Physiological Psychology Course Blog

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/07/10/brain-training-games-dont-really-train-brains-a-new-study-suggests/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6a27bd8e04c9 Summary:  Studies is shown that the brain training games appear to have no more effect on healthy brains than the video games. Scientists did the studies, where people were able to choose and play either Lumosity brain-training games or regular video games. The studies last for 10 weeks. There was no evidence that commercial brain-training leads to improvements in memory, decision-making, sustained attention or ability to switch between mental tasks. When the scientists said that the brain training games do not work, the Lumosity insisted that brain-training games improve the performance. Specifically better on some mental tasks than crossword puzzles. However, o ther studies have suggested that the brain games increase activity in the executive control network, only some have shown the increase in eve...

A broken heart is probably one of the worst feelings in the world. People often equate brokenheartedness with being punched in the stomach. Heartbreak causes several effects on your body. When you're in love, dopamine and oxytocin are released.  Dopamine can have a person experiencing happiness and pleasure. When you experience a heartbreak, your body releases stress hormones (epinephrine). A terrible breakup can have you questioning your identity. Also, heartbreak can lead to depression. The content is related to the topic emotions. A stimulus causes a psychological response, then produces a feeling of emotion. Heartbreak and physical pain share common neural responses. The  anterior cingulate and the anterior insula e are two areas of the brain that process the emotional and distressing aspects of physical pain. These parts of the brain tell us that we are experiencing an unpleasurable feeling or emotion.. https://www.elitedaily.com/dating/scientific-reasons-why-a-...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051118300644?via=ihub Summary : Emotion has a tremendous impact on one's impulsivity. Common when experiencing negative urgency or distress, impulsivity can be essential. Impulsive actions can also be displayed in an attempt to alleviate one's mood state. For example, binge drinking is an act that has the potential to alleviate or ease one's mood at a given time. Impulsivity is complex, made up of many possible causes and potential actions; there are numerous emotional and physiological states in shaping impulsive action. Although impulsivity can be considered a symptom of neurological conditions, it can also be a characteristic or personality trait of a healthy individual. Researchers find it extremely difficult to define impulsivity, which has led to it's categorization within many subtypes. A comprehensive factor analysis of many impulsivity scales was performed in order to separate different subtypes of impu...

The article above explains a possible new finding in regulating motivation for drugs specifically in heroin addicts. In glial cells drugs produce plasticity, which can reduce motivation for heroin. The treatments that are being studied could possibly help opiod addicts. This new finding could possible be a step closer to figuring out what addiction actually is, while preventing relapse, and drug use altogether. The research was established at the University of Buffalo, where Dietz and his colleagues found changes in RNA specially dealing with the glial cell oligodendrocyte (OPC's). Non- Neural glial cells regulate cellular and behavioral responses to heroin. These glial cells turn into myelin where they are used to communicate between neurons. In 2014, Sim Fraiser, PHD, located the gene called soxio as the "master switch" that changes the stem cell into myelination. The hypothesized solution is to facilitate OPC's to the brain to reverse the disconnect between the pr...

            The article “This is your brain on music” written by Elizabeth Lanau and posted on CNN discussed a study which was done to investigate the neurological effects that music has on an individual. Salimpoor, a researcher, found that when listening to music, certain parts of the brain are affected. The study tested the effects of either anti-anxiety medicine or music on patients who were going into surgery. The outcome was measured by the patients’ stress hormone and their self-reported feelings of anxiety. The data revealed that those who listened to music experienced less feelings of anxiety than those who were given medicine. Further research tested individuals’ brain activity, using an fMRI, while they were listening to music. The brain shows activity in similar areas across the brain. From here, researchers hope to focus more on what chemicals are involved during this activity. This reminds me of the mesolimbocorti...

