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Tracking Mental States Through Your Skin – In Real Time

Tracking Mental States Through Your Skin – In Real Time

by | 2022 Aug 19 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

skin brain mental health

Imagine if you are working and your stress levels are increasing, and then automatically soothing music is turned on to calm you down. Or alternatively if you are heading towards that after lunch dip of drowsiness and upbeat energetic music is turned on to energise you.

This sounds like a sort of mind-reading device of the future, but this is a possibility according to Rose Faghih of NYU Tandon School of Engineering – and without having any invasive electrodes or implants in your brain but through a simple skin patch!

How so you may ask?

Well skin conductance is a well-known way to measure things like stress responses. Your skin reacts very quickly at microscopic levels to things like stress and mental disturbances. We’ve known that for a long time and skin conductance measure are often used in research – it is cheap, non-invasive, and a good measure of many things.

The really tricky thing through is being able to accurately predict these brain or mind states and match these to the biological data and additionally to be able to do this in real time. For this Faghih and her team have developed much more accurate ways of modelling skin responses by mapping this to 3D modelling of sweat glands and amongst other things, how they respond, how sweat distributes, is evaporated, or reabsorbed.

This has then been used to develop accurate algorithms (which though complex require little computing power) to instantaneously predict mental states in real time. This is amazing – it uses very detailed models of how the skin responds to various scenarios and has modelled this to be able to report instantaneously on mind states. Wow!

The uses of this are multifold – the above example of work will probably not be a prime focus (or maybe only in high-risk roles such as pilots). This could include identifying peripheral neuropathy in diabetes patients, post-traumatic stress disorders, on top of multiple uses in mental health monitoring.

This sounds promising, some of you may think that this could be abused by employers. It could be, but I imagine the most obvious uses will be key health issues – in the short term – and that is a good thing.

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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

Rafiul Amin, Rose T. Faghih.
Physiological characterization of electrodermal activity enables scalable near real-time autonomic nervous system activation inference.
PLOS Computational Biology, 2022; 18 (7): e1010275
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010275

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Testosterone Promotes Cuddling

Testosterone Promotes Cuddling

by | 2022 Aug 18 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

cuddle aggression testosterone

Yes, you read the headline correctly. Testosterone considered the ultimate male hormone and often associated with aggression has had a bad rap. So, is all of this wrong?

Well, the research into testosterone, for those in the know, never was as clear cut as we often colloquially, and in the popular press, assume. Testosterone is not directly correlated with aggression i.e. more testosterone does not mean you are more aggressive. But we do know that it does make already aggressive men more aggressive. So, it only modulates aggressiveness in certain circumstances.

We also know that it is strongly involved in sexual desire and sports performance. But cuddling – that is new!

So, what did these researchers around Aubrey Kelly at Emory University find?

They investigated behaviours in Mongolian gerbils, that’s actually your common garden gerbil that many of us have owned. Specifically, they looked at male behaviour and in the first experiment they gave male gerbils a shot of testosterone after their partners had become pregnant. Male gerbils can be aggressive in many circumstances such as protecting their territory, but they also form lasting relationships with their partners. This includes cuddling and this cuddling increases when the female is pregnant. Nature’s way of building lasting relationships.

So, what happens when you give these male mice a shot of testosterone when their female mates are pregnant? The researchers expected cuddling to decrease and aggressiveness to increase – not so. Cuddling actually increased!

A further surprise came in a follow up experiment. In this case the female gerbil was then removed from the cage and a new male gerbil put in. In this situation the resident male would normally be aggressive to the “intruder”. However, those that had previously received a shot of testosterone were more friendly to the intruder.

It seems like this previous shot of testosterone had not only made these males cuddlier to their female partners but also more prosocial, friendlier, to strangers. However, in another twist, when these males were given another shot of testosterone their aggressiveness rocketed and they immediately became more aggressive.

“It appears that testosterone enhances context-appropriate behavior. It seems to play a role in amplifying the tendency to be cuddly and protective or aggressive.” Aubrey Kelly

So, it seems that testosterone modulates behaviour in a contextually suitable fashion (and operates with other hormones such as oxytocin which is considered the bonding and cuddle chemical).

Obviously, you will also say that this is only in Mongolian gerbils and not human beings. That is true but a lot of research into animal models of hormones have translated pretty well to human beings – with the caveat that our behaviours are much more complex.

So yes, it seems like testosterone can make men more aggressive, but it can also make men more cuddly. Good to know!

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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

Aubrey M. Kelly, Jose Antonio Gonzalez Abreu, Richmond R. Thompson.
Beyond sex and aggression: testosterone rapidly matches behavioural responses to social context and tries to predict the future.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2022; 289 (1976)
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0453

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Online Learning Triggers Different Stress Responses

Online Learning Triggers Different Stress Responses

by | 2022 Aug 17 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

learning online brain

Not so long ago all learning went online – out of necessity.

There has been plenty pf research into differences in online learning and in-person learning but this study by Gellisch et al. at Ruhr-University Bochum looked at different physiological stress responses between online learning and in-person learning.

This study was interesting because it studied the same 82 students in an in-person and online learning scenario. They were attending a blended learning anatomy course that had different groups alternating between online lessons and in-person lessons (the same lessons).

The participants were monitored with heart rate sensors and also cortisol, the stress hormones, was measured by taking saliva samples at the start of the session after 60 minutes and at the end of the two-hour lesson.

What did they find?

