NBB Summer Program in Paris

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday, May 25th, our class took a trip to a cheese tasting at Fromagerie Monbleu where we were introduced to a variety of cheeses made from goat, camel, and cow’s milk that were unique to France! As a cheese lover, I was excited to stray away from American cheese and try the real deal! To truly be able to savor the distinct flavors of French cheeses, we were first taught the difference between the terms “flavor” and “taste” which are oftentimes confused. Our guide asked us to close our eyes, hold our noses shut, and put out one hand where we would receive seeds to put in our mouths and blindly chew. By restricting these senses, the seeds tasted very bland with no notable flavor. To my surprise, as soon as our guide asked us to open our eyes and breathe through our noses, there was an explosion of flavor in my mouth! It was later revealed that we had been given coriander seeds, distinct for their aroma and citrus flavor. It was fascinating to experience the difference between blocking and allowing our senses to do their function.

 

The cheese tasting was a perfect continuity to the first article that our class has been discussing in Dr. Easterling’s global neuroscience perspectives course. The study examines the relationship between the macronutrient content of highly palatable foods (cheese) and the stress-relieving effects through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis response (Fourman et al., 2021). In conjunction with the author’s prior studies, the results indicated that palatable foods are able to reduce stress responses no matter their macronutrient content (sucrose or carbohydrate). Our in-class discussion of cheese and its stress-reducing abilities paired with the cheese tasting led to my search for more information about stress-induced comfort eating in college students. 

The study that I found talked about stress levels in college students and how students who experienced higher levels of stress developed less healthy dietary behaviors (Choi, 2020). This is especially pertinent to me and my classmates as our stressors include adjusting to a new time zone, adjusting to a new city and rhythm of life, and taking eight credits in six weeks! The study and my experience walking around the city made me wonder about how the scenic routes to and from class, in addition to popular dine-in-only food options, combat our stress responses to the new and challenging environment of Paris. Perhaps the excitement, increased daily walking, and the fresh ingredients in our French cuisine will reduce our stress!

Choi J. (2020). Impact of Stress Levels on Eating Behaviors among College Students. Nutrients, 12(5), 1241. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12051241 

Fourman, S., Buesing, D., Girvin, S., Nashawi, H., & Ulrich-Lai, Y. M. (2021). Limited cheese intake reduces HPA axis and behavioral stress responses in male rats. Physiology & Behavior, 242, 113614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113614

 

           Prior to my departure to Paris for the Emory Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology summer study abroad program, I was told by numerous friends and family to “have some wine and cheese” for them. Many Americans (typically while pouring another glass of red wine) find themselves wondering how Parisians appear so healthy considering the stereotypical cheese and wine consumption in France. Among the many cultural differences I have already noticed my first week in Paris, both the different diet of Parisians and the different attitude towards life and work are quite clear. While engaging in the culture, I realized diet and life-work balance both connect to stress and I began to contemplate how these may all contribute to the health of the Parisian population.

            Walking through Fromagerie Monbleu, the cheese shop hosting our class sponsored cheese tasting, I eagerly anticipated learning how to make sophisticated commentary on these much appreciated foods. What I did not expect, was to learn about the biological significance of taste and flavor. At Monbleu, the definition of taste focuses on how something feels to your mouth and detects sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. I’m still a bit unsure about that last one, but it was described as savory and meaty. However, flavor is detected by the nose and breathing in maximizes the sensations from flavor. To enjoy food to the fullest, time is spent savoring it and engaging in the experience of tasting. Therefore, tasting is different from simply eating food as a means of caloric and nutritional intake. While we need to EAT food to survive, I was surprised to learn in class that there is biological significance to taste as well. Separate from the composition of food (the amount of carbs, fats, proteins etc.) that we put into our body, palatable foods which are pleasing to the taste have their own effect on our bodies through our brain’s reward system. Perhaps the Parisian’s enjoyment of delicious food (even if not the “healthiest” in terms of nutrition), contributes to their overall well-being. It was found in female rats that having palatable foods decreases anxiety and stress (Egan et al., 2019). Afterall, stress can be detrimental to our health. If indulging in some “comfort food” that happens to be less nutritious or low-fat results in a lesser stress response, it may be healthier for us to indulge in some cheese and crackers like Parisians than remain in a high stress state while “eating healthy”.

