Category: Health

Part VI – Galactic Cosmic Rays Effect on Animal and Human Behavior

So what happens when Earth’s magnetic field weakens, an extended solar minimum occurs, and a profusion of cosmic rays rain down on our planet?

Several study’s have come out in the last few years providing new insights into what ensues to animals and humans by way of varying forms of magnetism and radiation. During times of a highly active solar maximum, an acceleration in certain forms of charged particles – such as solar flares, CMEs (coronal mass ejections), coronal holes, and filament can have a direct causal effect to Earth in many forms of extreme weather. This same scenario with these very same particles can have an effect on animals and humans. I will give specific examples of how in just a minute.

During times of low solar activity, and especially in the time of an extended solar minimum cycle of which we are currently experiencing, it is the far more hazardous form of charged particle known as galactic cosmic rays GCRs, which can cause the most damage to animals and humans. Large amounts of radiation from cosmic rays race near the speed of light hitting Earth’s magnetic field. Usually, the magnetic field deflects the vast majority of particles keeping the Earth and its inhabitants safe. But what happens when the magnetic field weakens?

Recent studies have confirmed the adverse effects of cosmic radiation exposure on humans central nervous system have been identified. Cognitive tasks used in the study corroborate past findings and identify significant longer-term deficits in episodic, spatial, recognition memory. Areas of the brain affected are the frontal and temporal lobes containing the hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex, and perirhinal cortex.

The hippocampus is a small organ located within the brain’s medial temporal lobe forming an important part of the limbic system – the region that regulates emotions. It also enables our ability to maintain long and short-term memory, most significantly with long-term memory. This organ plays an important role in a person’s physical coordination, also elicits the feeling of being engaged, connected, or part-of. The medial prefrontal cortex region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior. Perirhinal cortex is importantly involved in a number of different memory functions.

Now, going back to solar charged particles and geomagnetism; I found it quite interesting that both forms of charged particles…i.e. cosmic rays and solar rays have different but similar effects on humans. Dr. Kelly Posner, a psychiatrist at Columbia University says; “The most plausible explanation for the association between geomagnetic activity and depression and other mood disorders is that geomagnetic storms can desynchronize melatonin production and circadian rhythms.

In a related study from the Department of Neurobiology, University of Massachusetts Medical School suggests humans may be genetically pre-disposed to the influence of geomagnetic flux as it relates to the Earth’s magnetic field and charged particles. The study published in the scientific journal ‘Geophysical Research’, indicates a dormant gene is residing within all of us just ready to be tapped. It is known as ‘Cryptochromes’ (CRY). They are involved in the ‘circadian’ (24-hour cyclical rhythms) of daily life. Strong scientific evidence indicates geomagnetic fields have an influence on the light sensitivity of the human visual system.

Oleg Shumilov, of the Institute of North Industrial Ecology in Russia said: “Many animals can sense the Earth’s magnetic field, so why not people”. Shumilov looked at activity in the Earth’s geomagnetic field noting during periods of high solar storm activity, the geomagnetism peaks matched up with peaks in the number of mood disorders i.e. depression, anxiety, bi-polar and even suicides over the same period.

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Coming Next: Part VII – Coming Back Around to Earth’s Magnetic Reversal

Whole-Brain Map Of Electrical Connections Key To Forming Memories Constructed By Researchers

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania has constructed the first whole-brain map of electrical connectivity in the brain based on data from nearly 300 neurosurgical patients with electrodes implanted directly on the brain. The researchers found that low-frequency rhythms of brain activity, when brain waves move up and down slowly, primarily drive communication between the frontal, temporal and medial temporal lobes, key brain regions that engage during memory processing.

The research, part of the Restoring Active Memory project, was conducted by Michael Kahana, Penn professor of psychology and principal investigator of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s RAM program; Ethan Solomon, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Department of Bioengineering; and Daniel Rizzuto, director of cognitive neuromodulation at Penn. They published their findings in Nature Communications.

