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When Love Overrides Other Needs

When Love Overrides Other Needs

by | 2023 Oct 4 | Decision Making, Public, Quick Hits, Society Brains

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

Of course love overrides everything – how could you think differently?!

Well, no it wouldn’t make sense for love to override everything – we need to be alive to love. The question though, is how do competing needs play out in our brain.

If you’re thirst and hungry, or hungry and afraid, what do you prioritise and how does the brain do this?

And what’s this got to do with love?

Well, it’s not really love but potential love (or unromantically: potential mating partner) – and in this piece of research it’s in birds, zebra finches to be precise.

In birds?

Yes, it’s not just mice in neuroscience labs. Andrea Roemer et al. of Cornell University wanted to find out how needs compete with each other in animal models. There is plenty of research into motivation for single needs but little on competing needs.

“Love” is also a bit of a stretch of the imagination, or a very human interpretation. Specifically in this case brain signals of a lone male thirsty zebra finch were measured using optogenetics (i.e. very precise measurement of neuronal activity in real time).

First they were recorded as the thirsty finch was given water and trained to recognise signals for water – but then the researcher added a female zebra finch to see what would happen.

Oh, interesting and what did happen?

First off, we know that dopamine, you will have likely heard for me previously, is triggered by small rewards such as drinking and eating. Dopamine is also considered a motivation transmitter in the brain – triggering motivation to engage in an activity such as getting said drink or food. It is also involved in addiction.

The question now is does adding an extra need, or motivation, mix up dopamine systems, or switch between them, or something else. And then what is prioritised?

…and…

And when the female finch was added to the scenario what happened is that the male zebra finch, who had been trained to recognise a signal for water, ignored the signal and this was accompanied by the dopamine signal being switched off.

So the dopamine system stopped activating to thirst?

Precisely – and it is important to understand that this is biological. We often talk of “psychological” mechanisms but here we can see that this is not “psychological”, switching to another focus, but the signalling mechanism in the brain being deactivated when a new potential reward is added.

And is this really love?

Well, no. But maybe in zebra finch terms it is. What it shows is that attraction to the other sex can trump a simple emotion such as thirst – but this may depend on how severe that other need is.

But it also neatly explain some phenomenon such as how we can ignore certain needs under certain conditions – later the finch may have felt doubly thirsty because of his brain switching from one need to another.

In this case it also shows that there was no real competition in the brain – it wasn’t different dopamine networks fighting it out with each other, rather a damping of the dopamine response in one area of the brain.

It also shows that our brains are constantly rebalancing our needs according to current environmental conditions.

And that male zebra finches prioritise crumpet over other needs

Or prioritise love!

For a deep dive into the brain and love see Your Brain on Love

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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

Andrea Roeser, Vikram Gadagkar, Anindita Das, Pavel A. Puzerey, Brian Kardon, Jesse H. Goldberg.
Dopaminergic error signals retune to social feedback during courtship.
Nature, 2023
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06580-w

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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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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

Quick Hits
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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All Work And No Play, Really Does Make Jack A Dull (and Ineffective) Boy

All Work And No Play, Really Does Make Jack A Dull (and Ineffective) Boy

by | 2023 Sep 15 | Business Brains, Public, Quick Hits, Society Brains

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

There have been a few pieces of research published in recent years that support the old saying of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Or, rather, according to latest research, makes you less happy, and, more surprisingly, less effective. Which kind of seems to defeat the object of working hard. Read on:

So, isn’t working hard a good thing?

Well, of course, we all agree that a certain amount of hard work is a good thing.

And what about achieving things?

Well, sure achieving things is good. But what are you achieving is the question: if you’re just achieving more work that is hardly a recipe for happiness.

So what did these researchers find?

This study looked at attitudes to work and leisure activities in three diverse countries: India, Turkey, and the UK. But what is unique about this study is it looked at the correlations between fulfilling what they called “self-direction” values i.e. stuff that is just good for you as an individual (such as hobbies), “hedondistic values” such as working hard and earning money, and these correlated to wellbeing. What’s more this was done over nine consecutive days so they were hoping to see how fulfilment leads to further impacts on following days.

And there is an interesting twist in this!

Ooh, I love a twist, pray, tell me!

Well, let’s state something that might be obvious. Those that aimed to have more freedom and do their personal hobbies reported better sleep quality, higher life satisfaction, and lower stress and anxiety. Not bad.

This might be a good thing but some of you hard workers might also state something like, “Sure, but it won’t help you in the long run. Let’s sacrifice a bit of short-term pleasure for a long-term satisfaction.”

Admittedly this study was not a long-term study but it does show something else that was surprising:

Those people who had fulfilled their self-direction goals on one day (such as hobbies and relaxation) were more likely to fulfil their achievement goals (i.e. work-based) the next day.

This translates into looking after yourself, makes you more productive on measures that count in the workplace!

Oh wow – now that is a nice twist!

Indeed, and this is also actually obvious: if you have better sleep quality, and lower anxiety and stress, then your brain is in a much better place to be effective and productive. Something I have been preaching for years, and years!

