Jayne Jubb

The recent discovery of a network in the brain dedicated to autobiographical mental imagery is helping researchers understand the many purposes that day-dreaming serves in our lives. They have called this web of neurons “the default network,” because when we are not absorbed in more focused tasks, the network fires up. The default network appears to be essential to generating our sense of self, suggesting that daydreaming plays a crucial role in who we are and how we integrate the outside world into our inner lives.

Videos in the Mind’s Eye

Most people spend about 30 percent of their waking hours spacing out, drift- ing off, lost in thought. Yale University emeritus psychology professor Jerome Singer defines daydreaming as “watching your own mental videos.” (He has a more complex definition too: “shifting attention away from some primary physical or mental task toward an unfolding sequence of private responses”). Singer divides daydreaming styles into two main categories: positive-constructive, which includes upbeat and imaginative thoughts, and dysphoric, which encompasses visions of failure or punishment. Most people experience both kinds to a small or large degree.

Other scientists distinguish between everyday musings and extravagant fan- tasies. Michael Kane, a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina, considers “mind wandering” to be “any thoughts that are unrelated to one’s task at hand.” In his view, mind wandering is a broad category that may include everything from pondering ingredients for a dinner recipe to saving the planet from alien invasion. Most of the time when people fall into mind wandering, they are thinking about everyday concerns, such as recent encounters and items on their to-do list. More exotic daydreams in the style of James Thurber’s grandiose fictional fantasist Walter Mitty—such as Mitty’s dream of piloting an eight-engine hydroplane through a hurricane—are rare.

Daily routine concerns figured prominently in one study that rigorously mea- sured how much time we spend mind wandering in daily life. In a 2009 study Kane asked 72 students to carry PalmPilots that beeped at random intervals eight times a day for a week. The subjects then recorded their thoughts at that moment on a questionnaire. About 30 percent of the beeps coincided with thoughts unrelated to the task at hand. Mind wandering increased with stress, boredom, sleepiness, or being in chaotic environments. Mind wandering decreased with enjoyable tasks. Ths could be because enjoyable activities tend to grab our attention.

Intense focus on our problems may not always lead to immediate solutions. Instead, allowing the mind to float freely can enable us to access unconscious ideas hovering beneath the surface—a process that can lead to creative insight-as many of you will know. We may not even be aware that we are daydreaming. We have all had the experiencing of “reading” a book yet absorbing nothing—moving our eyes over the words on a page as our attention wanders and the text turns into gobbledigook. Aimless rambling across the moors of our imagination may allow us to stumble on ideas and associations that we may never find if we consciously strive to seek them.

A Key to Creativity

Artists and scientists are well acquainted with such playful fantasizing.” Albert Einstein pictured himself running along a light wave—a reverie that led to his theory of special relativity. Filmmaker Tim Burton daydreamed his way to Hollywood success, spending his childhood holed up in his bedroom, creating posters for an imaginary horror film series. Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, imagined “another world,” to which he retreated as a child, where he was “someone else, somewhere else … in my grandmother’s sitting room, I’d pretend to be inside a submarine.

Why should daydreaming aid creativity? It may be in part because the waking brain is never really at rest. Floating in unfocused mental space serves an evolutionary purpose: when we are engaged with one task, mind wandering can trigger reminders of other, concurrent goals so that we do not lose sight of them. Some researchers believe that increasing the amount of imaginative daydreaming we do or replaying variants of the millions of events we store in our brains can be beneficial. A painful procedure in a doctor’s office, for example, can be made less distressing by visualisations of soothing scenes from childhood.

Yet to enhance creativity, it is important to pay attention to daydreams. This has been called “tuning out” or deliberate “off-task thinking.” In an as yet unpublished study, 122 undergraduates at the University of British Columbia were asked to read a children’s story and press a button each time they caught themselves tuning out. Researchers also periodically interrupted the students as they were reading and asked them if they were “zoning out” or drifting off without being aware of it. The study concluded that the people who regularly catch themselves—who notice when they’re doing it—seem to be the most creative.

The mind’s freedom to wander during a period of deliberate tuning out could also explain the flash of insight that may pop into a person’s head when he or she takes a break from an unsolved problem. It has been found that people who engaged in a mildly demanding task, such as reading, during a break from, say, a visual assignment, such as the hat-rack problem—in which participants have to construct a sturdy hat rack using two boards and a clamp—did better on that problem than those who did nothing at all. They also scored higher than those engaged in a highly demanding task—such as mentally rotating shapes—during the interval. Allowing our minds to ramble during a moderately challenging task, it seems, enables us to access ideas not easily available to our conscious minds or to combine these insights in original ways. Our ability to do so is now known to depend on the normal functioning of a dedicated day dreaming network deep in our brain.

The Mental Matrix of Fantasy

Like Facebook for the brain, the default network is a bustling web of mem- ories and streaming movies, starring ourselves. When we daydream, we’re at the centre of the universe. This network was first described in 2001 by neurologist Marcus Raichle of Washington University. It consists of three main regions: the medial pre-frontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex and the parietal cortex. The medial prefrontal cortex helps us imagine ourselves and the thoughts and feelings of others; the posterior cingulate cortex draws personal memories from the brain; and the parietal cortex has major connections with the hippocampus, which stores episodic memories—what we ate for breakfast, say—but not impersonal facts, such as the capital of Kyr- gyzstan. The default mode network is critical to the establishment of a sense of self.

It was not until 2007, however, that cognitive psychologist Malia Fox Mason, discovered that the default network becomes more active when people engage in a boring verbal task, when they are more likely to mind wander. This default network lights up when people switch from an attention-demanding activity to drifting day-dreaming with no specific goal. In an experiment, participants were shown a string of four letters such as R H V X for one second, which was then replaced by an arrow pointing either left or right, to indicate whether the sequence should be read forwards or backwards. When one of the characters in the string appeared, subjects were asked to indicate its position (first, second, third or last, depending on the direction of the arrow). The more the participants practiced on each of the four original letter strings, the better they performed. They were then given a novel task, consisting of letter sequences they had not seen before. Activity in the default network went down during the novel version of the test. Subjects who day- dreamed more in everyday life—as determined by a questionnaire—also showed greater activity in the default network during the boring original task.