This work elucidates the way different regions of the brain communicate during cognitive processes like memory formation. Though many studies have examined brain networks using non-invasive tools like functional MRI, observations of large-scale networks using direct human-brain recordings have been difficult to secure because these data can only come from neurosurgical patients.

For several years, the Penn team gathered this information from multiple hospitals across the country, allowing the researchers to observe such electrical networks for the first time. Patients undergoing clinical monitoring for seizures performed a free-recall memory task that asked them to view a series of words on a screen, then repeat back as many as they could remember.

At the same time, the researchers examined brain activity occurring on slow and fast time scales, also called low- and high-frequency neural activity. They discovered that when a person is effectively creating new memories — in this case, remembering one of the presented words — alignment between brain regions tends to strengthen with slow waves of activity but weaken at higher frequencies.

“We found,” said Solomon, the paper’s lead author, “that the low-frequency connectivity of a brain region was associated with increased neural activity at that site. This suggests that, for someone to form new memories, two functions must happen simultaneously: brain regions must individually process a stimulus, and then those regions must communicate with each other at low frequencies.”

Areas of the brain identified in this paper — the frontal, temporal and medial temporal lobes — have long intrigued neuroscientists because of their crucial role in such memory functions.

This work supports the RAM project goal of using brain stimulation to enhance memory.

“Better understanding the brain networks that activate during memory processing,” Kahana said, “gives us a better ability to fine-tune electrical stimulation that might improve it. We’re now prepared to ask whether we can use measures of functional connectivity to guide our choice of which brain region to target with electrical stimulation. Ultimately, given the size of this dataset, these discoveries would not be possible without years of effort on the part of our participants, clinical teams and research scientists.”

Earlier this month, the RAM team publicly released its extensive intracranial brain recording and stimulation dataset that included thousands of hours of data from 250 patients performing memory tasks. Previous research showed for the first time that electrical stimulation delivered when memory was predicted to fail could improve memory function in the human brain. That same stimulation generally became disruptive when electrical pulses arrived during periods of effective memory function.

Next, the Penn researchers plan to examine the interaction between brain stimulation and the functional connections the latest study uncovered.

“There’s still significant work to do,” Rizzuto said, “before we can use these connectivity maps to guide therapeutic brain stimulation for patients with memory disorders such as traumatic brain injury or Alzheimer’s disease, but we’re working toward that goal.”

Smart People Have Better Connected Brains

Differences in intelligence have so far mostly been attributed to differences in specific brain regions. However, are smart people’s brains also wired differently to those of less intelligent persons? A new study supports this assumption. In intelligent persons, certain brain regions are more strongly involved in the flow of information between brain regions, while other brain regions are less engaged.

Understanding the foundations of human thought is fascinating for scientists and laypersons alike. Differences in cognitive abilities — and the resulting differences for example in academic success and professional careers — are attributed to a considerable degree to individual differences in intelligence. A study just published in Scientific Reports shows that these differences go hand in hand with differences in the patterns of integration among functional modules of the brain. Kirsten Hilger, Christian Fiebach and Ulrike Basten from the Department of Psychology at Goethe University Frankfurt combined functional MRI brain scans from over 300 persons with modern graph theoretical network analysis methods to investigate the neurobiological basis of human intelligence.

Already in 2015, the same research group published a meta-study in the journal Intelligence, in which they identified brain regions — among them the prefrontal cortex — activation changes of which are reliably associated with individual differences in intelligence. Until recently, however, it was not possible to examine how such ‘intelligence regions’ in the human brain are functionally interconnected. If you are wondering how your brain functions and how you can look after it, you should look at nootropicsblog.com for more information.

Earlier this year, the research team reported that in more intelligent persons two brain regions involved in the cognitive processing of task-relevant information (i.e., the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex) are connected more efficiently to the rest of the brain (2017, Intelligence). Another brain region, the junction area between temporal and parietal cortex that has been related to the shielding of thoughts against irrelevant information, is less strongly connected to the rest of the brain network. “The different topological embedding of these regions into the brain network could make it easier for smarter persons to differentiate between important and irrelevant information — which would be advantageous for many cognitive challenges,” proposes Ulrike Basten, the study’s principle investigator.

