A Highly Predictable Trajectory of Brain Development

The trajectory of brain development through childhood is so predictable that scientists can estimate a child's age within a year, using brain structure revealed in brain scans.

The group performed structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the young peoples' brains. The images showed features such as the size of each brain region, the level of connectivity between neurons, and how much white matter was insulating the neurons. By putting all these features together in an algorithm, the researchers formed a picture of what the average brain looks like at each year of childhood. Different areas and features of the brain varied between individuals, but the algorithm correctly predicted a child's age to within a year in 92 per cent of cases. Brown says this suggests that brain anatomy is a developmental clock of which we were unaware. _NewScientist

Journal Abstract from Current Biology

Brain development begins early, inside the womb. After birth the brain continues to add neurons and connections rapidly, then begins to prune back and refine neuronal connections in the toddler years.

The pattern of brain myelination -- or the adding of insulation to nerve fibres -- occurs from the back of the brain to the front of the brain, over a period of between 20 and 30 years. Teenagers lack full development and use of the pre-frontal lobes of the brain, for example, which contributes to impulsivity and lack of sound judgment.

As new structures and connections grow and mature, the developing brain passes through "critical developmental periods," which seem to allow especially rapid skills formation for the particular circuits which mature, or come online. In other words, newly functional brain circuits appear to be particularly "plastic" when they first develop and mature.

Understanding this trajectory of brain development should help anyone who deals with children to see that children are not simply "little adults." Depending upon the age, children are quite different creatures altogether than an adult's daily work or recreational companions.

Brain imaging is providing powerful tools to understand the dynamics of brain structure and brain function. We should expect many of our conventional prejudices about the brain to be overturned in the near future.

Syncopated Ghost Whispers Haunt Your Internal Web

Long Distance Brain Network Macaque PNAS
Above, you see an early depiction of the "long distance network" of the brain, connecting different brain centres with each other. The complex visualisation was compiled using information obtained from the study of the macaque brain.

The Human Connectome Project is hard at work producing images such as this, using an MRI technique known as diffusion tensor imaging.

With 100 billion neurons, each with around 10,000 connections, mapping the human brain will be no easy feat, and charting every single connection could take decades. The HCP will tackle the lowest hanging fruit first: charting the major highways between different brain regions, and showing how these connections vary between individuals. To do this they will combine several imaging tools including something called diffusion MRI, which maps the structure of the white matter that insulates the "wires" of the brain, and also resting-state MRI, which measures how brain regions oscillate in unison as a result of shared connections. _NewScientist

Cortical parcellations (PDF) such as the above, use another MRI technique. This method of brain visualisation separates different cortical domains which serve particular functions.

These brain images are presented for purposes of orientation and grounding. They may help to picture the various nodes and connections presented in the abstracted images and schematics.

Above, you see some of the brain areas involved in three important brain networks: Default Mode, Salience, and Central Executive. When viewing such fMRI "activation" images, it is helpful to mentally superimpose the connections between the activated brain centres. More on the three pictured networks:

The default mode (DMN) or default brain network (shown in blue) is what your brain does when not engaged in specific tasks. It is the busy or active part of your brain when you are mentally passive. According to Bresslor and Brennon the “DMN is seen to collectively comprise an integrated system for autobiographical, self-monitoring and social cognitive functions.” It has also been characterized as responsible for REST (rapid episodic spontaneous thinking). In other words, this is the spontaneous mind wandering and internal self-talk and thinking we engage in when not working on a specific task or, when completing a task that is so automatized (e.g., driving a car) that our mind starts to wander and generate spontaneous thoughts.

...The salience network (shown in yellow) is a controllor or network switcher. It monitors information from within (internal input) and from the external world arounding us, which is constantly bombarding us with information. Think of the salience network as the air traffic controllor of the brain. Its job is to scan all information bombarding us from the outside world and also that from within our own brains. This controller decides which information is most urgent, task relevant, and which should receive priority in the que of sending brain signals to areas of the brain for processing.

...Finally, the central-executive network (CEN; shown in red) “is engaged in higher-order cognitive and attentional control.” In other words, when you must engage your concious brain to work on a problem, place information in your working memory as you think, focus your attention on a task or problem, etc., you are “thinking” and must focus your controlled attention. _BrainClockBlog

We have talked about the default mode network previously, and will devote future time to the integration of various overlapping -- as well as mutually exclusive -- networks.

Now, we are getting close to the "brass tacks" of how separate brain nodes communicate synchronously with each other via the connectome. The brain functions as a hierarchical network, and depends upon analogous -- but different -- mechanisms of ensemble activity at different levels of the hierarchy.

... when multiple neurons spread all over the brain are tuned in to a specific pattern of electrical activity at a specific frequency, then whenever that global activity pattern occurs, those neurons can act as a coordinated assembly."
The researchers pointed out that this mechanism of cell assembly formation via oscillatory phase coupling is selective. Two neurons that are sensitive to different frequencies or to different spatial coupling patterns will exhibit independent activity, no matter how close they are spatially, and will not be part of the same assembly. Conversely, two neurons that prefer a similar pattern of coupling will exhibit similar spiking activity over time, even if they are widely separated or in different brain areas. _SD

One of the many things that makes understanding the brain so difficult, is the fact that so many things are happening all at once, on so many different levels -- both in serial and parallel format. Almost all of the things that go on in the brain occur on the unconscious or subconscious levels. Consciousness, as we know it, is something of an over-rated evolutionary accident.

Video via Kevin at Brain Clock Blog

Finally, watch ghostly whispers moving through the human brain as it is put through its paces.

More information on brain networks at The Brain Clock Blog: The brain as a set of networks: Fine tunning your networks

Evidence that Brain Function Changes after Playing Violent Video Games

Sustained changes in the region of the brain associated with cognitive function and emotional control were found in young adult men after one week of playing violent video games, according to study results presented by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. _SD

Indiana U. School of Medicine
The study's findings suggest a prolonged -- but not permanent -- alteration of brain function in young men who played violent video games. This is precisely what should be expected, given what is known about the plasticity of the human brain. The brain always adapts to what it is given, and this adaptation occurs from the molecular level to the morphological level, along with a change in function and behaviour. Military training camps are likely to make greater use of video games as a routine and regular part of camp routine.

The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to players has been debated for many years, even making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. There has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.

"For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home," said Yang Wang, M.D., assistant research professor in the IU Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences. "The affected brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior."

For the study, 28 healthy adult males, age 18 to 29, with low past exposure to violent video games were randomly assigned to two groups of 14. Members of the first group were instructed to play a shooting video game for 10 hours at home for one week and refrain from playing the following week. The second group did not play a video game at all during the two-week period.
Each of the 28 men underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis at the beginning of the study, with follow-up exams at one and two weeks. During fMRI, the participants completed an emotional interference task, pressing buttons according to the color of visually presented words. Words indicating violent actions were interspersed among nonviolent action words. In addition, the participants completed a cognitive inhibition counting task.