Mason did not directly measure mind wandering during the scans, however, so she could not determine exactly when subjects were “on task” and when they were daydreaming. But a subsequent study by a different research group in 2009 directly linked mind wandering with increased activity in the default network. These researchers scanned the brains of 15 students while they performed a simple task in which they were shown random numbers from zero to nine. Each was asked to push a button when he or she saw any number except three. In the seconds before making an error—a key sign that an individual’s attention had drifted—default network activity shot up. Periodically the investigators also interrupted the subjects and asked them if they had zoned out. Again, activity in the default network was higher in the seconds before the moment they were caught in the act. Notably, activity was strongest when people were unaware that they had lost their focus. The more complex your mind-wandering episode is, the more of your mind it will consume.

When the default is faulty

Defects in the default network may also impair our ability to daydream. A range of disorders—including schizophrenia and depression—have been linked to malfunctions in the default network in recent years. A 2007 study found that people with schizophrenia have deficits in the medial prefrontal cortex, which is associated with self-reflection. In patients experiencing hallucinations, the medial prefrontal cortex dropped out of the network altogether. Although the patients were thinking, they could not be sure where the thoughts were coming from. People with schizophrenia daydream normally most of the time, but when they are ill they often complain that someone is reading their mind or that someone is putting thoughts in their head.

On the other hand, those who ruminate obsessively—rehashing past events, repetitively analysing their causes and consequences, or worrying about all the ways things could go wrong in the future—are well aware that their thoughts are their own, but they have intense difficulty turning them off. Scientists believe that rumination is not a form of day-dreaming, because it imagines situations in the future that are not largely positive in tone. Nevertheless, in obsessive ruminators, who are at greater risk of depression, the same default network circuitry turns on that is activated when we daydream.

These ruminators—who may repeatedly scrutinise mistakes made, family issues or lovers’ betrayals—have trouble switching off the default network when asked to focus mentally on a neutral image, such as a truckload of watermelons. They may spend hours going over some past incident, asking themselves how it could have happened and why they did not react differently and end up feeling overwhelmed instead of searching for solutions. Experimental studies have shown that positive distraction—for example, exercise and social activities—can help ruminators reappraise their situation, as can techniques for cultivating mindfulness that teach individuals to pay precise attention to activities such as breathing or walking, rather than to thoughts.

Is Your Mind Wandering Out of Control?

How do you know when you have tipped over from useful and creative day- dreaming into the netherworld of over-ruminating?

First, notice whether you are deriving any useful insights from your fantasies. Creative individuals report ideas that have occurred to them during daydreams.

Second, it is important to take stock of the content of your daydreams. To distinguish between beneficial and pathological imaginings, ask yourself if this is something useful, helpful, valuable, pleasant, or are you just rehashing the same old thoughts over and over again. And if daydreaming feels out of control, then even if it is pleasant it is probably not useful or valuable.

Whether or not mind wandering causes distress often depends on the context, Mind wandering is not inherently good or bad; it all depends on what the goals of the person are at the time. It may be perfectly reasonable for a scientist to mentally check out in the midst of a repetitive experiment. A novelist who can pour her day-dreams onto paper and publish them is clearly putting them to good use. And fortunately, a lot of what we do in life doesn’t require that much concentration!

References:

◆ The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. James Thurber in My World and Welcome to It. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1937.

◆ The Inner World of Daydreaming. Jerome L. Singer. Harper and Row, 1975. ◆ Mind-Play: The Creative Uses of Fantasy: Using Mind Imagery to Relax, Overcome Fears and Bad Habits, Cope with Pain, Improve Your Decision-Making and Planning, Perfect Your Skill at Sports, and Enhance Your Sex Life. Jerome L. Singer and Ellen Switzer. Prentice-Hall, 1980.

◆ The Daydreamer. Reprint edition. Ian McEwan. Anchor, 2000.

◆ Maladaptive Daydreaming: A Qualitative Inquiry. Eli Somer in Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, Vol. 32, Nos. 2–3; Fall 2002.

◆ Rethinking Rumination. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Blair E. Wisco and Sonja Lyubomirsky in Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 3, No. 5, pages 400–424; 2008.

We know that there are certain foods that are supposed to be good for our brain health, but did you know that some spices also have been found to help your little grey cells grind more effectively? Come with me on this month’s journey to explore how a bit of fruitiness and the spice of life can help your brain function better and longer…and then try to resist a breakfast of horny goat weed and blueberries….!

What is blue, juicy and something that Americans cannot get enough of?

If you answered ‘blueberries’ then you guessed right!

We may often think that our American friends are a bit crazy by European standards, but it turns out that this latest trend for Vaccinium cyanococcus is actually protection against craziness.

Emerging research suggests that compounds in blueberries known as flavonoids may improve memory, learning and general cognitive function, including reasoning skills, decision making, verbal comprehension and numerical ability. In addition, studies comparing dietary habits with cognitive function in adults hint that consuming flavonoids may help slow the decline in mental facility that is often seen with aging and might even provide protection against disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Researchers once assumed that flavonoids worked in the brain as they do in the body—as antioxidants that protect cells from damage caused by ubiquitous unstable molecules known as free radicals. Now, however, new research demonstrates that the power of flavonoids to bolster cognition results mainly from interactions between flavonoids and proteins integral to brain-cell structure and function. To date, scientists have identified more than 6,000 different flavonoids, which come in a variety of types. These compounds are widely distributed in fruits and vegetables, cereal grains, cocoa, soy foods, tea and wine. Thus, overdosing on blueberries alone is not necessary to keep your mind in good shape.

Memorable Diets

As powerful antioxidants, flavonoids protect us from the cellular damage caused by free radicals, which are formed by our bodies during metabolism, and are also spawned by pollution, cigarette smoke and radiation. As a result, researchers have for decades investigated the potential of these compounds or boosting immunity, staving off cancer and reducing excess inflammation; flavonoids also appear to help regulate blood flow and blood pressure.

About 15 years ago chemist Ronald Prior and the late neuroscientist James Joseph of the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service were measuring the antioxidant, disease-fighting potential of various foods when Joseph heard about preliminary data hinting that people who ate modest amounts of fruits and vegetables performed better on cognitive tests than those who consumed little or none of these foods. The researchers were intrigued and wanted to test the idea that an antioxidant-rich diet might improve brain function.

