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Brain Cells of Males and Females Respond Differently to Stress

Brain Cells of Males and Females Respond Differently to Stress

by | 2023 Aug 18 | Healthy Brains, Public, Quick Hits, Society Brains

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

 

brain learning neuroscience

There I knew it – men and women are different!

Well, yes, and no! I wrote in more detail on the similarities and differences between men and women’s brains here – it’s more complicated than you might think. And this research was in male and female mice – not human beings.

Oh, but there’s a difference then?

Well first off – and this is important in general. There is a male and female research problem: namely that animal models and research are normally only conducted on male mice. Which means if there is a difference we could be missing something important. The same also goes for clinical trials in human beings – these are also more often than not conducted in men (and white men at that).

Ok, that sounds wrong, so there should be more diversity in research but back to the stress response: don’t we already know that men and women respond differently to stress?

Yes, there are well documented differences – for example women more often than men exhibit a tend and befriend strategy in stressful times – they look after and seek out friends.

But this research investigated direct responses in the brain – the hypothalamus, a region that is a hub for the stress response and triggering hormone release.

And what did they find?

Well, first off, let me explain what they did because this is pretty impressive. The study was conducted by a group of researchers at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany. They managed to sequence RNA for 35’000 cells in a region of the Hypothalamus and then compare response to initial stress and repeated stress events.

This is unprecedented to be able to track the genetic response of 35’000 cells in a given region including neurons but also what are called glial cells. Glial cells are helping cells in the brain. Very impressive (and they made the dataset public so other researchers can use this).

Oh wow that does sound impressive! And this data showed different responses?

Indeed they found that one class of glial cells responds differently in males and females. For males these cells responded directly to stress events but especially to chronic stress also leading to structural change. In females these cells did not respond at all.

And what does that mean?

Well, it’s far too early to give and clear implications and actions. But the key takeaways are this:

  • Genetic activation shows much more than basic observation

  • All cells need to be taken into account

  • And the importance of having more diversity in research groups – this applies at the level of the mice and the level of human beings.

If you don’t have the granularity that the above technique brought to the table it is easy to miss something. If you don’t have the diversity you also miss something or can come to the wrong general conclusions.

So more granularity and more diversity!

Yup – and less chronic stress for men!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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Reference

Elena Brivio, Aron Kos, Alessandro Francesco Ulivi, Stoyo Karamihalev, Andrea Ressle, Rainer Stoffel, Dana Hirsch, Gil Stelzer, Mathias V. Schmidt, Juan Pablo Lopez, Alon Chen.
Sex shapes cell-type-specific transcriptional signatures of stress exposure in the mouse hypothalamus.
Cell Reports, 2023; 42 (8): 112874
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112874

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Work in the Presence of Others Lowers Stress

Work in the Presence of Others Lowers Stress

by | 2023 Aug 16 | Business Brains, Healthy Brains, Organisational Leadership, Personal Performance, Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

 

workplace brain stress

I would have thought that working with others increases stress?!

We could assume that. In the world of working from home we would assume that working alone in your comfortable home environment would be much less stressful. That’s certainly how I have experienced it – but my partner is also often home working also so strictly I’m not always working alone.

So what was this study about?

Well, first off it wasn’t focused on workplace activities but would be interesting to see if this would transfer and there is no reason to think it wouldn’t.

They investigated three working conditions and measured brain wave activity and stress responses during these three conditions. The three conditions were:

Alone: an individual performed the activity alone
Parallel: two individuals performed an activity separately but in the same room
Non-Parallel: one individual performed an activity and the other observed

And what was the “work” – the activity?

In this case it was a craft activity – something called netcraft common in Japan where the study was performed which involves threading coloured yarn through holes to create pattens and objects.

So not work really?

Well, not unless you make things for a living – which many people do. In this case a previous study had looked at crafts as a form of occupational therapy so that was the focus. But it involves concentrating on an activity – and that is what we all do at work.

And I’m intrigued then, what was the result?

First off, it is important to understand that all participants rotated though the different conditions so it was not based on individual responses or preferences and all were healthy young adults.

What they found was that the parallel condition – working with others but individually focused on one’s own task – showed the lower stress in physiological and brain wave patterns.

So just the presence of others seems to lower stress!

This is what it suggests that collectively working in the same room, simply in the presence of others lowers stress.

Wow, that would have implications for work from home and office work!