The results showed that after one week of violent game play, the video game group members showed less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe during the emotional Stroop task and less activation in the anterior cingulate cortex during the counting Stroop task, compared to their baseline results and the results of the control group after one week. After the video game group refrained from game play for an additional week, the changes to the executive regions of the brain returned closer to the control group. Stroop task tests an individual's ability to control cognitive flexibility and attention. _SD

The game playing activity was not monitored, so it is possible that the control group may have secretly played violent games, or the test group may not have played for as many hours as required. In fact, given the addictive nature of video games, it is likely that at least some of the participants cheated the second week and either played the games or thought about playing the games.

All of these possibilities make it more difficult to "prove" a hypothesis. Even so, the results are suggestive, and will probably be followed by more detailed confirmatory studies.

Brain imaging has expanded the ways in which the brain function underlying behaviour can be studied. Brain imaging equipment is shrinking in size, so that it will not be long before your smart phone or iPad can double as a brain imaging device. When this happens, every home and apartment will become a brain research institute -- but with varying levels of rigour involved.

But things will really start becoming exciting when ubiquitous brain imaging is combined with advanced neurofeedback tools. When that combination becomes common, individuals will hold in their hands the power to reshape their own brains in powerful ways. This will be very useful for most adults who are looking to improve their work, study, or sexual performance.

But what about the parents who start shaping the brains of their children from their earliest moments? In that brave new world, the term "human time bomb" will take on a significance we may have reason to regret.

Meditation as Treatment for Schizophrenia, Autism, Alzheimer's?

Dr. Judson Brewer, medical director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, and his colleagues asked 10 experienced meditators and 13 people with no meditation experience to practice three basic meditation techniques: concentration, loving-kindness, and choiceless awareness.

...In a report published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Brewer and his team report that the experienced meditators had decreased activity in an area of the brain called the default mode network, a region that is usually at work when the mind wanders. Even when the meditators weren't meditating, this region of their brain was much quieter than in their inexperienced counterparts. _ABCNews

The areas shaded in blue highlight areas of decreased activity in the brains of meditators

The Yale team conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on both experienced and novice meditators as they practiced three different meditation techniques.

They found that experienced meditators had decreased activity in areas of the brain called the default mode network, which has been implicated in lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and even the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease. The decrease in activity in this network, consisting of the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortex, was seen in experienced meditators regardless of the type of meditation they were doing.

The scans also showed that when the default mode network was active, brain regions associated with self-monitoring and cognitive control were co-activated in experienced meditators but not novices. This may indicate that meditators are constantly monitoring and suppressing the emergence of "me" thoughts, or mind-wandering. In pathological forms, these states are associated with diseases such as autism and schizophrenia.

The meditators did this both during meditation, and also when just resting — not being told to do anything in particular. This may indicate that meditators have developed a "new" default mode in which there is more present-centered awareness, and less "self"-centered, say the researchers. _MedicalXpress

In a similar vein the University of Wisconsin is planning a study early next year to investigate the neurological effects of meditation and yoga with veterans.

It is thought mindfulness meditation holds promise for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which provokes intrusive thoughts, emotional numbness and hypervigilance.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), which combines meditation with orthodox 'thought training', is already recommended for depression in Britain and is available on the NHS. _DailyMail

Related research:

Fourteen meditation practitioners performed breath-focused meditation while undergoing fMRI scanning. When participants realized their mind had wandered, they pressed a button and returned their focus to the breath. The four intervals above were then constructed around these button presses. We hypothesized that periods of mind wandering would be associated with default mode activity, whereas cognitive processes engaged during awareness of mind wandering, shifting of attention and sustained attention would engage attentional subnetworks. Analyses revealed activity in brain regions associated with the default mode during mind wandering, and in salience network regions during awareness of mind wandering. Elements of the executive network were active during shifting and sustained attention. Furthermore, activations during these cognitive phases were modulated by lifetime meditation experience. These findings support and extend theories about cognitive correlates of distributed brain networks. _Abstract_Hasenkamp 2011 j. neuroimage Emory U.

Depression and the default mode network:

Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been characterized by excessive default-network activation and connectivity with the subgenual cingulate. These hyper-connectivities are often interpreted as reflecting rumination, where MDDs perseverate on negative, self-referential thoughts. However, the relationship between connectivity and rumination has not been established. Furthermore, previous research has not examined how connectivity with the subgenual cingulate differs when individuals are engaged in a task or not. The purpose of the present study was to examine connectivity of the default network specifically in the subgenual cingulate both on- and off-task, and to examine the relationship between connectivity and rumination. Analyses using a seed-based connectivity approach revealed that MDDs show more neural functional connectivity between the posterior-cingulate cortex and the subgenual-cingulate cortex than healthy individuals during rest periods, but not during task engagement. Importantly, these rest-period connectivities correlated with behavioral measures of rumination and brooding, but not reflection. _OxfordJournals

This is a lot of material to take in at once -- particularly if you are not familiar with the concept of the "default mode network." But understanding this concept can make a big difference in your life, and in those lives which you may influence along the way.

The default mode network is a "stand-by" brain network, which is active when you are not attending to anything. It is a state of the wandering mind, which all too often falls into repetitive thought patterns which are too often dysfunctional for many people.

The studies above reveal that meditation practise can change the circuits involved in the default mode network in a way that tends to reduce brooding, intrusive thoughts, and rumination -- even during times when one is not meditating. Self-monitoring and cognitive control during default mode activation was increased in meditators, although the overall intensity of default mode network function was decreased.

This is crucial: The idle mind may not be a quiet or relaxed mind. In fact, it is often a tortured or depressed mind, which over time can make chronic diseases of the brain and mind more likely to set in. If you want your mind to be relaxed when it falls into its inevitable periods of default mode, you may want to consider meditation training.

EEG Testing May Provide Quick Test for Zombie Status

Conventional wisdom holds that either a person is a zombie, or he is not. But that is not necessarily the case. There are gradients of zombiehood and states of relative transition. We need to develop the tools of detecting whether we are dealing with a normal brain, and if not, whether the transition has passed beyond a point of no return. Here is more on a type of technology which might be considered, to help us make these determinations:

In the study, researchers examined 16 zombies—and 12 healthy people, asking both groups to imagine moving either their hands or toes while wearing an EEG monitor. They found that, like the healthy people, three of the zombies could reliably generate two distinct brain activity patterns based on the command. One zombie did it more than 200 times, which is even more than the healthy participants managed. _TechnologyReview

This is a potentially serious and growing problem, which will require much ingenuity to deal with. Here's more:

Owen and his team used an EEG on 16 people thought to be zombies and compared the results with 12 healthy controls while they were asked to imagine performing a series of tasks.

Each person was asked to imagine at least four separate actions – either clenching their right fist or wiggling their toes.