In their current study, the researchers take into account that the brain is functionally organized into modules. “This is similar to a social network which consists of multiple sub-networks (e.g., families or circles of friends). Within these sub-networks or modules, the members of one family are more strongly interconnected than they are with people from other families or circles of friends. Our brain is functionally organized in a very similar way: There are sub-networks of brain regions — modules — that are more strongly interconnected among themselves while they have weaker connections to brain regions from other modules. In our study, we examined whether the role of specific brain regions for communication within and among brain modules varies with individual differences in intelligence, i.e., whether a specific brain region supports the information exchange within their own ‘family’ more than information exchange with other ‘families’, and how this relates to individual differences in intelligence.”

The study shows that in more intelligent persons certain brain regions are clearly more strongly involved in the exchange of information between different sub-networks of the brain in order for important information to be communicated quickly and efficiently. On the other hand, the research team also identified brain regions that are more strongly ‘de-coupled’ from the rest of the network in more intelligent people. This may result in better protection against distracting and irrelevant inputs. “We assume that network properties we have found in more intelligent persons help us to focus mentally and to ignore or suppress irrelevant, potentially distracting inputs,” says Basten. The causes of these associations remain an open question at present. “It is possible that due to their biological predispositions, some individuals develop brain networks that favor intelligent behaviors or more challenging cognitive tasks. However, it is equally as likely that the frequent use of the brain for cognitively challenging tasks may positively influence the development of brain networks. Given what we currently know about intelligence, an interplay of both processes seems most likely.”

Scientists Use Magnetic Fields To Remotely Stimulate Brain – And Control Body Movements

Scientists have used magnetism to activate tiny groups of cells in the brain, inducing bodily movements that include running, rotating and losing control of the extremities — an achievement that could lead to advances in studying and treating neurological disease.

The technique researchers developed is called magneto-thermal stimulation. It gives neuroscientists a powerful new tool: a remote, minimally invasive way to trigger activity deep inside the brain, turning specific cells on and off to study how these changes affect physiology.

“There is a lot of work being done now to map the neuronal circuits that control behavior and emotions,” says lead researcher Arnd Pralle, PhD, a professor of physics in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences. “How is the computer of our mind working? The technique we have developed could aid this effort greatly.”

Understanding how the brain works — how different parts of the organ communicate with one another and control behavior — is key to developing therapies for diseases that involve the injury or malfunction of specific sets of neurons. Traumatic brain injuries (the kind often treated by neurosurgeons), Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, and peripheral paralysis all fall into this category.

The advances reported by Pralle’s team could also aid scientists seeking to treat ailments such as depression and epilepsy directly through brain stimulation. Currently, those suffering from both depression and epilepsy can seek relief by using medical marijuana from curaleaf locations, however, medical marijuana is not legal in every country hence the need for new medicines. Depression and epilepsy are both conditions that are awful in their own ways. For depression sufferers, they can constantly feel down and unmotivated. Alternatively, people with epilepsy suffer from regular seizures. Both of these conditions can be relieved, but not fully treated. This is why Pralle’s research could be highly useful. For now, there are things that people can do to cope with these conditions, such as getting themselves a service dog. If any sufferers are wondering how to get a service dog, there is advice on the GoFundMe website. Service dogs have been used to help people suffering from these ailments for a while, so it might be worth looking into getting a service dog.

The study, which was done on mice, was published Aug. 15 in eLife, an open-source, peer-review journal. Pralle’s team included first authors Rahul Munshi, a UB PhD candidate in physics, and Shahnaz Qadri, PhD, a UB postdoctoral researcher, along with researchers from UB, Philipps University of Marburg in Germany and the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Magneto-thermal stimulation involves using magnetic nanoparticles to stimulate neurons outfitted with temperature-sensitive ion channels. The brain cells fire when the nanoparticles are heated by an external magnetic field, causing the channels to open.

