Walk-a-holic

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 5 comments

Google Map directions of the 5-minute walk from the ACCENT center to Pause Café.

“It’s a 20-minute walk,” sighed my American friends, complaining that it was “too long.” It was our first week in Paris on our study abroad program, and we were planning on going to a café. After Google maps indicated that the metro stop was far from the original café, we ended up going to Pause Café. It was on the corner of the street near the ACCENT center, where our daily classes are held.

 

Image of Pause Café.

I was shocked by the lack of energy that we had. Looking around us, Parisians were walking from place to place without breaking a sweat. Walking for twenty minutes, even thirty, was typical for a Parisian. This got me thinking, how different would my life be if I lived in Paris. In Atlanta, shops and restaurants were far apart, sidewalks were narrow, and the city was difficult to explore without a car. But in Paris, everything was nearby, and sidewalks were wide. If I were to walk this much every day for the rest of my life, how would that impact my health?

Exercise is known to have many health benefits. A fact that has been ingrained in my mind since elementary school. What I knew was that exercise could prevent heart attacks and diseases, but not its effect on the brain.

Researchers show that exercise improves memory, specifically our memory of certain places and events (Cassilhas et al., 2016). The anterior hippocampus provides us with the ability to imagine our house and move around our neighborhood (Zeidman and Maguire, 2016). As we get older the hippocampus decreases in volume resulting in increased forgetfulness (Raz et al.,2005). However, there may be a way to halt those effects and possibly reverse them.

Erickson et al. (2011), reveal in their study that physical exercise improves our long-term memory, specifically our navigational memory. By exercising 3 times a week for one-year, participants had an increase in the volume of their anterior hippocampus. However, participants who did not exercise had a decreased anterior hippocampal volume. Overall, the study showed that only the decreased volume in the anterior hippocampus can be reversed with exercise, but not other parts of the hippocampus. This is a well-designed experiment because 120 participants were involved in the study, which makes the results more applicable to the general public by representing different types of people in the population. The differences in the size of the anterior hippocampus can be better observed and statistically tested with this large number of participants. Further, by testing participants prior to the exercise protocol, after 6 months, and after one year, we can look at the effects of exercise on the anterior hippocampal volume both in the short-term and long-term.

Graphs of the increase in the volume of the anterior hippocampus for the exercise group (blue line) compared to the decrease in the volume of the anterior hippocampus for the control (red line), evident in both the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the hippocampus.

Writing this now, I regret missing that 20-minute walk because I now know that a little exercise every day goes a long way in improving my memory. This leaves me wondering, is there a certain time frame when I should be exercising after learning new material?

Researchers performed a study to test whether there is an appropriate time to exercise after learning to improve memory recall (Van Dongen et al., 2016). Participants were assigned into three groups; those who exercised immediately, those who exercised after 4 hours and those who did not exercise. They learned to associate a certain object with a location (refer to image below).The researchers then asked the participants to recall that association. The results showed that exercising 4 hours after learning instead of immediately after enhanced participant’s ability to remember those associations compared to those who did not exercise. Hence, properly timed exercise can enhance long-term memory. The researchers strengthen their conclusion by controlling for problems that could affect the results.Such as having half the participants perform the task at 9AM, while the other half perform it at 12PM. This accounts for the differences in performance at different times of the day, which ensures that improvement in memory recall is occurring due to exercise.

Image of task protocol: associating an object with a location. The orange box represents the study phase, while the blue box represents the testing phase.

So, my elementary school teacher was right after all. Exercise is important for a healthy heart and, as it turns out, a healthy memory. Not only does this motivate me to exercise more often, but also, these studies give me hope for new intervention methods for patients with memory recall deficits. An example would be Alzheimer patients, who struggle with navigating the world (Weller et al., 2018). Another would be patients with major depressive disorder, who have memory impairments in encoding and recalling information (Gourgouvelis et al., 2017). It is cases like these that highlight the importance of understanding the impact of exercise on memory.

Now, when my friends and I have the option between using the metro or walking for 20-minutes, we choose the latter. Living in Paris for 4 weeks today, I have assimilated with the Parisian way of life. I am now able to walk in Paris for hours without the slightest soreness in my legs. It has become my new way of life.

 

References:

Cassilhas, R. C., Tufik, S., & de Mello, M. T. (2016). Physical exercise, neuroplasticity, spatial learning and memory. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 73(5), 975-983.

Erickson, K. I., Voss, M. W., Prakash, R. S., Basak, C., Szabo, A., Chaddock, L., … & Wojcicki, T. R. (2011). Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 3017-3022.

Gourgouvelis, J., Yielder, P., & Murphy, B. (2017). Exercise promotes neuroplasticity in both healthy and depressed brains: an fMRI pilot study. Neural plasticity, 2017.

Raz, N., Lindenberger, U., Rodrigue, K. M., Kennedy, K. M., Head, D., Williamson, A., … & Acker, J. D. (2005). Regional brain changes in aging healthy adults: general trends, individual differences and modifiers. Cerebral cortex, 15(11), 1676-1689.

Van Dongen, E. V., Kersten, I. H., Wagner, I. C., Morris, R. G., & Fernández, G. (2016). Physical exercise performed four hours after learning improves memory retention and increases hippocampal pattern similarity during retrieval. Current Biology, 26(13), 1722-1727.

Weller, J., & Budson, A. (2018). Current understanding of Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis and treatment. F1000Research, 7.

Zeidman, P., & Maguire, E. A. (2016). Anterior hippocampus: the anatomy of perception, imagination and episodic memory. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17(3), 173.

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The Ego in Architects

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 3 comments

Beauty is found everywhere in Paris. From the art museums, to the local gardens, to the towering landmarks across the city, it is impossible to not have Parisian beauty in your sight at all moments throughout the day. It is hard to imagine that at one point in time, the sights that seem so breathtaking were once not there; once upon a time, there were no identifiable landmarks along the cityscape, just gardens and houses composing the city. While imagining what older versions of Paris may have looked like, I thought back to some of my favorite sights that I have seen: Sacre-Couer, Arc de Triomphe, and (of course) the Eiffel Tower. While thinking of these internationally famous landmarks, I began to wonder why. Why were they made? Why were they made the size they are? Why were they made of certain material? Why are some more ornate than others? I then realized that the answers to these questions pertain more toward the architects of such monuments and not the monuments themselves. As I pondered the history of these architects, I started to realize the amount of pride they must have had from their accomplishments. I then began to question the ego (self-defined as a sense of self-esteem/pride) of these architects and to what role did their pride impact the design of their monuments?

The Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and Sacre-Couer

To first understand the role of ego in architects, it is important to first understand the role of ego in a general person. Rizzolatti et al. (2014) explored the relationship between neuroscience and ego. According to their report, the link between ego and the brain is a network of brain regions that are highly active at rest and are non-active during goal-directed thinking, called the default-mode network (DMN). The DMN controls and suppresses the activity of brain structures that receive information from brain regions that are in charge of motivation, as well as moderates information from the external world (Rizzolatti et al., 2014). While this study cannot conclusively state that the DMN is responsible for ego (as there was no actual research performed in their article), since ego is a human construct, it does convince me that it is the closest neural mechanism for ego and/or pride. So, since the DMN processes motivation, is involved in goal-directed thinking, and factors in information from the world we live in, it seems reasonable to conclude that the DMN functions as the neurobiological mechanism for ego which deals with one’s sense self-esteem in relation to other’s in their environment.

Location of DMN in adult brain

As for architects, one study has shown that the creative aspect of an architect’s mind leads to a strengthened ego, or in other words, an inflated sense of self-esteem (Fodor, 1995). In this study, participants were asked to design an engineering solution to the question of how to water a dog while frequently gone from home. The participants were then graded based on personalities, in which the more creative individuals scored higher on ego strength. This inflated sense of ego leads to a psychotic-like behavior that favors creative performance in finding solutions to difficult engineering problems, a quality that is favored in a renowned architect (Fodor, 1995). While the study by Fodor did give insight into the reward mechanisms of ego, it offered little biological evidence for the existence/prevalence of ego, necessitating further research.

Upon further investigation, I found one study where researchers performed an fMRI on participants as they recalled memories where they felt prideful, meaning they had a sense of ego (Roth et al., 2014). In this study, they discovered that during feelings of pride, the left amygdala (brain region responsible for emotions and memory) was significantly activated, as was the left anterior insula (brain region responsible for emotional experiences). These feelings of pride were also correlated with an increased rewarding/pleasurable experience. It was helpful how in this study they used neutral imagery in between moments where pride (or shame) could be recalled, ensuring that there would be clear results for which parts of the brain are, indeed, activated in response to pride  (Roth et al., 2014). Based on their results, it may mean that when these great architects resolved their engineering feats, they activated brain regions responsible for subjective emotional experiences and felt an increase in personal reward, perhaps leading these architects to build to new heights to achieve this same feeling each time they completed a project. Additionally, other areas of the brain are rewarded when seeing pleasurable architecture; regions of the brain such as the parahippocampus (responsible for memory retrieval) show that past architectural experiences play a role in the reward circuitry (Coburn et al., 2017). This may be interpreted that as an architect gains experience, they may need to out build their previous work, leading to a compulsion to build higher, wider, and more grandiose than ever before. It was beneficial for Coburn et al. (2017) to include neurobiology from all senses (motor, auditory, visual, etc.) however, the most convincing piece of evidence for the role of ego in the construction of architecture lies in their explanation of the parahippocampus which allows for a unique drive to “one-up” one’s self.

Image of brain highlighting the location of the insula and amygdala

So, next time I look up at the Eiffel Tower from my apartment window or look back on my pictures at Sacre-Couer, I will know that the brilliant architects responsible for these masterpieces had a reward circuit in their brain pushing them to go past their previous boundaries and build more robust pieces of architecture than before. Who knows, if these architects were still alive, they may have already built a more iconic landmark for Paris than the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe. Only time will tell how far future architects will push themselves (and their egos) in the city of Paris.

Map of famous Paris monuments

 

Works Cited

Rizzolatti, G., Semi, A. A., & Fabbri-Destro, M. (2014). Linking psychoanalysis with neuroscience: The concept of ego. Neuropsychologia, 55, 143-148.

Roth, L., Kaffenberger, T., Herwig, U., & Brühl, A. B. (2014). Brain activation associated with pride and shame. Neuropsychobiology, 69(2), 95-106.

Coburn, A., Vartanian, O., & Chatterjee, A. (2017). Buildings, beauty, and the brain: a neuroscience of architectural experience. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 29(9), 1521-1531.

Fodor, E. M. (1995). Subclinical manifestations of psychosis-proneness, ego strength, and creativity. Personality and Individual Differences, 18(5), 635-642.

Image 1: my personal photo

Image 2: google images http://dmangus.blogspot.com/2018/06/neuroscience-default-mode-network.html

Image 3: google images https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figures?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0201772

Image 4: google maps screenshot

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From Cheese to Brain Structures

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 6 comments

Four weeks into the NBB Paris program, I now know my friends in our apartment very well. In our apartment (maybe this applies to the others too), neither neuroscience nor soccer is the most discussed topic. This conversation is by far the most frequent. “What are we getting for dinner?” “I don’t know!” All of us are from different parts of the United States and even different parts of the world, which makes our restaurant selection processes a bit tricky. Nick Maamari, an Emory NBB senior from Dubai, thinks that cheese is the most disgusting food in the world. On the other hand, Daniel Son, a Korean-American student from Portland, Oregon, enjoys eating cheese so much that he bought a slice of gouda cheese from Monoprix on the first day we arrived in Paris.

France is a country known for its cheeses. In 1962, President Charles de Gaulle said, “how can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?” (Mignon, 1962) Being a neuroscience student, I ask, “what happened in Nick’s brain when he ate these French cheeses?”

Nick: “Eww*1,000”

Daniel: “the more it stinks, the better it tastes!”

Disgust has been identified as a basic emotion since Charles Darwin (Rozin and Fallon, 1987). Like other emotions, disgust has a characteristic facial expression (like the one shown in Nick’s photo), an appropriate action (Nick would definitely leave a restaurant if all available food has cheese), a distinctive physiological manifestation (nausea), and a characteristic feeling state (revulsion) (Rozin and Fallon, 1987). Research has found two brain structures that are considered as neural sites for processing disgust: insular cortex and basal ganglia (Sprengelmeyer, 2007). First, let’s start with some neuroanatomy.

(Byrne & Dafny, Eds.)

The insula cortex (or insula) lies deep within the lateral sulcus (as shown above) and it sits on an island (hence the name insular) covered with frontal, parietal and temporal opercula (“the lid”). It is interconnected with many cortical regions and subcortical structures, placing it at an ideal position to integrate homeostatic information with information about the physical and external environment (Sprengelmeyer, 2007).

(Henkel, 1998)

Basal ganglia is a group of subcortical nuclei responsible primarily for motor control and other roles such as executive functions, reward and emotions (Lanciego et al.). Two major neurodegenerative disorders, Huntington’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease are caused by the hyperactivation or hypoactivation of this structure, respectively (Cepeda et al., 2014). Previous research has identified cases where patients with Huntington’s disease were unable to recognize disgust (Sprengelmeyer et al., 1998).