Prior and Joseph fed feed enriched with extracts of strawberry, spinach or blueberries to 19-month-old, middle-aged rats for eight weeks, equivalent to about a decade in the human life span. At the end of the eight weeks the now aging rats fed regular food did significantly worse on learning and motor skills such as walking elevated planks, climbing poles, balancing on rotating rods and swimming through mazes, reflecting normal mental decline. In contrast, rats eating the supplemented diet performed better at these tasks than they had at the start of the study. (The rats fed the blueberry helpings got an extra boost in motor function; for reasons that remain unclear, they were much more adept than even the rats eating strawberries and spinach at maintaining their balance in the plank and rod tests.)

This was an “aha!” moment for the scientists: something in the fruit- and vegetable-enriched meals was responsible for the animals’ superior performance. Noting that all the test foods were rich in flavonoids, Prior and Joseph speculated that these compounds might be behind the cerebral tune-up.

Meanwhile studies of humans were also indicating that eating meals full of flavonoids might have cognitive benefits. In a study published in 2007 epidemiologist Luc Letenneur and his colleagues at INSERM in France asked 1,640 cognitively healthy older adults to fill out a questionnaire about their dietary habits and take a test of their cognitive function. They followed the subjects for 10 years, repeating the questionnaire and test four times during that decade. At each testing period, the investigators quantified the subjects’ consumption of five different flavonoids and correlated those amounts with their cognitive test scores, controlling for other health habits known to affect cognition such as exercise, smoking and obesity.

Subjects with the highest levels of flavonoid intake at the start of the study also performed best on thinking skills such as the ability to do simple arithmetic, recall items in different categories, repeat words and phrases, and identify time and place. In addition, their performance on such tests tended to be more stable over time than that of individuals whose diets included very low levels of flavonoids, whose thinking skills tended to decline over time. Those with the best scores in this study were eating between 18 and 37 milligrams of flavonoids a day, which translates to about 15 blueberries, a quarter of a cup of orange juice and half a cup of tofu.

Other studies correlating flavonoid intake with cognition have hinted at benefits from particular flavonoid-rich foods. In an investigation published in 2009 a research team led by nutritionist Eha Nurk at the University of Oslo in Norway asked 2,000 adults in their early 70s to fill out food-frequency questionnaires and then tested them on measures of mental agility such as their memory of events in their lives, speed at naming objects, and ability to quickly come up with words beginning with a particular letter of the alphabet. Individuals who reported that they regularly consumed wine, tea and chocolate—which are especially rich in flavonoids—performed significantly better on these cognitive dimensions than those who consumed these items only rarely. The adults who did not consume any wine, tea or chocolate scored worst of all. Individuals who reported drinking wine regularly (but in moderation) had about a 45 percent lower risk of poor cognitive performance, defined as a score in the lowest 10th percentile on the test. The corresponding benefit for tea or chocolate was a 10 to 20 percent diminished risk. Those who regularly consumed all three items decreased their chances of a poor score by 70 percent.

Soy, Pine Bark and Cocoa

In addition to associating flavonoid consumption with improved cognition, researchers in recent years have tested the effects of adding flavonoids to people’s diets, the rough human equivalent of the work with rats. Although it is hard to control people’s base diets—humans are not all eating the same food—adding flavonoids to your diet might preserve or improve memory, thought processing and other cognitive capacities. In 2009 nutrition researcher Anna Macready and her colleagues at the University of Reading in England published a review of 15 small dietary intervention trials in which researchers tested this thesis by asking people to add flavonoid-containing foods to their meals. The flavonoids came from either soy products, supplements (Ginkgo biloba or pine bark extract) or, in one case, a beverage containing cocoa.

Although interpretation of the findings was complicated by inconsistencies in the types of cognitive testing, the authors concluded that flavonoid consumption from any of the sources examined improved aspects of cognition such as verbal comprehension, simple reasoning and decision making, object recall, and recognition of numerical patterns. Flavonoids also seemed to hone fine motor skills such as finger tapping. Consuming the equivalent of about one and a half cups of tofu or two and a half cups of soy milk a day was enough to produce the improvement, as was taking 120 mg (one to two capsules) of ginkgo, 150 mg (about three capsules) a day of pine bark extract or 172 mg of flavonoids from the cocoa drink. The latter is equivalent to about seven 35g squares of dark chocolate.

Among flavonoid-containing foods, the blueberry may provide particularly strong protection for the human brain. In a study published in 2010 psychiatry researcher Robert Krikorian of the University of Cincinnati and his colleagues gave memory tests to nine adults older than 75 who had mild memory loss. The participants then drank two cups of wild blueberry juice (similar to about five cups of blueberries) every day for 12 weeks, after which they received a repeat test on their ability to recall words and pairs of objects. The blueberry drinkers performed about 30 percent better on average than did a comparison group of seven elderly adults who drank a flavonoid-free, sweetened beverage resembling blueberry juice. Despite the small sample size, the trial strongly suggested that adding blueberries to your diet can boost your memory, at least if you are older, Krikorian says. He also speculates that regular blueberry consumption may stave off the cognitive decline that often comes with aging.

Brain-cell snacks

How might flavonoids influence cognition? By examining brain tissue from rats that ingested flavonoid-containing foods, researchers have shown within the past decade that some classes of flavonoids cross into the brain from the blood. Once in the brain, the compounds could influence cognition by acting as antioxidants, but recently scientists have questioned this theory. Data suggest that flavonoids are present in the brain in much smaller quantities than other antioxidants, such as vitamin C. Thus, compounds other than flavonoids are likely to be doing the bulk of free-radical scavenging there. Instead scientists have found that flavonoids change the chemistry of neurons in other ways.

Joseph and his colleagues discovered early on that four-month-old juvenile mice fed blueberry-enriched feed for eight months displayed higher levels of enzymes called kinases in their brain cells than did those who ate the standard feed. Although scientists do not know how flavonoids might spur kinase production, many types of kinases are essential to learning and memory; thus the additional enzyme could help boost cognition.

More recently, Jeremy Spenser, a nutritional biochemist at Reading, has outlined ways in which flavonoids may influence the actions of proteins critical to thought. Flavonoids may, for example, help to regulate the activity of kinases as well as that of enzymes called phosphatases; the correct balance of these is critical for maintaining the integrity of the synapses, or junctions, between neurons and thereby sustaining normal patterns of brain-cell activity.

