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You Wake Up 100 Times Each Night – And That Helps Memory

You Wake Up 100 Times Each Night – And That Helps Memory

by | 2022 Jul 27 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

sleep brain memory

I have written numerous posts and articles on sleep and the brain (review here), and the evidence is crystal clear. Good and consistent sleep is essential to all aspects of physical and mental health.

So, this latest piece of research may come as a surprise and feels a bit strange. Specifically, researchers around Celia Kjaerby at the University of Copenhagen found that we may awaken up to 100 times per night. And counter-intuitively this may even be a sign of good night’s sleep. How that?

What these researchers found is that the refreshing part of sleep, deep sleep, is driven by waves of noradrenaline. Yes, a chemical that is normally a stimulant and highly active in arousal states. These waves wash over the brain in short bursts and awaken the brain – however we do not normally notice this because these are small bursts and do not trigger conscious awakening – but according to brain activity the brain is awake.

The researchers see this as an important aspect of sleep which helps to reset the cellular processes and the brain and helps to consolidate memory. In fact, this is precisely what the researchers found.

This research was in mice, common in neuroscience research, and they had implanted small electrodes in the brain to monitor the sleep patterns. That’s how they were able to detects these noradrenaline waves. When they actively stimulated these waves during sleep, memory improved.

This therefore shows that this process seems to be important for enabling memory consolidation. Moreover, this seems to be related to the amplitude of noradrenaline waves i.e. those with higher bursts but lower lows also showed improved memory function.

This research could also be very important information because, for example, some forms of anti-depressant increase noradrenaline but this may inhibit these waves by elevating levels and this could then stimulate memory deficits or less restful sleep.

So, we know getting a good night’s sleep is essential to health but this shows that it is more nuanced than we thought and that noradrenaline is also important for good sleep and good memory…all while waking 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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Reference

Celia Kjaerby, Mie Andersen, Natalie Hauglund, Verena Untiet, Camilla Dall, Björn Sigurdsson, Fengfei Ding, Jiesi Feng, Yulong Li, Pia Weikop, Hajime Hirase, Maiken Nedergaard. 
Memory-enhancing properties of sleep depend on the oscillatory amplitude of norepinephrine. 
Nature Neuroscience, 2022
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01102-9

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The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

by | Jul 21, 2022 | ,

Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences outlined here how recent research has shown that the brains of highly creative individuals use different networks, and this also reminded me of separate piece of research from a...

Only Three Factors Can Predict Mental Illness With 90% Accuracy

Only Three Factors Can Predict Mental Illness With 90% Accuracy

by | 2022 Jul 26 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

mental health brain

There are multiple mental disorders that can afflict us human beings. And the assumption is that these are complex in nature and there are a multitude of paths to mental illness.

However, there have been a few proposals over the years showing that it may be simpler than we think. I have worked with a model originally proposed by Klaus Grawe and he showed that almost all of well-being could be boiled down to satisfying emotional needs (or not – having needs violated). Others have made promising inroads to identifying a G-Factor – a general factor for mental health.

But this piece of research showed with high accuracy that three factors could predict any mental illness with very high accuracy.

Maisha Iqbal et al. from McGill University in Canada have identified the factors of, what they call, temperament, adversity, and dopamine.

Temperament refers to impulsivity or cognitive control, the ability to control oneself and avoid impulses. Those high on impulsivity we already know have multiple risk factors in life.

Adversity refers to trauma and negative events in life particularly in early years. Again, previous research has shown that the number and severity of early trauma has dramatic impacts on mental health in later life.

Dopamine refers to the dopamine reward pathway in the brain and individual variability in this. Of note is that though dopamine is involved in reward it is also involved in attention and therefore also control – the first point here.

These three combined can predict with 90% accuracy whether somebody has had or currently has a mental disorder. An incredibly high figure. This also points to interventions and how to predict and mitigate these factors. Some of these can be trained and developed.

This is still early days – this research does need to be built on and replicated in larger population groups but nevertheless promising and giving us clear clues as to the underlying mechanisms of mental illness and how to avoid it.

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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

Maisha Iqbal, Sylvia Maria Leonarda Cox, Natalia Jaworska, Maria Tippler, Natalie Castellanos-Ryan, Sophie Parent, Alain Dagher, Frank Vitaro, Mara R. Brendgen, Michel Boivin, Robert O. Pihl, Sylvana M. Côté, Richard E. Tremblay, Jean R. Séguin, Marco Leyton. 
A three-factor model of common early onset psychiatric disorders: temperament, adversity, and dopamine. 
Neuropsychopharmacology, 2021
DOI: 10.1038/s41386-021-01187-z

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The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

by | Jul 21, 2022 | ,

Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences outlined here how recent research has shown that the brains of highly creative individuals use different networks, and this also reminded me of separate piece of research from a...

