds a descriptive component to everyday life that would surely be missed by those of us who have it. Smell plays the role of a warning system, alerting us of dangers such as spoiled food or a fire, and that of an enhancer, supplying yet another quality to associate an object or experience with. Close your eyes and imagine waking up in the morning to the aroma of hot coffee, the fragrance of apple pie for dessert, or an attractive perfume on your date. It is not hard to believe that the areas of our brain connected to smell are closely related to those involved with memory formation. We tend to rely more on smell when our other senses are weak, as opposed to animals that depend on a more sophisticated olfactory system as a sense of direction and communication. With our slightly inferior noses, is it credible for humans to identify scents characteristic of things less tangible than food, smoke, or cologne…such as emotion?

According to several studies, humans can actually smell the emotion of fear (staying true to the theme for Halloween). This discrimination occurs at a subconscious level, influencing our interpretation of otherwise ambiguous situations as fearful ones. What is the source of this smell? Human sweat. "Our findings provide direct behavioral evidence that human sweat contains emotional meanings," said Denise Chen, a psychologist at Rice University in Houston. Supposedly, we are able to unconsciously detect whether or not someone is stressed/fearful via the release of a chemical pheromone through his/her sweat. Brain regions of the study participants associated with fear (the amygdala and hypothalamus) responded at stronger levels when the smell inhaled was of sweat collected from the armpits of petrified skydivers vs. sweat collected from exercisers. However, participants did not posses the ability to consciously distinguish between the two types of sweat.

This leads scientists to believe that emotions may in fact be contagious via a process of chemical transfer, adding a whole other component to social dynamics. Imagine the appeal to military institutions hoping to invoke fear in enemies, or perfume companies working to master the rules of sexual attraction (yes, there are pheromones in sweat during sex as well). Movie directors of horror films perhaps profit from this, because if one person in the movie is scared, chances are the viewers immediately around him will sense fear, starting a domino effect. The marketable value of these research results suggests a way in which pheromones may physiologically influence our behavior and perception. So the next time that you have an exam, remember not to show up too early with all of the worriers; just being around them can create a source of self-doubt when confidence is necessary to perform well.

For more information on two of these studies, click the links below:

http://www.livescience.com/health/090310-fear-scent.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/04/smell-fear-research-pheromone

The Age of Adz

Commercials, billboards, labels, clothing--advertisements are everywhere. Look around. I can guarantee that an advertisement of some sort is within your visual frame. Though many of us consider ourselves immune to coercive marketing ploys (myself often included), a NeuroFocus study has shown that this is apparently not the case.

Gap, the multibillion dollar clothing company empire, recently attempted to update its old logo (on the left) to a newer, fresher, design (on the right). However, the strategy grossly backfired, ending with the decision to switch back to the original logo. Considering that upwards of ten million dollars were spent on the new look, this was clearly not an easy defeat to admit.

So, why the epic failure? According to the study, Gap's new design violated several aesthetic neural templates that humans intrinsically prefer, such as:

1. The blue cube covering part of the "p" distracts the viewer from the holistic brand name, which should be the focal point of the logo.

2. Our brains, being hardwired to avoid sharp edges, react negatively to those of the blue cube overlapping the "p."

3. The font of the new logo is relatively similar to most to which we're exposed on a daily basis, so there is no real sense of novelty.

4. There is less contrast in the new design, which is black on white, than in the old, which made the white letters stand out more against the blue background. Thus, we are inclined to pay less attention to the new logo than the old one.

5. "Gap" is capitalized in the new logo, which sparks our brains to search for some sort of tangible meaning to the word (like that found in a sentence). The most effective advertisements and marketing ploys tend to utilize all uniform letters, lending more attention to the brand name.

6. As is evident above, the new logo is a sharp contrast to the old logo. Because it is so unrecognizable from the original, people may have difficulty associating what they already know about Gap as a company with the new logo.

What do you think? Click here to read more, then let us know!