 

 

Works Cited:

Egan, A. E., Seemiller, L. R., Packard, A. E. B., Solomon, M. B., & Ulrich-Lai, Y. M. (2019). Palatable food reduces anxiety-like behaviors and HPA axis responses to stress in female rats in an estrous-cycle specific manner. Hormones and Behavior, 115, 104557. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2019.07.005

 

Cynthia Martucci

On Thursday, our class paid a visit to the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, a famous cemetery in Paris where many prominent figures are buried. What initially struck me was the intricacies of the burial structures, some complete with doors and stained glass. I listened to Rick Steves’ audio guide of the cemetery as I wandered through the cobblestone streets. On one track, I noticed a familiar song- The Minute Waltz, by Frédéric Chopin. It was a piece I had learned to play when I was a kid. Next thing I knew, I was standing in front of Chopin’s flower-adorned grave. Chopin had often been coined as a child prodigy. This led me to wonder whether his brain had structural differences from other non-musicians buried nearby, and if so, whether these differences were a product of nature or of nurture. 

A study by Hyde et al. from 2009, titled “Musical Training Shapes Structural Brain Development”, investigates training-induced brain plasticity. It has been previously reported that adult musician brains have both structural and functional differences in musically relevant brain regions, such as auditory, sensorimotor, and multimodal integration areas, when compared to nonmusican adults. However, this study uniquely tries to answer whether there is a relationship between structural and behavioral changes in the developing brain, elucidating if structural differences in adults is a biological predisposition or a product of training at an early age. They conducted a longitudinal investigation of instrumental music training in children around age 6. Through behavioral tests and MRI scanning, the researchers found that regional structural brain plasticity only occurred in the developing brain of the instrument-training children. Before training, there were no significant differences in brain or behavior between the instrumental and control groups. By the end of the 15 months, the instrument group demonstrated significant gain in relative voxel size of the primary motor and auditory areas, and corpus callous. These were all correlated positively with behavioral improvements on motor and auditory-musical tests. This provides strong evidence that such development is induced by instrumental practice rather than pre-existing biological precursors of music ability. 

I have become interested in exploring intervention methods, such as music training, that could facilitate neuroplasticity in children with developmental disorders. Neuroplasticity is something I have not been able to explore much in other NBB courses, and thus was excited to read more about it. Having grown up practicing piano, I was curious if and how this helped shape my brain. Maybe my and Chopin’s brains are not that structurally different after all 😉

Reference:

Hyde, K. L., Lerch, J., Norton, A., Forgeard, M., Winner, E., Evans, A. C., & Schlaug, G. (2009). Musical training shapes structural brain development. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(10), 3019-3025.

This week I had the chance to visit the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise – arguably one of the world’s most famous cemeteries. Immediately upon entering the grounds, I was astonished by the intricate details that lined each of the tombs. From the gently carved Greek mythological figures to the gleaming crosses that could be spotted from miles away, each tomb was decked in masterful art that paid tribute to the life-long work of various well-established individuals. In the US, I have visited Arlington National Cemetery; however, my experience there couldn’t have been more different from my experience at Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise. At Arlington, all of the gravestones, similar in size and decor,  were tributes to those who received the Medal of Honor. Contrastingly, the tombs at Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise were not only more majestic in nature – potentially due to the French’s appreciation for high value artwork – but also there was a greater diversity in the types of individuals honored. Prior to this visit, I had expected most of the tombs to be tributes to French philosophers, priests, physicians, and more. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across the tomb of Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai (JRD) Tata – an industrial entrepreneur of French and Indian descent whose work sparked the genesis of one of the biggest automobile industries “Tata”. 