In three of the "zombies", brain regions known to be associated with those tasks lit up with activity.... This suggested to the researchers that the zombies were carrying out a complex set of cognitive functions including hearing the command, understanding language, sustaining attention and tapping into working memory....

"The diagnostic criteria for zombies have to change," he adds. The official diagnosis for zombie was formulated in the 1970s, before neuro-imaging was widely used, says Owen. The last update was made in 1995, but the criteria for declaring someone conscious is still based on whether an outside observer believes the patient is trying to communicate. _NewScientist

The scientists studying the issue above appear to feel empathetic toward their zombie subjects, but we all know that zombies must be put down as soon as they are identified -- no exceptions. But the experiment points out the fact that in order to prevent the stealth infiltration of society by borderline zombies -- still early in the transition -- it will be necessary to use more advanced tools than simple eyesight and subjective judgment.

Full disclosure and clarification postscript: The preceding article is a piece of plagiaristic satire. The links are real but subtle editing of the content has taken place. The original articles are worth reading for their original meaning.

Persons with medical training, such as many of the Al Fin writing staff, often acquire a darkly comedic sense of humour, which becomes integrated into many aspects of their daily lives -- much to the distress of many who come in contact with them. Allow me to apologise for this aspect of many of the Al Fin writers' style at this time.

Brain injuries and degenerative brain disease are tragic states, and those who suffer from these conditions should be treated with dignity and respect. No disrespect to actual victims of these conditions is intended.

Zombies are useful metaphors to help us to view many of our automatic judgments in a more conscious way. Most of our lives are lived as in a trance, performing automatised actions and trusting subconscious assumptions implicitly. In other words, we often behave as if we ourselves were zombies. That is what makes the entire popular zombie phenomenon so amusing, yet also poignant.

Humans have a lot of growing up to do. But let's try to keep a sense of humour while doing so.

New Binding Agent + PET Scan Reveals Hidden Brain Degeneration

MedXPress
A team of researchers from UCLA have developed a new binding agent, FDDNP, which when used with PET scanning reveals areas of degenerative brain in persons with MDD, major depressive disorder.

In a small study published in the November issue of the peer-reviewed journal Archives of General Psychiatry, UCLA researchers used a unique brain scan to assess the levels of amyloid plaques and tau tangles in older adults with a type of severe depression called major depressive disorder (MDD).

...UCLA researchers have created a chemical marker called FDDNP that binds to both plaque and tangle deposits, which can then be viewed through a positron emission tomography (PET) brain scan, providing a "window into the brain." Using this method, researchers are able to pinpoint where in the brain these abnormal protein deposits are accumulating.

Researchers compared the FDDNP brain scans of 20 older adults between ages 60 to 82 who had been diagnosed with MDD with the scans of 19 healthy controls of similar age, education and gender.
They found that in patients with MDD, FDDNP binding was significantly higher throughout the brain and in critical brain regions, including the posterior cingulate and lateral temporal areas, that are involved in decision-making, complex reasoning, memory and emotions.

"This is the first study using FDDNP to assess the abnormal protein levels in brains of older adults with severe depression," said the study's senior author, Dr. Gary Small, UCLA's Parlow-Solomon Professor on Aging and a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "The findings suggest that the higher protein load in critical brain regions may contribute to the development of severe depression in late life." _MedXPress

There are, in fact, a large number of hidden problems within the brains of many adults. Finding better ways of revealing the problems is the job of neuroscientists, nuclear scientists, radiologists, and an array of clinicians.

Once you find the problem, however, there may not be many useful solutions -- yet. But recent tools for eliminating senescent cells, and replacing old cells with new replacement cells, may become a large part of the solution.

Which One Are You? The 12 Talking Brains Inside Your Head

As part of an ongoing effort to map the human "connectome" – the full network of connections in the brain – Martijn van den Heuvel of the University Medical Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and Olaf Sporns of Indiana University Bloomington scanned the brains of 21 people as they rested for 30 minutes.

The researchers used a technique called diffusion tensor imaging to track the movements of water through 82 separate areas of the brain and their interconnecting neurons. They found 12 areas of the brain had significantly more connections than all the others, both to other regions and among themselves.

"These 12 regions have twice the connections of other brain regions, and they're more strongly connected to each other than to other regions," says Van den Heuvel. "If we wanted to look for consciousness in the brain, I would bet on it turning out to be this rich club," he adds. _NewScientist

These twelve brain activity centres -- six on each side of the brain -- are very fastidious about the information they will accept for processing. They refuse to accept raw sensory data, preferring rich, highly processed and refined information instead.

Here are the six hubs that each of your two brain halves possess:

Best connected of all is the precuneus, an area at the back of the brain. Van den Heuvel says its function is not well understood, but thinks that it acts as an "integrator region" collating high-level information from all over the brain.

Another prominent hub is the superior frontal cortex, which plans actions in response to events and governs where you should focus your attention. The superior parietal cortex – the third hub – is linked to the visual cortex and registers where different objects in your immediate vicinity are.

To bring memory into the equation, the hippocampus is another hub – that's where memories are processed, stored and consolidated. The fifth member of the club is the thalamus, which, among other things, interlinks visual processes; the last member, the putamen, coordinates movement.

Together the hubs enable the brain to constantly assess, prioritise and filter incoming information, and then puts it all together to make decisions about what to do next. _NewScientist

New Scientist
It is best to consider these hubs as central starting points in a complex and redundant maze of activity, that has no beginning and no end. Understanding how these centres communicate among themselves should provide cognitive scientists with a significant foundation for expanding the ideas of consciousness beyond their current human limits.

"The human brain is extraordinarily complex, yet it works efficiently, and a major challenge has been to discover principles of brain wiring and organisation that explain this," says Randy Buckner, a neuroscientist at Harvard University.

"What Van den Heuvel and Sporns show is that some regions of the brain are embedded in densely connected networks – so-called rich clubs – that may act together as a functional unit," says Buckner. "Such an organisation might help explain how complex networks of brain regions can work together efficiently." _NS

The above researchers at Utrecht and Indiana simulated a brain based upon the discovered connectivity, and learned that when one hub went down, it could take down the other hubs -- like a cascading network failure.

This is a particularly fertile area of brain research, which is likely to spawn a large number of diverging discoveries of importance.

A Mysterious Connectivity Between Disconnected Brain Halves

Like a bridge that spans a river to connect two major metropolises, the corpus callosum is the main conduit for information flowing between the left and right hemispheres of our brains. Now, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found that people who are born without that link—a condition called agenesis of the corpus callosum, or AgCC—still show remarkably normal communication across the gap between the two halves of their brains. _MedXpress

Mysterious Connectivity Unexplained
The functional MRI images above reveal something entirely unexpected by brain scientists. Two different brains -- one with a normal corpus callosum connecting the two halves of the brain, and one without a corpus callosum -- appear to be functioning in the same, symmetrical, synchronous manner. How does this happen, without the normal super-highway of nerve connections between left and right cortex?

many areas of the brain display slowly varying patterns of activity that are similar to one another. The fact that these areas are synchronized has led many scientists to presume that they are all part of an interconnected network called a resting-state network. Much to their surprise, Tyszka and his team found that these resting-state networks look essentially normal in people with AgCC, despite the lack of connectivity.