Is this really the first time we have learnt this?

Well, no. There have been many related studies that I have also reported on. For example in one study they found that those who value working hard more are more likely to be depressed and have lower life satisfaction (this was in a cohort of students). Another looked at personality and found that there was indeed a “work hard, play hard” type of personality.

You will likely be more than aware of our work into emotional needs in the workplace – emotional need fulfilment predicts mental health very accurately – and this also translates into performance.

Kind of makes sense!

Indeed. For me it’s Friday afternoon, article finished, one more call, and then time to do something more relaxing in my current location in Nice. Happy in the knowledge that this will be good of my subsequent productivity!

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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

Paul H. P. Hanel, Hamdullah Tunç, Divija Bhasin, Lukas F. Litzellachner, Gregory R. Maio.
Value fulfillment and well‐being: Clarifying directions over time.
Journal of Personality, 2023
DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12869

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Do Conservatives and Liberals Have Moral Brains?

Do Conservatives and Liberals Have Moral Brains?

by | 2023 Sep 13 | Decision Making, Public, Quick Hits, Society Brains

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

I do have a moral brain! I do! Don’t I?

Well, we know almost all babies have moral reasoning, so I suppose you have too

Do babies have moral reasoning?

Well, depends on what you mean by moral reasoning. But I have used some of the research into babies in my workshops for years. And it is well documented that babies make moral judgments – and this is good news. It means that morality is inborn.

Great!

But there is also downside to this because babies also show in-group (those similar to yourself) preferences and this includes punishing the out-group!

Oh dear!

But that is not what the research I’m reporting on is about. This research was trying to get to the bottom of moral processing in the brain. This should answer question such as do we have a morality hub and are different moral contexts processed differently?

What about liberals and conservatives moral brains?

I’ll get on to that later.

So do we have a morality hub in the brain…and is that missing in some people?

Not really, and not really, is the answer to both questions:

These researchers from the University of California took 64 participants and gave them bunches of moral and non-moral questions to answer and also scanned their brains while doing so.

The researchers used something called the Moral Foundations Framework (MFF) which rates morality into these six groups:

  1. Issues of care and harm

  2. Concerns of fairness and cheating

  3. Liberty versus oppression

  4. Matters of loyalty and betrayal

  5. Adherence to and subversion of authority

  6. Sanctity versus degradation.

Ok, so there is more than one type of morality – what were the results?

Well, there are a few important points. First off is they noticed that moral reasoning activates regions associated with what is called theory of mind. Theory of mind is being been able to think, and feel, what other people are feeling.

Ok, that makes sense

However, moral decisions didn’t just activate the same areas as social reasoning i.e. just reasoning with and about other people. This shows that moral reasoning has its own specific structure.

What is that?

Ok, let’s get technical. The regions more associated with moral reasoning were: the medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, and posterior cingulate (amongst others).

I’ve written about these in other areas and how they relate to various social functions. However, they couldn’t see a moral hub, but more a distributed network that differs depending on the moral context.

A machine learning tool could also identify the six moral contexts mentioned above just from the brain activity patterns. This therefore suggest that those six groups of morality in the MFF are indeed separate groups.

What is also interesting is that moral situations used more processing and decisions were longer to take.

I thought they were instinctive, and therefore hard-wired, and therefore quick to process?

We could think that – but moral processing is sometimes complex because you have to take into account various questions. As the researchers noted you may need to process: who does what, when, to whom, with what effect, and why?

But some people may be more interested in what this means for politics.

Well, we all agree on morals don’t we?

Well, yes but how we prioritise them is different!

In the above six categories you can see that the first two are individualised (issues of care and harm /concerns of fairness and cheating) and the last four are group behaviours (liberty versus oppression / matters of loyalty and betrayal / adherence to and subversion of authority / sanctity versus degradation) also known as “binding” morals. They’re morals that create cohesion.

And what doe this mean?

Well, those that are based on groups use less representations of the self in the brain. But that is in brain processing.

There is bunch of evidence, also supported with this research, that liberals are more sensitive to the individual morals: care and harm and concerns of fairness and cheating. This is why they are always keen to promote individualisation and try to make the world perfect for everybody – all inclusive.

However, conservatives are much more focused on group behaviours: liberty versus oppression / matters of loyalty and betrayal / adherence to and subversion of authority / sanctity versus degradation. Their language, you will be quick to notice, reflects this.

Ahh, yes, I see what you mean!

This means that liberals and conservatives have different moral priorities and also speak across each other.

Oh dear!

Yes, oh dear! What we can see is that our brain is wired to be moral. That morality uses unique networks but we prioritise these differently.

Let’s hope we can keep these balanced!

And see my other articles on the political brain of more on the differences.

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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

Hopp, F.R., Amir, O., Fisher, J.T. et al.
Moral foundations elicit shared and dissociable cortical activation modulated by political ideology.
Nat Hum Behav (2023).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01693-8

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