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Petting (Real) Dogs Activates the Social Brain

Petting (Real) Dogs Activates the Social Brain

by | 2022 Oct 6 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

pet dog brain social

There have been lots of studies into the positive impacts of having pets around us – but this study just published looked at brain activation patterns while being with a dog, petting a dog, and with an ersatz cuddly toy lion.

The research showed that brain activation patterns were highest when petting dogs – unsurprising because this was the most interactive condition in the study. The researchers saw increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and notably in the medial prefrontal cortex which is associated with human social functions.

More surprisingly was that the cuddly toy elicited smaller responses – obvious you may think but in this study the cuddly toy was filled with a hot water bottle to be at the same temperature as a live dog and to have a similar fur texture. This was to elicit a response as close to the real thing as possible.

The response was lowest for the cuddly lion (but it did elicit a response) – possible because of the social activation as we realise it is not a live animal.

What was also interesting is that the response for petting the dog lingered on for a lot longer than any of the other conditions.

This shows that the response is not only in the moment but also has a lasting impact – that’s one reason to have pets but also an important consideration in animal assisted clinical therapy.

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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

Rahel Marti, Milena Petignat, Valentine L. Marcar, Jan Hattendorf, Martin Wolf, Margret Hund-Georgiadis, Karin Hediger. 
Effects of contact with a dog on prefrontal brain activity: A controlled trial. 
PLOS ONE, 2022; 17 (10): e0274833
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0274833

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Metabolism Predicts Brain Health

Metabolism Predicts Brain Health

by | 2022 Oct 5 | Public, Quick Hits

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

ageing aging brain health

Understanding the link between dementia, brain health, and various metabolic disorders such as obesity is important and gives us important clues in guiding brain health particularly as we age.

Researchers around Amanda Lumsden of the University of South Australia have just published the results of a large-scale study and found some interesting corelations.

In this study they analysed data from 26,239 people in the UK Biobank and found that those with obesity related to liver stress, or to inflammation and kidney stress, had the most adverse brain findings. They measured associations of six diverse metabolic profiles and 39 cardiometabolic markers with MRI brain scan measures of brain volume, brain lesions, and iron accumulation, in order to identify early risk factors for dementia.

People with metabolic profiles linked to obesity were more likely to have adverse MRI profiles with:

    • lower hippocampal volume (key memory centre)
    • grey matter volumes (grey matter is related to general cognition)
    • greater burden of brain lesions
    • higher accumulation of iron

What was also surprising is the relationship to an individual’s Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) – the BMR is how much energy your body uses when resting. This BMR is higher in those with obesity but it sems that the BMR is more influential on adverse brain markers than anything else.

So, it seems that a better measure is the BMR – this may sound surprising i.e. using more energy while resting might sound like a good fat-burning trick but it may also represent lower activity – when we ramp up activity metabolic rate increase during activity but sinks lower while resting. This may give your cells a better rest, recovery, and reset.

So, metabolism is a better predictor of brain health – and lower resting metabolism is actually related to higher general activity. Therefore, get moving to help avoid dementia and adverse brain effects!

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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

Amanda L. Lumsden, Anwar Mulugeta, Ville Petteri Mäkinen, Elina Hyppönen.
Metabolic profile based subgroups can identify differences in brain volumes and brain iron deposition.
Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 2022
DOI: 10.1111/dom.14853

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Super Agers Have Super Neurons

Super Agers Have Super Neurons

by | 2022 Oct 3 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

aging brain neuron

SuperAgers are those who live long, over 80, but retain their cognitive functions including a healthy functioning memory and seem to avoid neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s.

Who wouldn’t want to know what is happening in their brains. But there are many questions. Is it their brain, or lifestyle, or the luck of the genetic lottery?

Well researchers around Caren Nassif of Northwestern University in the USA may have part of the answer. And this part lies in the size of neurons in specific regions of the brain.

To do this they analysed the donated brains of six SuperAgers, seven cognitively average elderly individuals, six young individuals, and also five individuals with early-stage Alzheimer’s.

They looked specifically at a part of the brain called the etorhinal cortex – this part is particularly important for the formation of memories which is why the researchers focused on this area. What they found is that this region had been spared from so-called tau tangles. These are clumps of protein which are markers of Alzheimer’s.

That is no surprise, but they noticed something that was surprising.

This was that the neurons in this particular region – actually in one of the six layers of brain cells in this region, layer two, to be precise – were larger.

Why is this important? Firstly, layer two of the layers of brain cells is the one that connects with other parts of the brain. But this size was not only larger than those with Alzheimer’s, or those of similar age but larger than those who were much younger also.

This suggests that this is not just healthy aging but a structural feature that seems more immune to aging. Avoiding those tau tangles is one thing because they become toxic and damage neurons is one thing but having big functional neurons is another thing.

So, all in, SuperAgers seem to have structural differences that enable their brains to remain highly functional in old age. In this particular case we now know what it is, and in what specific region. Whether this is in other region is an open question.

However, for those who aren’t SuperAgers, probably most of us,  a healthy lifestyle will still help to avoid the ravages of aging.

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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

Caren Nassif, Allegra Kawles, Ivan Ayala, et al.
Integrity of neuronal size in the entorhinal cortex is a biologic substrate of exceptional cognitive aging.
The Journal of Neuroscience, 2022; JN-RM-0679-22
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0679-22.2022

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How Nature Lowers Stress in Your Brain

How Nature Lowers Stress in Your Brain

by | 2022 Sep 30 | Public, Quick Hits

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

nature brain wellbeing

Does getting into the countryside really lower stress and improve wellbeing? Or is that those who enjoy the countryside feel less stressed in the countryside – but city lovers may feel less stressed in the city. It could also be that being in the countryside involves activity and exercise which we also know is beneficial so it could be the effect of movement and not nature itself.

