I can’t believe time has flown so fast! It feels like not so long ago I was looking for my sketchbook to pack into my bag (which I totally forgot last minute), and now I’m sitting at my last French café before departing. As an artist, one of the things I was looking forward to the most before my trip was the art. The creativity surrounding every corner, from paintings in a museum to music in your every corner to that little pastel house around the corner you last remember turning at, Paris itself is truly a work of art. As I first wrote on my Facebook wall after my first day in the city:

“He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo. Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic. Nothing is more sublime.”

-Victor Hugo

While my group and I were touring the Chateau D’Amboise, I was legitimately blown away to get to see da Vinci’s bury place inside the royal chapel. He is my greatest inspiration as both a scientist and an artist. I have grown up not only watching documentaries about him but also reading copies of his notebooks. I wanted to scream, shake, and cry all at once.

The royal chapel inside the Chateau D’Amboise.

Leonardo da Vinci’s tomb.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t tell which ones were replicas and which ones were real. So I had to ask the tour guide every now to verify my predictions. That brought to mind a study I had previously read about how our brain responds differently when we think we are viewing authentic paintings v. replicas.

In this study, participants were familiar with Rembrandt (an Amsterdam-based artist famous for his portraits), but had no formal art instruction. Participants were shown pictures of authentic paintings or replicas for 15 seconds each. Before each painting, a voice recording told the participants whether the painting they were about to see was a fake or an authentic Rembrandt painting. For half of each paintings shown (authentic or replicas), participants were mislead into thinking an authentic was a fake or vice versa. Participants were not told how to view the paintings, but rather were just given 15s to view them as they pleased.

Figure 1A-B. Sample images researchers used. Which one do you think is the fake? (Huang, Bridge, Kemp, & Parker, 2011).

Figure 1C. Shows the timing of pause (9s), the audio telling if the paint will be real/fake (6s), and the painting (15s). (Huang et al., 2011).

While viewing, participants were in a scanner. Researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to view brain activity. An fMRI does not really view brain activity but changes in oxygenation levels, or the Blood Oxygenation Level Dependency (BOLD) signal (Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain, n.d.). Since neurons that are more active need more oxygen, it is a good measure to estimate brain activity. To the researchers surprise, more brain activation occurred while participants were viewing fake paintings.

Areas known to be involved with vision in the occipital and temporal lobe such as the fusiform gyrus (involved in face processing) did NOT show a difference in activation in real v. fake.

Occipital (purple) and temporal (green) lobes of the brain. (Vidal, Perrone-Bertolotti, Kahane, & Lachaux, 2015).

However, researchers did find differences in activations in other non-visual brain areas such as the frontopolar cortex (FPC) in visual-spatial memory (Costa et al., 2013) and decision-making (Laureiro-Martínez et al., 2014). The right precuneus was also more active, which is involved in visuo-spatial imagery and self-referential (or tasks involving thinking about oneself) (Cavanna & Trimble, 2006). Lastly, the researchers also found greater activation in the middle frontal gyrus in response to when participants were told the paintings were copies. The middle frontal gyrus is involved in attention (Japee, Holiday, Satyshur, Mukai, & Ungerleider, 2015). The orbitofrontal cortex is associated with memory (Frey & Petrides, 2000) and regulating emotions (like how you react to them) (Frey & Petrides, 2000).

Figure 2A. Shows the areas found to be activated higher when participants were told to view fake v. authentic paintings (Huang et al., 2011). Gray (less) – Yellow (more activated).

The researchers discuss these findings by suggesting that the FPC could be active in response to them recalling visual memories and ‘hypothesizing’ whether the artwork shown is authentic or fake (Huang et al., 2011). The precuneus is active when viewing things and visual imagery, so this area could be active in response to seeing the artwork. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), aside from memory and emotion regulation, the researchers mention is involved in reward. Therefore, researchers suggest that this area became active in response to thinking about how the price of the artwork would change if the artwork is a fake (Huang et al., 2011).

In all, these findings suggest that, like me, people build hypotheses about whether an artwork is real or a fake while they view them. And whether we think they are fake or real change how our brains respond to it, bringing in different memory processes (FPC) to maybe compare across different real or fake artworks we have previously seen. Maybe thinking about whether it is real or not affects how we feel (OFC) about it. This study suggests that thinking something is a copy of someone else’s work changes how we think about them, possibly changing how we feel and how much we value the work.

