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A question posted by Teddy, a science graduate of UC Santa Barbara asked this question:

…Is it known how many calories human thinking takes?  I see in your archives that the brain uses 10% of the body’s energy, and I’ve heard that our brains draw 25% of our blood flow, and that 25% of the heat radiated from our bodies is radiated from our heads, but is this true for all mammals?  For all primates?  How many calories are consumed by the “higher functions” of the brain that are special to humans, and how many by the parts that are found in other mammals?

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Alex Goddard, Grad student, Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School answers…

Hi Teddy,

That’s a good question! I think the short answer is that it’s less energy than you might expect. I’ve tried to explain why I think so below.

First, I’d say that the basic energy expenditure per unit area of brain is probably the same between different types of animals. A human brain uses more total energy than a rat brain because it’s bigger and more complex. This idea probably applies to heat generation, blood flow and caloric requirement as well.

I saw somewhere that the brain uses 20% of your caloric input for the day. I don’t think that number is absolute, but it seems reasonable. So, assuming you eat 2000 calories per day, your brain uses about 400 calories per day. Then, we need to ask, how much is spent on ‘thinking’ or cognitive abilities? (I’m leaving the idea of consciousness out of this, because it has no definition that has been agreed upon)

To start out, we need to realize that the energy expenditure of the brain at rest is really quite high. This is because maintaining a neuron’s baseline is very metabolically “expensive;” before neurons can transmit information, they have to be properly connected and maintained. A neuron’s ability to use electricity to transfer information comes at the cost of a large amount of energy; it needs to constantly pump different ions into and out of the cell (ions carry the electric charge). Maintaining the long nerves that may extend a meter (such as the ones from your brain to your spinal cord) is also metabolically taxing as new proteins have to be made constantly and shipped down the nerve. All these processes require energy, and we haven’t even sent any information down axons yet! I would contend that the amount of energy spent maintaining the cell is far more than is actually spent on sending an electrical impulse down an axon.

Ok, so cell maintenance requires a lot of energy. One could then ask the question, “What about the cognitive functions? How much energy do they require?” I think the best way to answer this would be to first ask, ‘How much of the brain is devoted to cognitive function?” If we could say that 50% of the brain was devoted to cognitive function, then we could say 50% of the energy is devoted towards maintaining cognitive function.

The answer to that question is a hard one to pin down. Most of the brain is involved in non-cognitive processing. The brain must recreate visual space from a bunch of pixels in your eye. It computes the location of a sound based on when the sound hits your right ear versus your left ear (within 2 degrees, I think). It maintains your balance, triggers fight-or-flight responses, and decides how your fingers must move to type on a keyboard. Lots of non-cognitive processes are going on.

Furthermore, cognitive abilities are distributed all over the brain. (For those not familiar with brain anatomy, take a peek here for reference for the following descriptions: http://normandy.sandhills.cc.nc.us/psy150/outerbr.gif )

For instance, a brain scan (functional MRI) of people doing arithmetic showed activity in frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and occipital lobe (although activation of the occipital lobe, the site of vision processing, may have had to do with the subjects seeing the math problem). Language processing and generation is located mainly in the temporal lobe and frontal lobe. Decision-making and determining the consequences of actions is thought to occur in the frontal lobe. Generally, the frontal lobe is thought to be a hot seat of ‘cognitive ability,’ but it is not a pure ‘cognitive center.’ It is thought to be involved in non-cognitive decision making (i.e. determining unconscious preference and value). So to ask how much of the human brain is solely dedicated to cognitive tasks, I’d have to hazard a very hand-waving guess of 5%. And that’s a pretty liberal guess. And most of the energy used is spent on maintaining the cells and connections in these areas, not the actual cognitive processing itself.

How does that relate to other animals, primate and non-primate? Primates have a very similar level of cognitive power. They do appear to have a simple form of language, and may even be able to read! ( http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chimps.htm ). They can make complicated decisions. Non-primate animals definitely have cognitive abilities as well, such as decision making, risk assessment, and memory formation, though the degree to which these decisions are ‘conscious’ as in humans is quite debatable. I don’t know if I could put a number on how much more brain space and energy is spent on cognition by humans, because it could be the type and amount of connectivity between cells that is more important than the percentage of cells in the brain.

Lastly, I’ll just briefly mention one interesting tidbit of info. The process of being aware of your surroundings apparently requires a lot of energy, which is not surprising. The basic idea is that as you transmit information, it uses some energy. According to one report, “The high resting brain activity is proposed to include the global interactions constituting the subjective aspects of consciousness. Anesthesia by lowering the total firing rates correlates with the loss of consciousness.” That is to say, low conciousness = lower firing rates = less total energy consumed. fMRI really uses a measure of metabolism to determine firing rates:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12806834&query_hl=4

I hope that provides some insights. I don’t know if we know enough to calculate an absolute number. If you have more questions, please do submit them!