Numerous research has shown the role of insula and basal ganglia in mediating disgust (Sprengelmeyer, 2007). However, most previous studies have focused on the recognition of facial expressions of disgust. The reason for the lack of research on food aversion is mainly due to a great variation between how each individual perceive what food is disgusting and also due to ethical issues associated with invoking uncomfortable feelings in experiments (Royet et al., 2016). A group of French researchers narrowed down their experimental food to … guess what, cheese (Royet et al., 2016). Cheese is loved by people like Daniel and hated by people like Nick, therefore, making it a great model to study the cerebral processes of food disgust.

In the first part of the study, the authors conducted a survey of the French population (this may be a biased sample and results do not apply to the rest of the world), to evaluate individual preferences for 75 foods and estimate the proportion of individuals who are disgusted by cheese. The authors have found a higher percentage (11.5%) of people disgusted by cheese than by other types of food. Now they have a study sample of individuals expressing a deep disgust for cheese.

The second part of the study involved Functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI), which is a tool to show activations of brain regions. The participants were asked to begin their experiments in a hunger state (these poor people did not even get a full breakfast) in order to make sure that the results were not biased by different metabolic rates after a meal. The researchers first presented participants in an MRI scanner with both the image and the smell of six different types of cheese and six other control foods. The participants were asked to judge whether the smell and sight of food are pleasant or not and whether they have a strong desire to eat the food.

After analyzing their data, the researchers found that global pallidus and substantia nigra (shown above) of the basal ganglia are more activated in people who dislike cheese. The authors also found that another structure of the basal ganglia, the ventral pallidum was inactivated in individuals disgusted by cheese. These structures are involved in what’s called the “reward pathway” of the brain, which regulates our perception of pleasure and facilitates the reinforcement of a particular behavior (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015). Taken together, the authors proposed that perhaps a modified version of the pathway for encoding reward was involved when we were presented with food that aroused strong feelings of dislike. Interestingly, the authors did not observe any differences in activation of insula in people who like or dislike cheese.

One thing to keep in mind as you read fMRI studies is that “correlation does not imply causation”. A structure active for a task does not mean it is critical for the task. Also, conclusions made in papers generally involve heavy statistics and morphing all brains of the participants, who of course, have different brain shapes and sizes (Logothetis, 2008). Therefore, research results should be interpreted cautiously.

This study fills in some gaps in the research of disgust, specifically for food. It helps us understand the role of different parts of the basal ganglia in processing disgust. The null finding of insula also supports that insula has more complicated functions than simply processing disgust. A foundation of knowledge on this topic can be applied to a wide variety of eating disorders that affects many people in our lives. I would like to end with my favorite celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay, who must have his brain structures associated with disgust constantly activated when judging his students’ dishes!

(Schocket, 2017)

Berridge Kent C, Kringelbach Morten L (2015) Pleasure Systems in the Brain. Neuron 86:646-664.

Cepeda C, Murphy KPS, Parent M, Levine MS (2014) The role of dopamine in Huntington’s disease. Prog Brain Res 211:235-254.

Lanciego JL, Luquin N, Obeso JA Functional neuroanatomy of the basal ganglia. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med 2:a009621-a009621.

Logothetis NK (2008) What we can do and what we cannot do with fMRI. Nature 453:869.

Royet J-P, Meunier D, Torquet N, Mouly A-M, Jiang T (2016) The Neural Bases of Disgust for Cheese: An fMRI Study. 10.

Rozin P, Fallon AE (1987) A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review 94:23-41.

Sprengelmeyer R (2007) The neurology of disgust. Brain 130:1715-1717.

Sprengelmeyer R, Rausch M, Eysel UT, Przuntek H (1998) Neural Structures Associated with Recognition of Facial Expressions of Basic Emotions. Proceedings: Biological Sciences 265:1927-1931.

Byrne, J. H., & Dafny, N. (Eds.). Neuroanatomy Online: An Electronic Laboratory for the Neurosciences. Retrieved from Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston (UTHealth): https://nba.uth.tmc.edu/neuroanatomy/L1/Lab01p26_index.html

Henkel, J. (1998). Parkinson’s Disease: New Treatments Slow Onslaught of Symptoms. FDA Consumer, 17.

Mignon, E. (1962). Les Mots du Général.

Schocket, R. (2017, September 6). This Is The Disgusting Reason Gordon Ramsay Refused To Swim In A Hotel’s Pool. Retrieved from BuzzFeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanschocket2/gordon-ramsay-refused-to-swim-in-this-hotels-pool-because?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bfsharecopy&sub=0_11766940#11766940

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Dutch vs. French: Who is happier?

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 3 comments

This weekend I had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam with some friends! We explored, went out, and soaked up the Dutch culture as much as we could in one day. While we were there, the environment, or “vibe,” was noticeably different in Amsterdam compared to what I have observed during my last three weeks in Paris. Dutch people seemed to be happier and more welcoming compared to the French.

Gorgeous Amsterdam

This first indication that Dutch people are nicer was that our taxi driver was loud, happy, and making jokes with us. During the ride, he was asking where we were from, giving us advice, and telling us himself how people are happy here. Even throughout the trip, we came across numerous people who would actually smile at us while walking! I kept thinking to myself, “Wow, I can smile here and not get a sketchy response back!” People would talk to us, joke with us, and welcome us into their city with open arms. One man even came up to us when we looked confused to ask if we needed help to get where we needed. It was almost comforting to be around these people because I got that taste of America during my time in Amsterdam.

Meanwhile in Paris, people seem to be serious and in the zone. The crammed metro rides and the stereotyped city life really becomes apparent here in Paris. Although most people are nice and helpful, the impression that they give off seems cold and rigid. Quite honestly, they seem unamused with all the Americans that are in their city. Constantly, people are crammed and trying to get through by pushing and shoving to get where they need to go. With a “pardon” here and there, the Parisian way of life seems more stressful than the seemingly laid back Dutch culture.

Besides the mood that I am interpreting based on my interactions with both groups of people, the Dutch people also seem to be happier. When comparing overall mood of people in these two cities, I assume that people in Amsterdam seem to be happier than people in Paris. I may be completely on a whim here, but I really wonder what kinds of experiences and events can shape people’s moods. Although it is a precarious topic, I wonder if the legalization of marijuana attributes to the better mood and happiness in Dutch people, and if the long-term use can results in something detrimental to mental health.

Cannabis is used to enhance mood and at times quality of life (Fischer et al., 2015). A study analyzed an Australian cohort over time to study outcomes of the people. Quality of life, happiness, satisfaction and socio-demographic characteristics were taken into consideration when analyzing. The results provided by this study showed that frequent cannabis use did not enhance quality of life, and it was actually associated with low quality of life at 21-years old and up (Fisher et al., 2015).

