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It didn’t take long to realize why Paris is called the city of love. During our first week here, some of the guys and I enjoyed a romantic evening stroll to the Wall of Love. This wall (pictured below) is a forty square meter canvas covered with the words “I Love You” in over 300 languages. The thought that love is a universal language is portrayed here, not only due to the seemingly infinite phrases, but because of the range of people there too. Couples, friends, and families from all over the world were visiting; a broad range of love could be observed. This got me thinking about Paris. What makes it such a magical place, renowned for love?

A romantic afternoon

First, I wanted to figure out what goes on in the brain during these feelings of love. Research has shown that certain neurotransmitters are involved in love, such as dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin. Firstly, people in love show low levels of serotonin in the brain, which is also known as the satiation chemical (Zeki, 2007). The obsessive component of new love can thus be attributed to the dissatisfaction one may feel due to the brain’s lowered levels of serotonin. It leaves us always wanting more.

Furthermore, this study also shows that similarity and familiarity with someone at the start of a relationship can counteract the drop in serotonin levels usually observed with love. Thus, this can prevent people from falling in love (Zeki, 2007). However, in later stages of relationships, similarity and familiarity have actually been shown to boost the strength and duration of a relationship. This is linked with increased levels of oxytocin and vasopressin during this stage of a relationship, which are chemicals believed to be involved in attachment (Zeki, 2007).

Studies were also done on dopamine, the neurotransmitter believed to be involved in reward and motivation. People who were intensely in love for 1 to 17 months were first shown a picture of their loved one and then a picture of a familiar individual. When looking at the photo of the loved one, there was higher activation of the right ventral tegmental area, right postero-dorsal body, and the medial caudate nucleus, all of which are areas associated with dopamine (Aron et al., 2005). Thus, when you are in love the increased levels of dopamine may be involved in the rewarding nature of the loved one’s presence.

A 2017 study looked closer into the relationship between love and addiction, as the same chemicals have been shown to be involved in each. This study looked at the future potential to treat love addiction if it were to become a harmful condition (basically, love is a powerful thing). They found, for example, that oxytocin antagonists could be used in an individual to reduce the reward felt from being close to another person (Earp et al., 2017). Could there soon be a way to get rid of your obsessive ex?

The location of the Love Wall

Now that we know the underlying chemicals behind the feeling of love, what is it about Paris that brings them out of us? A 1974 study found that men were more likely to experience feelings of love towards a female interviewer when the interview took place in an anxiety and adrenaline-provoking location, such as a suspension bridge, rather than in calm locations (Dutton and Aron, 1974). Perhaps Paris’ chic people, luminescent nights, quaint cafes, and the feeling of being in a new place create an adrenaline and anxiety-filled environment in which we are more susceptible to these chemical changes in our brains, thus helping Paris to its title as The City of Love.

Sources

Aron A, Fisher H, Mashek DJ, Strong G, Haifang Li H, Brown LL. (2005) Reward, Motivation, and Emotion Systems Associated With Early-Stage Intense Romantic Love, Journal of Neurophysiology 94, 1: 327-337.

Dutton, D.G., & Aron, A.P. (1974). Some Evidence for Heightened Sexual Attraction Under Conditions of High Anxiety, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30 (4), 510-517.

Earp, B., Wudarczyk, O., Foddy, B., Savulescu, J., (2017). Addicted to Love. What is Love Addicton and When Should it be Treated?, Philos. Psychiatr. Psychol., 24(1): 77-92

Zeki, S. (2007). The Neurobiology of Love, FEBS Letters 581, 14: 2575–2579.