Soy isoflavones may improve memory by acting like weak estrogens, binding to and stimulating estrogen receptors on neurons. Exciting these receptors is known to trigger changes in both neuronal shape and chemistry in the hippocampus, a structure involved in memory and whose function most likely diminishes with age. These changes may facilitate communication between neurons and thereby improve memory. Some flavonoids may even spur the growth of new nerve cells in the hippocampus.

Flavonoids may even defend neurons from damage and death and so combat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Animal and cell culture data suggest that flavonoids may ameliorate the effects of neurotoxins such as glutamate—a neurotransmitter that at high concentrations damages neurons—by preventing these toxins from binding to their receptors on neurons. Flavonoids also may oppose the action of enzymes called secretases that are involved in the destruction of nerve cells and that may be elevated in neurode-generative disorders.

In the future, imaging technologies such as functional magnetic resonance may enable researchers to see how consuming flavonoids alters brain activity in real time. For example, in a study published in 2006 researchers used fMRI to detect increased cerebral blood flow during a letter-digit matching test in subjects consuming a flavonoid-rich cocoa drink. Such findings may guide the development of dietary interventions for reversing or preventing cognitive decline.

The science does not yet reveal which flavonoid-containing foods have the greatest potential for enhancing learning and memory. But eating flavonoid- rich foods is probably better than taking supplements. Processing may destroy or reduce the actual flavonoid content of supplements, and intact fruits and vegetables are likely to contain the amounts and combinations of these compounds that are most beneficial to the brain.

The Spice of Life

We can spice up our minds not only by choosing which foods we eat but also by seasoning our savory dishes in specific ways. Spices and herbs, including sage, oregano and thyme, are full of brain-boosting compounds called flavonoids, and recent research suggests that these compounds may have powers over our mood as well as our mental faculties.

After ingesting the oil of common sage and Spanish sage, people immediately perform better on tests of word recall as compared with those who took a placebo, several studies have shown. Individuals who swallowed a capsule containing sage oil also report increases in their alertness, calmness and contentedness. Now psychologists at Northumbria University in Newcastle, England, have found that simply smelling the extract of sage can reproduce some of these effects. In July 2010 the researchers reported that people who took a computerized battery of tests in a room infused with the aroma of common sage demonstrated, on average, a more accurate memory than people who took the same tests in an unscented room. They also reported feeling more alert.

These and other studies of sage have employed the essential oil, a concentrated extract from the plant used for aromatherapy, rather than the familiar dried or fresh sage leaves used in cooking. Yet researchers believe that eating sage regularly in its leaf form may produce similar, albeit milder, memory-enhancing effects.

These studies did not attempt to pin down which component of the plant was responsible for the memory effects, but flavonoids very likely play a role. Sage is high in hispidulin, a flavonoid that has been shown in cell culture studies to interact with brain cell receptors for gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a neurotransmitter that affects cognition and mood.

Flavonoids from spices other than sage can also produce observable changes in mood, at least in rodents. In June 2010 pharmacologists at Federal University of Ceará in Fortaleza, Brazil, reported that the flavonoid carvacrol, which makes up the bulk of oregano and thyme oils, has an antidepressant effect in mice. After drinking a solution of dissolved carvacrol, the rodents tried harder to escape from a swimming tub—an experimental setup used to assess depression in the animals.

By blocking different chemical pathways in the brains of the mice, the researchers showed that carvacrol’s effects depend on its interaction with dopamine, a neurotransmitter known best for governing feelings of reward. It is unclear whether eating small amounts of oregano and thyme would boost mood, but the scientists hope that isolating and studying carvacrol could lead to new antidepressant drugs.

Beyond herbs familiar in the kitchen, many traditional medicinal herbs contain flavonoids that seem to have a protective effect on the brain. One such herb is Epimedium brevicornum Maxim, better known by its unfortunate nickname: “horny goat weed.” In November 2010 microbiologists at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and at Peking University in Beijing showed that rats with the rodent equivalent of Alzheimer’s disease, marked by protein clumps in the brain, learn and remember better if their feed is supplemented with the most prominent flavonoid in horny goat weed: icariin. This compound apparently prevents the clumps from causing brain cells to commit suicide—suggesting that icariin might one day be useful as a treatment for Alzheimer’s.

And now it’s time for that blueberry and horny goat weed breakfast shake! But where did I leave my bicycle key….?

References:

◆Superfoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life. Steven Pratt and Kathy Matthews. Harpercollins, 2003.

◆ Nutrition and Brain Function: Food for the Aging Mind. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, August 2007.

www.ars. usda.gov/is/AR/archive/aug07/aging0807.htm?pf=1

◆ Diet of Walnuts, Blueberries Improve Cognition; May Help Maintain Brain Function. ScienceDaily, november 7, 2007.

www.sciencedaily. com/releases/2007/11/071106122843.htm

◆ A Healthy Diet May Be Important to Brain Health as Well as Body Health. U.s. national institutes of Health, updated 2008.

www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers/Publications/ADProgress2005_2006/Part2/ healthydiet.htm.htm

◆ U.S Highbush Blueberry council: www.blueberry.org. the section “Blues in the news” offers links to health information and research about blueberries: www.blueberrycouncil.com/for-the-media.php

◆ Your Brain on Blueberries. Mary Frantz. Scientific American Mind. Volume 21, number 6, pages 55-59 (2011).

We Humans like to think that we have much more self-discipline than other animals. We know how to set goals— losing 5 kilos, starting our own businesses—and then we resist temptations and plough through difficulties to achieve them. We are far from perfect at this talent, but in most of our minds there is no question that our powerful self-control is one of the things that sets us apart from more lowly animals.

Scientists have long argued that delaying gratification requires a sense of “self.” Having a personal identity allows us to compare who we are today, at this very moment, with who we want to be— an idealised self. Such aspirations are thought to foster the kind of behaviour that leads to self-improvement. But new research suggests a more primitive source of our powers of self-discipline. It appears that, lofty as our goals may be, we rely on the same basic biological mechanism for self-discipline as our four-legged best friends.