Works Cited

Cavanna, A. E., & Trimble, M. R. (2006). The precuneus: a review of its functional anatomy and behavioural correlates. Brain, 129(3), 564–583. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awl004

Costa, A., Oliveri, M., Barban, F., Bonn?, S., Koch, G., Caltagirone, C., & Carlesimo, G. A. (2013). The Right Frontopolar Cortex Is Involved in Visual-Spatial Prospective Memory. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e56039. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056039

Frey, S., & Petrides, M. (2000). Orbitofrontal cortex: A key prefrontal region for encoding information. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 97(15), 8723–7. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.140543497

Huang, M., Bridge, H., Kemp, M. J., & Parker, A. J. (2011). Human cortical activity evoked by the assignment of authenticity when viewing works of art. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 134. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00134

Japee, S., Holiday, K., Satyshur, M. D., Mukai, I., & Ungerleider, L. G. (2015). A role of right middle frontal gyrus in reorienting of attention: a case study. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 9, 23. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2015.00023

Laureiro-Martínez, D., Canessa, N., Brusoni, S., Zollo, M., Hare, T., Alemanno, F., & Cappa, S. F. (2014). Frontopolar cortex and decision-making efficiency: comparing brain activity of experts with different professional background during an exploration-exploitation task. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 927. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00927

Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain. (n.d.). Introduction to FMRI — Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Retrieved July 5, 2017, from https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/divisions/fmrib/what-is-fmri/introduction-to-fmri

Vidal, J. R., Perrone-Bertolotti, M., Kahane, P., & Lachaux, J.-P. (2015). Intracranial spectral amplitude dynamics of perceptual suppression in fronto-insular, occipito-temporal, and primary visual cortex. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01545

Hello everyone! I’m back (:

Well, this is now the end of my fourth week in Paris. There’s only one more week left, HOLY COW! Since I’ve been here, I think I have pretty much adjusted to the culture. I still smile when I see strangers, but I’ve just accepted the fact that they probably will not smile back.

However, there is one part of the culture I haven’t quite adjusted to yet… SMOKING! I heard before traveling here that smoking cigarettes is very common in Paris, and these rumors were not false. In Paris, you will literally see people smoking absolutely anywhere… at the train station, sitting at a restaurant, and I have even seen workers smoking while on duty. In America, smoking is much more moderated. There are designated areas for smoking and non-smoking. Here, smoking is the norm. I am pretty sure I have not seen one “non-smoking” sign since I have been here.

I expected that majority of people would smoke cigarettes, which is true. However, I was surprised by the vast amount of people I have seen smoking marijuana. I have seen multiple people on the train rolling up a joint, or even people walking down the street smoking it with no concerns whatsoever.

One day, a couple of my friends and I decided to head out for dinner. We were going to get Thai food at some restaurant we found on google (yep, still an avid google user).

As we were looking for the restaurant, the navigation led us down some weird side street. On  that street, we walked past a group of young girls sitting on the porch SMOKING MARIJUANA. Honestly, the girls looked no more than 13-14 years old. I was completely shocked. It was basically babies smoking weed.

The babies smoking on the porch. (Not actually, but this is how I perceived it.)

Okay, so this got me thinking. I knew marijuana had become increasingly prevalent in America just from my own experience. Marijuana references can be found all over social media, in music, television… it has really become a major part of pop culture. If you don’t want to take my word for it, The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that, “Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug (22.2 million people have used it in the past month).” They also state that marijuana use is widespread among adolescents and young adults, specifically 8th-12th graders. WHY ARE SO MANY CHILDREN SMOKING!!!

In my experience, any time I have asked someone why they smoke marijuana, they claim that it helps relieve stress. Even in popular music, artists sing/rap lyrics about getting high to relax. I’m sure you all are familiar with Drake, one of the most popular music icons of the decade (I loveeee Drake, so I’m bias. But he really is extremely popular). In his song “Fear”, which has over 6 million plays on youtube, he says, “I been getting high just to balance out the lows.” I personally have seen this one line quoted several times on twitter by tons of people. Also, New Frontier Data’s 2017 Cannabis Perceptions Survey reports that of users, 55% say they use it for relaxation purposes, and 40% say they use it to relieve stress.

This made me wonder, how true is this? And if it is really true, what part does our brain play in making marijuana relaxing?

It was already well known that there are areas in the brain called receptors that are specifically for cannabis (another common name for marijuana) to bind to and create an effect in the body. However, a study by Ramikie et al. (2014) found for the first time that there are cannabis receptors in the Central Amygdala. This was a HUGE deal because the amygdala is the structure in the brain that is involved in regulating anxiety and the stress response. Having cannabis receptors in that specific region could help explain why marijuana users say they take the drug mainly to relieve stress and anxiety.

