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How the Gut Influences Brain Development in Babies

How the Gut Influences Brain Development in Babies

by | 2023 Sep 27 | Healthy Brains, Public, Quick Hits, Society Brains

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

Are you suggesting that the gut influences the brain – how on earth can that happen?

Yes, but when I say the gut I mean specifically the microbiome of the gut – that is the collection of bacteria in our guts. Which are plentiful.

What, our gut bacteria can help with brain development?

Yes, this has been well-documented in recent years. We all have hundreds and thousand of different strains of bacteria in our guts. And the balance of these seem to have a surprisingly large impact on our health. And that includes brain health and in this case brain development.

How on earth can that happen?

Well, there are multiple ways and we are not sure exactly how all of these work. But an example is that a class called bacteroidetes produce metabolites called sphingolipids, which are instrumental in the formation and structuring of neurons in the brain.

So, a healthy balance of bacteroidetes is a massive bonus of the developing brain (actually any brain).

Oh wow, and what did these researchers find?

In this exploratory study, published in PLOS in August, Sebastian Hunter et al. found that certain bacterial strains were associated with increased cognitive functionality but they also measured brain processing responses (to sounds) in babies 4-6 months old.

They found that those with higher, or lower, proportions of certain strains performed better and had more rapid brain responses.

Specifically, if you’re interested in the details, negatively to Bifidobacterium, and positively to the abundance of Clostridium and Enterococcus.

Ok, and do they know why?

There are multiple ways that your gut bacteria can influence your health but they did note a positive association with metabolic pathways – and this included, for example, if you want to know the technical details, something called branched chain amino acid biosynthesis and the pentose phosphate pathway.

Basically stuff that helps with brain development.

Oh wow – and can this be influenced?

Yes, we can influence our microbiomes and that of our children. I speak about some of the mechanisms here. We know that vaginal brith is good for the microbiome in babies, as is breastfeeding. Minimising use of antibiotics also.

For us, as adults, our diet is essential – lots of natural high-fibre food such as fresh fruit and vegetables and avoiding highly-processed foods counts for a lot.

Is it the same for us adults as well?

Indeed, yes, the microbiome has been shown to be very important for health and brain function in adults as well.

Eat your greens, then!

Yup, and rolling around in the dirt also seems to be beneficial!

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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

Sebastian Hunter, Erica Flaten, Charisse Petersen, Judit Gervain, Janet F. Werker, Laurel J. Trainor, Brett B. Finlay.
Babies, bugs and brains: How the early microbiome associates with infant brain and behavior development.
PLOS ONE, 2023; 18 (8): e0288689
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288689

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Your Brain’s Own Cannabinoid Molecules Calm You Down

Your Brain’s Own Cannabinoid Molecules Calm You Down

by | 2023 Sep 25 | Healthy Brains, Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

Making fast and accurate decisions is the goal right?

Right. But we know from research that there is a speed/accuracy trade off i.e. the faster you make a decisions the more it is likely to be inaccurate.

 

And what has dopamine got to do with this – I thought dopamine was a reward chemical also known for the little dopamine “hits” on social media.

Yes, dopamine is related to reward – as you mentioned particularly with reward learning i.e. you do something and get a reward – in the classic rat experiments they get something to eat.

But dopamine is also involved in movement – Parkinson’s is also related to dopamine and L-Dopa the common Parkinson’s medication simply boosts dopamine. Dopamine is also considered one of the key motivation chemicals.

Ok, and what did these researchers do?

The researchers from the University of Cologne in Germany had participants (humans not rats that is!) do various computer-based reward learning tasks. They did this under various conditions with L-Dopa for example, to boost dopamine, or with placebo.

And what were the results?

By using these computer-based learning scenarios they were more accurately able to measure responses and accuracy. And indeed they noticed that dopamine did increase this speed vs accuracy divide. Meaning that dopamine increases decision-making speed but at the expense of accuracy.

Ummm that’s kind of not the best thing then!

Yes, dopamine motivates and drives action, and in this scenario it increased decision making speed. But that may not necessarily be a good things if accuracy loses.

But if you have trouble making decisions then dopamine might help?

We’re a long way from using supplements to improve decision making despite what some “biohackers” may claim. Sure, for those who can’t make decisions and for some forms of ADHD a dopamine boost may help ability to make or get to decisions, which could be very useful. But for most of us that is not the case.

And a reminder to slow down sometimes to increase accuracy?

Yes, indeed!

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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

Karima Chakroun, Antonius Wiehler, Ben Wagner, David Mathar, Florian Ganzer, Thilo van Eimeren, Tobias Sommer, Jan Peters.
Dopamine regulates decision thresholds in human reinforcement learning in males.
Nature Communications, 2023; 14 (1)
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41130-y

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How Seven Habits Boost Brain Function and Lower Depression Risk

How Seven Habits Boost Brain Function and Lower Depression Risk

by | 2023 Sep 20 | Healthy Brains, Learning Brains, Public, Quick Hits, Society Brains

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

We’re back to the debate on diversity in teams and whether this is beneficial or not?

Yes, indeed.

There are two sides to the argument: one is that lower diversity increases efficiency. Similar people may react in similar ways and understand each other better and have less conflict. The second is that diversity brings a broader set of skills, attitudes, and personalities to the table – but may cause friction and lack of agreement.

So what is it?

Well, as you know we have developed team cohesion assessments and our data shows that there seems to be a sweet spot of diversity – so maybe we should talk about optimal diversity. Note I’m talking of personality diversity here.

And is this what these researchers found?

This recently published study looked at environments that business were founded in and found that the environment defined whether diverse teams were successful or not. So it seems like the question is not whether diversity is good, but under what conditions diversity is good, or better.