Cooperation Amongst Strangers Is On the Rise

Cooperation Amongst Strangers Is On the Rise

by | 2022 Jul 25 | Public, Quick Hits

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

collaboration cooperation brain

Despite a belief in many that society is falling apart and becoming less caring and social this study proves the opposite.

A study published by Yuan et al. with the American Psychological Association analysed 511 studies conducted between 1956 and 2017 and including over 63’000 participants. This takes us from what many consider the Golden Age of the USA in the 1950s to the modern era. And what did they find?

They found that there was a slow but consistent increase in helping stranger and general cooperativeness over the period. This shows that in the USA a tendency to be cooperative and help strangers has increased over time. This may counteract some people’s beliefs and portrayals of polarised societies.

The authors note this correlates with certain factors such as increased urbanization, societal wealth, income inequality, and also people living alone. Each of these could contribute to increased willingness to help strangers. However, this is only a correlation and they can’t show causation – it is likely multiple reasons including the above. As people move into cities, live closer to each other but also live alone we may be more open to and willing to help others. The same applies to increased wealth giving some people the financial ability to help others particularly if there is need with income inequality.

But the most important take way is that this is good news and though we may see and be drawn to media reports of negativity and polarised anti-social behaviour in society – the fact is we (well, the USA at least) is becoming more cooperative and helpful.

And that’s good news ain’t it!

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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

Mingliang Yuan, Giuliana Spadaro, Shuxian Jin, Junhui Wu, Yu Kou, Paul A. M. Van Lange, Daniel Balliet. 
Did cooperation among strangers decline in the United States? A cross-temporal meta-analysis of social dilemmas (1956–2017).. 
Psychological Bulletin, 2022; 148 (3-4): 129
DOI: 10.1037/bul0000363

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The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

by | Jul 21, 2022 | ,

Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences outlined here how recent research has shown that the brains of highly creative individuals use different networks, and this also reminded me of separate piece of research from a...

Brain Network For Social Attraction Identified

Brain Network For Social Attraction Identified

by | 2022 Jul 22 | Public, Quick Hits

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

social brain

Humans do it. Birds do it. Fish do it. So do multitudes of other species. We flock together, come together, are attracted to our kind. We are a social species.

But the question is what makes us behave in this way. Or more specifically which brain circuits activate to make us want to do this and guide our behaviour to actually come together? This has been a mystery to researchers – but we do know of certain chemicals and hormones that drive this behaviour in human beings (see my review of oxytocin here).

Now researchers around Johannes M. Kappel at the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft have managed to identify a visual brain circuit that triggers social flocking.

They did this in zebrafish. To some people, I know, it sometimes sounds strange to use various animals to find these circuits and then apply this to human beings. But there are very good reasons for this including simplicity of brains and also ethical issues. It does also clearly identify mechanisms in the brain.

So, what did they find?

Well, the research into zebra fish larvae shows that they cannot resist being attracted to other zebra fish larvae. But this is related to how they swim; they have a particular jerky swimming motion. First off, the researchers were able to trick these larvae by replicating this swimming movement with a dot of light. And sure enough the larvae couldn’t resist following this dot around when moving in a similar jerky fashion.

They were then able to identify which specific regions were active. They found that a specific set of neurons in a region called the thalamus was responsible for this. The thalamus is a region that connects sensory signals to the rest of the brain. To see if this was indeed responsible for this, they were then able to deactivate these specific neurons, and, yes, the behaviour changed.

So we now know that a group of neurons in the thalamus responds to particularly social cues and drives behaviour to be social.

How this manifests in human beings will be more complex but those little zebra fish larvae have given us some important clues to our own social behaviours.

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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

Johannes M. Kappel, Dominique Förster, Katja Slangewal, Inbal Shainer, Fabian Svara, Joseph C. Donovan, Shachar Sherman, Michał Januszewski, Herwig Baier, Johannes Larsch. 
Visual recognition of social signals by a tectothalamic neural circuit. 
Nature, 2022
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04925-5

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The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

by | Jul 21, 2022 | ,

Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences outlined here how recent research has shown that the brains of highly creative individuals use different networks, and this also reminded me of separate piece of research from a...