Targeting highly specific brain regions

In mice, Pralle’s team succeeded in activating three distinct regions of the brain to induce specific motor functions.

Stimulating cells in the motor cortex caused the animals to run, while stimulating cells in the striatum caused the animals to turn around. When the scientists activated a deeper region of the brain, the mice froze, unable to move their extremities.

“Using our method, we can target a very small group of cells, an area about 100 micrometers across, which is about the width of a human hair,” Pralle says.

How magneto-thermal stimulation works

Magneto-thermal stimulation enables researchers to use heated, magnetic nanoparticles to activate individual neurons inside the brain.

Here’s how it works: First, scientists use genetic engineering to introduce a special strand of DNA into targeted neurons, causing these cells to produce a heat-activated ion channel. Then, researchers inject specially crafted magnetic nanoparticles into the same area of the brain. These nanoparticles latch onto the surface of the targeted neurons, forming a thin covering like the skin of an onion.

When an alternating magnetic field is applied to the brain, it causes the nanoparticles’ magnetization to flip rapidly, generating heat that warms the targeted cells. This forces the temperature-sensitive ion channels to open, spurring the neurons to fire.

The particles the researchers used in the new eLife study consisted of a cobalt-ferrite core surrounded by a manganese-ferrite shell.

An advance over other methods, like optogenetics

Pralle has been working to advance magneto-thermal stimulation for about a decade. He previously demonstrated the technique’s utility in activating neurons in a petri dish, and then in controlling the behavior of C. elegans, a tiny nematode.

Pralle says magneto-thermal stimulation has some benefits over other methods of deep-brain stimulation.

One of the best-known techniques, optogenetics, uses light instead of magnetism and heat to activate cells. But optogenetics typically requires implantation of tiny fiber optic cables in the brain, whereas magneto-thermal stimulation is done remotely, which is less invasive, Pralle says. He adds that even after the brains of mice were stimulated several times, targeted neurons showed no signs of damage.

The next step in the research is to use magneto-thermal stimulation to activate — and silence — multiple regions of the brain at the same time in mice. Pralle is working on this project with Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Polina Anikeeva, PhD, and Harvard Medical School. The team has $3.5 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to conduct continuing studies.

The research published in eLife was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Human Frontier Science Program.

Women Have More Active Brains Than Men

In the largest functional brain imaging study to date, the Amen Clinics (Newport Beach, CA) compared 46,034 brain SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging studies provided by nine clinics, quantifying differences between the brains of men and women. The study is published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Lead author, psychiatrist Daniel G. Amen, MD, founder of Amen Clinics, Inc., commented, “This is a very important study to help understand gender-based brain differences. The quantifiable differences we identified between men and women are important for understanding gender-based risk for brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Using functional neuroimaging tools, such as SPECT, are essential to developing precision medicine brain treatments in the future.”

The brains of women in the study were significantly more active in many more areas of the brain than men, especially in the prefrontal cortex, involved with focus and impulse control, and the limbic or emotional areas of the brain, involved with mood and anxiety. The visual and coordination centers of the brain were more active in men. SPECT can measure blood perfusion in the brain. Images acquired from subjects at rest or while performing various cognitive tasks will show different blood flow in specific brain regions.

Subjects included 119 healthy volunteers and 26,683 patients with a variety of psychiatric conditions such as brain trauma, bipolar disorders, mood disorders, schizophrenia/psychotic disorders, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A total of 128 brain regions were analyzed for subjects at baseline and while performing a concentration task.