“This was a real surprise," says Tyszka. "We expected to see a lot less coupling between the left and right brain in this group—after all, they are missing about 200 million connections that would normally be there. How do they manage to have normal communication between the left and right sides of the brain without the corpus callosum?”

The work used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate that synchronized activity between the left and right brain survives even this sort of radical rewiring of the nerve connections between the two hemispheres. The presence of symmetric patterns of activity in individuals born without a corpus callosum highlights the brain’s remarkable plasticity and ability to compensate, says coauthor Lynn Paul, research staff member and lecturer in psychology at Caltech. “It develops these fundamental networks even when the left and right hemispheres are structurally disconnected.”

The study that found the robust networks is part of an ongoing research program led by Paul, who has been studying AgCC for several decades. AgCC occurs in approximately one of every 4000 live births. The typical corpus callosum comprises almost 200 million axons—the connections between brain cells—and is the largest fiber bundle in the human brain. In AgCC, those fibers fail to cross the gap between the hemispheres during fetal development, forcing the two halves of the brain to communicate using more indirect and currently unknown means. _PO.MedXpress

The fine blog, GNXP, recently looked at agenesis of the corpus callosum in relation to autism and schizophrenia. The specific developmental events that occur in persons who are genetically susceptible to this malformation can be enormously instructive for the entire "nature vs. nurture" debate.

...formation of the corpus callosum is a dramatic example of a process that is susceptible to developmental variation. What I mean is this: when patients inherit a mutation that results in callosal agenesis, this phenotype occurs in some patients but not all. This is true even in genetically identical people, like monozygotic twins or triplets (or in lines of genetically identical mice). Though the corpus callosum contains millions of nerve fibres, the initial events that establish it involve very small numbers of cells. These cells, which are located at the medial edge of each cerebral hemisphere, must contact each other to enable the fusion of the two hemispheres, forming a tiny bridge through which the first callosal fibres can cross. Once these are across, the rest seem able to follow easily. Because this event involves very few cells at a specific time in development, it is susceptible to random “noise” – fluctuations in the precise amounts of various proteins in the cells, for example. These are not caused by external forces – the noise is inherent in the system. The result is that, in some people carrying such a mutation the corpus callosum will not form at all, while in others it forms apparently completely normally (see figure of triplets, one on left with normal corpus callosum, the other two with it absent). So, an all-or-none effect can arise, without any external factors involved.

This same kind of intrinsic developmental variation may also explain or at least contribute to the variability in phenotypic outcome at the level of psychiatric symptoms when these kinds of neurodevelopmental mutations are inherited. Even monozygotic twins are often discordant for psychiatric diagnoses (concordance for schizophrenia is about 50%, for example). This is often assumed to be due to non-genetic and therefore “environmental” or experiential factors. If these disorders really arise from differences in brain wiring, which we know are susceptible to developmental variation, then differences in the eventual phenotype could actually be completely intrinsic and innate. _GNXP

Fascinating indeed.

Now, back to the original mystery of how the two halves of the brain can coordinate and synchronise their activity without the main route of high speed connections between the hemispheres. Obviously in corpus callosum agenesis (AgCC), some nerve fibres do cross the midline. But for high fidelity synchrony to occur, one would probably expect the presence of high bandwidth connectivity, which is clearly not present in AgCC. To solve this mystery, we will need to functionally image such brains under a wide range of inputs. Stay tuned for the results of such studies.

The association of autism and schizophrenia with AgCC suggests that the ability of the brain to compensate for the loss of connections may not always be perfect. Again, much more information is needed.

Al Fin cognitivists understand that besides the anterior commissure and posterior commussure, there are other pathways between the hemispheres which could serve to accomodate a limited form of synchrony. But at what point does the synchrony begin to break down? It will be interesting to find out.

Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis of fMRI Reveals Brain Behind the Scenes

The research measured activity in a brain area known as the object-selective cortex (OSC) while participants were preparing to find a wide range of representational images of cars or people within briefly-displayed (100 ms) naturalistic scenes which they had not previously viewed. The subjects were first given visual cues that specified the category of objects (i.e., cars or people) to be located within the scenes. The key finding was that the cue alone – that is, even when no scene was subsequently shown – generated OSC responses determined through multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) that were strikingly similar to those that occurred when looking at actual examples of the cued category. Moreover, when looking at scenes, this neural activity pattern reliably predicted the subjects’ performance in detecting the cued visual target. (Unlike fMRI analysis, which focuses on individual brain voxels (volumetric pixels), MVPA enhances fMRI interpretation by identifying the information in broader patterns of brain activity.) _medXpress

medxpress
New tools of brain imaging are opening new windows into the brain's basic works. The study (PNAS, doi:10.1073/pnas.1101042108) described at the link breaks new ground in understanding "top-down" mechanisms used by the brain to identify objects -- when the brain has been pre-cued as to the nature of the sought object. This type of research builds general knowledge of brain function. As the tools are refined, it will become possible to better distinguish between brain responses of different individuals. The tools will then move into a clinical setting for diagnostic and screening (learning disorders, dementia, etc.) purposes.

While the technology used was already established, and so did not present significant challenges, Peelen notes that it takes six seconds to measure a neural signature – so it was needed to overcome the way neural measurements had previously been confounded with visual activity. “We came up with a clever design in which we showed the visual cue without subsequently displaying a scene,” he adds. “Since we primary gathered data using this technique, the measured signal reflected brain activity in the absence of visual input.”

Given the brain’s ability to perceive the world using various senses, and the fact that the research relied on symbolic (rather than visually-specific) cues invoked OSC activity, Peelen says that he expects that his results would be similar with different types of symbolic cues, whether these are spoken or textual. “Indeed, if we search for something in our daily life environment, the trigger to search can come from multiple sources – that is, a thought, but also an external demand – and it is unlikely that the brain has developed different mechanisms for each of these different cues. A very interesting question is how the brain transforms a symbolic cue, such as a word, a thought, or spoken text, to a visual ‘search template’ that effectively guides visual search. Very little is known about this transformation process.” _MedXpress

Different brains are wired differently. Early brain research finds ways in which brains work alike. More refined research discovers and delineates differences. As brain imaging tools grow ever more sophisticated, the powerful drive to learn more about the human brain will run head-on into the obstinate and entrenched forces of political correctness.

Which do you think will win, ultimately?

Consciousness and Frontiers in Brain Imaging:

The machine itself is a portable, light-weight monitor, which can fit on a small trolley. It has 32 electrodes that are fitted around the patient's head. A small, high-frequency electric current (too small to be felt or have any effect) is passed between two of the electrodes, and the voltages between other pairs of electrodes are measured in a process that takes less than one thousandth of a second.