One of the tombs that stood out to me the most was that of Irish poet and novelist, Oscar Wilde. Although famous for his novels, Oscar Wilde was also interested in physiology. He wrote at a time when neuroscience threatened the status quo – that being humans have free will. Wilde, however, went against the grain and was a stout determinist himself. He rejected the notion that all humans were autonomous beings and self-determining. In fact, Wilde’s perception of free will was quite advanced for his time as recent studies have shown that the activity of certain neurons can predict behaviors before they happen. A 2018 study by Passecker et al. demonstrated that there are specialized neurons in the prelimbic cortex of rats that predict the next choice behavior during a gambling task. These findings have interesting implications as it shows the potential inability for living organisms to not have a choice in their actions because they are restricted by the electrophysiology of their neurons.

This trip helped me understand the grandeur of French culture while also exposing me to the diverse cultural perspectives on free will and the brain! 

Figure 2: Adway in front of Oscar Wilde’s tomb.

References:

Cohn, Elisha. “Chapter 2 – Oscar Wilde and the Brain Cell.” Progress in Brain Research, edited by Anne Stiles et al., vol. 205, Elsevier, 2013, pp. 19–39. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-63273-9.00002-2.

Passecker, Johannes, et al. “Activity of Prefrontal Neurons Predict Future Choices during Gambling.” Neuron, vol. 101, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 152-164.e7. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2018.10.050.

On Sunday, May 22^nd, Cynthia, Lauren, Sam, and I visited the Palace of Versailles, a little over an hour outside Paris. The palace served as a home for royals from the early 1600s until the French Revolution. The most notable residents were King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, the last royals before the Revolution. They spent large amounts of money on themselves and their residence while the people of France were in economic crisis, contributing to their unpopularity among the people and fueling anger towards the monarch.

 

On our visit, we were unable to enter the palace so we toured the gardens instead. While we were disappointed to not see the palace, the acres upon acres of gardens kept us busy. We were also fortunate enough to see some of the fountains in action! After walking around and enjoying the greenery, we got dinner in the area and took the train home.

 

While walking through the gardens, a topic we continuously discussed was what was the purpose of this? We understood it was a home for the royals but why was it necessary to build such extravagant gardens? Was it for the king to show off his wealth? Did he build it simply because he could? This got me thinking about the neuroscience behind wealth, status, and dominance.

A review of the neuroscience of social class (Varnum & Kitayama, 2017), explains a number of differences in those of high versus low socio-economic status (SES). One difference they mentioned was threat sensitivity. Those of lower SES had higher vigilance to threats. This was seen behaviorally and biologically. From the neurobiology perspective, studies found that those of a lower SES had greater amygdala activation when shown an angry face. There was no difference in amygdala activation when shown a neutral face. They also saw greater reactivity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) in those from lower SES when given negative social feedback. From this, it is seen that the increased threat sensitivity of those from a lower SES extends to both physical and social threats.

 

Being monarchs, it feels safe to say that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were of high SES. As such, based on the above research, it can be inferred that they had decreased threat sensitivity. I thought this was interesting as they were the royals who fell during the revolution. Did the neurobiological effects of their high status make them oblivious to the threat their actions posed to themselves?

Reference:

Varnum, M. E., & Kitayama, S. (2017). The neuroscience of social class. Current Opinion in Psychology, 18, 147–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.07.032

Walking out the front door of my Parisian apartment and taking a slight left to get to the Metro station always leads me to a tall, ornate wall. Though I’ve passed it probably 50 times

by now, it never fails to take my breath away. This wall is one end of the sprawling Louvre museum, a palace converted into potentially the most famous art museum in the world. Naturally, living so close to the museum, it felt only fitting to spend our first full day in Paris exploring the vast halls of artwork.

 
The Louvre is undoubtedly intimidating, with multiple floors of multiple halls containing multiple galleries each. In fact, our tour guide on the riverboat tour the first day we were here told us that if you were to spend three seconds looking at every piece in the museum, your visit would take you approximately three months. So, naturally, we picked an arbitrary floor and began exploring.