Paris is truly one of the cultural centers of the world.  Packed into its city limits are monuments galore, which tourists flock to in droves from all over the world.  Crowded around such landmarks as the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower, tourists stand amazed by the beauty and historical significance that is displayed.  Within these masses, tourists constantly reach into their pockets to snap a picture with their cell phone, parents look for their child that has seemingly disappeared into the crowd, and overzealous couples get far too intimate in front thousands of people.  After all, what’s more romantic than French kissing in Paris while a 6-year-old boy and his family watch?  Accompanying the interpersonal chaos, are the calls of street vendors selling “Beer, Beer, Wine, Champagne!” and “Five miniature Eiffel Towers for One Euro!” and the smells of crepes cooking in small stalls nearby.

Classmates in front of the Eiffel Tower not attending to their belongings!

This symphony of sensation represents what many people, from newlyweds to elderly tour groups, deem to be heaven.  However, these sites are heaven for another group of people.  A group of people tourists are less than keen on encountering: pickpockets.

Despite their conniving practices, pickpockets actually rely on several fundamental principles of neuroscience to execute their forays into hapless tourists’ pockets and purses.  Chief among these principles is selective attention, or one’s ability to focus their awareness on a single stimulus, thought, or action, while simultaneously ignoring irrelevant stimuli, thoughts and actions (Gazzaniga et al., 2013).  While the brain’s ability to prioritize what it attends to is appreciated as one tries to take in the beauty of the Eiffel Tower while simultaneously ignoring THAT couple. This prioritization can also be a detriment.  For instance, as a person concentrates their attention on the Eiffel Tower, their attention is no longer on their back pocket.  This phenomenon is called inattentional blindness and can be summarized as the brain’s propensity to miss additional information when it focuses on an object (Zhang et al., 2018).  This disparity in attention provides pickpockets with the perfect window to abscond with your belongings.

Another aspect of inattentional blindness that should worry tourists is its correlation with perceptual load (Remington et al., 2014).  Perceptual load refers to the amount of task-relevant information in a given task (Remington et al., 2014).  For instance, in tasks with high perceptual loads, such as gazing at the Eiffel Tower while also navigating through a crowded and noisy environment, there is a higher occurrence of inattentional blindness than when completing with lower perceptual loads (Remington et al., 2014). The Remington research group conducted a study across age groups ranging from 7-8-year-olds to adults in which they introduced irrelevant visual stimuli during a visual memory task of varying perceptual loads.  Across most age groups, increasing the perceptual load of a task resulted in a decrease in the ability to report irrelevant visual stimuli (Remington et al., 2014).  These disparities were especially notable in adolescents, as most children noticed irrelevant stimuli 30% less while experiencing higher perceptual load (Remington et al., 2014).  Interestingly, 9-10-year-olds displayed minimal inattentional blindness during higher perceptual loads (Remington et al., 2014).  Comically, the researchers dispelled the notion that 9-10-year-olds are especially adept at paying attention by saying that – shockingly – the 9-10-year-olds were never paying particularly astute attention, even in the low perceptual load task (Remington et al., 2014).  So, moms, don’t trust your nine-year-old with protecting your Louis Vuitton bag from pickpockets.

A graph demonstrating the differences in the percent of irrelevant objects noticed during an intermediate perceptual load and a low perceptual load scenario (Remington et al., 2014).

However, adult brains are not infallible when it comes to attending to information from multiple sources.  In 2018, Hui Zhang’s research group used a similar task to that used by Remington et al. to investigate whether there were significant differences between inattentional blindness in children and adults.  In their research, over half of the participants, regardless of age, exhibited inattentional blindness (Zhang et al., 2018).  Additionally, their research showed that there were no significant differences between levels of inattentional blindness in adults or children.

Ultimately, the research studies of the Remington and Zhang groups complement each other nicely in that they each elucidate different factors of an individual’s susceptibility to inattentional blindness.  I think that tourists should take interest in the findings that highly stimulating environments, such as Paris, increase their propensity to overlook peripheral information, and that everyone, even adults, needs to be cognizant of their surroundings at all times.

Now that I mention it, I seem to be short about 300 Euros right now … time to go file a police report!