Indeed, it could be an additional benefit that we haven’t thought of for office work. I have previously reported on other factors like the slow erosion of trust if you don’t regularly see people. This points to another benefit and that human beings seem to operate well in the presence of others when focused on their own tasks.

On the other hand there is the additional stress of getting to work in the first place – so it might be a balancing act.

I just also thought that this could be important for families as well?

Yes, I presume many of us have experienced that relaxing feeling when a family are all siting in a room and engaged in a task not media related such as reading, knitting, doing a a jigsaw puzzle, etc. So do things together even if they’re not together – if you know what I mean.

Right, so in summary: human beings just need the presence of other human beings

Yes, we are social creatures even when we’re not being social!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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Reference

Junya Orui; Keigo Shiraiwa; Fumie Tazaki; Takao Inoue; Masaya Ueda; Keita Ueno; Yasuo Naito; Ryouhei Ishii.
Social Buffering Effects during Craft Activities in Parallel Group Session Revealed by EEG Analysis and Parasympathetic Activity.
Neuropsychobiology, 2023
DOI: 10.1159/000531005/854272

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Humans Give Unconditional Small Acts of Kindness – Continuously

Humans Give Unconditional Small Acts of Kindness – Continuously

by | 2023 Aug 14 | Public, Quick Hits, Society Brains

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

 

collaboration cooperation brain

I thought that one driving premise of economic theory is that human beings are primarily selfish?!

Well, that’s going back a few years – or decades. We know that human beings are very cooperative but some of this cooperation differs between cultures. What’s more a lot of research into cooperation and collaboration looks at big ticket items like sharing food or other resources.

So what did this research look at?

This is more fascinating because this international research team looked at more often overlooked acts of help and kindness. Things like opening a door, passing an object, helping pick something up, and so on.

But of course we help with things like that!

That’s precisely the point – if you say “of course” then this suggests that this is natural, it’s inbuilt, it’s default human nature. Big ticket items are big, less common, and carry much more wight also in terms of invested resources. They also develop their own cultural norms around them so then it become hard to find correlations between cultures.

Right, and so what did the researchers find – are human beings nicer than we often portray?

Indeed, the good news is that we seem to be very kind and collaborative. They analysed videos from everyday interactions in different locations and settings ranging from towns in Europe to rural settings in South America and Africa to, aboriginal Australian.

They found that we ask for help in a small way (in group situations) more often than we would assume. On average every 2 minutes. What’s more people helped the other almost 80% of the time with about 10% ignoring and 10% rejecting the offer. But when they rejected the offer about 75% of the time they gave a reason.

So, we are naturally helpful?

Yes. Precisely. This is very strong evidence that there is a natural helping reflex – the strong norm is to help and to justify why you can’t if you can’t. But the strong alignment across cultures is good proof that we are in fact naturally kind, collaborative creatures.

Good news – but some people claim we are selfish and see this all the time – not to mention on plenty of social media posts!

Yes, it is very good news. Obviously the reasons selfishness draws out attention is two fold. One because we are so kind and collaborative by nature, being selfish draws our ire and attention – social media will magnify this. We are shocked because we are so kind on average.

The other reason is more interesting: other recent research has shown that selfish people expect other people to be selfish also and, similarly, generous people expect other people to be generous. So this feeling of seeing selfishness may be a reflection of a person’s own selfishness!

Oh wow – obviously, erm, I see a lot of goodness in the world

Great – and the big news that we should be communicating to the world, and dancing in the streets about, is that human beings show each other kindness on average every two minutes – and this is happening all over the world as I write this. That makes a few billion acts of kindness every few minutes.

There – that should cheer you up.

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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References

Giovanni Rossi, Mark Dingemanse, Simeon Floyd, Julija Baranova, Joe Blythe, Kobin H. Kendrick, Jörg Zinken, N. J. Enfield.
Shared cross-cultural principles underlie human prosocial behavior at the smallest scale.
Scientific Reports, 2023; 13 (1)
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-30580-5

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Newly Discovered Ebb and Flow of Brain Chemicals that Drive Learning – Continuously

Newly Discovered Ebb and Flow of Brain Chemicals that Drive Learning – Continuously

by | 2023 Aug 11 | Learning Brains, Personal Performance, Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

brain wave consciousness

So according to the title we are constantly learning?

Well, of course. We learn small things day by day in our daily interactions but the interesting bit about this research is how they discovered this mechanism in the brain.

So what ebb and flow are we talking about?