These receptors in the brain weren’t created intentionally to bind marijuana, though. Our body has its own natural form of cannabis, called endo-cannabinoids, that it releases to bind to these receptors. The receptors are located in various regions of the brain, so when the endo-cannabinoids bind there can be a multitude of effects on pleasure, memory, thinking, concentration, movement, coordination, and sensory and time perception. THC is the major chemical in marijuana, and according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, it has a very similar chemical structure to one of the body’s natural endo-cannabinoids, anandamide. This similarity in structure allows the THC to trick the cannabis receptors into thinking it is an endo-cannabinoid. The THC binds to the receptors in place of the endo-cannabinoids,  and thus, marijuana can also have similar effects on the body.

Anandamide vs THC

This image shows how THC can bind to the cannabis receptors in place of the endo-cannabinoids, thus regulating many body functions.

Similar to humans, mice also have these cannabis receptors and natural endo-cannabinoids in their brains. Ramikie et al. (2014) wanted to understand the role of endo-cannabinoids, and their effect on the central amygdala. To do this experiment, they used a mouse model and fluorescently labelled the cannabis receptors so that they could be easily visualized using special microscopy techniques. They specifically observed the amygdala, and found that there actually were a significant number of cannabis receptors present in this area. They also found that the amygdala creates and releases its own natural endo-cannibinoids.

So what exactly does all of this mean? By finding cannabis receptors in the amygdala, and knowing that THC can bind to these receptors, researchers have potentially identified exactly how marijuana regulates stress and anxiety. However, there are down sides to this. When a person smokes marijuana, THC overwhelms the cannabis receptors by quickly attaching to them in place of the endo-cannabinoids. This interferes with the ability of the natural cannabinoids to do their job of regulating bodily functions, which can throw the entire system off balance (Scholastic 2011). So yes, while marijuana’s THC can reduce anxiety, chronic use of the drug down-regulates the receptors, which will actually increase anxiety. Down regulation occurs because over-activation of the receptors causes them to become less sensitive to the cannabis or endo-cannabinoids binding to them, which causes the receptors to need more cannabis in order to regulate natural bodily functions. This can lead to a habitual cycle of increasing marijuana use that, in some cases, leads to addiction.

What is great about this article is that the researchers used a relatively common imaging technique to understand a popular phenomenon. By finding the cannabis receptors within the amygdala, this study introduced ground breaking research that demonstrated how exactly marijuana can potentially regulate stress and anxiety, when used in moderation.  However, this study was limited because it only set out to locate the receptors and see their activity. There should have been a behavioral aspect to the study to determine how activation of the cannabinoid receptors changes behavior. The amygdala has a multitude of functions, and by including a behavioral aspect to the study, we would have been able to see exactly which functions the endo-cannabinoids play a part in.  Going forward, it would be interesting to test the effects of THC on these receptors in mice, and actually observe the effects of different amounts during a stressful situation.

So to answer my earlier question– yes, I guess it is true that marijuana really does relieve stress (when used in moderation). Neuroscience really does have the answer for everything!

Thanks for reading!

-Janet

References:

Ramikie T, Nyilas R, Bluett R, Gamble-George J, Hartley N, Mackie K, Watana M, Katona I, Patel S (2014) Multiple Mechanistically Distinct Modes of Endocannabinoid Mobilization at Central Amygdala Glutamatergic Synapses. Neuron 81(5): 1111-1125.

“The Science of the Endocannabinoid System: How THC Affects the Brain and the Body” (2011) Scholastic.

Map from Google Maps.

Children Smoking: https://www.dhushara.com/book/twelve/tw2.htm

National Institute on Drug Abuse: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/what-scope-marijuana-use-in-united-states

Drake youtube reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcQzATCJpBA

New Frontier Data’s 2017 Cannabis Perceptions Survey: https://newfrontierdata.com/marijuana-insights/people-use-cannabis/

THC & anandamide: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/how-does-marijuana-produce-its-effects

THC & Cannabis receptor: http://headsup.scholastic.com/students/endocannabinoid

Bonjour tout le monde! Our time in Paris is wrapping up, and I can’t decide exactly how that makes me feel. One the one hand, I’m so ready to be home and see friend and family that I’ve missed dearly. But, on the other hand, there a few things that I will miss about Paris. I’ll miss the gorgeous architecture that can be found down every street, the fresh baguettes that I’ve been eating for lunch almost every day, and lots of other aspects of Paris that make this city so special. The one thing that I’ll miss most of all, though, is being able to grab a classic French macaron whenever I want.