Sit and stay

Experimental psychologist Holly Miller and her colleagues at the University of Kentucky knew from previous research that in people, self-control relies on the brain’s “executive” powers, which coordinate planning and action. It is further known that this kind of effortful cognitive processing requires energy in the form of glucose, the simple sugar that serves as the body’s fuel. Studies show that depletion of the brain’s glucose supply compromises self-discipline. For instance, passing up a tempting happy-hour drink after work may make it tougher to forgo your favourite television show later on that evening to exercise. Of course, all mental activities require energy, but self-control seems to be one process that is especially compromised when the energy starts running out. But is this a uniquely human phenomenon? To find out, Miller recruited a group of dogs ranging in age from 10 months to more than 10 years old. Some were pure-breds, such as Australian shepherds and vizslas; others were mongrels. All the dogs were familiar with a toy called a Tug-a-Jug, which is basically a clear cylinder with treats inside; dogs can easily manipulate the Tug-a-Jug to get a tasty reward. In the experiment, some of the dogs were ordered by their owners to “sit” and then “stay” for 10 minutes. That’s a long time to sit still; it was meant to exhaust the animals mentally and thus to deplete their fuel reserves. The other dogs, the controls, merely waited in a cage for 10 minutes.

Then all the dogs were given the familiar Tug-a-Jug, except that it had been altered so that it was now impossible to get the treats out. The hungry dogs could see and hear the treats—but they could not get at them. The idea was to see if the previous demand for self-discipline made the dogs less, well, dogged in working for the treats. And it did, unmistakably. Compared with the dogs that had simply been caged, those that had willed themselves to stay still for 10 minutes gave up much more quickly—after less than a minute, as opposed to more than two minutes of effort from the controls. In other words, it seemed as though exerting self-discipline had used up much of the dogs’ blood sugar supply—weakening their brain’s executive powers and diminishing the animals’ ability to exert goal-directed effort.

Sugar-powered discipline

Executive powers? In dogs? These findings suggest that self-control may not be a crowning psychological achievement of human evolution and indeed may have nothing to do with self-awareness. It may simply be biology—and beastly biology at that. These are humbling results, so the scientists decided to double-check them in a different way. In a second experiment, they recruited another group of dogs, this time made up of Shetland sheepdogs and border collies. As before, some of the dogs sat and stayed for 10 minutes, whereas the others were caged. But this time half of the obedient dogs got a sugar drink following the exercise, whereas the others got an artificially sweetened drink. Miller wanted to see if she could restore the dogs’ executive powers by re- fueling their brains.

And that is exactly what happened. The dogs that exerted self-control and then got replenished with sugar performed just like the dogs that had not been exhausted to begin with. They persisted with the Tug-a-Jug, even though it was frustrating and demanding to do so. The depleted dogs that had not received the sugar drink gave up much more quickly. In short, all the dogs acted the way that humans do in similar situations requiring restraint and goal-directed activity.

So perhaps humans are not unique—at least not in this regard. It appears that the hallmark sense of human identity—our selfhood—is not a prerequisite for self-discipline. Whatever it is that makes us go to the gym and save for college is fueled by the same brain mechanisms that enable our hounds to sacrifice their own impulses and obey.

References:

Self-Control without a “Self”?: Common Self-Control Processes in Humans and Dogs. H.T. Miller, K.F. Pattison, C.N. deWall, R. Rayburn-Reeves and T.Z. Zentall. Psychological Science (2010), volume. 21, number. 4, pages 534–538.

Dog tired: What muts can teach us about self-control. W. Herbert. Scientific American Mind (2010), volume 21, number 5, pages 66-67.

I always get a deep sense of satisfaction when I read that something in science has ‘proved’ what we know in the healing & energy worlds.

During a healing session, there is not only an energetic phenomenon that occurs, but also a simultaneous psycho-emotional component. This is why during a healing people can often experience a range of emotions, recall childhood memories, and let go of deeply held (psychological and/or emotional) pain. The combination of energy and psychotherapy is a powerful one. A recent article by psychiatrist Jonathan Shedler was so outstandingly clear about why psychotherapy works, that I have reproduced it here with only slight modifications.

Psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapy, traces its heritage to psychoanalysis in the famous drapery-hung study of Sigmund Freud in Vienna. But psychodynamic therapy as practiced today bears little resemblance to the world of Oedipal conflict, penis envy and castration anxiety that has been hilariously depicted in cartoons and Woody Allen films. Patients do not lie on a couch free-associating as an inscrutable therapist silently looks on, nor must they commit to four or five sessions a week for years on end.

Freud’s legacy is not a specific theory but rather an appreciation of the depth and complexity of mental life and a recognition that we do not fully know ourselves. It is also an acknowledgment that what we do not know is nonetheless manifested in our relationships and can cause suffering— or, in a therapy relationship, can be examined and potentially reworked.

But the modernisation of psychodynamic therapy has gone largely unnoticed. For years psychoanalysts did little to spread ideas to the world outside their own circles, and this self-imposed exile from academic research left a void, into which was born an alternative: cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT). In this newer approach, therapists focused on specific problems and readily observable thoughts and behaviours, rather than embracing the messy, emotional complexity of people’s mental lives.

Over the past decades psychologists have conducted thousands of studies that showed the effectiveness of cognitive-behaviour therapy. The approach initially seemed to promise quick cures—a promise that dovetailed with the interests of health insurers in the United States, who wanted to pay as little as possible for mental health care. CBT was portrayed as the gold standard, and many practitioners wrote off psychodynamic therapy as antiquated and unscientific. But as Jonathan Shedler (pictured left) recently showed in a research review published in American Psychologist (see reference list below), the prestigious flagship journal of the American Psychological Association, psychodynamic therapy has been not only misunderstood but vastly underestimated.

The reality is that psychodynamic therapy has proved its effectiveness in rigorous controlled studies. Not only that, but research shows that people who receive psychodynamic therapy actually continue to improve after therapy ends—presumably because the understanding they gain is global, not targetted to encapsulated, one-time problems. Thanks to misinformation and entrenched interests, however, much of this research has been overlooked.

Enhancing Self-Awareness

There is no end of cartoons spoofing psychoanalysis. But cartoons are not reality. Psychodynamic therapy is practical, and it helps free people from suffering. So what is it that makes psychodynamic therapy so powerful? By analysing tapes from hundreds of hours of actual therapy sessions, researchers have identified seven distinctive features.