-Alex G

from What are the energy requirements of thought?

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Can anyone translate that answer for the scientifically-challenged folks like myself?

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Seniors who eat fruits and vegetables and who have good cognitive function are much less likely to die from heart disease than those who have poorer cognitive function and eat fewer fruits and vegetables, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia analyzed diet and cognitive data on 4,879 people age 70 and older who took part in the U.S. Longitudinal Study on Aging. Participants were followed for an average of seven years.

According to a HealthDay report, the analysis found that:

• Those who ate three or more servings of vegetables daily had a 30 percent lower risk for dying from heart disease and a 15 percent lower risk for dying from any cause during the follow-up period than those who ate fewer servings of vegetables.

• There was a significant association between higher consumption of fruits and vegetables and decreased prevalence of cognitive impairment.

• People who scored high on cognitive function tests were less likely to die from heart disease or any other cause during the follow-up than were those with low scores.

Having a healthy heart is important when it comes to old age. That is why Home Instead Senior Care promotes this healthy heart through our caregivers. Our caregivers promote positive cognitive function, and they cook healthy meals which will often include fruits and vegetables. Mom and dad need all the help they can get; if you’re finding it difficult to take care of your loved ones and are looking for someone who will go that extra mile, then give Home Instead a call.

Home Instead Senior Care will provide outstanding caregivers to help your loved one with personal care, incidental travel, companionship, medication reminders, light housekeeping, and even meal preparation. To learn more, call 248-203-2273 or visit www.homeinstead.com. Home Instead Senior Care is the world’s trusted source of in-home non-commercial personal care and companionship for seniors. Each franchise is independently owned and operated. And remember, to us, it’s personal.

Seniors who eat fruits and vegetables and who have good cognitive function are much less likely to die from heart disease than those who have poorer cognitive function and eat fewer fruits and vegetables, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia analyzed diet and cognitive data on 4,879 people age 70 and older who took part in the U.S. Longitudinal Study on Aging. Participants were followed for an average of seven years.

According to a HealthDay report, the analysis found that:

• Those who ate three or more servings of vegetables daily had a 30 percent lower risk for dying from heart disease and a 15 percent lower risk for dying from any cause during the follow-up period than those who ate fewer servings of vegetables.

• There was a significant association between higher consumption of fruits and vegetables and decreased prevalence of cognitive impairment.

• People who scored high on cognitive function tests were less likely to die from heart disease or any other cause during the follow-up than were those with low scores.

Having a healthy heart is important when it comes to old age. That is why Home Instead Senior Care promotes this healthy heart through our caregivers. Our caregivers promote positive cognitive function, and they cook healthy meals which will often include fruits and vegetables. Mom and dad need all the help they can get; if you’re finding it difficult to take care of your loved ones and are looking for someone who will go that extra mile, then give Home Instead a call.

Home Instead Senior Care will provide outstanding caregivers to help your loved one with personal care, incidental travel, companionship, medication reminders, light housekeeping, and even meal preparation. To learn more, call 248-203-2273 or visit www.homeinstead.com. Home Instead Senior Care is the world’s trusted source of in-home non-commercial personal care and companionship for seniors. Each franchise is independently owned and operated. And remember, to us, it’s personal.

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Made my way to the st.Paul lib to study tonight. The pressing question is how should our growing understanding of complexity influence the content and organization of curriculum. So many things to say but such a restrictive space to assemble them into.
The halls are quiet here but did run into a former student majoring in social justice. Perhaps I’ll start with Dewey…

Later… just turned around to find not another soul in the study area. Makes for a quiet study space when all you can here is distant doors and the sound of the heaters circulating the air. SO one way to measure complexity is by looking at how something, like curriculum is organized/ ordered. A patterned and predictable order with clear hierarchy and rules for relationships has no complexity. Neither does a completely random collection with relationships between the parts that are not predictable and have not apparent pattern. Complexity lies between the two. In cognition complexity is measured by the patterns of firing of neurons in the brain. Highly ordered sensory events are matched by highly ordered patterns of firing.  Spontaneous and random sensory events are evidenced by different patterns reflecting the brains general pattern for dealing with novelty.

In between lies how the brain deals with complexity. Now, if I can just link these ideas to the curriculum imperative.

The Misconception: The best way to judge if one product tastes better than another is to hide the packaging.

