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Sexy Science!

Rewire your brain after a long period of stress

We all know that stress can be very bad for your health, with post-traumatic stress syndrome being one of the severest expressions. Stress causes the release of cortisol in our blood stream. Cortisol is a hormone involved in many important functions in the body such as the regulation of our metabolism, regulation of blood pressure, maintenance of blood sugar levels, and it has an important immune function. 

Cortisol is often dubbed the stress hormone because it serves an important role in 'fight and flight' responses to potentially threatening situations. Small increases in cortisol can have very positive effects in situations where split-second decisions have to be made in order to survive. It can give that extra bit of alertness to dodge a punch or prevent a car crash, it heightens your memory temporarily, it briefly increases immunity and it even makes you less sensitive to pain.

Unfortunately, when the cortisol levels in your blood are constantly high as a result of ongoing exposure to stress, they can lead to many physical problems such as blood sugar imbalance, a decrease in bone density and muscle tissue, high blood pressure, a lowered immune system, and even impairments in your cognitive abilities such as memory and perception.



Scientists from the university of Minho in Portugal showed that the plasticity of the brain of rats under constant pressure diminished significantly. Four weeks of stress made the rats less flexible in solving problems in order to get their rewards. They would persist with one possible option and not try to explore other ways of getting their rewards, unlike their unstressed controls who would try to get to their goal in any way possible.

They did find that there is some hope though. After four leisurely weeks the rats started behaving more like the controls again, and their brains seemed to rewire too. You can read more about this research and on the New York Times website in the Science section.

Unlikely treatment for insomnia?

Here's an interesting article on a potentially ground breaking way to treat insomnia.

Was Darwin really right?

There are numerous theories and stories about the very beginning of the earth and human life, some more believable than others. Darwin's evolutionary theory is widely believed to be closest to the true evolution of the earth and its past, present and future inhabitants, but is this theory really true? Or does our strong belief in this theory cloud our vision? Does it stop us from exploring other possible origins of life? Listen to yesterday's 'A life with ...' for an interview with Lynn Margulius, biologist and professor in the department of Geoscience at the university of Massachusetts. Professor Margulius, in stressing the importance of symbiotic relationships between species, opposes to the very foundation of Darwin's evolutionary theory where there is always competition for survival.

Run run run!

Here's a link to a very interesting article in the New York Times about a woman who had a small piece of her brain removed to relieve her from the many epileptic seizures she suffered from.
Brain Surgery Frees Runner, but Raises Barriers

A simple drug for Alzheimer's disease?

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting 1 in 10 people over the age of 65 and 1 in 5 over the age of 80. This truly debilitating disease gradually reduces the patient to living in the past without the ability to make new memories, and is not only devastating for the patients and their families, but is also a heavy burden on our health system.

Researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center may have found that one of the most harmless and commonplace 'drugs', caffeine, may have a positive effect on the cognitive abilities of patients who suffer from the disease. The research group studied 55 mice that were genetically modified to develop Alzheimer's disease. After the mice had developed the disease, half of the group was given 500 milligrams of caffeine – the equivalent of 5 cups of regular coffee - in their drinking water every day. The other half did not get any caffeine. The researchers showed that caffeine improved memory and thinking abilities significantly after only two months of treatment, and were able to perform as well as healthy mice of the same age. The mice that had not received treatment continued to deteriorate.

The main cause of Alzheimer's disease is the formation of tangles and plaques in the brain, causing brain cells to die and communication pathways to be disrupted and destroyed. Broadly speaking, there are two enzymes responsible for the formation of the plaques and tangles, tau and amyloid beta/β. Plaques are formed by large clumps of amyloidβ in the spaces between cells. Tangles are formed by tau. Tau, normally a building block of the transport system of a cell, starts to disintegrate this transport system as a result of a chemical change, causing damage to the cell's nutrition- and communication, eventually leading to the death of the cell.

In patients with Alzheimer’s disease, an abnormally high level of amyloidβ is found in the blood. The study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease this week shows a remarkable decrease – nearly 50% – in the abnormal levels of this protein in the blood and brains of mice treated with caffeine. Thus, the improvement in memory and thinking thus seems to be related to the decrease of tangles and plaques in the brain.

Although mice, needless to say, are quite different from humans – and the development of the disease is different in both species – these results are really promising. The first very preliminary results from tests in elderly people indicate that levels of amyloidβ decrease rapidly after treatment with caffeine.

But don’t think you will be able to boost your memory by drinking coffee; when healthy mice drank 500 milligrams of coffee each day, their memory did not improve. So though we may have a wonder drug to cure one of the most debilitating diseases of our time, alas, we still haven’t found a way to become smarter.

The reptilian brain: the new left brain, right brain?

Over the past couple of weeks I have heard a number of different people on the radio – a scientist in one case, psychologist in another – talk about our intuitive brain, our reptilian brain, our emotional brain as if it were a separate entity within our brain. Slightly surprised by this idea, I decided to look at it in a bit more detail – surprised because my conception of the brain as someone who has studied it is that of an integrated, unified entity in which different regions throughout are working together in order to perceive the world, make sense of it and act in it appropriately. The idea of the existence of a special system dealing with our emotions and intuitions seems counterintuitive in a system where every single part works together with other parts in order to think, act, memorize, speak.

We like to believe that the decisions we make, the actions we take and, at least sometimes, the thoughts we have are based on rational weighing up of pro’s and con’s. Equally, I think that most of us would admit that at times we do things because our gut feeling tells us to do so. This idea is not a new one; even Aristotle suggested that a logical decision can be overturned by mere appetite for pleasure or anger. But even if there is the existence of gut feeling alongside reason, does this mean we have a separate set of brain regions to deal with our different states of mind?

According to a number of researchers, it does. Several groups of prominent neuroeconomists, such as Douglas Bernheim and Antonio Rangel, have proposed models that describe the brain as operating in a “cold” deliberative mode or a “hot” emotional mode, depending on the situation in which a decision is being made. Based on the anatomical structure of our brains, back in the 1960s Paul MacLean proposed the influential theory that we have a ‘triune’ brain consisting of three parts, each formed at a different time in evolution. In essence, he too argued that our brains contain ancient reptilian fight or flight mechanisms, animal instincts and emotions, and new thoughtful cortex to offset these other urges.

While some of these principles are generally accepted, the existence of entirely separate systems underlying emotional, intuitive impulses on the one hand and rational considered behaviour is more controversial. Nonetheless, the notion of a direct anatomical basis for separate intuitive and rational systems seems to have caught the public imagination. A quick Google search on “reptilian brain and decision” brings up numerous self-help and business-based writings about how to tame your reptilian brain, live with your emotional urges and stop it buying your Starbucks lattes.

It doesn't seem too long ago to me that another dichotomous idea from neuroscience, that the two halves, or hemispheres, of our brain have highly specific functions, was providing this market with these metaphors. Again, the science suggested (not without challenge) that left part of the brain was the dominant linguistic side, cold and calculating and dealing with details (the cognitive side) whereas the right was the imaginative but suppressed side that dealt with the global processing of information and emotions (the intuitive side). And again, this spawned a large industry of self-help and business books on everything from how to unshackle your right hemisphere in order to become more imaginative and even to help us get in touch with the opposite sex.

Looking at the persistence with which ideas of a separation between intuition and reason have popped up in the past and present, is it likely whether these theories will ever fade? Or does our hunger to become a better person – more creative or more logical – make us embrace the idea of separate systems because we feel they give us (false?) opportunity to enhance certain qualities in ourselves to make us into the person we want to be?

I wrote this article for 'Matters Scientific', the science blog of Cherwell, the Oxford University student newspaper.