This is a conundrum that researchers into the impacts of nature on health, wellbeing, and the brain need to try to disentangle. But first off there is plenty, and I do mean plenty, of research to show the positive effects of nature on human wellbeing and health – I regularly report on this: for example here or this one on walking in nature here.

To try to resolve some of these chicken-or-egg problems Sonja Sudimac et al. from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development conducted an interesting study. In this they compared the results of 63 people who undertook a 60-minute walk in the wood and of a 60-minute walk along the streets of Berlin.

What’s more their brains were scanned before and after both scenarios. This is unusual because almost all the research looks at subjective feelings – here the researchers could peer into the participants brains and see the difference before and after in city or in the forest.

What did they find?

The one thing they noticed is that activity decreased in a region of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is pretty well-known and is a centre in the brain that is involved in emotional processing but particularly of threat, fear, and in stress responses.

This therefore shows that brain regions associated with stress lower activation to walking in nature only and not in the city. The exercise is no doubt beneficial – the walk in the city, however, showed no increase or decrease in activity in the amygdala.

So, this is another piece of evidence but a very strong piece of evidence to show that nature can have beneficial effects – particularly in lowering stress.

The researchers are now following this up with research into how natural and urban environments impacts stress in mothers and their babies. I will be watching out for that one as well.

But for now – get yourself into nature for a walk

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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

Sonja Sudimac, Vera Sale, Simone Kühn. 
How nature nurtures: Amygdala activity decreases as the result of a one-hour walk in nature. 
Molecular Psychiatry, 2022
DOI: 10.1038/s41380-022-01720-6

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Correcting Others Improves Group Learning

Correcting Others Improves Group Learning

by | 2022 Sep 29 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

learning education brain

Recently I reported on one conundrum of learning in groups: that of optimal group formation i.e. should you group learners with similar ability or diverging ability for the best average learning outcomes.

That question seems to have been resolved. However, there remain other questions such as how does group interaction affect learning?

A recently published study by Stephanie Halmo et al. of the University of Georgia has given us some interesting new insights into this.

To do this the researchers recorded the conversation of students in breakout groups in collaborative learning tasks. They analysed the conversation and identified a number of meta-cognitive statements that helped to move learning forward these included asking for clarification, checking that the discussions and reasoning was guiding towards the actual goals of the group, but also, importantly, of correcting other students.

This correcting of other students seems to be particularly important – not just for the person being corrected but the whole groups. It is likely also the most difficult to do because of politeness or fear of conflict – yet this shows this is precisely the most important thing to do and serves the collective.

Another interesting feature and one that is counter intuitive is that long periods of silence were also indicative of better learning – in this group work we may often think of talkative groups as being the most effective but the data showed otherwise.

There could be multiple reasons for this: lack of attention, lack of deep thought, a constant barrage of chatter, etc. It goes against our intuitions because if we see groups chatting a lot, we perceive high collaboration and therefore assume effective learning. This applies to the group itself as well as the educator guiding this learning.

So, all in when learning in groups, do interact, but be thoughtful, guide towards the goal, and do correct others when suitable. That will make group learning more effective. And I’ve certainly just learned something.

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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

Stephanie M. Halmo, Emily K. Bremers, Sammantha Fuller, Julie Dangremond Stanton.
“Oh, that makes sense”: Social Metacognition in Small-Group Problem Solving.
CBE—Life Sciences Education, 2022; 21 (3)
DOI: 10.1187/cbe.22-01-0009

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Air Pollution In Childhood Changes Brain Structure

Air Pollution In Childhood Changes Brain Structure

by | 2022 Sep 28 | Public, Quick Hits

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

pollution brain

I have reported previously on the negative impact of pollution on all things the brain – but most of these studies have focused on cognitive ability – with worrying consequences with one showing measurable differences 60 year later. Yup you read that correctly.
This study, just published, by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health gives us more worrying news. They analysed exposure to pollution in the womb and in the first 8.5 years of life of 3’515 children.

Air pollution exposure was estimated based on their living location during pregnancy and their first 8.5 years of life. The children then had their brains scanned between the ages pf 9 and 12.

What did they find?

They found that there was a change in what is known as white matter microstructure. White matter generally refers to the connections between different regions of the brain. This suggests a change in connectivity.

What the also found was a change in an area known as the Putamen – this is an important hub sitting deep in the brain and is involved in many functions including motor movement. It is also associated with various psychiatric disorders. In fact, it was found that the greater to exposure to fine particle matter the greater the decrease in size of the Putamen. Worrying indeed.

What was more surprising is that in many of these cases the exposure was below EU recommended levels – the EU has pretty strict guidelines for pollution showing that even modest level so pollution can have measurable impacts on brain structure – negatively that is.

So, if you’re already an adult, as I imagine you will be. Not much you can do. But you can be careful with your own children, or grandchildren.

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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-Claire Binter, Michelle S.W. Kusters, Michiel A. van den Dries, Lucia Alonso, Małgorzata J. Lubczyńska, Gerard Hoek, Tonya White, Carmen Iñiguez, Henning Tiemeier, Mònica Guxens.
Air pollution, white matter microstructure, and brain volumes: Periods of susceptibility from pregnancy to preadolescence.
Environmental Pollution, 2022; 120109
DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2022.120109 

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