The Truth: Most competing products have the same flavor and you pick your favorites based on other cues – like the packaging.

When it comes to taste – you are not so smart.

Wine, coffee, cigarettes, soda – your palette isn’t sophisticated enough to tell much of a difference between competing brands. Yet, you still have preferences.

Why?

In the early ’80s, Pepsi ran a marketing campaign where they touted the success of their product over Coca-Cola in blind taste tests. They called this The Pepsi Challenge.

Psychologists had already determined you choose your favorite products often not by their inherent value, but because the marketing campaigns and logos and such have cast a spell over you called brand awareness.

You start to identify yourself with one marketing campaign over another. That’s what happened in the all the taste tests up until the Pepsi Challenge. People liked Coca-Cola’s advertising more than Pepsi’s, so even though they tasted pretty much the same, when they saw that bright red can with a white ribbon people always chose Coke.

So, for the Pepsi Challenge, they removed the logos.

At first, the researchers thought they should put some sort of label on the glasses. So, they went with M and Q.

People said they liked Pepsi, labeled M, better than Coke, labeled Q.

Irritated by this, Coca-Cola did their own study and put Coke in both glasses. Again, M won the contest.

It turns out, it wasn’t the soda; people just liked the letter M better than the letter Q.

To make sense of the world, we look for cues from our environment whenever we find things we like. The process here is to get back to the good stuff by recognizing the cues which end in reward.

For the testers, the two products tasted pretty much the same. So, forced to make a choice, they moved to another set of cues to make their decision – which letter was more pleasant. Branding hijacks your natural affinity for visual shortcuts.

Miffed, Pepsi did the tests again. This time, no labels.

In these tests, people once again generally said they preferred Pepsi because it was slightly sweeter.

Undaunted, Coke again debunked their rival by showing the reactions were based on sips and not full glasses. When given a full glass, the tests went the other way with Coke as the champion.

If you only sample something in small quantities, in turns out, you will have a different opinion than if you were to taste larger amounts.

Do you smoke? Do you have a favorite brand?

In blind taste tests, long-time smokers can’t tell their brand from any of the competitors.

Do you like wine? Think expensive is better? In blind taste tests, even wine connoisseurs can’t tell $200 bottles from $20 ones.

Do you like fine dining? When presented microwaved food from the frozen food section in a fine restaurant, most people never notice.

Taste is subjective, which is another way of saying you are not so smart when it comes to choosing one product over another.

All things equal – you refer back to the advertising or the packaging or conformity with your friends and family.

Presentation is everything.

Links:

Freakonomics on wine tasting

Marketing menthol to black people

Cigarette packaging for teens

There are currently 1.8 million children who have at least one parent in the military and currently over 230,000 children who have at least one parent who is deployed. Unlike previous wars, US military have faced multiple deployments, leading to stresses that are different than those found in past conflicts. While many military personnel deal well with these challenges, others have catastrophic problems that impact their lives as a result. Approximately 20 percent of military sent to Iraq and Afghanistan come home with posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], traumatic brain injury, or depression; others find it impossible to adjust to life away from the war front, finding that relationships, mood, and cognition are impaired or disrupted. When a parent with one or more problems returns to a family on the home front, there is a ripple effect on the partner, extended family, and children. For some, the first deployment is the most stressful; for others the cumulative affect of returning to battle and then to home increases the chance of trauma reactions, marital problems, and even family violence and child abuse at home.

As trauma specialists, we really haven’t had to deal with anything like this before and many of us are finding ourselves in new territory when we attempt to intervene with children and families of today’s military. Multiple homecomings, re-integrations, and deployments are difficult for children to understand and may cause changes in behavior, social interactions, and even cognitive functioning. For example, children and teens who have endured multiple deployments of a parent may have problems with sleep, attention deficits in the classroom, and even higher blood pressure and increased heart rates. School-age children may have behavioral problems in school and lose interest in their favorite activities; adolescent development is disrupted by the deployment of a parent. Young children [up to 5 years old] may regress to earlier behaviors or cling to parents, displaying otherwise unexpressed fear and worry. Do these reactions sound familiar? Of course they do; they are similar to the responses we see in children who have experienced extended or chronic trauma.

Presently there are some programs such as Zero to Three, the Military Child Education Coalition, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America that address the stress of multiple deployments on children. However, we really know relatively very little about how the unique aspects of the recent wars have impacted military families, particularly children.  In order to address the lack of research on intervention for children of military families, the National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children is currently working on developing programs to address the needs of children adjusting to parents with multiple deployments, including those children who are attending schools not associated with a military base.