Understanding these differences is important because brain disorders affect men and women differently. Women have significantly higher rates of Alzheimer’s disease, depression, which is itself is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, and anxiety disorders, while men have higher rates of (ADHD), conduct-related problems, and incarceration (by 1,400%). All of which can be treated by visiting a professional or trying at-home methods such as starting a new hobby, talking to friends, or reading some budexpressnow reviews on weed products that are said to help an array of health conditions, including that of mental health. Cannabis is said to be extremely helpful in depleting anxious feelings and helping an array of mental health issues. If you’d like to try weed for these types of issues, make sure you do your research beforehand on different products, from CBD vapes and gummy sweets to this pink bubba strain. You’ll definitely need information on the different products you may need to smoke weed; you can answer questions like what is a bubbler at sites like Fat Buddha Glass to help you better understand cannabis. Many people who try to ease their anxieties and depression (and even relieve pain) may also look towards a solution that is easy to apply directly to the body in the form of cbd oil, its effectiveness attested by those who have suffered from these things and subsequently tried it themselves.

Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Dean of the College of Sciences at The University of Texas at San Antonio, Dr. George Perry said, “Precisely defining the physiological and structural basis of gender differences in brain function will illuminate Alzheimer’s disease and understanding our partners.”

The study findings of increased prefrontal cortex blood flow in women compared to men may explain why women tend to exhibit greater strengths in the areas of empathy, intuition, collaboration, self-control, and appropriate concern. The study also found increased blood flow in limbic areas of the brains of women, which may also partially explain why women are more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, insomnia, and eating disorders.

Psychology Researchers Map Neurological Process Of Learning, Deciding

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can now map what happens neurologically when new information influences a person to change his or her mind, a finding that offers more insight into the mechanics of learning.

brain

The study, which was published Nov. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined how dynamic shifts in a person’s knowledge are updated in the brain and impact decision making.

“At a fundamental level, it is difficult to measure what someone knows,” said co-author and psychology associate professor Alison Preston. “In our new paper, we employ brain decoding techniques that allow us deeper insight into the knowledge people have available to make decisions. We were able to measure when a person’s knowledge changes to reflect new goals or opinions.”

The process, researchers said, involves two components of the brain working together to update and “bias” conceptual knowledge with new information to form new ideas.

“How we reconcile that new information with our prior knowledge is the essence of learning. And, understanding how that process happens in the brain is the key to solving the puzzle of why learning sometimes fails and how to put learning back on track,” said the study’s lead author Michael Mack, who was a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Learning & Memory.

In the study, researchers monitored neural activity while participants learned to classify a group of images in two different ways. First participants had to learn how to conceptualize the group of images, or determine how the images were similar to each other based on similar features. Once they grouped the images, participants were then asked to switch their attention to other features within the images and group them based on these similarities instead.

“By holding the stimuli constant and varying which features should be attended to across tasks, the features that were once relevant become irrelevant, and the items that were once conceptually similar may become very different,” said Preston, who holds a joint faculty appointment in neuroscience.

For example, the researchers report that many Americans may have chosen their preferred presidential candidate many months ago based on political platforms or core issues. But as the election cycle continued, voters were presented with new information, influencing some to change their perspectives on the candidates and, potentially, their votes.

This requires rapid updating of conceptual representations, a process that occurs in the hippocampi (HPC) — two seahorse-shaped areas near the center of the brain responsible for recording experiences, or episodic memory — researchers said. It’s also one of the first areas to suffer damage in Alzheimer’s disease.

According to the study, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) — the front part of the brain that orchestrates thoughts and actions — tunes selective attention to relevant features and compares that information with the existing conceptual knowledge in the HPC, updating the organization of items based on the new relevant features, researchers said.

“Looking forward, our findings place HPC as a central component of cognition — it is the brain’s code builder. I think these findings will motivate future research to consider the more general-purpose function of the hippocampus,” said Mack, who is now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. “For example, understanding how we dynamically update conceptual knowledge may be essential to understanding how biases and prejudices are coded into our views of other people.”

These findings add to the growing, though limited, body of literature on the function of the HPC beyond episodic memory by providing direct evidence of its role, in concert with the PFC, in building conceptual knowledge.