Another study by Bruijnzeel et al. (2019), they authors were studying rats and how emotional behavior or cognitive function can change from adolescence to adulthood. The rats were exposed to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or cannabis smoke with increasing doses. Once the rats reached adulthood, anxiety-like behavior, depressive like behavior, and cognitive function were assessed. The results showed that neither THC nor cannabis smokes during adolescence produced significant amounts of alterations in adult rats after the cannabis was abstained.

One study even compared synthetic cannabinoid use with natural cannabis use and their respective cognitive outcomes. The results showed that synthetic cannabinoid users have a higher likelihood of drug abuse, sleep problems, and other psychological problems compared to natural cannabis users (Mensen et al., 2019). Additionally, adolescents cannabis users seem to be more vulnerable to changes in the brain compared to adult cannabis users (Gorey et al., 2019).

All of these papers can be synthesized to conclude that cannabis use does not directly affect long term happiness, especially of an entire culture. It is important to consider that cannabis use, although legal in some places, can be dangerous long term. For example, grey matter volume differences can arise, especially during the vulnerable adolescent stage of life (Orr et al., 2019). I think that some people may seem happier because of alleged cannabis use (purely based off of assumption), but the research did not conclude that the use of marijuana is the direct cause of a seemingly happier society. Based on my literature search, there seems to be a fine line when it comes to using cannabis because there are still long term cognitive changes that can interfere with life (Akram et al., 2019). Although my question and assumption was not answered how I thought it would, it was interesting to see how variable cannabis consumption can be. From this, I still consider the Dutch to be happier than Parisians. However, maybe I am not giving the Parisians the benefit of the doubt, and maybe they are equally happy! We may never know the answer to that question.

Happy Tourists!

 

References

Akram, H., Mokrysz, C., & Curran, H. V. (2019). What are the psychological effects of using synthetic cannabinoids? A systematic review. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 33(3), 271–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881119826592

Bruijnzeel, A. W., Knight, P., Panunzio, S., Xue, S., Bruner, M. M., Wall, S. C., … Setlow, B. (2019). Effects in rats of adolescent exposure to cannabis smoke or THC on emotional behavior and cognitive function in adulthood. Psychopharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-019-05255-7

Fischer, J. A., Clavarino, A. M., Plotnikova, M., & Najman, J. M. (2015). Cannabis Use and Quality of Life of Adolescents and Young Adults: Findings from an Australian Birth Cohort. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 47(2), 107–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2015.1014121

Gorey, C., Kuhns, L., Smaragdi, E., Kroon, E., & Cousijn, J. (2019). Age-related differences in the impact of cannabis use on the brain and cognition: a systematic review. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience,269(1), 37–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-019-00981-7

Mensen, V. T., Vreeker, A., Nordgren, J., Atkinson, A., de la Torre, R., Farré, M., … Brunt, T. M. (2019). Psychopathological symptoms associated with synthetic cannabinoid use: a comparison with natural cannabis. Psychopharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-019-05238-8

Orr, C., Spechler, P., Cao, Z., Albaugh, M., Chaarani, B., Mackey, S., … Garavan, H. (2019). Grey Matter Volume Differences Associated with Extremely Low Levels of Cannabis Use in Adolescence. The Journal of Neuroscience, 39(10), 1817–1827. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3375-17.2018

Images

Scholar Blogs and my own images

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Lights, Camera, Brain Activity?

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 4 comments

A suave young man acting like a French Humphrey Boggart walks down the street to chat up the young woman. They bicker and laugh at their daily life in Paris, as the young man casually asks the girl to come run away with him to Rome in order to escape the cops. This scene comes from one of my favorite black and white movies of all time, the French film by Jean Luc Godard Breathless.

A scene from Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless where we see our anti-hero Michel walking down
the streets of Paris with his American “girlfriend” Patricia

When I first saw this film for the first time in my sophomore year at Emory, it helped to inspire a deeper appreciation for film as a form of art all on its own. And I know I’m not alone in sharing that sentiment. In the limited time, I have spent here in Paris, I have understood how much the people here have an appreciation for their movies. From the Hollywood blockbusters to the more local avant-garde films, the streets and metros of Paris have never seemed to be without a shortage of advertisements for upcoming movies. Seeing how prevalent cinema seemed to be saturated throughout all cultures, got me to wondering exactly what is it about cinema makes us drawn to them? What exactly happens within our minds when we watch movies?

 

One of the interesting things I have found about movies is how watching a movie seems to bring a sense of shared experience and emotion with whoever you’re watching it with. A study conducted in 2008 by Hasson suggests that this particular shared phenomenon is not just isolated in the way that you feel, but also in the way that your brain is activated throughout the movie.

This particular study by Hasson set out to investigate the influence that exposure towards watching popular media has on evoking similar states of awareness. To test this, Hasson utilized a method known as inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis to investigate the similarity of his subject’s brain activity throughout the experiment. ISC is a method that compares the activity of a specific region within a subject’s brain through a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) test to the activity of other subjects within the same region (Hasson et.al, 2008). Using this method, Hasson first tested for the activity of the brain between 5 humans subjects. The subjects were put in an MRI scanner while watching the opening 30 minutes of Sergio Leone’s 1996 film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The activity of the brain was recorded throughout the brain and then compared to the other subjects using ISC. After testing, Hasson found that the ISC between all subjects of the study were similar throughout multiple areas of the brain, particularly with the fusiform face gyrus which is associated with face-specific processing within the brain (Hasson et.al, 2008; McCathy et.al, 1997). This suggests that whenever we watch the same scene of a movie, our brains are similarly activated with others who also watched this exact scene. This aids itself in understanding why we seem to have this feeling of a shared experience whenever we watch a movie together with someone.

A figure from Hasson’s study: found that brain activity (this figure showing the fusiform face area) of areas throughout the brain were activated similarly across all subjects

While Hasson’s study does not go completely in depth into the neurophysiological systems that are influenced during movie watching, this question is further examined in a later study conducted by Pitcher in 2019. Within this particular study Pitcher set out to investigate the difference in brain region activity between viewing moving images vs stable images (Pitcher et.al, 2019). Pitcher conducted this study by monitoring the brain activity of 22 participants through fMRI as they watched videos of moving bodies and faces and objects and compared them to the brain activity of the subjects when they viewed static images. Pitcher found that within this study that areas such as the extrastriate body area (involved in perception of the human body and body parts) and the occipital place area (involved in scene perception) are more activated when presented with the videos compared to when they are presented with a static image (Dilks et.al, 2015; Serguei et.al, 2004; Pitcher et.al, 2019). The wider activation of these particular areas of the brain suggests how whenever we watch a movie, there is a greater sense of interactivity as you find yourself engaging to the movement of the people and scenery along with the object itself.