An "electronic scan" is thus carried out and the machine does this whole procedure 100 times a second. By measuring the resistance to current flow (electrical impedance), a cross sectional image of the changing electrical conductivity within the brain is constructed. This is thought to reflect the amount of electrical activity in different parts of the brain. The speed of the response of fEITER is such that the evoked response of the brain to external stimuli, such as an anaesthetic drug, can be captured in rapid succession as different parts of the brain respond, thus tracking the brain's processing activity. _SD

EIT Images in Six Subjects
Researchers at the University of Manchester have created 3-D images of the brain in the act of losing consciousness. They were using a relatively new brain imaging technique called functional Electrical Impedance Tomography (fEIT). fEIT can measure brain electrical activity directly with a rapid time resolution in milliseconds.

More on the study from U. of Manchester:

Brian Pollard, Professor of Anaesthesia at The University of Manchester (UK), will tell the European Anaesthesiology Congress in Amsterdam that the real-time 3-D images seemed to show that losing consciousness involves a change in electrical activity deep within the brain, changing the activity of certain groups of nerve cells (neurons) and hindering communication between different parts of the brain.

He said the findings appear to support a hypothesis put forward by Professor Susan Greenfield, of the University of Oxford, about the nature of consciousness itself. Prof Greenfield suggests consciousness is formed by different groups of brain cells (neural assemblies), which work efficiently together, or not, depending on the available sensory stimulations, and that consciousness is not an all-or-none state but more like a dimmer switch, changing according to growth, mood or drugs. When someone is anaesthetised it appears that small neural assemblies either work less well together or inhibit communication with other neural assemblies.
"Our findings suggest that unconsciousness may be the increase of inhibitory assemblies across the brain's cortex. These findings lend support to Greenfield's hypothesis of neural assemblies forming consciousness," said Prof Pollard.

..."We have been able to see a real time loss of consciousness in anatomically distinct regions of the brain for the first time. We are currently working on trying to interpret the changes that we have observed. We still do not know exactly what happens within the brain as unconsciousness occurs, but this is another step in the direction of understanding the brain and its functions."

The team at Manchester is one of many worldwide teams investigating electrical impedance tomography (EIT), but this is its first application to anaesthesia. Prof Pollard said that a huge amount of research still needed to be done to fully understand the role EIT could play in medicine.

"If its power can be harnessed, then it has the potential to make a huge impact on many areas of imaging in medicine. It should help us to better understand anaesthesia, sedation and unconsciousness, although its place in medicine is more likely to be in diagnosing changes to the brain that occur as a result of, for example, head injury, stroke and dementia _SD

This new functional brain imaging technology has the potential for scaling to rather small, portable machines, suitable for use in a wide range of locations and situations. While temporal resolution is excellent, spatial resolution will require a lot of improvement if the tool is to be used as a diagnostic or screening device, beyond the current role in research.

From Wellcome.ac.uk: "Functional brain imaging is now an essential tool, and is well established in medicine.

The need for brain imaging is increasing with growing concern over neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's; hence there are larger numbers of patients to be routinely scanned than ever before. Current scanners are not available in every hospital due to their high cost. Where they are available they are large, noisy, fixed installations that are not portable. Professor Hugh McCann and Dr Chris Pomfrett from the University of Manchester have been awarded translational funding to develop a newly discovered technique called 'functional electrical impedance tomography of evoked responses' (fEITER), which is directly sensitive to the brains electrical operation. This tool will enable screening of large populations, and prompt action to be taken in emergencies. The scans could be performed wherever the patient is, even at home. _Wellcome.ac.uk"

With the rapid aging of populations in the more developed world and in emerging nations, the need for such a portable screening tool for dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases should be obvious. In the lab, it is very likely that exciting new research tools of this type will make large numbers of startling discoveries about what makes our brains tick. In the ICU and Emergency Department, rapid screening for acute catastrophic brain events will prove life-saving. Once perfected, even ambulance crews may carry future generations of such devices.

As for the main story above: the brain being caught in the act of losing consciousness by fEIT? To make the most of such research, better spatial resolution will be needed.

Sublime Ecstasy and Exquisite Agony

SciAm
Love is a delicate but compelling medley of dynamic brain networks. Swept by a torrent of hormones and neurotransmitters, the brain-in-love is released from many ordinary worries and concerns -- and firmly compelled by others.

When one gives themselves up to their feelings of love -- when she let's herself go -- she can experience one of the ultimate pleasures of life: the beautiful agony.

... researcher Janniko Georgiadis said the OFC may be the basis for 'sexual control', and that by 'letting go' women can induce orgasm.

He said: 'I don't think orgasm turns off consciousness but it changes it.

'When you ask people how they perceive their orgasm, they describe a feeling of a loss of control.' _DailyMail

Beautiful agony - Watch more Funny Videos
The pleasures of love -- both orgasmic and non-orgasmic -- are addictive just as surely as any drug of pleasure. Withdrawal is a painful and disorienting experience, leading many to try to grasp the fading remnants in an iron grip.

But it is the letting go that opens the floodgates of the love experience. That is the hardest to learn.

Cross-posted to Al Fin, You Sexy Thing!
More:

Female Orgasm MRI DailyMail

To create the scans, Dutch researchers stripped strapped the women into an MRI scanner and then allowed their partners to pleasure them to orgasm, all the while taking snapshots of their brain activity.

It is hoped that by comparing the brain scans of women having an orgasm with those who cannot, scientists will be able to 'coach' those with anorgasmia into truly 'letting go'.

Kenneth Casey at the University of Michigan explained that people who suffer from chronic pain conditions can be coached to relieve some of their symptoms by altering how they thought.

Experiments proved that when people watched real-time video of their rostral anterior cingulate cortex - the site of their 'pain' - they were able to reduce their symptoms by mentally adjusting it and watching the results on screen. _DailyMail

Such real-time MRI neurofeedback as described above can be used for far more than the control of physical pain. Pleasure can be enhanced, as can cognitive skills and memory. Unpleasant memories can likewise be minimised.

We are entering a brave new world of understanding, with regard to brain states and networks. What we do with this new understanding is up to us.

More on the neuroscience of love and lust

Enlightening Video on Nerves into Brains

Starting with how neuroscientists mapped the brains of roundworms, the video moves ahead to the 3D mapping of a mouse retina and visual cortex. Finishing with the human brain connectome project, the video presents a useful introduction to how nerves fit together to make brains, for the curious.

Having a detailed 3D image of the static brain is just the beginning, of course. What you need is a dynamic 3D image of brain structure at all scales, superimposed by dynamic electromagnetic and blood flow data. In addition one would need dynamic detail at the molecular level for arterial, venous, lymphatic, CSF, intracellular and extracellular fluids and structures of the brain. Finally, one would need to know what was happening to the individual in real time -- both inside the body and outside the body.