TLC would like to know if you are working with children of military or if have you worked with military families. If so, TLC would like your contact and employer information so that you can be involved in this initiative as the project develops. Please send an email to bsteele@tlcinst.org or phone the TLC office at 877-306-5256. It is important that TLC hear from you as soon as possible so that we will have a comprehensive list of those trauma specialists encountering children of military in their work.

Look for more information on the TLC website, the official TLC Fan Page on Facebook, and TLC’s Twitter very soon. It’s exciting to envision how we all can more effectively provide intervention to children and military families to help these children cope, thrive, and become more resilient– and we look forward to hearing your experiences on how we can all make this happen.

Be well,

Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPAT, LPCC

Resource

Sesame Street provides free DVDs to help younger children cope with the cycle of deployment, homecoming, and reintegration. Visit “Talk Listen Connect” at  http://www.sesameworkshop.org/initiatives/emotion/tlc to find out more and to obtain these materials.

Follow TLC’s Twitter at http://twitter.com/TLCchildtrauma

Become a Fan of the National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children– join our Facebook Fan Page today!

Everybody Else is in the Hands of the Eternal. Those Hands have the itty bitty children and all the animals, too. Plants have the Earth. Maybe that’s why Everybody Else says Heaven and Earth. Those are Hands that touch Everything Else.

For my part I have no problem walking into a Whole Day. It is difficult to say where a Whole Day begins and ends. If I could look on the Face of the Eternal I might see the lines between Night and Day. Only a Great Knowing and Deep Seeing reveal Divine junctions In Time.

I am a Human Animal with the ability to Love. No Disability can take that away from me. It takes me a long time to learn to drive this vehicle carefully. Learning to drive these cars from Detroit takes practice. Sure they go fast, but will they go Anywhere Else in Space.

I think Knowledge is for going Anywhere Else fast in Space. They make Knowledge Someplace Else. Knowledge and Love have Something Else in common. They don’t need brains to do good well. And both take a lot of practice especially if you drive in the lane with the big egos.

Night and Day. Time and Space. Heaven and Earth. Love and Knowledge. Sure we all are one big lump sort of the same clay. Love and Knowledge are Unnecessary Trouble unless we can be separate while we are gathering together, too. That pretty much sums up what Elizabeth taught me while I was waking up from my coma.

It was a very big job. For both of us. And Everything Else, too.

HAPPINESS

The Epicurean Approach

By

VIKRAM KARVE

Musings on the Art of Happiness

HAPPINESS & PLEASURE

Are Happiness and Pleasure correlated?

They say:

1.  Pleasure is Quantitative; Happiness is Qualitative.

2.   Happiness is a lifelong goal.

3.       Happiness requires cognitive judgment.

4.       Pleasure is not essential to achieving happiness – here I do not agree. I feel happiness and pleasure are not mutually exclusive; in fact genuine pleasure can be the source of much happiness.

No philosopher has better explored the distinction between happiness and pleasure than Epicurus, a Greek Philosopher of the Third Century BC. Epicurus (341-270 BC) espoused a strategy for achieving genuine human happiness by emphasizing the delights of the mind (over which a person has control) rather than the delights derived from material things (which are so often beyond one’s personal control).

Epicurus’ name survives in the team “epicurean” which is used to refer to someone with elevated tastes and a lifestyle centred on pleasure. However, if you peruse his philosophy thoroughly, you will realize that Epicurus counsels a way of life very different from what the popular use of the term “pleasure” implies.

You may feel that Epicurean philosophy champions the pursuit of pleasure as the supreme goal of life, but this does not mean the unrestrained pursuit of excesses of any kind. Instead, Epicurus argues for a life of sober restrain and moderation in all things. The pleasures Epicurus recommends are those that are easy to achieve and simple in nature. The prolonged pursuit of pleasure is best achieved by restraint and enlightened choice.

It may be the prudent to moderate our single minded pursuit of “outward” success and achievement, the mindless acquisition of material possessions and accumulation of wealth, tendencies to showing off and ostentation, conspicuous consumption and lavish unrestrained pleasures; and focus more on the more authentic “inner” pleasures of life such as happy family life, enriching relationships, cultivating the mind and intellect, enjoying the pleasures of friends and companions, and living on the higher plane.

Epicureanism does not advocate the wanton pursuit of pleasure. Also, you must remember that pleasures and pains of the mind are of greater importance than those of the body. Epicurus set forth a strategy for achieving authentic human happiness by emphasizing the delights of the mind (over which a person has control) rather than the delights derived from material things (which are so often beyond one’s personal control). The fundamental premise is that presence of pleasure is synonymous with the absence of pain.