 

This interactivity of film with its audience is something that I continually find myself enthralled with. It’s an art form that draws us into the world of its characters, engaging us in ways that I have never fully understood. It’s a medium that utilizes itself to connect people from all over the world. From Peru to China, to the USA and Paris. This is a medium that seems to enthrall our souls and neurons.

 

So to end this off, I say that if you ever wanted to connect with someone on a deeper level, ask them to watch a movie and you’ll have an experience that connects you as deeply as the neuronal level.

 

References:

Dilks, D. D., Julian, J. B., Paunov, A. M., & Kanwisher, N. (2013). The occipital place area is causally and selectively involved in scene perception. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 33(4),

 

Hasson U. Landesman O. Knappmeyer B. Vallines I. Rubin N. Heeger D. J. (2008). Neurocinematics: The neuroscience of film. Projections, 2, 1–26.

 

McCarthy G., Puce A., Gore C. J., & Allison T. (1997). Face-Specific Processing in the Human Fusiform Gyrus, J. Neuroscience 9(5)

 

Pitcher, D., Ianni, G., & Ungerleider, L. G. (2019). A functional dissociation of face-, body- and scene-selective brain areas based on their response to moving and static stimuli. Scientific reports, 9(1), 8242.

 

Serguei V A., Christine M S., Gordon L S., & Maurizio C. (2004) Extrastriate body area in human occipital cortex responds to the performance of motor actions. Nature Neuroscience 7(5)

 

Image 1: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SqOJaGM-wQg/maxresdefault.jpg

Image 2: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Neurocinematics%3A-The-Neuroscience-of-Film-Hasson-Landesman/9360e9eeb98a3b2c1e28316d5df0073876967371

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Breathing Easy?

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | Leave a comment

Walking around the streets of Paris, I quickly noticed the amount of people smoking and cars on the road. In the USA, smoking cigarettes has become pretty uncommon and passing someone smoking is a relatively rare nuisance. However, in Paris smoking is common and you pass multiple people smoking whenever you walk around. Knowing the effects of secondhand smoke and combining that with the traffic here, it made me wonder what effects air quality can have on the brain. As soon as I started searching for articles on the topic, it became concerning how much easier it was to find articles than it was for my past two blog posts.  Even more concerning, was an article by Grineski and Collins (2018) on the effects of air pollution in schools in the United States that found that minority children were more at risk for exposure to polluted air. According to the article, this can cause a child to not do as well in school as their unexposed peers, so what causes this change?

Image I took at the Musee d’Orsay that shows off Parisian traffic.

One article that they had cited that I thought was particularly interesting and relevant was by Calderón-Garcidueñas et al. (2008), they performed autopsies on forty-seven healthy people who had died, mostly of accidents, from either Mexico city, which has extremely high amounts of air pollution or two control cities with very little pollution. They found that air pollution increased the amounts of a peptide associated with Alzheimer’s disease in the brain, even in children. Another study by Rivas et al. (2019) found that air pollution can negatively impact working memory, or the ability to remember and think about things that have just happened in males. They also found that this isn’t isolated to a few individuals and can impact the entire area. However, they found no impact on the working memory of females.

These studies made me wonder why you rarely hear anything about the dangers of air pollution in the USA, so I looked up a map.

Image from: https://www.who.int/images/default-source/imported/pollution-map-jpg.jpg?sfvrsn=2cf9c86b_0

This map shows that the United States tends to have pretty good air quality when compared to the rest of the world. Atlanta seems like it might have a yellow dot by it however, it’s hard to tell without labels and borders. However, all of France is yellow and it appears that it might have an orange dot around Paris. This means that even when I was enjoying what seemed like “cleaner” air on the Provence trip, it was still more polluted than if I were to get out of Atlanta and go to another part of Georgia.

While I’ve enjoyed Paris, this has made me wonder why the air pollution wouldn’t be something that is talked about more? Before coming here, people warned me about the pickpockets and toilets, but no one warned me that I would pass so many people smoking every day or that the traffic could get so much worse than Atlanta traffic especially with a good well-connected public transport system. Learning about this makes me wonder if there is more that could be done to educate people on the negative impacts that air pollution can have. I feel like we only ever hear about its impacts on the lungs or maybe the throat but, with the exception of the scientists doing this research, no one seems to mention that it can even have huge impacts on the brain.

 

 

Works Cited

Calderón-Garcidueñas, L., Solt, A. C., Henríquez-Roldán, C., Torres-Jardón, R., Nuse, B., Herritt, L., … Reed, W. (2008). Long-term Air Pollution Exposure Is Associated with Neuroinflammation, an Altered Innate Immune Response, Disruption of the Blood-Brain Barrier, Ultrafine Particulate Deposition, and Accumulation of Amyloid β-42 and α-Synuclein in Children and Young Adults. Toxicologic Pathology, 36(2), 289–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192623307313011

Grineski, S. E., & Collins, T. W. (2018). Geographic and social disparities in exposure to air neurotoxicants at U.S. public schools. Environmental research, 161, 580–587. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2017.11.047

Rivas, I., Basagaña, X., Cirach, M., López-Vicente, M., Suades-González, E., Garcia-Esteban, R., . . . Sunyer, J. (2019). Association between Early Life Exposure to Air Pollution and Working Memory and Attention. Environmental Health Perspectives, 127(5), 057002. doi:10.1289/EHP3169

Pictures

https://www.who.int/images/default-source/imported/pollution-map-jpg.jpg?sfvrsn=2cf9c86b_0

Definitions

Amyloid beta. (2019, June 02). Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyloid_beta

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Give Me A Smile, Mona Lisa!

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 3 comments

To smile or not to smile? Was the “Mona Lisa” actually smiling in the painting that would become one of the most famous works of art? The Mona Lisa smile seems to be the heated debate of artists and surprisingly, scientists all over the world. Take a look for yourself and try to see if you see a smile or not.

The Mona Lisa (left) displayed at Musée du Louvre (right) in Paris

Well for me, I don’t see one when I look closely. This made me wonder why some people saw the smile, while others didn’t. To provide context for anyone who is unfamiliar with the Mona Lisa, it was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci from 1503-06. “Mona Lisa” is thought to be a depiction of Lisa Gherardini, a wife of a cloth merchant (Louvre.fr 2019). However, the rest of the information about the painting comes from the painting itself. Professor Florian Hutzler, a psychologist at the Centre for Neurocognitive Research in Salzburg, explains that Da Vinci used artistic techniques to create an optical illusion to trick the viewers into thinkingMona Lisa was smiling. If viewed face on, the smile appears neutral due to the soft shading of the colors but using your peripheral vision, a subtle smile appears from the merging of the brush strokes (Telegraph 2010). To understand why the Mona Lisa might be playing tricks on us, we must first learn how our brain perceives optical illusions.