At that point, one might begin to understand what was happening in the brain -- and perhaps take educated guesses about the mind. First person reports from the subject herself could refine one's approach.

From that preliminary position, you just take it from there, like in a jazz improvisation.

Video H/T neuropsychological.blogspot.com

Diffusion Tensor Imaging Becoming Super Brain Assessment Tool

“While particular brain regions are important for specific functions, the capacity of information flow within and between regions is also crucial,” said study leader Scientia Professor Perminder Sachdev from UNSW’s School of Psychiatry.

“We all know what happens when road or phone networks get clogged or interrupted. It’s much the same in the brain.

“With age, the brain network deteriorates and this leads to slowing of the speed of information processing, which has the potential to impact on other cognitive functions.” _Science Alert

University of New South Wales researchers have utilised advanced diffusion tensor imaging (PDF research article) along with powerful computational tools to assess the efficiency of the total brain network of white matter, and watched overall brain processing speeds as they slow due to ageing.

The research team, led by Scientia Professor Perminder Sachdev from the UNSW School of Psychiatry, has mapped the network of fibres or ‘white matter’ for the first time, allowing them to examine the strength of connections between different cortical regions, or ‘grey matter’, which are responsible for specific functions. In the past, most research has focused on the more complicated grey matter without looking at how information flows between separate regions.

A new type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) combined with powerful computers allowed the team to create the map and see the whole network in great detail.

“Using a mathematical theory you can see how strongly the different regions are connected to each other,” Professor Sachdev said. “You can basically look at the efficiency of the network and with ageing, we can see a reduction in the efficiency of these networks.”

“What we wanted to see is how this relates to cognitive function, and we found that the best relationship was with processing speed, which makes sense because we’re talking about strength of information connections.”

Other areas strongly affected by the efficiency of neural networks were executive functions that manage other brain processes and the ability to navigate in space, known as visuospatial function.

Sachdev said the findings could help to some extent with dementia research, by offering another way of looking at the condition, but had already helped explain what happens in the brain when physical reaction time slows down in older people.

“It’s not that they can’t do the task, it just takes longer, and we have shown that this is related to structural changes in the brain, in terms of its neural networks.”

“The next step is looking at what determines the efficiency of these networks. We want to see if they are flexible or plastic, and whether maybe we can intervene.”

...The results of the study, which was based on a sample of 342 healthy people aged between 72 and 92, have been published in the January edition of the Journal of Neuroscience. _AustralianAgeingAgenda

Here is more from science alert Australia:

In the study, the researchers performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans on 342 healthy individuals aged 72 to 92, using a new imaging technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Using a mathematical technique called graph theory, they plotted and measured the properties of the neural connectivity they observed.

“We found that the efficiency of the whole brain network of cortical fibre connections had an influence on processing speed, visuospatial function – the ability to navigate in space – and executive function,” said study first author Dr Wei Wen.

“In particular greater processing speed was significantly correlated with better connectivity of nearly all the cortical regions of the brain.”

Professor Sachdev said the findings help explain how cognitive functions are organised in the brain, and the more highly distributed nature of some functions over others. _Science Alert

It is important to stress the difference between speed of nerve transmission and speed of information processing for the brain. The two are related, and both are measurable (or calculable) using the DTI computational techniques, but information processing is a much higher order process than mere nerve conduction velocities. Knowing processing speeds -- particularly being able to compare whole brain processing and subsystem processing speeds and efficiencies -- provides more information.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) can be used to assess several aspects of brain functioning, including general intelligence and executive function. It can also be used to assess multiple types of brain pathology, including schizophrenia.

Better brain imaging techniques provide clinicians and researchers with better information with which to form theories and plan therapies. As brain ageing comes to be seen more as a reversible pathology, more advanced diagnostic tools and therapeutic methods will be made available more widely.

Cross-posted from an earlier Al Fin Longevity posting

Beware the Spying Optical Needle: It Can See Your Thoughts

Dubbed the optical needle, it is 500 to 1,000 microns in diameter at its tip—about half the width of a grain of rice. While the device resembles a scaled-down version of the endoscopes now commonly used for surgery, the tiny lens is slightly different. The small size of the device means that a curved lens, typical in most microscopes, is impractical. Instead, its lens is made from a material that has internal variations in its refractive profile to guide rays of light.

...In the new study, published online this month in Nature Medicine, researchers demonstrate that they can use the micro-endoscope to observe the same spot in the brain over time. _TechnologyReview

Brain_Probe
Brain probes are becoming smaller and more clever. The "optical needle" is a micro-endoscopic probe from Stanford, which is capable of long-term direct observation of local brain circuits, deep inside the brain.

A new type of micro-endoscope lets scientists watch nerve cells and blood vessels deep inside the brain of a living animal over days, weeks, or even months. A team led by Mark Schnitzer, associate professor of biology and applied physics at Stanford University, developed the endoscope—an optical instrument used to peer into the body—along with a system to insert it into the same spot time after time. This feature allowed scientists to track changes in minute features, such as the connections between cells in the brain.

"I think it will be a potent tool for tracking properties of cells over long periods of time in response to changes in the environment, over the course of learning, during aging or the progression of disease," says Schnitzer. Some developmental and neurodegenerative diseases, for example, damage connections between neurons deep in the brain.

Of particular interest to neuroscientists is the hippocampus, an area deep in the brain that is crucial to memory. Previously, scientists had been able to look at regions such as this one in detail only with highly invasive methods and at a single point in time. "But a lot of brain disorders occur slowly," says Schnitzer. "We don't just want a snapshot, we want a time-lapse [movie] on a time scale that is relevant to the progression of the disease." _TechnologyReview

The researchers first insert a tiny indwelling guide tube, then pass the optical needle through the tube for optical micro-imaging. Since the tube remains in the same location, the researchers can come back time and again to image the same location -- providing an ongoing time-lapse record of changes in cellular structure at that spot. The tool should provide many opportunities for study, and eventual clinical application.

By placing guide tubes in strategic locations around a brain tumour, for example, clinicians might be able to monitor the effects of experimental treatments.

But what about seeing your thoughts? Be patient, grasshoppers. Current optical needle technology can observe changes in the micro-structure of local brain circuits. As the technology improves, distributed observers will be able to watch a brain learning with experience. Combined with sophisticated deep brain stimulation and advanced neurofeedback, a sufficiently motivated mad scientist could learn to play any human brain like a piccolo.

fMRI Neurofeedback Opening Windows into the Brain

TechnologyReviewWhen most psychologists think of neurofeedback, they think of EEG feedback. Certainly EEG feedback has accomplished some amazing clinical and scientific results, and is even beginning to show up in mainstream gaming applications. But the state of the art in neurofeedback and brain-machine interfacing is shifting to fMRI, due to a superior spatial resolution over the entire brain. (the actual state of the art may be combined EEG plus fMRI, but let's just look at fMRI for now)

U Penn researchers recently used fMRI neurofeedback in an attempt to discover if they could teach cocaine addicts to control certain brain functions.