References

Gazzaniga, M., & Ivry, R. (2013). Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind: Fourth International Student Edition. W.W.Norton.

Remington, A., Cartwright-Finch, U., & Lavie, N. (2014). I can see clearly now: the effects of age and perceptual load on inattentional blindness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00229

Zhang, H., Yan, C., Zhang, X., & Fang, J. (2018). Sustained Inattentional Blindness Does Not Always Decrease With Age. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01390

The room is packed. Everywhere I looked I could see drinks, banter, and tension filling the room around us. And this event had every right to be packed. This was the Champions League final, the biggest event of European soccer. While European television does a good job keeping most of the ads at the minimum that night, one ad continued to repeat throughout halftime, a simple ad covering a sports gambling service.

One of the largest online sports gambling sites within the EU

While not a complete stranger to the world of gambling, seeing how pronounced these types of services were advertised towards the general public, I opened towards the true prominence of gambling within our society. From small dollar wagers with friends to the million dollar sports matches, gambling has become pervasive within Western culture. Though the prevalence of this activity has made it easy for us to accept it as simply another aspect of the culture surrounding us, it is important to understand that when left unchecked this can easily snowball into something more.

A study conducted in 2012 discovered that chronic gamblers have similar hypoactivity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex to those of chronic smokers (De Ruiler, 2012). As the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex plays an important role in inhibiting our individual actions so that we don’t make any rash decisions when this particular area shows lesser levels of activation it prevents us from stopping ourselves from making impulsive decisions (Modirrousta, 2008). As such, the more we find ourselves gambling, the easier it is for us to become addicted to it since our brain is literally not telling us to stop ourselves. But not only does our brain not tell us to stop with this particular behavior, but it also activates to push us to gamble even more.

A recent study published by Limbrick-Oldfield set out to investigate as to what underlies our desire for continual gamblers to seek out gambling. After cueing the subjects that had chronic gambling problems with images related to gambling, they observed the brain activity of these subjects through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tests. When looking at the results of the study, Limbrick-Oldfield found that when the gambling disorder subjects were shown gambling related cues, there was a significant increase in the activity of the left insula (Limbrick-Oldfield et. al, 2017). Prior research has shown that the insula plays a critical role in subjective feeling (Uddin, 2017). So by showing greater activation of the insula within these brain studies, Limbrick-Oldfield was able to show how his subjects yielded a greater emotional connection whenever they are shown cues of gambling. And it is with this greater emotional connection within these subjects that pushing gambling addicts to continue with their addiction.

The insula is located on the lateral side of the brain. It plays a significant role in our subjective emotional processing.

So the question remains, why do we find ourselves gambling in the first place? And the scientific answer to that question is actually very simple because it’s really fun. However, while you expect the fun of gambling to exist in the idea of winning big bucks, scientific evidence actually seems to point to the contrary.

In 2013, Patrick Anselme and Mike J.F. Robinson set out to understand exactly what seemed to motivate individuals to continually pursue gambling. After examining the dopamine release within the ventral striatum of gambling addicts who gambled, Anselme and Robinson found that the subjects had a greater amount of dopamine release whenever they lost money compared to when they won money (Anselme and Robinson, 2013). This idea plays along with the idea of “near misses”, stating that whenever you don’t win, the brain activates the reward system to enhance your motivation to keep gambling (Kassinove et.al, 2001). While this study does a clear job in underlying the major reward system within those who contain gambling addictions, one weakness is that it does not take into consideration whether this reward system pathway pertains to those of first-time gamblers. However, despite this limitation, the paper still offers valuable insight into the cycle of addiction that many continual gamblers fall into.

While understanding of the underlying influences beneath gambling addiction offers great insight towards the neural mechanisms that underlie the development of addiction as a whole, it still circumvents the issue that breaking these kinds of addictions are extremely difficult. Things like alcohol and gambling have long since part of both ours and Parisian culture for a long time coming and breaking that underlying development will go beyond what underlies our own culture.