They found that the in-person lesson stimulated higher cortisol levels, higher heart rate and lower heart rate variability. This is consistent with a stress response. So, is in-person learning more stressful? Yes, but and this is a big but, this also shows higher stimulation and higher stimulation is generally associated with better memory function and learning,

So, in short online learning is less stressful, more comfortable, but likely less impactful. This not to mention other positive benefits of in-person learning such as bonding with classmates and additional learning opportunities through casual and focused conversations around the course.

What’s more those in the in-person groups reported higher enjoyment of the very same class. So, let’s not write off in-person courses, yet!

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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

Sizhen Su, Le Shi, Yongbo Zheng, Yankun Sun, Xiaolin Huang, Anyi Zhang, Jianyu Que, Xinyu Sun, Jie Shi, Yanping Bao, Jiahui Deng, Lin Lu.
Leisure Activities and the Risk of Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Neurology, 2022; 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200929
DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200929

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Use It Or Lose It – Mental Activity Reduces Dementia

Use It Or Lose It – Mental Activity Reduces Dementia

by | 2022 Aug 15 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

ageing brain dementia

I regularly write on which activities reduce risks of cognitive decline (just last week I reported on how your job can protect your mental abilites with age and also doing household chores).

Different studies, obviously, focus on different aspects of this, at different ages, and with different conditions. This particular study just released was a meta-analysis (a review of multiple studies) of which leisure activities related to dementia.

We probably all know that good lifestyle choices such as good nutrition and exercise keep us physically and mentally healthy, but this study reviewed studies looking at general leisure activities which may include crafts, reading, writing, playing games, playing musical instruments as well as physical activities and social activities (which have larger bodies of research supporting their positive effects).

Su et al., for the American Neurological Association, reviewed included a total of over 2 million people! That’s pretty darn substantial. Within the time of these 38 studies reviewed, 74’700 people developed dementia.

And which activities correlated best with lowest rates of dementia?

Well, they put these into three groups as alluded to above. Mental activities, physical activities, and social activities. Obviously, some of these overlap.

What they found was surprising, or unsurprising, namely that those who engaged with mental activities most in their leisure time showed the lowest risk of developing dementia (23%). This is similar to my review of work, and cognitive reserve. Or simply a case of use it or lose it. But all activities showed a decreased risk with physical activity next most effective (17%) followed by social activities (7%).

Ideally, we would do all three, or something that activates all three. But it does show that we should keep our brain engaged to preserve it from decline.

Luckily for me writing these Quick Hits should be a good way to do that!

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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

Sizhen Su, Le Shi, Yongbo Zheng, Yankun Sun, Xiaolin Huang, Anyi Zhang, Jianyu Que, Xinyu Sun, Jie Shi, Yanping Bao, Jiahui Deng, Lin Lu. 
Leisure Activities and the Risk of Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. 
Neurology, 2022; 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200929
DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200929

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Why Thinking Makes You Tired

Why Thinking Makes You Tired

by | 2022 Aug 12 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

brain tired fatigue neuroleadership

We all know that feeling of having engaged in hard cognitive, thinking, tasks, and feeling tired. If it goes on long enough, we may feel mentally fatigued, drained, or even exhausted.

But why?

We tend to know that physical activity uses a lot of energy and so will tire you out, but mental activity less so. So why does this happen? And researchers, though they know the feelings themselves as much as the average person in the street, haven’t been able to give a clear explanation.

This latest piece of research by Wieler et al. has managed to find out the precise cause of this.

To do this the researchers measured participants over a day and used brain scanning to elucidate changes in brain functioning. This is a pretty cool research protocol because it represents real-life functioning of real-life people. There were two groups: those with cognitively demanding jobs and those with less cognitively demanding jobs. At the end of the day they were given various cognitive tasks in a brain scanner.

What did they find?

They found that a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex exhibited signs of fatigue. The prefrontal cortex is considered our “executive centre” or thinking part of the brain that is involved in control, intentional thought, calculations, and decision-making. This was in comparison to other regions of the brain.

This fatigue led to altered processing and also altered decision making with a preference for easier decisions or pathways. So when tired, you go for the easy solution or draw on a habit.

We already knew that but more than that they were able to identify the mechanisms. The results of this showed that the fatigue led to a build up of waste products that can become potentially toxic in the region. The brain uses chemicals to generate the electrical impulses and if these can’t be cleared away they lead to build up between the neurons. This alters processing but also increases the cost of processing.

They specifically were able to measure increased glutamate in the prefrontal cortices of those in the cognitive effort group. Glutamate is common chemical in the brain used for processing signals.

So, this shows that this fatigue is not just “psychological” but based on biological mechanisms with the build up of substances which impede and alter processing. This feeling of fatigue is therefore your brain trying to rest and to stop this build up and allow cleaning out of toxic substances. Fatigue is after all a sign of needing a rest – but the downside is that this will also lead your brain to aovid thinking as much and take easy options – which could be worse decisions, or alternatively, succumbing to an unhealthy snack.

It will be hard to avoid this totally, but this shows why the good old advice of having regular breaks really is very, very important. And also why you should have breaks before you get tired.

It also shows that you shouldn’t make important decisions at the end of the day!

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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

Antonius Wiehler, Francesca Branzoli, Isaac Adanyeguh, Fanny Mochel, Mathias Pessiglione. 
A neuro-metabolic account of why daylong cognitive work alters the control of economic decisions. 
Current Biology, 2022
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.010

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