Pray, explain more.

This group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Stanford University, and INSEAD looked at alumni from Stanford and found 140’000 that had started their own business and then reviewed 1’060 new ventures.

That’s a lot!

Yes, that is correct: this is a massive dataset and ranged from 1960!

Oh wow, and what did they find?

Well, they looked at “functional diversity”, not personality diversity that we measure, which is the range of roles and specialities people have. But it wasn’t a clear cut answer as to whether diverse teams were more successful.

Oh!

That is until you take the environmental conditions into account. Startups that were founded in more dynamic and chaotic times, recessions, changes in market dynamic such as the tech revolution, and had more diversity were much more likely to succeed. In contrast, in stable times team diversity was less important.

Also specifically if dynamism increased over lifetime the diverse teams were more likely to be successful. However, if dynamism decreased over lifetime then diverse teams were actually less likely to be successful.

Ummm, that kind of makes sense

Yes, when times are dynamic, the different perspectives and expertise help teams to be effective, manage the challenging times together, and even thrive. The same applies if the markets are becoming increasingly dynamic. But this diversity can be a hinderance in stable or less dynamic times.

So environments are crucial?

Yes, something that is underestimated in much business rhetoric. Functional diversity it seems, according to this research at least, is best in dynamic times only. In more stable times not so.

And how do we predict that?

Well, if I could predict that I would be a rich man – diversity may therefore be a good hedge but sometimes boring and uniform may be best also!

But what about other forms of diversity?

Gender, age, race, and others, weren’t measured here but there is plenty of evidence to show that diverse companies outperform less diverse companies. You may want to read this longer read on various forms of team performance and underrated contributions to this.

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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

Yujie Zhao, Liu Yang, Barbara J. Sahakian, et al.
The brain structure, immunometabolic and genetic mechanisms underlying the association between lifestyle and depression.
Nature Mental Health, 2023
DOI: 10.1038/s44220-023-00120-1

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How Emotional Satisfaction (not “Happiness”) Improves Students’ Grades

How Emotional Satisfaction (not “Happiness”) Improves Students’ Grades

by | 2023 Sep 1 | Healthy Brains, Learning Brains, Public, Quick Hits, Society Brains

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

 

education learning school brain

I’m not sure where to start with the above title….is happiness not key to high performance?

Well, kind of. As you may know I have done, and am in the middle of, research into emotional needs in the workplace and how this impacts performance.

Our base theory (based on others’ theories and research) is that improving emotional needs is the key to improving mental (and physical) health, life satisfaction, and also performance

So this is not a surprise to you?

No, our theory suggests that that is precisely what we should be focusing on in all areas in life. Rather than “happiness” or positive feelings (which are obviously good) focus on fulfilling emotional needs.

What did these researchers do then?

They found out precisely what we have been proposing for years.

Tania Clarke and colleagues of the University of Cambridge in the UK tracked over 600 children aged 14-15 in seven schools in the UK. These were given two assessments: one on life satisfaction which broadly relates to “happiness” and the other on “eudaimania” (I’ll call these “needs) which included aspects such as competence, motivation, self-esteem, and of ‘functioning well. These are similar to our needs in our SCOAP model.

They also measure “growth mindset” which has become a popular in educational contexts – a growth mindset means having the belief that you can grow and develop and that life is not static.

Ok, that sounds interesting – and what were the results?

First off, they had a general wellbeing score which included both life satisfaction and needs ratings and they found that this correlated strongly with performance (i.e. getting better mock exam results) even when accounting for socioeconomic differences and other factors.

So far so good – probably to be expected but good to have the scientific evidence in.

However, what was a little more surprising is that when they just looked at the life satisfaction alone there was no significant correlation to better performance. So all the difference was down to the needs.

In our language, those with high emotional needs fulfilment performed better.

That’s very interesting – why?

Well, it’s an interesting relationship and depends on what questions were asked in the assessments. But in our model, life satisfaction is driven by needs fulfillment. Just feeling good is one need but doesn’t take into account all the needs that are essential for full satisfaction and engagement. In our model it is Self-Esteem, Control (which includes autonomy and competence), Orientation, Attachment, and Pleasure.

Our research shows that these are all important and interplay to create high performance. In this context it is not a surprise that for example, competence and functioning well correlate strongly – this is enabling, which is motivating, which generates performance, which generates positive feelings and deeper satisfaction.

In short: focus on what generate happiness and satisfaction rather than the end result – and that is needs fulfillment.

What is also maybe surprising is that there was no correlation to the “growth mindset” – many people think this is important and it sounds intuitively correct. But research has been mixed over the years.

So what is the takeaway then?

There are a number of key points that are relevant for educational systems and teachers but also for business and society.

Focusing on needs is more important than happiness per se. However, this will generate happiness ultimately or life satisfaction (however, surprising that there was not a stronger correlation in this study).

Teachers then should concentrate more on these needs and educational systems should measure these rather than just the “feel good” factors. Ultimately it will all lead to the same place but the fundamentals will be in place.

The same applies to businesses – focus on needs be that leading teams or in organisational leadership. By focusing on needs you will be enabling higher performance and also building a strong foundation for satisfaction and happiness.

Sounds good to me – how competent are you feeling today?

Well, I’ve just finished this and its not even 8am so pretty good!

Well done!

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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

Reference

Tania Clarke, Ros McLellan, Gordon Harold.
Beyond Life Satisfaction: Wellbeing Correlates of Adolescents’ Academic Attainment.
School Psychology Review, 2023; 1
DOI: 10.1080/2372966X.2023.2217980

SCOAP model

Take part in German scientific validation of the SCOAP-Profile (you will spend about 30 mins answering questions but will get a free detailed report of your emotional needs)

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