“With an understanding of the mechanics of learning, we can develop educational practices and training protocols that optimally engage the brain’s learning circuits to build lasting knowledge,” Mack said.

Measuring Forces In The DNA Molecule

DNA, our genetic material, normally has the structure of a twisted rope ladder. Experts call this structure a double helix. Among other things, it is stabilized by stacking forces between base pairs. Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have succeeded at measuring these forces for the very first time on the level of single base pairs. This new knowledge could help to construct precise molecular machines out of DNA.

dna

Over 60 years ago, the researchers Crick and Watson identified the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, which is more commonly known as DNA. They compared the double helix to a rope ladder that had been twisted into a spiral. The rungs of this ladder consisted of guanine/cytosine and thymine/adenine base pairs. But what keeps the DNA strands in that spiral structure?

Special measuring system for molecular interactions

Prof. Hendrik Dietz from the Chair of Experimental Biophysics uses DNA as construction material to create molecular structures. Hence, he is greatly interested in gaining a better understanding of this material. “There are two types of interactions which stabilize double helices,” he explains. For one, DNA contains hydrogen bonds.

For another, there are what experts call base pair stacking forces, which act between the stacked base pairs along the spiral axis. The forces of the hydrogen bonds, on the other hand, act perpendicular to the axis. “So far, it is not quite clear to which extent these two forces each contribute to the overall stability of the DNA double helix,” explains Dietz.

Directly measuring the weak stacking forces between base pairs was a big technical challenge for the researchers, who worked on the problem for six years. In collaboration with the TUM Chair of Molecular Biophysics (Prof. Matthias Rief) and the TUM Chair of Theoretical Biophysics — Biomolecular Dynamics (Prof. Martin Zacharias), they succeeded in developing a special experimental setup that now makes it possible to measure extremely weak contact interactions between individual molecules.

A trillionth of a bar of chocolate

To put it simply, the measurement system is designed hierarchically and involves microscopic beams, at the tips of which one or more double helix structures running in parallel are located. These have been modified such that each end carries one base pair. Two of these microscopic beams are connected with a flexible polymer. On the other side, the beams are coupled to microscopic spheres which can be pulled apart using optical laser tweezers. In solution, the base pairs on the end of one of the beam can now interact with the base pairs on the end of the other beam. This also makes it possible to measure how long a stacking bond between them lasts before they fall apart again, as well as the force acting between the base pairs.

The forces measured by the researchers were in the range of piconewtons. “A newton is the weight of a bar of chocolate,” explains Dietz. “What we have here is a thousandth of a billionth of that, which is practically nothing.” Forces in the range of two piconewtons are sufficient to separate the bond created by stacking forces.

Furthermore, the scientists also observed that the bonds spontaneously broke up and formed again within just a few milliseconds. The strength and the lifetime of the interactions depends to a great extent on which base pairs are stacked on each other.

Creating DNA machines

The results of the measurements may help to better understand mechanical aspects of fundamental biological processes such as DNA replication, i.e. the reproduction of genetic material. For example, the short life of the stacking interactions could mean that an enzyme tasked with separating the base pairs during this process just needs to wait for the stacking bonds break up on their own — instead of having to apply force to separate them.

However, Dietz also intends to apply the data directly to his current research: He uses DNA as programmable building material to construct machines on the order of nanometers. When doing so, he draws inspiration from the complex structures which can e.g. be found in cells and, among other things, serve as molecular “factories” to synthesize important compounds such as ATP, which stores energy. “We now know what would be possible if we could just build structures that were sufficiently sophisticated,” says Dietz. “Naturally, when we have a better understanding of the properties of the molecular interactions, we are better able to work with these molecules.”

At the moment, the lab is building a molecular rotational motor out of DNA, the components of which interlock and are held together via stacking forces. The goal is to be able to control a directed rotation via chemical or thermal stimuli. To do so, the timing of the movement of the rotor in the stator is crucial, and this task has now been made significantly easier with the new findings on the stacking forces.