Exploring emotions. Psychodynamic therapists encourage patients to explore their full emotional range—including contradictory feelings, feelings that are troubling or threatening, and feelings they may initially be unable to express. A CBT practitioner might respond to emotional difficulty with homework assignments and worksheets or seek to persuade patients that irrational thinking has skewed their feelings. Psychodynamic therapists, in contrast, are likely to invite patients to explore their feelings further.

Examining avoidances. Efforts to avoid distressing or threatening thoughts and feelings can be obvious, as when patients miss sessions or fall silent. They can also be subtle, as when people focus on facts and events to the exclusion of emotions or emphasise external circumstances instead of their own role in shaping events. Psychodynamic therapists encourage patients to examine why and how they avoid what is distressing.

Identifying recurring patterns. Sometimes people are acutely aware of painful or self-defeating patterns—like choosing romantic partners who are unavailable or sabotaging themselves when success is at hand—but feel unable to escape them. Sometimes they need help to recognize the patterns.

Discussing past experience. Related to identifying recurring patterns is the recognition that past experiences affect our experience of the present. By exploring how early experiences color present-day perceptions, psychodynamic therapists help patients free themselves from the bonds of the past and live more fully in the present.

Focusing on relationships. Psychodynamic therapists recognise that mental health problems tend to be rooted in problematic relationship patterns. For example, some people do not express their emotional needs for fear of rejection and consequently cannot get them met—a recipe for depression vulnerability.

Examining the patient/therapist relationship. In other therapies, patients’ emotional reactions to the therapist may be seen as distractions. In psycho-dynamic therapy, they are the heart of the work. This is because a person’s habitual way of being in relationships inevitably emerges in the therapy relationship as well—psychodynamic therapists call this phenomenon “transference.” For example, a person who has trouble with intimacy may struggle to open up to the therapist, and one who fears rejection may strive to be an especially “good” patient. Recognising transference offers patients a unique opportunity to rework old patterns.

Valuing fantasy life. In contrast to CBT, in which therapists may follow a predetermined agenda, psychodynamic therapists encourage patients to speak freely about whatever is on their minds. Fantasies, dreams and daydreams provide a rich source of information about their hopes, desires and fears.

All successful therapies must relieve symptoms such as anxiety or depression. But psychodynamic treatment aims for more: it focuses on building core psychological strengths— such as the capacity to have more fulfilling relationships, to make more effective use of one’s abilities, and to face life’s challenges with greater freedom and flexibility.

Scientific evidence

Initially Jonathan Shedler started delving into the research supporting psychodnamic therapy because he kept encountering patients who had been shunted from one “quick fix” treatment to another, with little or no lasting benefit. In his experience, the brief therapies promoted as “empirically supported” were often failing, despite claims that their benefits are scientifically proven.

Cognitive-behaviour therapists may also incorporate some of the seven features described above, but not to the same extent as psychodynamic therapists. Instead of encouraging patients to speak freely, they may teach exercises or skills. Instead of exploring feelings in depth, they are more likely to focus on thoughts. Instead of examining how past and present are interrelated, they are more likely to focus on current events. These approaches often do not address root problems, so patients may feel better temporarily, then continue replaying patterns that cause suffering.

Whilst trawling through the reports for his American Psychologist paper, Shedler was amazed by how strong the scientific evidence was in support of psychodynamic therapy. One of the most rigorous studies he described in his paper was led by psychologist Allan Abbass of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and published in 2006 in the prestigious Cochrane Library. Abbass examined the effectiveness of psychodynamic treatments that lasted for fewer than 40 sessions. His team compiled the results of 23 randomized controlled trials—the kind of carefully orchestrated, rigorous study that medical researchers use to test new drugs. These trials involved 1,431 patients who suffered from depression, anxiety, stress-related physical ailments and other psychological problems.

This kind of investigation is called a meta-analysis because it compiles the findings of numerous other studies. Abbass’s meta-analysis found an “effect size” of 0.97 for overall psychiatric improvement. What does that mean? Effect size measures the amount of treatment benefit. In this type of study, an effect size of 0.2 is considered small, 0.5 moderate and 0.8 large, so the benefit Abbass found is huge. Seven other meta-analyses, collectively including 160 studies and a wide range of mental health conditions, also showed substantial benefits for psychodynamic therapy. These studies included both randomised controlled trials—in which groups of patients who receive treatment are compared with groups who do not—as well as studies that evaluated the same patients before and after treatment.

In contrast, a recent (and fairly representative) meta-analysis of 33 rigorously conducted studies of cognitive-behavior therapy for depression and anxiety showed an effect size of 0.68.

Even more intriguing, Abbass’s meta-analysis also looked at patient assessments conducted nine months or more after therapy ended. The effect size grew from 0.97 to 1.51. Now, this is astonishing. In fact, six separate meta-analyses reported data from follow-up assessments, and all showed benefits that kept growing after treatment ended. This continued improvement suggests that psychodynamic therapy sets in motion psychological processes that lead to ongoing change.

Secret ingredients

Therapy is not a pill you swallow to feel better; it is a delicate and complex process that reflects the patient’s and therapist’s unique personal qualities and interactions. The relationship between therapist and patient—what therapists call the “working alliance”—is critical to success.

In several 1996 studies Pennsylvania State University psychologist Louis Castonguay and his associates found that depressed patients improved more when the working alliance was strong and when therapy put patients on a trajectory of deepening self-examination that led to awareness of previously unconscious feelings and meanings—a core principle of psychodynamic therapy.

In contrast, attempting to change negative thoughts—a foundational feature of CBT—actually predicted worse results.

And in a study in the journal Psychotherapy: Research, Theory, Practice, and Training, leading psychotherapists and researchers teamed up to ask: What happens in therapy that helps or hinders progress? Over an 18-month period, patients and therapists separately filled out cards after each session, describing memorable interactions. According to therapists and patients alike, the most helpful interventions were those that yielded emotional, not just intellectual, insight.

Of particular note—given the field’s knee-jerk approbation of cognitive-behaviour therapy—is research conducted in the 1990s by the late psychologist Enrico Jones of the University of California, Berkeley. His team analysed recordings of hundreds of therapy sessions, both psychodynamic and CBT. They found that the more the therapists drew on key psychodynamic principles such as addressing patients’ avoidances or defenses, exploring emotions and fantasies, identifying recurring themes, and discussing the therapy relationship, the better patients fared— in both psychodynamic and cognitive-behavior therapy. In contrast, the use of bed-rock CBT methods such as teaching skills and strategies or assigning homework showed no benefits.