Most obese people have inherited some genes that contribute to the susceptibility of obesity. A lot of these genes manage hypothalamic functions like feeding. Scientists from the United States have created hypothalamus-like neurons using stem cells taken from the blood and skin of both super obese people and people of a normal body weight. The neurons taken from those who were super obese showed an abnormally strong response to ghrelin compared to those of a normal body weight. They found that these neurons were more likely to disrupt hormones related to hunger and feeding. This relates back to the topic of hunger and feeding signals focused on in lecture. One feeding signal in particular that was focused on was ghrelin, the hormone that tells you that you are hungry. By addressing the differences in individuals with normal body weight and those diagnosed as obese, researchers can find ways to find solutions.This article introduces the topic of finding curative ways to deal with hung...

Summary: One of the key components people mention for a good health is nutrition, sleep, and exercise. The Department of Health and Human Services recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week. Exercise is usually only thought to be beneficial to the physical part of the body for example helping maintain a healthy weight. Exercise does not only benefit the psychical aspect of the health but also the mental health. In the article “The Link Between Exercise and Boosting Brainpower” by Christine Comaford a study was conducted to see the correlation between aerobic exercise and how the brain benefits such as working memory task-evoked brain activity, and how well they performed tasks. They found that moderate acute aerobic exercise increased both working memory and cortical hemodynamic responses in the prefrontal cortex. As well other areas such as behavioral performance and the right frontopolar area were activated followed ...

http://neurosciencenews.com/brain-synchrony-working-memory-8887/ It is no secret that our working memory capacity is limited. A new study from City, University of London and MIT indicates that our limited working memory capacity may be a result of a breakdown in communication amongst the parts of the brain responsible for maintaining memory. According to the authors, suggest the synchrony of brain waves amongst three regions of the brain breaks down when visual working memory reaches its capacity.  The researchers analyzed the data from playing memory games with animal subjects to prove their hypothesis. Subjects were tasked with distinguishing the difference when presented with a set of squares on a screen followed by a blank screen and then an identical set of squares (with one square's color changed). Researchers measured the timing and frequencies of brain waves produced by neurons in the prefrontal cortex, frontal eye fields (FEF), and the lateral intraparietal area (LI...

The topic of "what makes us who we are" has been a controversial debate throughout history. There is the philosopher's point of view stating we are who we are because of our soul. While on the other hand there is the neuropsychological perspective stating much of who we are and how we act is due to our prefrontal cortex. There are extreme cases such as Phineas Gage and Eadweard Muybridge that  show damage to the brain can change the personality of a person. After Gage's and Muybridge's injury to their prefrontal cortex they were both reported as more aggressive, impulsive , rude and emotionally unstable. Even though these were some extreme cases, the idea of brain injury to the prefrontal cortex resulting to severe personality change is now well established. In class we learned that the prefrontal cortex is responsible for organizing and planning, our decision making, impulse control, and adjusts our behavior response to rewards and punishments. We know that if...

When considering the evolutionary value of the experience of pain, it follows that there would be a natural hierarchy of sense stimuli which allows for an optimization of functioning. This article summarizes information from a study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania that established the neurons and neurotransmitters responsible for inflammatory chronic pain as well as the process through which the response can be naturally inhibited by the body. The researchers at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that mice exhibit an apparent reduced experience of inflammatory pain if they are hungry. In the study, researchers tested mice that have not eaten in twenty-four hours in order to differentiate their responses to acute pain compared to longer-lasting inflammatory pain, in differentiation to a control group of well-fed mice. The results showed that mice who were hungry were equally as responsive as the control group in regards to experiences of acute pain, however, they were...

Link: http://neurosciencenews.com/memory-fear-breathing-5699/ Summary: Scientist's from Northwestern Medicine have found that your rhythm of breathing create's electrical activity in the brain associated with enhancing your emotional judgement's and memory recall. One of the author's, Christina Zelano, stated that their biggest finding was the major difference in activity of the amygdala and hippocampus during inhalation as compared to exhalation. The scientist's first noticed these differences in brain activity during a study of several epilepsy patient's. Seven epilepsy patient's who were going in for surgery had electrode's implanted in their brain's in order for doctor's to locate the source of their seizures. These electrode's allowed the scientist's to study their brain waves and noticed that brain waves fluctuated with the individual's breathing. The activity occurred in the areas of the brain associated with emotion, memory ...