Genuine happiness emanates from pleasures that are easy to achieve and simple in nature. If you have only a few things, we will enjoy them more than if you had many things, and if you do not become used to rich and expensive foods, then simple fare, which is easier to obtain will satisfy you more.

In a nutshell: “The Art of Happiness is in keeping your Pleasures Mild”.

And how do you keep your pleasures mild?

DESIRE & PLEASURE

Are pleasures in any way linked to satisfying your desires?

There are two different types of pleasures:

1. “Moving” Pleasures

1. “Static” Pleasures

“Moving” pleasures occur when one is in the process of satisfying a desire – like eating delicious food when one is hungry.

These pleasures involve an active enjoyable titillation of the senses which most people call “pleasure”.

However, Epicurus says that after one’s desires have been satisfied, like suppose you are fully satiated after eating a heart meal; this state of satiety, a state of no longer being in need or want, is itself pleasurable. Epicurus calls this “static” pleasure, and says that these static pleasures are the best pleasures.

Hence, Epicurus says that there is no intermediate state between pleasure and pain. When one has unfulfilled desires, this is painful, and when one no longer has unfulfilled desires, this steady state is the most pleasurable of all. There is no intermediate state between pleasure and pain – either your desires are fulfilled or they are not.

Epicurus also distinguishes between physical and mental pleasures and pains. Physical pleasures and pains concern only the present, whereas mental pleasures and pains also encompass the past (fond memories of past pleasure or regret over past pain or mistakes) and the future (confidence or fear about what will occur).

The greatest destroyer of happiness is anxiety about the future, especially the fear of death. If you can banish fear about the future, and face the future with confidence that one’s desires will be satisfied, then you can attain a most exalted state of tranquillity.

This we see that the key to happiness is the effective management of your desires – Desire Management.

DESIRE MANAGEMENT

There is a close connection between pleasure and desire-satisfaction.

If pleasure results from getting what you want (desire-satisfaction) and pain from not getting what you want (desire-frustration), then there are two strategies you can pursue with respect to any given desire: you can either strive to fulfil the desire, or you can try to eliminate the desire.

Epicurus advocates the second strategy of scaling down your desires to the basic minimum which can easily be satisfied.

Epicurus distinguishes between three types of desires:

1.      Natural and necessary desires,

2.      Natural but non-necessary desires,

3.    “Vain and Empty” or unnatural and unnecessary desires.

How we tackle each of these three types of desires determines our tendency to happiness [or unhappiness].

Examples of natural and necessary desires include the desires for food, shelter, health, sense of security and basic physical needs, cravings which will necessarily lead to greater pain if they are not fulfilled.

These basic desires are easy to satisfy yet difficult to eliminate (they are ‘hard-wired’ into human beings naturally) and bring great pleasure when satisfied (“Happiness begins at the stomach”).

Furthermore, they are necessary for life, and they are naturally limited: that is, if one is hungry, it only takes a limited amount of food to fill the stomach, after which the desire is satisfied.

Epicurus says that you should try to fulfil natural and necessary desires.

Vain, unnatural and unnecessary desires include desires for excessive power, wealth, fame, and other egoistic ambitions which have all the trappings of status and prestige.

Vain desires are difficult to satisfy, in part because they have no natural limit. If one desires wealth or power, no matter how much one gets, it is always possible to get more, and the more one gets, the more one wants. These desires are not natural to human beings, but inculcated by society and by false beliefs about what we need; (e.g.) believing that being very powerful or wealthy or famous will guarantee us happiness. In fact, Opulence attracts thieves, and power and fame attract sycophants.

Epicurus says that such vain and empty desires should be eliminated.

An example of a natural but non-necessary desire is the desire for luxury food. Although food is needed for survival, one does not need rich expensive gourmet food to survive. Thus, despite his hedonism, Epicurus advocates a surprisingly ascetic way of life. Although you shouldn’t spurn extravagant foods if they happen to be available, becoming dependent on such food ultimately leads to unhappiness.

These natural but non-necessary desires are those cravings that do not necessarily lead to greater pain if they are not fulfilled. These desires are typically recreational in nature: Sexual gratification, aesthetic desires, entertainment, pleasant conversation, the arts, sports, travel etc.

In the case of natural but non-necessary desires you must approach life as a banquet. Think of your life as if it were a banquet where you would behave graciously, when dishes are passed to you, extend your hand and help yourself to a moderate portion. If a dish should pass you by, enjoy what is already on your plate. And if a dish hasn’t being passed to you yet, patiently wait for your turn.