In other words, when CBT was successful, it was largely because therapists departed from their official playbook and did the kinds of things psychodynamic therapists do.

Ultimately, there are basic truths of human psychology that most people understand intuitively. We do not fully know ourselves; the things we do not know can cause suffering; and there is benefit in self-awareness.

Psychodynamic therapy is based on these truths and has demonstrated its benefits scientifically. It’s time for academic researchers to examine their resistance to the truth.

References:

◆ Getting to Know Me. J. Shedler in Scientific American Mind, Volume 21, Number 6, pages 52-57, November/December 2010.

◆ Schopenhauer’s Porcupines: Intimacy and Its Dilemmas. Deborah Luepnitz. Basic Books, 2002.

◆ Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Practitioner’s Guide. Nancy McWilliams. Guilford Press, 2004.

◆ The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. J. Shedler in American Psychologist, Vol. 65, no. 2, pages 98–109; February/March 2010.

◆ That Was Then, This Is Now: An Introduction to Contemporary Psycho- dynamic Therapy. Jonathan Shedler. http://psychsystems.net/shedler.html

As someone who likes to combine things – I have a fondness for working on reports and articles in cafes wherever I happen to be in the world – I can appreciate this study. Two neuroscientists have ‘discovered’ that Michelangelo was conveying secret messages about neuroanatomy in his artwork on the Sixtine Chapel ceiling. Was Michelangelo really a secret neuro geek?

I’ll leave it up to you to decide if these neuroscientists were on holiday or if they need to go on one!

Known by his first name the world over, Michelangelo was an artistic genius, sculptor and architect— and it turns out that he was also an anatomist, a secret he concealed by destroying almost all of his anatomical sketches and notes. Now, 500 years after he drew them, his hidden anatomical illustrations have been found—painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, cleverly concealed from the eyes of Pope Julius II and countless religious worshipers, historians, and art lovers for centuries—inside the body of God.

This is the conclusion of Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo, in their paper in the scientific journal Neurosurgery (you can download the original scientific article at http://journals.lww.com/neurosurgery/toc/2010/05000). Suk and Tamargo are experts in neuroanatomy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1990, physician Frank Meshberger published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association deciphering Michelangelo’s imagery with the stunning recognition that the depiction in God Creating Adam in the central panel on the ceiling was a perfect anatomical illustration of the human brain in cross section. Meshberger speculates that Michelangelo surrounded God with a shroud representing the human brain to suggest that God was endowing Adam not only with life, but also with supreme human intelligence.

Now in another panel The Separation of Light from Darkness, Suk and Tamargo have found more. Leading up the center of God’s chest and forming his throat, the researchers have found a precise depiction of the human spinal cord and brain stem.

Is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a 500 year-old puzzle that is only now beginning to be solved? What was Michelangelo saying by construction the voice box of God out of the brain stem of man? Is it a sacrilege or homage?

It took Michelangelo four years to complete the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He proceeded from east to west, starting from the entrance of the Chapel to finish above the altar. The last panel he painted depicts God separating light from darkness. This is where the researchers report that Michelangelo hid the human brain stem, eyes and optic nerve of man inside the figure of God directly above the altar.

Art critics and historians have long puzzled over the odd anatomical irregularities in Michelangelo’s depiction of God’s neck in this panel, and by the discordant lighting in the region. The figures in the fresco are illuminated diagonally from the lower left, but God’s neck, highlighted as if in a spotlight, is illuminated straight-on and slightly from the right.

How does one reconcile such clumsiness by the world’s master of human anatomy and skilled portrayer of light with bungling the image of God above the altar? Suk and Tamargo propose that the hideous goiter-disfigured neck of God is not a mistake, but rather a hidden message. They argue that nowhere else in any of the other figures did Michelangelo foul up his anatomically correct rendering of the human neck.

They show that if one superimposes a detail of God’s odd lumpy neck in the Separation of Light and Darkness on a photograph of the human brain as seen from below, the lines of God’s neck trace precisely the features of the human brain.

There is something else odd about this picture. A role of fabric extends up the center of God’s robe in a peculiar manner. The clothing is bunched up here as is seen nowhere else, and the fold clashes with what would be the natural drape of fabric over God’s torso. In fact, they observe, it is the human spinal cord, ascending to the brain stem in God’s neck. At God’s waist, the robe twists again in a peculiar crumpled manner, revealing the optic nerves from two eyes, precisely as Leonardo Da Vinci had shown them in his illustration of 1487. Da Vinci and Michelangelo were contemporaries and acquainted with each other’s work.

The mystery is whether these neuroanatomical features are hidden messages or whether the Sistine Chapel present a sort of ‘Rorshach’ (psychological ink blots on paper) tests upon which anyone can extract an image that is meaningful to themselves. The authors of the paper are, after all, neuroanatomists….

If the hidden figures are intentional, what do they mean? The authors resist speculation, but a great artist does not merely reproduce an object in a work of art, he or she evokes meaning through symbolism. Is Separation of Light from Darkness an artistic comment on the enduring clash between science and religion? Recall that this was the age when the monk Copernicus was denounced by the Church for theorizing that the Earth revolved around the sun. It was a period of struggle between scientific observation and the authority of the Church, and a time of intense conflict between Protestants and Catholics. It is no secret that Michelangelo’s relationship with the Catholic Church became strained. The artist was a simple man, but he grew to detest the opulence and corruption of the Church.

Michelangelo was a devout person, but later in life he developed a belief in Spiritualism, for which he was condemned by Pope Paul IV. The fundamental tenet of Spiritualism is that the path to God can be found not exclusively through the Church, but through direct communication with God. Pope Paul IV interpreted Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel 20 years after completing the ceiling, as defaming the church by suggesting that Jesus and those around him communicated with God directly without need of Church. He suspended Michelangelo’s pension and had fig leaves painted over the nudes in the fresco. According to the artist’s wishes, Michelangelo’s body is not buried on the grounds of the Vatican, but is instead interred in a tomb in Florence.

Perhaps the meaning in the Sistine Chapel is about not needing the Church to access God. The material is rich for speculation and the new findings will doubtlessly spark endless interpretation. We may never know the truth, but in Separation of Light from Darkness, Michelangelo’s masterpiece combines the worlds of art, religion, science, and faith in a provocative and awe inspiring work of art.