Childress asked 11 healthy controls and three cocaine addicts to watch a feedback screen while alternately envisioning two 30-second scenarios: Repeatedly swatting a tennis ball to someone, and navigating from room to room in a familiar place. By analyzing whole-brain activity, researchers found that a part of the brain called the supplementary motor area was most active during an imagined game of tennis. They then linked this pattern to an upward movement of a computer cursor. They did the same with the navigation task, linking it to downward movement of the cursor. After four cycles or fewer—less than five minutes of training—the subjects had learned to alternate between the two states of mind, as well as associate each one with its corresponding cursor position. From there onward, they could move the cursor up or down with their thoughts.

...The researchers found that both addicts and healthy people could control their state of mind equally well, something Childress says is encouraging for future studies. "The patients who have trouble controlling their craving could still demonstrate control over this sort of non-emotional test," she says. That confirms what earlier studies had suggested: Addicts' cognitive control issues are not linked to more general thinking, but instead limited to more emotionally charged thoughts, like cravings.

However, Childress's team will need to develop specialized tasks to figure out how to apply this to addiction and other disorders. For therapy, "You really need feedback from localized regions that have to do with their disease, and have people learn to control them," says Rainer Goebel, a professor of psychology at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands who has done similar work with depression patients. _TechnologyReview

As mentioned parenthetically above, the combination of EEG plus fMRI neurofeedback offers a superior tool, in that both spatial and time resolutions are optimised. When using neurofeedback to facilitate a brain-machine interface, one wants to optimise time resolution. When using neurofeedback to train in controlling brain responses, one would want optimal spatial resolution. As training programs become more specialised, each small improvement in spatial and temporal resolution will be treasured by researchers.

Powerful EEG neurofeedback tools have been used for assisting in brain rehabilitation after brain trauma or infarct, in treating severe autism, for treating depression, and in other neuro-psychiatric conditions. Clinicians are typically more daring than researchers when using such relatively safe tools, given the difference between the clinical environment and the research culture. Researchers are quite cautious, and appear almost plodding in their careful step by step approach to scientific knowledge. Clinicians, on the other hand, are often desperate to help in cases which seem hopeless. They are willing to take intuitive leaps, and work with what they find.

The difference between attempting to build a structure of knowledge from the bottom up, brick by brick, vs. the sudden achievement of disconnected but profound findings when taking a leap of faith, contributes to the wall of incomprehension which often grows between the research and the applied branches of a given science.

As fMRI neurofeedback tools (and combined fMRI-EEG tools) eventually move from the hospital and lab into the outpatient clinical setting, the possibilities of sophisticated feedback tools combined with VR techniques in normal brains, should be astounding. Non-invasive, non-toxic tools such as neurofeedback, offer little risk in comparison with surgical, pharmaceutical, invasive electrical, and radiologic tools that might be used in a clinical setting. Clinicians typically feel free to try new and unconventional approaches when there is little to lose and much to gain.

Al Fin Futurists place the transformative potential of advanced neurofeedback technologies at the highest setting.

IQ and HBD Deniers Being Backed Into a Corner

The project is novel in its size; most brain-imaging studies have looked at tens to hundreds of brains. Scanning so many people will shed light on the normal variability within the brain structure of healthy adults, which will in turn provide a basis for examining how neural "wiring" differs in such disorders as autism and schizophrenia.

The researchers also plan to collect genetic and behavioral data, testing participants' sensory and motor skills, memory, and other cognitive functions, and deposit this information along with brain scans in a public database (although the patients' personal information will be stripped out). Scientists around the world can then use the database to search for the genetic and environmental factors that influence the structure of the brain. _TR

Technology Review provides more information on the Human Connectome Project, sponsored by NIH. The ambitious project aims to do far more than to build more accurate maps of the human brain connectome. This project aims to do some genuine cognitive science. And that is likely to make a lot of HBD (human biodiversity) deniers very nervous.

"We want to learn as much as we can, not only about the typical patterns of brain connectivity, but also about the differences in wiring that make each of us a unique individual," says David Van Essen, a neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis, who is one of the project leaders. "If you're good at math, and I'm better at certain types of memory, can we identify some of the wiring characteristics that account for those differences?"

The most detailed studies to date of the neural circuits that connect one brain cell to another have focused on animal brains, because scientists can examine the animals' living tissue cells and their networks under a microscope. "We don't know how our species specifically is wired up," says Michael Huerta, associate director of the Division of Neuroscience and Basic Behavioral Science at the National Institute of Mental Health, and director of the Connectome project. "There is an entire class of data that is missing from neuroscience that is fundamentally important for how the brain works and how it breaks down in different disorders." And because researchers will be scanning only identical and fraternal twins and their siblings, the scientists can get a sense of the role that genetics and environment play in shaping brain structure. Structures of the brain that are highly dictated by genes will be more similar in identical twins than in fraternal twins, for example. _TR

There are more technical details at the link above. It promises to be a fascinating project on many levels.

Perhaps the scientists involved in the huge project have not yet taken the pledge of strict political correctness. Perhaps they have not gotten the memo directing them to avoid any research which might be used to explain cognitive or behavioural differences on the basis of genetics.

All issues of political correctness aside, the modern tools of science and computation are giving us the potential to finally understand many aspects of ourselves which had been closed to us. Some of these things may prove unsavoury, but in order to wisely move into the future we must be honest about our past and present.

The Multitasking Brain: A Next Level Trait?

Human brains can consciously focus on only one task at a time. But unconsciously, the human brain is working on a multitude of tasks. New research from INSERM in Paris suggests that the two hemispheres can function independently and simultaneously -- even in normal, whole-brain persons -- and the results of both hemisphere's processes can become conscious, with motivation.

Scientists at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Paris wondered what happens when a person is asked to do two jobs at once. To find out, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor the brain activity of 16 male and 16 female volunteers, all aged 19 to 32, and all right-handed, as they simultaneously performed two related tasks. The volunteers were offered a monetary reward that reduced if they made errors.

The tasks were to match upper case letters and to match lower case letters, switching back and forth between the two tasks. Rewards for each task were calculated separately and depended on the numbers matched without error. The researchers, neuroscientists Sylvain Charron and Etienne Koechlin, found that when the volunteers tackled only one task, both halves of the medial frontal cortex worked on it, but when they tackled both tasks simultaneously, the left side of the frontal cortex corresponded to one of the tasks and the right side corresponded to the other, with the two sides working independently. Results improved as the monetary reward increased, and there was no significant difference in the results of the men and women volunteers. _Physorg

Notice that conscious awareness was switching back and forth between the two hemisphere's ongoing tasks.

The big surprise was that there was no significant difference between men's and women's performance. Generally, women are thought to be better multi-taskers due to the thicker corpus callosum connecting the two hemisphere's in a woman's brain.