A scientific study conducted in Japan examines how our brains are affected by looking at optical illusions. This study had participants perform a shape task, where they judged if 2 optical illusions were the same, and a word task, where they read aloud Japanese letters. While they were doing these tasks, they measured brain activity with an fMRI (Tabei et al. 2015). An fMRI is a tool that measures blood flow in the brain. We should keep in mind a limitation when working with fMRI imaging. fMRI only shows activation of different brain regions measured by blood flow. However, it does not show how the regions connect to each other. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at what the fMRI showed.

Three areas showed activation in the optical illusion task. The thalamus is a relay center that allows you to process the outside world. The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the medial frontal gyrus (MFG) are both involved in resolving conflicting information, such as deciphering optical illusions (Tabei et al. 2015). The conflicting information, when we turn to The Mona Lisa, is whether she is smiling or not. Remember the next time you look at the Mona Lisa or any optical illusion, your brain is doing a lot more work than you think. So now that we know the science behind visual perception of an optical illusion, why is this optical illusion created in the first place?

Areas of the brain activated more in the optical illusion task (above) than without (below)

Some scientists say that the illusion is the result of facial asymmetry. Interestingly, face asymmetry is something Da Vinci himself might have known about and deliberately painted. He had in depth knowledge on facial musculature and movements, found in his notebooks (Adour 1989). In a neuropsychology study done by Marsili et al., this facial asymmetry explanation was studied. The researchers examined whether facial expressions and emotions are influenced by individuals looking at asymmetrical images. A concept that the researchers introduced as past evidence to support the face asymmetry theory is the Duchenne smile. A Duchenne smile simply means it is genuine and can be seen by upper face activation, also known as the wrinkles around your eyes (Ekman et al. 1990) Conversely, a non-Duchenne smile is non-genuine, where no wrinkles around the eyes are present, the next time you see someone smile, you can identify if it’s genuine or not! Looking at the Mona Lisa after learning this, I can see a non-genuine smile, which the researchers say shows facial asymmetry.

A Duchenne/genuine smile (left) vs. Non-Duchenne/non-genuine smile (right)

To further prove facial asymmetry results in the illusory smile, Marsili et al. asked 42 individuals to judge, by a confidence scale (0 none – 10 most confident) and reaction time, which of the six basic emotions was present on 2 chimeric images. A chimeric image takes two left or two right halves and mirrors them next to each other to form a face (see image below). 92.8% of raters indicated that only the left-left image can be used to confidently predict that she was smiling or happy. This led researchers to conclude that facial asymmetry does exist in the Mona Lisa, providing reason behind the illusory smile (Marsili et al. 2019). Additionally, if the researchers explored chimeric images of the eyes or the upper face, this could strengthen the categorization of the smile as non-genuine. However, Marsili et al. (2019) use their findings to imply that the Mona Lisa was not smiling after all, but the truth will remain a mystery.

c-Left-left chimeric image; d- right-right chimeric image

From the enigmatic smile to the ever-growing attraction that pulls visitors from around the world every day, the Mona Lisa will remain a fascinating object of Renaissance art to everyone. The Mona Lisa smile has been the center of scientific studies, the focus of artists and art historians, and the general public. Learning about the science behind the painting and how one painting’s detail can transform the art-viewing experience intrigues me. After my research on the Mona Lisa, I still feel that the debate will continue. While we may never know the true historical and scientific thought behind Leonardo da Vinci’s art piece and if the woman in the Mona Lisa was actually smiling or not, we can definitely say that our brains are hard at work.

 

References

K.K. (1989). Adour Mona Lisa syndrome: Solving the enigma of the Gioconda smile. The Annals of Otology Rhinology and Laryngology, 98, pp. 196-199

Marsili, L., Ricciardi, L., & Bologna, M. (2019) Unraveling the asymmetry of Mona Lisa smile Cortex; doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.03.020

Bogodistov, Y., & Dost, F. (2017). Proximity Begins with a Smile, But Which One? Associating Non-duchenne Smiles with Higher Psychological Distance. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 1374. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01374

Ekman P., Davidson R. J., Friesen W. V. (1990). The Duchenne smile: emotional expression and brain physiology: II. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 58 342–353. 10.1037/0022-3514.58.2.342

Tabei, K., Satoh, M., Kida, H., Kizaki, M., Sakuma, H., Sakuma, H., & Tomimoto, H. (2015). Involvement of the Extrageniculate System in the Perception of Optical Illusions: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study. PloS one, 10(6), e0128750. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128750

Spillmann L, Dresp B. (1995). Phenomena of illusory form: can we bridge the gap between levels of explanation? Perception.;24(11):1333–64.

Thibault, M. Levesque, P. Gosselin, U. Hess (2012). The Duchenne marker is not a universal signal of smile authenticity—but it can be learned! Social Psychology, 43 (4), pp. 215-221

“Work Mona Lisa – Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, Wife of Francesco Del Giocondo.” Mona Lisa – Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, Wife of Francesco Del Giocondo | Louvre Museum | Paris, www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/mona-lisa-portrait-lisa-gherardini-wife-francesco-del-giocondo.

“Mona Lisa Smile Created Using ‘Trick’.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 15 Mar. 2010, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/7450451/Mona-Lisa-smile-created-using-trick.html.

Image of Mona Lisa from louvre.fr

Image of Musée du Louvre taken by me

Image of fMRI from Tabei et al. 2015

Image of Duchenne smiles from Bogodistov et al. 2017

Last image from Marsili et al. 2019

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A freaking AWEsome game

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 2 comments

You will never see a Korean father more excited than when South Korea is playing in the World Cup. In my family, I have a cousin who trained to be on the U-13 South Korean national soccer team (until he got injured, unfortunately) and a dad whose dream is to attend a World Cup game one day. Coming from this household, you can imagine my pure joy and excitement when we were entering the stadium to watch the Women’s World Cup match between the USA and Chile this past Sunday at Parc des Princes. Yes, my dad was extremely jealous. As soon as we entered the metro station, hundreds of people fashioned in red, white, and blue were jam packed into those cars. I could not stop smiling, and it was the best experience being surrounded by fans who love their country. For the U.S. fans, we were on cloud nine as the team was already leading 3-0 by halftime. But even we, the Americans, could not help but be amazed at Christiane Endler throughout the entire 90 minutes of the game.

The amazing view from our seats at Parc des Princes

Christiane Endler is the goalkeeper for the Chile team. Wearing her green Captain band proudly on her arm, Endler is the first woman to captain Chile at a World Cup. Endler played incredibly against the formidable US team, which attempted 26 shots at the goal starting from minute one. But after reading an NY Times article that our professor sent to us, I got chills. The story of this Chilean heroine who rose up and is leading a team that wasn’t even on the FIFA rankings three years ago was so moving and inspiring. Her story is awesome. I experienced goosebumps while reading this article, and I started to think about what goes on in the brain when we experience feelings of awe.