To paraphrase Epicurus, “If you wish to make a man wealthy, don’t give him more money; rather, reduce his desires”.

By eliminating the pain caused by unfulfilled desires, and the anxiety that occurs because of the fear that one’s desires will not be fulfilled in the future, the wise Epicurean attains tranquillity, and thus happiness.

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009

Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

Appetite for a Stroll

http://books.sulekha.com/book/appetite-for-a-stroll/default.htm

vikramkarve@sify.com

According to the most recent Three Screen report from Nielsen 57% of Americans use TV and the Internet simultaneously. This may sound like just another media factoid until you realize media-multitaskers suck at media-multitasking.

In a recent Stanford University study researchers found media-multitaskers cannot process more than one information string at a time.

“When they’re in situations where there are multiple sources of information coming from the external world or emerging out of memory, they’re not able to filter out what’s not relevant to their current goal,” said Wagner, an associate professor of psychology. “That failure to filter means they’re slowed down by that irrelevant information.”

Even when people aren’t consuming more than one media, they admit to being less than focused. A 2007 MRI study reported “34.7% of TV viewers and 16.5% of radio listeners report being “very focused” while using these media – compared with 54.6% for internet users, 50.0% for newspaper readers and 41.8% for magazine readers.”

What does this mean to marketers? More media touchpoints don’t necessarily mean a better chance of getting a consumer’s attention, and exposure metrics like GRPs, impressions, and views need to be taken with a huge grain of salt.

If most people aren’t very attentive to the content they’re consuming, just how attentive can they be to your advertising?

Teeth Grinding Linked to Sleep Apnea (Reuters)

There is a high prevalence of nocturnal teeth grinding, or bruxism, in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), particularly in Caucasians. New research presented at CHEST 2009, the 75th annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), found that nearly 1 in 4 patients with OSA suffers from nighttime teeth grinding; this seems to be especially more prevalent in men and in Caucasians compared with other ethnic groups…More…

Junk-Food Binge Alters Gut Microbes in Less Than a Day (Washington University Record)

Switching from a low-fat, plant-based diet to one high in fat and sugar alters the collection of microbes living in the gut in less than a day, with obesity-linked microbes suddenly thriving, according to new School of Medicine research.

The study was based on transplants of human intestinal microbes into germ-free mice.

Over time, mice that received the transplants, or humanized mice, on the junk-food diet became obese. Their weight gain was in lock step with dramatic shifts in the types of intestinal bacteria present compared to mice on a low-fat diet…More…

Consumption of Cerain Fish Linked to Poor Cognitive Performance in Kids (DNA)

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Granada has revealed that kids who eat fish more than 3 times per week show worse performance in the general cognitive, executive and perceptual-manipulative areas.

Those with higher levels of exposure to mercury show a generalised delay in cognitive, memory and verbal areas. Mercury is a contaminant found especially in oily fish and canned fish and to a lesser extent in white fish…More…

Emotions Increase or Decrease Pain (PhysOrg)

Getting a flu shot this fall? Canadians scientists have found that focusing on a pretty image could alleviate the sting of that vaccine. According to a new Université de Montréal study, published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), negative and positive emotions have a direct impact on pain.

“Emotions – or mood – can alter how we react to pain since they’re interlinked,” says lead author Mathieu Roy, who completed the study as a Université de Montréal PhD student and is now a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. “Our tests revealed when pain is perceived by our brain and how that pain can be amplified when combined with negative emotions”… More…

Brief Training in Meditation May Help Manage Pain, Study Shows (ScienceDaily)

A new study examining the perception of pain and the effects of various mental training techniques has found that relatively short and simple mindfulness meditation training can have a significant positive effect on pain management.

Though pain research during the past decade has shown that extensive meditation training can have a positive effect in reducing a person’s awareness and sensitivity to pain, the effort, time commitment, and financial obligations required has made the treatment not practical for many patients. Now, a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte shows that a single hour of training spread out over a three day period can produce the same kind of analgesic effect.