So what is the main lesson that should be taken away from this? Well, for me, I would say to place your bets wisely, because no matter what you bet, the odds are never in your favor.

References:

Anselme, P., & Robinson, M. J. (2013). What motivates gambling behavior? Insight into dopamine’s role. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 7, 182.

De Ruiter MB, Oosterlaan J, Veltman DJ, van den Brink W, Goudriaan AE. Similar hyporesponsiveness of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in problem gamblers and heavy smokers during an inhibitory control task. Drug Alcohol Depend. (2012)

E H Limbrick-Oldfield, I Mick, R E Cocks, J McGonigle, S P Sharman, A P Goldstone, P R A Stokes, A Waldman, D Erritzoe, H Bowden-Jones, D Nutt, A Lingford-Hughes & L Clark. Neural substrates of cue reactivity and craving in gambling disorder. Translational Psychiatry, 7 (2017)

Kassinove J. I., Schare M. L. (2001). Effects of the “near miss” and the “big win” on persistence at slot machine gambling. Psychol. Addict. Behav. 15, 155–158

Modirrousta, L.K. Fellows Dorsal medial prefrontal cortex plays a necessary role in rapid error prediction in humans J. Neurosci., 28 (2008), pp. 14000-14005

Uddin, L. Q., Nomi, J. S., Hébert-Seropian, B., Ghaziri, J., & Boucher, O. (2017). Structure and Function of the Human Insula. Journal of clinical neurophysiology : official publication of the American Electroencephalographic Society, 34(4), 300–306.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bet365.jpg

https://i0.wp.com/neurosciencenews.com/files/2017/01/nucleus-accembens-gambling-addiction-public-neurosciencnews.jpg

Our first week in Paris coincided with two championship soccer games. Like many Americans I am unfamiliar with soccer, but our group gathered at a English bar called The Mazet on Wednesday night to watch the Europa League Final: Chelsea vs. Arsenal.   

The Mazet bar in Paris, where our group gathered to watch the Europa League Final

Most of you will be familiar with the ongoing controversy about traumatic brain injury (TBI) in sports. Our national conversation tends to focus on American football, but TBI is also a huge problem in boxing, hockey, and lacrosse (my sport of choice). In the field of medicine, a distinction is made between sports based on the level of risk of injury. The sports listed above are all deemed collision sports, in which “athletes purposely hit or collide with each other or with inanimate objects (including the ground) with great force” (Rice, 2008). Soccer is a contact sport, meaning that “athletes routinely make contact with each other or with inanimate objects but usually with less force than in collision sports” (Rice, 2008).

While watching the game, I noticed that Arsenal’s goalkeeper Petr Cech was wearing a sort of helmet which I later identified as rugby headgear (Rugby is a collision sport). Chelsea’s goalkeeper wore no headgear; neither did either keeper playing in the Champion’s League Final I watched on Saturday night. A fellow patron informed me that Cech had suffered a serious head injury earlier in his career, and had continued to wear the helmet ever since as a preventative measure.    

Two images of Petr Cech at the 2019 Europa League Final, taken at the Mazet in Paris

As an American sports fan, I was intrigued. Most players in the sports that I watch are required to wear some form of personal protective equipment (PPE), but very few wear items which are not required. During my years as an athlete, I would often forgo recommended PPE which I found to be unnecessary; most of my lacrosse teammates chose not to wear athletic cups and opted for the elbow pads which were the least restrictive (and therefor the least protective). While the decisions Peter Cech and other athletes make about their PPE mostly come down to personal preference, I became curious about what is being done to tackle (pun intended) the problem of TBI in sports.