Christiane Endler being a beast (NY Times)

Awe is a unique emotion. It can be associated with both positive and negative experiences and can be triggered by a vast range of stimuli and events. Psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt suggest that awe experiences can be characterized by two phenomena: “perceived vastness” and a “need for accommodation”. “Perceived vastness” meaning that we are experiencing something that seems greater than ourselves, and an experience that evokes a “need for accommodation” when it violates our normal understanding of the world (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). We experience awe when we hear the swell of a symphony, watch the climactic battle in “Avengers: Endgame” in an IMAX theater, or watching Endler save shot after shot at a Women’s World Cup game! To examine what goes on in the brain when people experience awe, a study by Guan et al. was conducted to assess the neural correlates of dispositional, or naturally induced, awe.

Fourty-two university students were given a survey that was measured by the Dispositional Positive Emotion Scale (DPES), which assessed the extent to which the subjects experience emotions in their daily lives, one of which was awe. They would rank statements like “I often feel awe” on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The researchers also used voxel-based morphology or VBM. Although this sounds complicated, simply put, VBM is an analysis technique that uses neuroimaging scans of the brain and compares it to a baseline template and then across subjects. Researchers use this method to examine neuroanatomical differences in the volume of different brain structures. In this case, they were looking at regional gray matter volume (rGMV), which consists of the brain’s nerve cell bodies. From the DPES scores and the brain images they acquired through VBM, the results indicated that the dispositional awe score was correlated with rGMV in several different brain regions:

  1. The first correlation was between rGMV and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). This part of the brain is critical for adapting to sudden changes in the environment, early learning, and conscious attention (Allman et al., 2001; Shiota et al., 2017). The association between dispositional awe and the ACC could indicate that awe has an increased tendency to embrace cognitive accommodation and new knowledge. Additionally, the experience of awe leads people to shift their awareness and attention from day-to-day problems and towards the bigger picture away from their own personal self.
  2. Next, there are correlations with the middle/posterior cingulate cortex (MCC/PCC). The MCC is involved with reward emotional processing (Bush et al., 2002) and the PCC is involved in assessing self-relevant information (Scherpiet et al., 2014). This correlation may indicate that dispositional awe is ultimately a reward-related emotional experience.
  3. Lastly, they found a correlation with the rGMV in the medial temporal gyrus (MTG). This area is widely involved in the detection of incongruity and socioemotional regulation (Bartolo et al., 2006). The MTG plays a crucial role in the detection and resolution of incongruity in the process of experiencing socioemotional awe.

These results suggest that individual differences in dispositional awe involve multiple brain regions related to attention, conscious self-regulation, cognitive control, and social emotion. This study is the first to provide evidence for the structural neural basis of individual differences in dispositional awe.

The brain areas that correlate with dispositional awe (Guan et al., 2018)

The authors could have strengthened their experiment by having a larger and more diverse sample size. Although the college student population is accessible, gaining data from a wider age range would make their findings more generalizable. However, the VBM method that the authors used was able to look at several different brain structures at once, which was able to provide a very comprehensive overview of which brain structures were affected and strengthened the researchers’ conclusion. Overall, it was fascinating to learn more about how our brain processes feelings of awe. It would be interesting to learn more about how our physiological responses, like goosebumps, also have a relationship to neural circuits in our brain, and if different external stimuli have different effects, i.e. our response to awe in music versus a sports match. Huge thank you to Dr. Frenzel who got us this opportunity to attend this AWEsome game. I cannot wait to experience more awe as we close out our final two weeks here in Paris!

Happy faces after the WIN!!!!

References

Allman, J. M., Hakeem, A., Erwin, J. M., Nimchinsky, E., and Hof, P. (2001). The anterior cingulate cortex. Ann. N Y Acad. Sci. 935, 107–117. doi: 10.1111/j. 1749-6632.2001.tb03476.x

Bartolo, A., Benuzzi, F., Nocetti, L., Baraldi, P., and Nichelli, P. (2006). Humor comprehension and appreciation: an FMRI study. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 18, 1789–1798. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2006.18.11.1789

Bush, G., Vogt, B. A., Holmes, J., Dale, A. M., Greve, D., Jenike, M. A., et al. (2002). Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex: a role in reward-based decision making. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U S A 99, 523–528. doi: 10.1073/pnas.012470999

Keltner, D. J., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302297

Guan F, Xiang Y, Chen O, Wang W, Chen J (2018) Neural basis of dispositional awe. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 12:1-7

Scherpiet, S., Brühl, A. B., Opialla, S., Roth, L., Jäncke, L., and Herwig, U. (2014). Altered emotion processing circuits during the anticipation of emotional stimuli in women with borderline personality disorder. Eur. Arch. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 264, 45–60. doi: 10.1007/s00406-013-0444-x

Shiota, M. N., Thrash, T. M., Danvers, A., and Dombrowski, J. T. (2017). Transcending the Self: Awe, Elevation and Inspiration. Available online at: http://www.psyarxiv.com/hkswj.

Smith R (2019) Chile Goalkeeper Equal to the Task, if Not to the Team. The New York TimesAvailable at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/sports/christiane-endler-chile.html

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Stars, Stripes, and the Sound of Music

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 1 comment

When I played sports in high school, I was one of those people who would leave their headphones on until the last possible minute because I needed the music to focus. During warm-ups, if there was a song playing, I’d make sure to move to the beat or sing the lyrics to get in the right mentality. Music has always been something that I have connected to sports. This past Sunday, we had the wonderful opportunity to go see the US women’s soccer team play here in Paris for the FIFA World Cup. They won 3-0! Without a doubt, it was truly one of the highlights of the entire program! At the beginning, when the players first came onto the pitch, an upbeat song with a lot of bass reverberated in the stadium. The crowd went wild, and they were screaming their hearts out. Almost as if contagious, the soccer players also gained adrenaline listening to this song and they jumped to the beat as they were doing their last minute warm-ups. Whether it’s before or during the game, I decided to look into the impact of music on physical performance.

NBB students love cheering on the US!

Songs like “We are the Champions,” “All I do is win,” “Crazy Train,” and “We Will Rock You,” are commonly heard at sporting events. These songs raise the spirits of the crowd, but do they also help players perform better? Elvers and Steffens’ study set out to determine just that (2017). They had 150 participants complete a basketball task where they had to throw the ball into a funnel. They measured a lot of variables to be able to reach multiple conclusions. One of the hypotheses was that performance would be improved if the person listened to music beforehand. The results show that performance is only improved if the person was already good at the task and if the player had the option to choose the type of music. Since the soccer game was between professional athletes, we can assume that there’s a high chance that their performance could be improved with music. They also measured risk-taking behavior by letting the participants decide at what distance to shoot the ball from. Here, listening to any type of music made the participants more prone to choosing to shoot from further away. In professional soccer games, we never see the same plays over and over again, they are often taking risks in order to get the result they want. Could it be that the soccer players are listening to music and find that it gives them the motivation to take risks during the game?