The research appears in an article by UNC Charlotte psychologists Fadel Zeidan, Nakia S. Gordon, Junaid Merchant and Paula Goolkasian, in the current issue of The Journal of Pain…More…

The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the auditory event-related potential can be used to study automatic perceptual inference. This study was designed to explore “Conditional Inference” in the MMN system – the capacity of the auditory system to use current input to switch between inference models in memory. We presented a “Random” sequence comprising a standard repeating sound occasionally interrupted by a change in frequency, duration or intensity (louder or softer). We also presented the same sequence with a conditional linkage between deviants – that is, frequency and duration deviants always followed an intensity change. We explored whether the auditory system could use intensity deviance to change the inference from “expect the standard to repeat” to “expect a frequency or duration violation” and quantified this as the proportion decline in the MMN elicited to duration and frequency deviant sounds in the linked versus random sequence. We report three main outcomes on a sample of 25 healthy young adults: (1) there was a significant conditional inference effect (a reduction in MMN amplitude in linked versus random sequences) to duration but not frequency deviants; (2) larger simple MMN and larger conditional inference effect on duration MMN were correlated with higher Digit Span; and (3) the conditional inference effect but not simple MMN to duration deviants, was strongly correlated with working memory ability (rs=.78, p<.001). The results are discussed with respect to the differential cognitive demands of simple MMN and conditional inference, and the possible involvement of prefrontal cortex in implementing conditional inference in the MMN system.

from Brain Research

After reading the story in the Wall Street Journal about “Why wine ratings are badly flawed?” it got me thinking. Not about wine ratings because that part of the article I agree with, wine ratings are subjective, and can generally be inconsistent across various types of “raters”. I’ve always thought it weird that one wine in Spectator can get a “90” and then in Enthusiast receive a “78” or vice versa.

“There is a rich history of scientific research questioning whether wine experts can really make the fine taste distinctions they claim. For example, a 1996 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that even flavor-trained professionals cannot reliably identify more than three or four components in a mixture, although wine critics regularly report tasting six or more.”

The above comment is the one that got me thinking and one that I disagree with. Personally I know that I can taste more than 3 distinct flavors in any wine. Also, my years working in Sensory Research did many studies with trained panelists in which they identified more than three components in a mixture. I tried to find the study with no avail and was kind of disturbed that the author of the article in the WSJ didn’t put in any reference to the exact article. So, I couldn’t look at that particular study and examine exactly how that experiment was conducted.

In searching for some rebuttal papers I came across a cool article that I remember reading years back in the Journal “NeuroImage”. Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) this study showed that trained wine tasters, in this case 7 sommeliers, showed higher brain function when it came to tasting wine versus untrained wine consumers.

“A larger and well-defined cerebral network elicited by wine tasting was identified in sommeliers compared to naïve subjects that included the left insula and adjoining caudal orbitofrontal cortex, the left putamen, the right inferior frontal gyrus (opercular portion), and the inferior portion of the middle frontal gyrus in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) bilaterally.”

“…A final intriguing finding was the consistent activation in sommeliers of the inferior DLPFC. In this region the BOLD signal time-course peaked initially during the taste period and then well after the cue to swallow had been given, suggesting higher cognitive processing modulated by expertise.”

So basically the paper is saying that people trained in wine tasting have a additional cognitive processing that is linking both taste, olfactory and somatosensory sensations together to evaluate the wine. Pretty cool! With all this extra brain functioning going on, I don’t know how someone who is a trained taster could not detect more than three flavors in a wine or a mixture.

If anybody knows the exact journal number that was referenced in this WSJ article let me know, I would love to look at it.

Cheers!

References:

MLODINOW, LEONARD. “A Hint of Hype, A Taste of Illusion.” Wall Street Journal 14 Nov 2009,

Castriota-Scanderbeg, Alessandro, Gisela Hagberg, Antonio Cerasa, and Giorgia Committeri. “The appreciation of wine by sommeliers: a functional magnetic resonance study of sensory integration.” NeuroImage. 25.2 (2005): 570-578.

Finally here, the new Time Tweeker 2000. Just attach it to the temporal lobes and you’ll have full control over the way yo perceive time. It’s practically time travel. Stuck in a meeting, just skip it. Forgot what someone just said, rewind your mind. It’s the perfect gift.

Warning. Going to far back in time may cause irreparable damage or coma. Only use in locations where you are not likely to be taken advantage of. Never tamper with fail save device.

Time Tech Inc. is not responsible for anything… ever.

Ho accennato nel precedente post al fatto che stanno nascendo numerosi motori di ricerca che si dicono semantici basati sulla linguistica computazionale che pretendono di migliorare sostanzialmente la ricerca di contenuti, rispetto alla ricerca per parole chiave che utilizza criteri statistici o di popolarità.

Oltre ad Hakia ho preso in esame anche Lexxe, apparentemente un efficace motore di ricerca che si propone di  rispondere a domande formulate in linguaggio naturale e non solo con parole chiave. La caratteristica più marcata di Lexxe è quella di presentare accanto ai risultati di una ricerca, categorizzazioni o raggruppamenti ad hoc che servono a specificare o filtrare i risultati per ottenere maggior precisione. Tali raggruppamenti non sono precostituiti al momento della presentazione dei risultati, bensì si costruiscono on the fly se vengono cliccati. Il risultato di tale ricerca è una nuova lista di risultati ma anche il suggerimento di nuovi raggruppamenti da esplorare  (dinamic clustering) .