Acetaminophen is frequently used as pain relief and fever reducer for many, but especially for pregnant mothers. Prolonged exposure to low doses of acetaminophen can damage the the fetus's developing nervous system. The fetus of the mothers who had prolong exposure to acetaminophen during pregnancy had a 30% higher chance to develop ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), compared to someone who did not have any exposure to acetaminophen and a 20% higher chance to develop ASD (Autism Spectrum disorder). Pain and fever can have an effect on the fetus, so women should not stop taking acetaminophen altogether. Acetaminophen can be taken short term but if the mother's fever persists for more than a couple days she should seek a doctor's help for a better course of action for medicine. Anything that the mother eats or takes also gets passed through the placenta. The brain is developing almost all throughout the pregnancy, so any drug or alcohol use could be very detri...

Link :  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201312/why-do-the-songs-your-past-evoke-such-vivid-memories Summary : Listening to music has been shown to engage multiple neural networks across the brain, linking to motor actions, emotions, and creativity. The most active brain area engaged when listening to music is the medial prefrontal cortex region, one of the last areas of the brain to experience the damage of Alzheimer's disease. Activity in the dorsal part of the medial prefrontal cortex seems to be greater if the song someone is listening to holds important and vivid memories and associations from their past. Different processing areas of the brain seem to be linked to different qualities of music including musical pulse (the beat), timbre (tone, or color of the voice), and tonality (based on the relationship between the notes of a particular musical scale or key). The processing of musical pulse has been found to activate the same areas...

https://neurosciencenews.com/spinal-muscular-atrophy-drug-4733/ Summary:  Spinal Muscular Atrophy or SMA is a gene mutation that doesn't allow the proper production of a protein for muscles that allow us to walk, move our arms, breathe. This typically ends up deteriorating them over time. There are different levels of severity to this sad disease that could lead to death. Researchers at University of Missouri think they found a way to help treat the SMA by slowing down the process of deterioration. Humans carry a gene that is alike to the SMN1 gene that is effected causing SMA, called SMN2. The only difference is it only creates a small amount of the protein needed for the muscles unlike SMN1. The medication is supposed to help produce more of the protein needed. They have tested the medication on mice that have showed signs of SMA and it has slowed down the quick process by giving an extra 5 months. If this were to be successful on humans in the future it could help children...

Alcohol More Harmful to Brain than Mariajuana, Study Finds     https://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2018/02/12/alcohol-more-harmful-to-brain-than-marijuana-study-finds/ Oscar Pascual’s article on SFGATE discusses the controversial drug, marijuana, in comparison to alcohol in how it affects the brain. Interestingly, heavy alcohol use was linked to lower volumes of brain tissue as well as long-term changes to gray and white matter in the brain. Damage to to white or gray matter in the brain has major impacts on brain function and can cause impairment. On the contrary, however, marijuana use did not show the same detrimental effects and could even lower the risk of developing liver disease, which is common among alcoholics. Nevertheless, the author includes that marijuana use does have negative consequences, though more research must be conducted to better understand the effects of marijuana use. Alcohol use has much more extensive research stating the negative effects on the ...

Link: http://neurosciencenews.com/synesthesia-molecular-8592/ Summary:  Synesthesia is when one experiences the stimulation of one sense with a second sensory pathway. In other words, people with synethesia, or synesthetes, may be able to see, taste, or feel sounds. While it has been known that synethesia can run in families, researchers have recently identified six genes that modify sensory experiences and may alter brain connectivity in synesthetes.  Researchers at the Max Planck Institude for Psycholinguistics and the University of Cambridge used genome sequencing to analyze the DNA of three families with known synesthetes. Through this process they were able to perfectly match the inheritance of synesthesia in the families by identifying DNA changes that alters the way genes code for proteins. Ultimately what was discovered was that across the three families there were differences in the genes involved in axonogenesis (The formation of new axons) and cell migrati...