Emergency room visits for TBI predominantly involve children, and a significant portion of these injuries are sports related (Sarmiento et al, 2019). This fact seems especially troubling considering the long term effects of TBI and the effects it may have on development are still being investigated. A 2019 study by Russel and Selci administered the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) to 134 adolescents who had sustained concussions playing sports. Compared to a control group with non-concussion sports injuries, the experimental group demonstrated severe detriments to their quality of life, especially cognitive functioning and school performance. Patients who had recovered from multiple concussions were significantly more likely to also suffer from depression and headaches (Russel et al, 2019). In this study, after the patients had recovered fully (according to the Post-Concussion Symptom Scale) no longterm neurological symptoms were detected.

The ongoing media narrative surrounding concussions in sports paints a very different picture from this research. An article published just last month in the New York Times (Branch, 2019) lambasts the National Hockey League for its refusal to acknowledge a link between the sport and neurodegenerative symptoms in its players. Specifically, the article discusses chronic traumatic encephalothopy (CTE), the poorly-understood disease which makes headlines nearly every time a pro-athlete dies. CTE is only diagnosable postmortem and is thought to be linked to repeated TBI (Stern et al, 2019). The disease is characterized by a build up of “tau-aggregates” in neurons, similar to the amyloid-beta plaque build up that occurs in Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, brains in the late stages of CTE also show amyloid-beta plaque deposits (Stern et al, 2019). In a 2019 study analyzing the build up of tau aggregates in the brains of former NFL linebackers, Stern and Adler found significantly more tau aggregate build up in several brain regions thought to be affected by CTE than in non-athletes. However, the increased levels of tau aggregate did not correspond to amyloid-plaque deposit increases or to neurodegenerative symptoms (Stern et al, 2019). To be clear, TBI does have negative effects on one’s health and wellbeing — wear your helmets, kids — its just uncertain how these effects manifest over a lifetime.

Several similar studies seem to debunk the popular narrative that repeated TBI results in severe neurodegenerative symptoms. A 2019 paper by Brett and Wilmoth designed to review the symptoms of CTE and the way that it is diagnosed concluded that the diagnostic criteria are unclear, causing the disease to be over reported (Brett et el, 2019).The high-profile of athletes who suffer from the disease combined with the troubling amount of TBI in children explain why the media, educators, and legislators are all fascinated with combatting a disease that scientists remain uncertain about. Regardless of the effects, TBI is a real risk to athletes the world over. Professional athletes like Peter Cech who are proactive about their safety set a good example for adolescents like me who are making the choice between comfort and protection every time they suit up.

Works Cited

Branch, J (2019) The NFL Has Been Consumed by the Concussion Issue. Why Hasn’t the NHL? New York Times 5/31/2019

Brett BL, Wilmoth K, Cummings P, Solomon GS, McCrea MA, Zuckerman SL (2019) The Neuropathological and Clinical Diagnostic Criteria of Chronic Traumatic Encephalothopathy: A Critical Examination in Relation to Other Neurodegenerative Diseases. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 68: 591-608

Rice SG, Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness (2008) Medical Conditions Affecting Sports Participation. Pediatrics 121:841-848.

Russel K, Selci E, Black B, Ellis MJ (2019) Health-related quality of life following adolescent sports-related concussion or fracture: a prospective cohort study. Journal of Neurosurgery Pediatrics 23:455-464.

Sarmiento K, Thomas KE, Daugherty J, Waltzman D, Haarbauer-Krupa JK, Peterson AB, Haileyesus T, Breidling MJ (2019) Emergency Department Visits for Sports – and Recreation – Related Traumatic Brain Injuries Among Children — United States, 2010-2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 68:237-242.

Stern RA, Adler CH, Chen K, Navitsky M, Luo J, Dodick DW, Alosco ML, Tripodis Y, Goradia DD, Martin B, Mastroeni D, Fritts NG, Jarnagin J, Devous MD, Mintun MA, Pontecorvo MJ, Shenton ME, Reiman Em (2019) Tau Positron-Emission Tomography in Former National Football League Players. New England Journal of Medicine 380:1716-1725