Why Dogs Are Better Than Doctors

Over the past ten years, myriad groundbreaking and progressive cancer treatments have been implemented in oncology departments everywhere. Whether the treatment involves some sort of chemotherapy, radiation or positive psychological therapy, more and more advances are being made to make sure cancer is detected and attacked as early as possible.

What would at first appear to be completely unrelated to this is that dogs have a fantastic sense of smell [up to one third of a dog's brain is devoted solely to olfactory detection]. In light of this, recent studies have implied that dogs' senses of smell are good enough to sniff out cancer.

This may sound wild and wacky [I admit I had to reread the abstract three times just to make sure I was reading what I thought I was reading], but it's absolutely true. A recent article published in GUT posited that labrador retrievers that smelled the exhaled breath and watery stool samples of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients were able to identify even early cases of CRC extremely accurately.

In the study, Sonoda et al. exposed dogs highly trained in scent detection to the breath and stool samples of both CRC patients and normal, healthy subjects. For exhaled breath, the labradors had a detection sensitivity [compared to regular colonoscopy] of 0.91 and a specificity of 0.99. The sensitivity of the watery stool samples was even higher--0.97, and the specificity was 0.99. These measures were not confounded with inflammatory disease, benign colorectal disease or even current smoking behaviors.

Just one more reason to love animals! [if you need yet another, check out this cute and fuzzy video that has absolutely nothing to do with science]

Full pdf article can be found here.

Social Animal

I know this article may be a little bit long but if you read one thing all day, it should be this. It is incredibly well written and ties tidbits of science research to everyday life. The author tells a story that I think everyone can relate to in some ways..

Anyways, its titled "Social Animal- How the new sciences of human nature can help make sense of a life" and is written by David Brooks.

Here's one of my favorite (though not necessarily characteristic) quotes from the piece:

"...We inherit a great river of knowledge, a flow of patterns coming from many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past we call genetics. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago we call family, and the information offered months ago we call education. But it is all information that flows through us."

Question Everything, Including Yourself (and your study habits)

It's the beginning of a new semester, and you're ready for a fresh start. In my case, a fresh start that involves doing the least amount of work in the most efficient way possible, but I digress. If you're shopping for the latest and greatest study fad to try out, look no further. This interesting approach is easy, relatively painless and much more effective than "my dog ate my homework" (or these actual exam answers).

According to an article recently published in Science, students who studied using only practice tests (i.e. memory retrieval) retained up to 50% more information than those using concept mapping (integrative diagrams) or repetitive memorization!

By practicing retrieval, students can apparently better prepare themselves for the actual test-taking experience while being made aware of what they should study more. That is, by seeing what they get wrong on the practice tests, students will know what they should learn in more extensive detail.

Ironically enough, though the students using the retrieval method outperformed the two other groups, they predicted they'd remember the least amount of information come exam day. This is probably because the students using repetition and concept mapping never actually asked themselves what they knew without having direct access to the information (as is done in the retrieval method); thus, they felt they knew more than they actually did.

So in the end, school is no different than any sport, instrument or video game (Super Mario Bros. 3, anyone?): practice makes perfect.

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.

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!

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!

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.