When we look at the different brain regions that are activated while this process is occurring, we see that there is a connection between music and the premotor cortex. In a 2009 study, they had participants listen to music that they considered pleasurable and music that they considered non-pleasurable (Kornysheva et. al.). They scanned participants using fMRI and found that there was greater activation in both the ventral premotor cortex, an area of the brain involved with motor control, and cerebellar areas, often involved in balance and coordination, when they listened to music that they considered pleasurable versus listening to the non-pleasurable music. The brain actually adjusts to a certain tempo of music, and it can increase motor function, hence better performance. So, music not only impacts performance in the present, it also changes the brain responses for the future. If only we could have scanned the brains of the US team while they were playing to see if we would find that their premotor cortex had a greater activation after listening to that song heard all over the stadium.

The premotor cortex (PMC) and the cerebellum are both involved in music’s effect on sport performance.

Although there have been a considerable number of studies whose aim is to find the correlation between sports’ performance and music, there is still more research to be done. For example, how is it that these same songs played worldwide can elicit the same response from athletes who are all different. Is it their beat that makes them classics? Do they all cause people’s heart to start racing and adrenaline to rush through their veins? It would also be beneficial to look for possible detrimental effects of listening to music causing a decrease in performance.

In the meantime, let’s keep hoping that the music on full blast in the stadiums brings out the best from the US soccer team so that they can bring home a championship! I believe that we will win!

The U.S. planning their next move.

References

Elvers P., Steffens J. (2017). The sound of success: investigating cognitive and behavioral effects of motivational music in sports. Front. Psychol. 8:2026.

Kornysheva, K., von Cramon, D. Y., Jacobsen, T., and Schubotz, R. I. (2010). Tuning-in to the beat: aesthetic appreciation of musical rhythms correlates with a premotor activity boost. Hum. Brain Mapp. 31, 48–64.

Image 1: taken by Sarah Taha

Image 2: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Illusory-Hand-ownership-modified-after-Blanke-2012-The-main-brain-regions-that-are_fig20_283465205

Image 3: taken by me

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Croissant Crisis

Posted on June 17, 2019 by | 1 comment

Wander down any street in Paris, and you will be struck by a number of differences from an American city. People speaking dozens of different languages, crowding tables on the sidewalk drinking wine and smoking cigarettes have become a familiar sight to me; but one aspect of Parisian life always manages to grab my attention: the bakeries. Hundreds of them, on every street corner, all bustling with activity and displaying their delicious wares behind wide glass windows. I was not prepared for the sheer amount of bakeries, and by the time I go home I might have gained a pound from croissants alone. What I really need is an intervention, but first I’m going to find out what it is makes those bakeries so difficult to walk away from. 

These frosted biscuits caught my eye from a block down the street (Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris).

Biology has tied the evolution of human vision to food behavior; it is thought that we developed the ability to see in color in response to demands of the foraging our ancestors had to do to survive (Bompas et al., 2013). But today, visual-cues related to food are everywhere, whether it be Parisian bakeries or billboards with burgers on them. There have been numerous studies investigating the role of food in brain function, and how specific nutrients affect various brain systems. For example, omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to support plasticity and help the brain recover from traumatic brain injury (Wu et al., 2007). Furthermore eating food, especially food rich in sugar, has been shown to activate the same dopamine-reward pathways activated by drugs (Hernandez & Hoebel, 1988). More recently, neuroscientists have been trying to determine a link between the consumption of food and visual cues in our environment. This research is of the utmost importance in our modern world, where advertising for food is everywhere and childhood obesity rates are at catastrophic proportions (Han et al., 2010). Studies have found that images of food can affect the human body in a variety of ways, including increased salivation, neural activity, and reward anticipation; food advertising is simply more powerful than most other forms (Spence et al., 2016).

Just a closer look at what I’ve been trying to resist (Boulangerie Chambelland, Paris).

The effects of food advertising can be more pronounced in individuals who have any sort of food related behavioral issue. A 2019 study used neuroimaging on the brains of adolescents who displayed “loss of control” eating behaviors and found that in these individuals there was increased brain activity when food related images were presented compared to control (Biehl et al., 2019). The researchers also found that obese patients performed poorly compared to controls on a goal oriented task when images of food were presented as distractors (Biehl et al., 2019). In an interesting parallel, another study performed a similar task with anorexic patients and found that they too are more likely to have task performance impeded by visual food cues (Neimeijer et al., 2017). These findings support the popular theory that food can be an addiction; actual changes in neural circuitry occur in patients with abnormal eating behaviors, resulting in a different response to food-related stimuli in the environment (Biehl et a 2019; Neimeijer et al., 2017). The two studies also underscore the effect that visual food stimuli can have; even the control group experienced greater brain activity to food cues compared to neutral cues, with an even greater difference when they were hungry.

Finally, science backs up my mother’s longstanding rule “never go to the grocery store on an empty stomach”. Parisian bakers have stumbled upon principles of neuroscience to draw pedestrians into their shops; seeing delicious pastries in a window captures one’s attention and sets off a series of neurological functions evolved to drive one to eat. It’s really no wonder I grab a coffee and a croissant every time I see a rack of them in a window; you can’t fight science!

Works Cited

Biehl SC, Ansorge U, Naumann E, Svaldi J (2019) Altered Processing of Visual Food Stimuli in Adolescents with Loss of Control Eating. Nutrients 11(2): 210

Bompas A, Kendall G, Sumner P (2013) Spotting Fruit versus Picking Fruit as the Selective Advantage of Human Colour Vision. i-Perception 4: 84-94

Han JC, Lawlor DA, Kimm SY (2010) Childhood obesity. Lancet 375: 1738-1748

Hernandez L & Hoebel BG (1988) Food reward and cocaine increase extracellular dopamine in the nucleus accumbens as measured by microdialysis. Life Sciences 42(18): 1705-1712

Neimeijer RAM, Roefs A, de Jong PJ (2017) Heightened attentional capture by visual food stimuli in anorexia nervosa. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 126(6):805-811

Spence C, Okajima K, Cheok AD, Petit O, Michel C (2016) Eating with our eyes: From visual hunger to digital satiation. Brain and Cognition 110: 53-63

Wu A, Ying Z, Gomez-Pinilla F (2007) Omega-3 fatty acids supplementation restores mechanisms that maintain brain homeostasis in traumatic brain injury. Journal of Neurotrauma 24(10): 1587-1595

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