This is not the same thing as simultaneous awareness of multiple complex phenomena, since awareness in the experiment was switched back and forth between tasks. In order to achieve a multiple awareness without attention switching, it would be necessary to incorporate multiple phenomena into a single awareness -- as sub-components. That would be analogous to the "chunking" of discrete items into compound items for improved recall.

The research suggests that the brain can only track two independent tasks simultaneously, since it possesses only two hemispheres.

Unconscious monitoring of multiple phenomena takes place constantly -- sleeping or waking. The unconscious mind switches between monitoring tasks based upon the relative salience of the monitored phenomena, and upon the receptive state (unconscious motivation) of the brain at any given time.

Next level humans will train to improve their capacity for multi-tasking, beginning before adolescence and continuing throughout their lives. An expanded awareness is only one of the distinguishing characteristics of next level humans, but an important one in terms of survival within the potentially hazardous environments which next levels will frequent.

Human Intelligence Measured, Located on Brain Scan

Scientists at Cal Tech, the University of Iowa, USC, and the Autonomous University of Madrid, claim to have constructed brain maps that localise the parts of the brain most "important to general intelligence."

The study, to be published the week of February 22 in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds new insight to a highly controversial question: What is intelligence, and how can we measure it?
The research team included Jan Gläscher, first author on the paper and a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, and Ralph Adolphs, the Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and professor of biology. The Caltech scientists teamed up with researchers at the University of Iowa and USC to examine a uniquely large data set of 241 brain-lesion patients who all had taken IQ tests. The researchers mapped the location of each patient's lesion in their brains, and correlated that with each patient's IQ score to produce a map of the brain regions that influence intelligence.
"General intelligence, often referred to as Spearman's g-factor, has been a highly contentious concept," says Adolphs. "But the basic idea underlying it is undisputed: on average, people's scores across many different kinds of tests are correlated. Some people just get generally high scores, whereas others get generally low scores. So it is an obvious next question to ask whether such a general ability might depend on specific brain regions."
The researchers found that, rather than residing in a single structure, general intelligence is determined by a network of regions across both sides of the brain.

"One of the main findings that really struck us was that there was a distributed system here. Several brain regions, and the connections between them, were what was most important to general intelligence," explains Gläscher.

"It might have turned out that general intelligence doesn't depend on specific brain areas at all, and just has to do with how the whole brain functions," adds Adolphs. "But that's not what we found. In fact, the particular regions and connections we found are quite in line with an existing theory about intelligence called the 'parieto-frontal integration theory.' It says that general intelligence depends on the brain's ability to integrate—to pull together—several different kinds of processing, such as working memory."

The researchers say the findings will open the door to further investigations about how the brain, intelligence, and environment all interact. _SD_via_kurzweilai.net

This is the type of information needed to place the study on human intelligence on a more objective basis. Political activists in academia have attempted to obstruct the study of human intelligence for decades, with some success. As the theories and technology for studying intelligence improve, political influences should wane somewhat.

Fibromyalgia IS In the Head After All Fibromyalgia IS In the Head After All

Fibromyalgia affects about two per cent of the population, women more so than men. The disease involves the enhancement of pain impulses, leaving sufferers highly sensitive to pain, which is both chronic and diffuse. Previously, the causes of the disease were unknown, and there were no objective measurements of the way the CNS processes pain. _SD

Of all the pain syndromes, Fibromyalgia can be one of the most frustrating. The patients often seem to be depressed, anxious, and personally ineffectual. Treatment with antidepressants -- traditionally tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline -- has been useful for managing the problem. But is it possible that the depression, anxiety, and helplessness are the result of the chronic pain, and not the cause? Swedish researchers have taken a deep look into the brain, at the foundations of Fibromyalgia.

In one of the studies presented in the thesis, subjects had both thumbs pressed hard enough for them to feel the same degree of mild pain as healthy controls. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers could show that the subjects had the same level of activity in the parts of the brain that deal with emotions as well assensory information from the thumb, regardless of which group they belonged to. However, the subjects with fibromyalgia had lower activity in a brain area that inhibits the experience of pain.


According to the team, treatment with drugs that work on the central nervous system (CNS), such as SNRI antidepressants, are effective against fibromyalgia. But this is not a question of treating depression but of other properties of these drugs.


"The patients who had had their pain symptoms for the shortest amount of time were those that responded best to the drug treatments tested," says Karin B Jensen. "This shows how important it is that fibromyalgia is detected and taken seriously as early in its development as possible."


Her thesis also confirms the existence of a relationship between genetics and pain regulation. Studies of healthy people revealed a relationship between a specific genetic variant and the effect of a morphine-like drug on repeated pain stimulation. The results suggest that the gene under study only affects the body's pain regulating system in the presence of greater psychological stress. This knowledge, say the researchers, could one day make possible the development of customised medical treatments and thus better and more effective pain relief. _SD

There may be many more than trillions of ways that humans experience the world differently, due to the combinatorial explosion of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms involved in turning biochemistry into conscious reality. Fibromyalgia is a relatively common -- and frequently disabling -- manifestation of human biodiversity via genetic and / or epigentic variability. How many uncounted other ways do we experience reality differently from each other, due to the quirks of our genes?

Mental Tug of War Is Built Into Your Brain

Image SourceConflict and competition is just the way the brain works. One part of your brain wants to do one thing, but another part wants to stop it, or to do something else instead. This is the war of the whorls, the way evolution built animal consciousness. The research described in the article quoted below involves a mental tug of war between two parts of the pre-frontal cortex. But this is a game the entire brain has to play.

Those who made good decisions and employed self-control exhibited more activity in the DLPFC region of the brain, where as the amount of activity in the vmPFC was similar in both groups. According to the lead author of the paper Todd Hare, "the vmPFC works during every decision. The DLPFC, on the other hand, is more active when you're employing self-control."

Based on their findings, the authors speculate on the evolution of our brains and the nature of self-control. They argue that the vmPFC originally evolved to predict or forecast the "short-term value of stimuli," and that humans gained the ability to examine the long-term considerations as structures such as the DLPFC evolved to modulate the short-term desire signal. While the experiments were limited to diet choices, the authors state that understanding the origins of self-control can have implications for areas as diverse as addiction science, economic policy, and even into determining whether someone is in full command of their decision-making facilities under the eyes of the law.

Science, 2009. DOI: 10.1126/science.1168450

_ArsTechnica

The simultaneous activation of tens of thousands of massively interconnected cortical columns and other brain centers leads to a somewhat limited number of "attractor states" of global brain activation. These states may last for an extremely brief instant before transitioning into other attractor states of global activation.

It happens much too quickly for the conscious mind to follow. You might say that the conscious mind is something of a dunce, in terms of what the brain itself is capable of. The conscious mind has to "freeze frame" simplified brain states via the rather clumsy imaging methods that humans have devised so far. If humans could devise an imaging system based upon the multi-level massive parallelism of the brain itself, progress in neuroscience would move a lot more quickly.