Over the several hours we spent in the museum, we got lost in hallways of renaissance paintings, ancient sculptures, French apartments, and everything in between. The sheer amount of art in the museum was awe-inspiring, and made me consider the role of art and creativity in everyday French culture; from the carefully designed Metro stations to the presence of artifacts and sculptures throughout the city, it feels as though Paris is a kind of

museum in and of itself. I have seen art museums before and will occasionally spend rainy days in Atlanta in the High museum, but the appreciation of historical art pieces in Paris gives me an entirely different impression. The museum itself contains art from across world history, but there is definitely an emphasis placed on French culture and history. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a museum that was so focused on national identity in the U.S., and this was definitely one of the features of the Louvre that I appreciated the most.

In the context of our classes here, though, I began to consider the role of art in neuroscience and more specifically mental health. In doing my research, I found a 2021 paper that highlights the effect of cultural engagement, such as visiting art museums, on mental health. Overall, the paper demonstrated a degree of improvement in the happiness of individuals who engaged with art and similar cultural elements. To quote from the article, researchers found more specifically that “cultural participation of museums and galleries affected life satisfaction not only directly but also indirectly through interpersonal relationships” (Lee et al, 2021).

While I can’t say whether or not my Saturday visit to the Louvre definitively affected my life satisfaction, I can say that it is an experience I will hold fondly in my memory and recall each time I leave my apartment for the next four weeks.

References:

Lee, C. W., Lin, L. C., & Hung, H. C. (2021). Art and Cultural Participation and Life Satisfaction in Adults: The Role of Physical Health, Mental Health, and Interpersonal Relationships. Frontiers in public health, 8, 582342. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.582342

The most unique class visit I experienced was to the Fragonard Museum in Paris on May 23, 2022. The museum boasted a unique display of “curiosities” with collections ranging from cow intestines to large shelves of bones arranged by age. Walking up to the museum was exciting for many of us, although it turned into a stomach-churning experience for some. During the visit, I found the most interesting museum displays of illnesses and/or deformities that were considered “mythical” for a major part of history but are treatable or can no longer be seen today with the drastic advance in veterinary medicine. 

As narrated by our tour guide, a student at the veterinary school, we owe it to Claude Bourgelat for establishing the first-ever veterinary school in Lyon in 1761. The École national vétérinaire d’Alfort was first established in 1765 in the center of Paris and later shifted to the outskirts of Paris in 1766.  

The Fragonard museum hosted by the veterinary college explains the importance of museums such as this for learning the history and evolution of veterinary studies. The founder of the school opened the first-ever veterinary school in the center of Paris which later was moved to the outskirts because Paris “distracted” the students. Something that struck me in the tour was how quickly veterinary medicine gained importance, especially concerning pets, farm animals, and/or animals used for sport. One such “ancient” illness we witnessed was one that causes a buildup in brain pressure disarticulating the skull. The display “Tête désarticulé ” shows how the brain would separate before medical interventions were invented. This specific medical complication is ancient because today in the advancing field of medicine, neuroscientists have found effective ways to avoid this even in just-born infants! (Patel et al. 2013)

Despite these astounding displays, the most bizarre part of the museum was the “slayed” men or skinned men of the museum. In the finale of the museum tour, we witnessed a room of disturbing yet curious anatomical oddities of authentic-skinned men, horses, heads, and even babies. These were created by Honoré Fragonard in the late 1700s. Although the atrocities of this display may be considered unethical today in many countries, these have paved methods of dissection and preservation more accurately than known before. Some students and I discussed with our professors at the end that the ethical issues of whose bodies were on display and where they came from still concern me. 

Learning and experiencing this museum is a must for all who visit Paris. Regardless of the icky factor of the museum displays, I had the most fantastic day in a museum I have ever had! 

References:

Fourman, S., Buesing, D., Girvin, S., Nashawi, H., & Ulrich-Lai, Y. M. (2021). Limited cheese intake reduces HPA axis and behavioral stress responses in male rats. Physiology & Behavior, 242, 113614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113614