France has a plethora of staple foods and sweet treats, but macarons are my favorite by far. They’re sweet meringue-based sandwich cookies that have some sort of crème or jelly in the middle. If you’ve never tried one before, then you’re missing out. If you’re ever visiting Paris and looking for a high quality French macaron, I would wholeheartedly recommend trying a few from Christophe Roussel’s shop near Sacred Coeur.

Christophe Roussel’s street window

By using flavor combinations that range from classic vanilla to more intricate passion tarragon, Christophe Roussel has designed a fantastic dessert that pleases most palates. There’s not a single flavor that I have tried that I don’t like, but, in my opinion, their dark chocolate-coated caramel macaron is the best. I

Wide range of delicious flavors

have visited their shop a few times and gotten an assorted box during each visit that I have intended to share with all of my classmates, but I never have. This isn’t because I’m selfish or greedy, though. It’s because, even when I’m trying to eat healthier, I can’t control myself from eating most, if not all, of them in one sitting! It makes me feel like a weak-willed foodie with little self-control, but I’d like to think that a lot of people can relate to me. Sometimes it seems almost impossible to just eat one sweet! Other people, though, find self-control a much easier concept and can resist macaron binge-eating sessions. What makes them different from me? Why does it seem like macarons have such power over my willpower? Interestingly enough, one of our classes recently analyzed a paper that explained the impact that reward systems in the brain have over regular hunger feeding behaviors in mice (Denis et al. 2015).  Although this study was super intriguing, I wanted to learn more about this phenomenon specifically in humans, so I did some PubMed searching. Here’s what I found…

Who can resist these?!

The overconsumption of foods with high levels of sugar and fat overrides thenormal mechanisms that regulate appetite, which leads to people with these diets eating for pleasure rather than nourishment alone (Wiss et al. 2016). To explain this process, researchers have created a “food hypothesis” which proposes that exposure to higher calorie foods alters the brains reward circuitry, leading to people eating these foods not because they’re hungry, but because it feels rewarding (Leigh and Morris 2016). This rewarding feeling that results from eating higher levels of sugar and fat can lead to binge-eating, and possibly even food addiction. There are some people who aren’t as susceptible to this addictive power of sugar, though. What makes them different from me, who can’t seem to eat one macaron at a time? 

Ely and colleagues conducted a study to understand if there’s a difference in activation of brain regions that are involved in different people’s vulnerability of overeating sweet foods (2014). They compared brain activation in response to food cues by taking fMRI images of females who never dieted, females who had previously dieted sometime in their life, and females who were currently on a diet. These fMRI images measure the amount of blood flow in the brain when performing certain tasks, and researchers can infer that this change in blood flow means that a certain area of the brain is activated when performing that task. Their results showed that females with histories of dieting had increased activation in reward circuitry areas when showed tastier foods compared to both females currently on a diet as well as females who never diet. This relationship between groups suggests that when dieting, the vulnerability to high sugar and fat foods is temporarily reversed.

My cute little Christophe Roussel package

I was surprised by the results of this study. I expected the rewarding effects of higher caloric food to be more powerful in women that were dieting, but I guess it makes sense that they’re less vulnerable to the temptations of sweets because they’ve made a conscious choice to eat healthier. I think this study was strongly conducted, as well. Their choice of fMRI methods of imaging allowed the activation of specific areas of the brain to be measured while at the same time being stimulated by different foods. One thing I wish they would have done differently, though, is controlled for menstrual cycle. It has been shown in multiple studies that phases of women’s menstrual cycle affect their food cravings, so I’m not sure if that may have swayed the data at all.

As my time in Paris is coming to an end, I don’t think I’m going to want to go on a diet to prevent myself from succumbing to the temptation of the macaron. I’ll allow myself maybe one more indulgence so I can remember the sweetness of my time here. Hopefully I can learn a little bit of self-control, though, because I’m hoping to bring back a few as souvenirs for my family. They probably wouldn’t appreciate an empty macaron box. 🙂

If you ever make a trip to Paris, you really should buy a few macarons from Christophe Roussel’s shop. I promise that you won’t regret it!

Christophe Roussel’s location

References:

Denis RP, Joly-Amado A, Webber E, Guler AD, Magnan C, Luquet S (2015) Palatability can drive feeding independent of AgRP neurons CellPress 22: 646-657.

Ely AV, Childress AR, Jagannathan K, Lowe MR (2014) Differential reward response to palatable food cues in past and current dieters: an fMRI study Obesity 22: E38-45.