Si tratta di un modo efficace per esplorare un argomento da diversi punti di vista, attraverso la classificazione ontologica, che si basa non sul matching delle parole della query con quelle dell’indice del motore di ricerca, valutate poi in modo statistico quantitativo,  bensì sulla identificazione dei concetti rappresentati dalle parole della query e il loro confronto con una ontologia o mappa di concetti, cioè di parole dotate di relazioni tra di se, costruita in modo semiautomatico.

Di questa categoria fa parte anche Powerset un motore di ricerca semantico  recentemente acquistato da Microsoft per integrare i risultati del proprio motore di ricerca, Bing. La sua tecnologia risiede soprattutto sull’analisi sintattica tramite un software di parsing su licenza di Xerox Parc. Come spiega Lorenzo Thione co-fondatore di Powerset, il software scompone il testo in frasi e fa

l’analisi logica e grammaticale della frase, scomponendola in soggetto, predicati verbali e complementi, e cercando di analizzare il ruolo di ciascun complemento nell’ambito del testo, come per esempio, individuare se un complemento e’ finale, causale o di moto a luogo. Una volta che il software ha fatto questa analisi, delle componenti semantiche (dette features, o caratteristiche) vengono estratte e inserite nell’algoritmo di selezione e ordinamento dei risultati, in armonia con le altre componenti meno linguistiche, come il PageRank o la prossimita’ delle parole chiave.

Thione  sostiene che lo spider di Powerset è in grado di indicizzare il web (naturalmente solo pagine in inglese) ma “per adesso l’indice di Powerset e’ ristretto a Wikipedia“  (ibidem) e al database di Freebase (basato sull’analisi di Wikipedia e su contenuto sociale).

Ad esempio la ricerca di “Al Gore” conduce ad una risposta univoca tratta da Freebase ma presenta anche le possibili triple:

Al Gore:

won                 district, country, vote, internet, primari, states, seat, nomination …

carried             disctrict, stated and Nashville

received          percent, vote, primetime Emmy Avard, a number, electors …..

Inoltre gli articoli di Wikipedia relativi alla ricerca e rimaneggiati da Powerset, presentano sulla destra un utile quadro riassuntivo del contenuto dell’articolo che rimane stabile allo scorrere dello schermo, che si suddivide in Overview (dati sintetici); outline (l’indice dell’articolo); images (le immagine pubblicate nell’articolo); locations (le mappe dei luoghi connessi al contenuto dell’articolo); Twitter (recent tweets di Al Gore). Powerset è quantomeno un ottimo motore di ricerca sui dati tratti fattuali da Wikipedia e di Freebase.

Cognition si basa come Hakia sulla classificazione ontologica ma, affermano i suoi ideatori, con una mappa semantica (cioè parole e concetti classificati) più comprensiva e quindi più funzionale. Inoltre sostiene di utilizzare anche l’analisi morfologia e di gestire i sinonimi. Non risulta tuttavia che a oggi il motore di ricerca abbia suscitato particolare interesse (maggiori informazioni qui)

The first words I read every day are “Alarm! Stopp Slumre”. The Alarm is accompanied by a small stylized bell that apparently “rings” (though the sound coming from my mobile is more of a beep), and the words Stopp and Slumre are located above the left and the right buttons respectively. I usually hit the right one, and then the words “Alarm utsatt” come up on the screen.

Stopp and Alarm I don’t have any problems with. But Slumre and utsatt are very odd words – infrequent in my oral vocabulary, almost non-existant in my written. So when my alarm goes off and I peer blurrily at the little screen, what I usually see is Slmure and usttat, or Smrule and uutstat, or any other weird and wonderful transformation of the letters.  And every morning, the morphing reminds me of that well known paragraph:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

(Except my slmuer is kinda the opposite, obviously.)

In other words – I get to start the day with a science lesson! Oh yay!
I tried to find on the wordwidewebz what this effect is called, and failed. Instead I found this very useful site, and decided that this is so interesting I might in fact do my honours on it.

I’ve volunteered for a second time with my teenage daughter and have fun every time.  I have found some people more receptive to doing something different than others.  I know this is probably personal preferences but it might also have to do with how easy game pieces, etc. can be seen by someone with poor eyesight.  I have found one woman in particular who has a tendency to withdraw rather quickly if something is difficult to see.  I am looking for a few creative games that are easier to see.  Anybody know of a Boogle with very big letters?