The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

by | 2022 Jul 21 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

brain wave creativity

I outlined here how recent research has shown that the brains of highly creative individuals use different networks, and this also reminded me of separate piece of research from a few years ago that shows that creative brains have intriguing brain wave patterns.

In this study researchers around Caroline Di Bernardi Luft of the Queen Mary University of London found different brainwave patterns during creative thinking tasks in those who were more successful in these tasks.

What they found is that those who came up with more ideas in a creative thinking task “how many uses can you think of for a brick” or more distant relationships in associative chains e.g.  cat > dog > animal > pet > human > people > family.

So what was happening in the brain?

Well first off it is known that when doing these tasks that obvious associations are the ones that jump to mind first. The brain is designed to build associations. In the case of the brick the most obvious is to build a wall or house. But creative people seem to suppress the obvious ideas searching and enabling more creative solutions.

And indeed, the researchers found that certain brainwaves, specifically alpha oscillations, in the right temporal area of the brain, increase when individuals need to suppress obvious or misleading associations in different creative tasks.

So, it seems that alpha brain waves in this part of the brain help creatives to suppress ideas. But is this just an association or does this actively help?

The researchers then looked to see if this was indeed causal. To do this they activated study participants brains while doing tasks with a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation. This delivers a weak and safe electrical current to the brain and can stimulate various regions at various intensities.

And yes, when triggering alpha waves in the right temporal lobe participants could suppress the obvious ideas better.

So, one route to being creative is to suppress the obvious ideas that jump to mind. This is also triggered by brain waves patterns in the brain. But the good thing about this is that this can be actively trained though practising suppression or potential through neurofeedback techniques (structured brain wave training).

And that leaves me here trying to think of a non-obvious ending to this article.

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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

Caroline Di Bernardi Luft, Ioanna Zioga, Nicholas M. Thompson, Michael J. Banissy, Joydeep Bhattacharya. 
Right temporal alpha oscillations as a neural mechanism for inhibiting obvious associations. 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018; 201811465
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1811465115

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The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

by | Jul 21, 2022 | ,

Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences outlined here how recent research has shown that the brains of highly creative individuals use different networks, and this also reminded me of separate piece of research from a...

How Creative Brains Function Differently

How Creative Brains Function Differently

by | 2022 Jul 20 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

creative brain

Can you learn creativity? Well, you can learn anything, and you can certainly learn to be more creative. But the big question is do those people high in creativity have brains that function differently? There has been a bunch of research that has promoted this idea that those high in creativity do have brains that function differently but there is still a lot to learn.

To help answer this question researchers at UCLA put exceptionally creative visual artists and scientists, known as “Big C” types (selected by a panel of experts and objective criteria) – into brain scanners to try to see what was happening in their brains during creative tasks.

And what did they find?

They found that, yes, creative people do use their brains differently and in an interesting way. When the brain processes information and engages in tasks the brain tends to send all signals through standard pathways and these are connected through various “hubs” such as a region called the thalamus. However, in creative people’s brains this seems to happen differently. They connect regions of the brains without going through these hubs.

This therefore suggests that this is an inborn process – I, for example, have no idea how to connect ideas without using my thalamus!

But this piece of research was also interesting because they compared different population groups specifically visual arts and sciences but also compared this to an IQ-matched comparison group to make sure this is not just a signature of intelligence. And they also found something else interesting.

They found that these Big C creatives had more efficient local brain connections at rest but when they ramped up on creativity tasks, they used the pattern above using less efficient but more divergent routes. So, this shows two things that are happening in the brains of creatives. They have efficient local connections and divergent global connections and when they ramp up for creative tasks their networks use less efficient but more novel pathways. That’s precisely why they’re so creative.

So yes, anther one to show that truly creative people do have brains that operate differently – how much can be learned is another question – but this seems to show this is a fixed attribute. But that is another question for another day.

I’m just trying to figure out how to make my brain less efficient!

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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

Ariana Anderson, Kevin Japardi, Kendra S. Knudsen, Susan Y. Bookheimer, Dara G. Ghahremani, Robert M. Bilder. 
Big-C creativity in artists and scientists is associated with more random global but less random local fMRI functional connectivity.
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2022
DOI: 10.1037/aca0000463

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The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

The Brainwaves That Boost Creativity

by | Jul 21, 2022 | ,

Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences outlined here how recent research has shown that the brains of highly creative individuals use different networks, and this also reminded me of separate piece of research from a...