Leigh SJ and Morris MJ (2016) The role of reward circuitry and food addiction in the obesity epidemic: an update Bio Psychol 16: 30376-3.

Wiss DA, Criscitelli K, Gold M, Avena N (2017) Preclinical evidence for the addition potential of highly palatable foods: current developments related to maternal influence Appetite 115: 19-27.

All of the pictures included in this post were taken by myself.

The screenshot of the Map was taken from GoogleMaps.

If you really knew me, you would know that a huge slice of my life is devoted to music. To me, music is another language, another culture, and another lifestyle. There’s so many things you can do with music: play, listen, learn, write, and produce. You can even relate to, dance and communicate with, or supplement action-packed movie scenes with music. The possibilities with music are endless. That’s why I decided on pursuing a minor in music – while I wanted to mainly focus on neuroscience and pre-med, there was no way I was just going to stop my progression of music.

A little more than one week remains in our Parisian stay, and our main objective this week was to keep cool in the immense heat. However, the heat didn’t keep me from going out on June 21, 2017.

DJ playing reggae in a tree!

On this day, France celebrated “Fête de la Musique,” or “Music Day.” I couldn’t believe it – it was a whole day devoted to making music. A group of us went out to explore and we found our first venue at Parc Montsouris where a DJ was set up in a TREE playing reggae music. Afterwards, we ventured towards Denfert Rochereau, the Luxembourg Gardens, and the Latin Quarter to see tons of bands playing music wherever we turned. Now whenever I listen to music, I pay a lot of attention to each instrument/voice and their role in creating the structure and musicality of the song. So when listening to these French bands, the one instrument/voice I particularly listened for was the bass.

Taiko Drumming at Le Jardin du Luxembourg

Whether it’s the electric bass guitar of a rock band, a tuba in a wind ensemble, an upright bass in a jazz band, or the electronic 808 bass lines that can blow out your speakers heard in many chart-topping songs today, having a bass is critical when creating music. The bass lays a tonic and rhythmic foundation for the other instruments/voices to play off of. Without the bass, the music would fall apart.

Parc Montsouris

Luxembourg Gardens

To prove to you just how important the bass is, I found a study by Hove et al. (2014) that looked into how our brain detects lower musical pitches as a foundation for musical rhythm. The researchers repeatedly played low-pitched (G3) and high-pitched (B-flat4) piano tones every 500 ms, but the catch is that 10% of the time, the tone would be played 50 ms too early. Subjects were hooked up to an electroencephalogram (EEG), which detects electrical signals in your brain using metal electrodes attached to your head, and were tasked to tap their finger to the rhythm of the piano tones. With the EEG, the researchers looked for mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitudes, which are electrical responses set off by the auditory cortex (a brain region that processes auditory information) whenever it detects something unexpected when listening to a stream of sounds (Picton et al., 2000).

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Results showed that these MMN amplitudes were greater when the subjects heard the early low-pitched tone than when they heard the early high-pitched tone. When finger tapping, subjects shifted the timing of their taps significantly more after hearing the early low-pitched tone than when the early high-pitched tone was heard. These results support the idea that: 1. our brain, at the auditory cortex, is better at processing the timing of lower-pitched tones than higher-pitched tones, and that 2. we are better at synchronizing body movements to the rhythms we hear when listening to lower-pitched tones than higher-pitched tones (Hove et al., 2014).

The Auditory Cortex

In this study, I believe it may have been noteworthy (no pun intended) to also include piano tones that are played 50 ms too late as well. This could show whether our brain can tell a difference in detecting an early or late beat in these low-pitched tones. Regardless, I really appreciated the musical application of their study. For example, they related these findings to the importance of bass notes in complex rhythms, such as ragtime piano syncopation (off-beats) or waltzes played in segments of 3 beats. This study shows us the relevance of bass in music and its importance in rhythmically keeping all the other aspects of a song together as one unit of sound. So whether it’s the music heard around every corner in Paris during “Fête de la Musique” or the heavy EDM music I just casually listen to back at home, you’ll probably see me grooving, especially to the bass of the music.

References:

Hove MJ, Marie C, Bruce IC, Trainer LJ (2014) Superior time perception for lower musical pitch explains why bass-ranged instruments lay down musical rhythms. PNAS 111(28): 10383-10388.

Picton TW, Alain C, Otten L, Ritter W, Achim A (2000) Mismatch negativity: Different water in the same river. Audiol Neurootol 5(3-4): 111-139.

Pictures of the DJ and drumming were personally taken.

The EEG and auditory cortex pictures are credited to Creative Commons.