Well you may have heard of the dopamine hit. This has become a topic with social media with the little hits of excitement at each new click stimulating dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is known for its involvement in reward. Dopamine has also been known to be strongly involved in learning mechanisms in the brain stimulating attention and neuroplasticity also.

So far so good but is it just dopamine?

As I always say, everything in the brain is much more complicated than you can imagine – so no it never is just dopamine and in this research Dr Anne Krok and colleagues of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine looked at dopamine and acetylcholine and how they interacted in the learning process in the mouse brain.

And?

First off, they looked at the learning process and hit is highest when dopamine is high and acetylcholine is low – so it is not just dopamine but an interaction with acetylcholine (which itself is involved in multiple processes). After a small reward was given dopamine levels rose and acetylcholine dropped – this stimulated learning.

But what they also noticed is that this ebb and flow is not only stimulated by reward – in the case of mice in this research, drinking, but that there seems to be this natural ebb and flow and these two transmitters seem to be constantly interacting with surges of dopamine and drops in acetylcholine.

So the brain is basically a pulsing learning mechanism?

Indeed, this suggests this is how it is – the brain primes itself for learning and does not necessarily need external rewards – there is a natural pulsing ebb and flow of transmitters that naturally stimulate learning mechanism – which could also be signatures of the brain rehearsing past events (see my post here on short bursts of learning and brain activity).

Good news then?

Good to know this and not to be just focused on rewards – it can also help us explain other learning processes in daily life but also how some disorders can impact learning and rewiring of the brain ranging from Parkinson’s to Schizophrenia.

And how to stimulate this ebb and flow

The million dollar question! Probably hard to influence but thinking about it, it would likely be highest in lower stress levels because this would allow a more natural ebb and flow – the old advice holds true!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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References

Anne C. Krok, Marta Maltese, Pratik Mistry, Xiaolei Miao, Yulong Li, Nicolas X. Tritsch.
Intrinsic dopamine and acetylcholine dynamics in the striatum of mice.
Nature, 2023
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05995-9

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Everyday Pleasures Improve Brain Performance

Everyday Pleasures Improve Brain Performance

by | 2023 Aug 9 | Business Brains, Healthy Brains, Personal Performance, Public, Quick Hits, Team Leadership

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

 

brain workplace cognitive performance

That sounds a good thing but what is an everyday pleasure?

In this study the researchers investigated the relationship between simple pleasures and brain activity. Specifically drinking coffee, listening to music, and smelling perfume.

Coffee and music for me – not so sure about the perfume though

Participants could choose what they wanted according to their preferences – that’s important – it needs to be a personalised pleasure…of course. I’m with you on coffee and music also – but then again remember my article on the positive impacts of aroma exposure during sleep a few days ago?

How did they measure this?

Well, this is actually very innovative but we also need to be careful of marketing hype here as this was sponsored by MINDWATCH. They have developed algorithms over the years that can measure brain states based on skin conductance. That is your skin responds very quickly to your current state and this can me measured using a sensor. This is much less invasive than measuring brain wave activity. In this experiment they used skin conductance bands and a device to measure some brain activity also.

And so what was the outcome?

Participants conducted memory tests shortly after being exposed to these stimulants and their performance increase and this could be measured in the brain – an increase in beta band brain waves (associated with concentration and cognitive performance) – and skin conductance results. Music seems to be the most potent followed by coffee and then the perfume.

Don’t we know this already?

Actually yes. We know music can positively stimulate brain activity and is also considered a performance enhancing tool by World Athletics (and as such is not allowed directly before competition!). Similarly, there is a lot of research on coffee and its positive benefits. But participants in this could choose their preferred option.

Also of interest is that there were three types of music to choose from and unsurprisingly the energetic was more effective than the relaxing one – but, and here is the surprise, they included an AI generated piece of music and this was the most effective!

And what now?

Well, this shows that those small pleasures can positively impact brain performance – this is why they are a small pleasure – a little bit of what you fancy does you good as they say – and this is not all in the mind. Your brain and cognitive performance will thank you.

And what about all three simultaneously?

That’s what I’m doing as I write this – feels good enough to me!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

twitter / LinkedIn

References

Hamid Fekri Azgomi, Luciano R. F. Branco, Md. Rafiul Amin, Saman Khazaei, Rose T. Faghih.
Regulation of brain cognitive states through auditory, gustatory, and olfactory stimulation with wearable monitoring.
Scientific Reports, 2023; 13 (1)
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-37829-z

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