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.