References:

You can download the original full scientific article for yourself at:

http://journals.lww.com/neurosurgery/toc/2010/05000

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=michelangelos-secret-message-in-the-2010-05-26

Meshberger FL. An interpretation of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam based on neuroanatomy. Journal of the American Medical Association. 1990, volume 264, number 14, pages 1837-1841.

In a recent study, neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, report that hormone fluctuations during a woman’s menstrual cycle may affect the brain as much as do substances such as caffeine, methamphetamines or the popular attention drug Ritalin.

Scientists have known for decades that working memory (short-term information processing) is dependent on the chemical dopamine. In fact, drugs like Ritalin mimic dopamine to help people concentrate. Researchers have also had evidence that in rats, estrogen seems to trigger a release of dopamine. The new study from Berkeley, however, is the first to show that cognition is tied to estrogen levels in people—explaining why some women have better or worse cognitive abilities at varying points in their menstrual cycles.

The Berkeley team examined 24 healthy women, some of whom had naturally high levels of dopamine and some of whom had low levels, as indicated by genetic testing. As expected, those with the lower levels struggled with complicated working memory tasks, such as repeating a series of five numbers in reverse order. When the test was repeated during ovulation, however, when estrogen levels are highest (usually 10 to 12 days after menstruation), these women fared markedly better, improving their performance by about 10%. Surprisingly, those with naturally high dopamine levels took a nosedive in their ability to do complicated mental tasks at that point in their cycle.

For women with the lowest levels—about 25 percent of the general population—increased dopamine during ovulation will sharpen cognitive functions, whereas for the 25 percent of women with the highest levels, ovulation seems to take them beyond a threshold and to impair thinking. The remaining half of women fall somewhere in between and were not a part of the study.

The work has broad implications: it may mean that caffeine, which triggers a dopamine release, and Ritalin-like drugs are less effective—or even detrimental—at certain times of the month for some women, when estrogen is spiking.

But the estrogen-dopamine link is showing that this may make women more vulnerable to addictions. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in the perception of rewards such as food, sex and drugs. There is a growing literature on female addiction shows that they are not much like their male counterparts. The studies point to new drug treatments for addiction as well as practical tips for women who want to quit using.

The Weaker Sex?


Although scientists have been studying drug use in women on a small scale since the 1970s, progress was relatively meager before 1994, when the National Institutes of Health mandated that most clinical research include women and minorities. As research on gender differences greatly accelerated, investigators uncovered hints that girls and women may be more vulnerable to addiction and substance abuse than men are. Scientists noticed that women more quickly escalate to heavy drug use and more readily succumb to the accompanying social and physical damage. Even female rats obsessively self-administer addictive drugs more readily than male rodents do.

Reproductive hormones may underlie this susceptibility. Removing the ovaries of female rats so that the animals no longer produce estrogen can diminish their tendency to seek out stimulants such as cocaine and amphetamine. In addition, giving estrogen to female rats whose ovaries have been removed can shorten the path to addiction. In 2004 neuroscientist Jill Becker of the University of Michigan and her colleagues reported that it took six days for ovary-free rats to start repeatedly helping themselves to infusions of cocaine—in this setup, by poking their noses into a hole. In contrast, rats receiving supplemental estrogen succumbed to the same compulsion after just four days.

Researchers believe that estrogen spurs addiction by stimulating the brain’s reward pathways, enhancing the “high” from drugs. Administering estrogen to rats that have had their ovaries removed boosts levels of dopamine.

Hormone High


In female mammals, estrogen does not act alone, however. Its hormonal partner, progesterone, appears to oppose estrogen’s ability to promote addictive tendencies. In 2006 Becker’s team reported that giving both estrogen and progesterone to female rats lacking ovaries does not accelerate obsessive cocaine use in the rodents, suggesting that progesterone may be an antidote to estrogen’s pleasure-seeking influence.

And more recent work confirms that women’s response to drugs varies across the menstrual cycle, as the relative levels of estrogen and progesterone naturally wax and wane. In a 2007 study clinical neurobiologist Suzette Evans and her colleagues found that stimulants are far more pleasurable to women during the estrogen-dominated ‘follicular phase’ (which occupies the approximately two weeks from the onset of a woman’s period until she ovulates) than during the ‘luteal phase’ after ovulation, when both estrogen and progesterone are high.

A woman’s perception of other kinds of rewards—such as money, food and sex—may also vary during her menstrual cycle. In a 2007 study researchers at the NIH scanned women’s brains using functional MRI as the women played slot-machine games. They found that women’s reward circuitry was more active when they won jackpots during the estrogen-governed phase of their cycles than during the progesterone-infused phase that follows. The ebb and flow of female hormones could thus have broad effects on the perception of pleasures and incentives, influencing women’s motivation to engage in a wide variety of behaviors.

A Smarter Way to Stop


Artificially boosting progesterone levels in women tempers the “high” they get from drugs. In a 2006 study Evans’s team gave 11 female cocaine users progesterone when their bodies’ natural levels of the hormone were low. The treated women reported feeling a reduced high as compared with the one they got at the same point in their cycles in the absence of additional progesterone. (In contrast, progesterone did not influence the subjective experience of cocaine smoking in the 10 male addicts they tested, although the researchers are not sure why.) If progesterone dampens the pleasure of drugs, it might help treat addiction in women—something Evans is currently testing in female cocaine addicts.

Short of a chemical fix, paying attention to the calendar could help women succeed at quitting smoking, drinking or using drugs. In a study published in 2008, Sharon Allen, a family medicine doctor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, and her colleagues asked half of 202 female smokers to try to quit during the second part of their cycles—when progesterone levels are high—and the others to make the attempt earlier in their cycles. The results were stunning: 34 percent of the women in the first group had not smoked 30 days later as compared with only 14 percent of those who tried to stop smoking when progesterone levels were low. When women smoke early in their cycle, they get more of a kick from their nicotine, so it might be harder to quit. In this mix of hormones, brain chemicals and desire—as in many other parts of life—timing may be everything.

References:

Allen SS, Bade T, Center B, et al. Menstrual phase effects on smoking relapse. Addiction (2008), volume 103, issue 5, pages 809-821.

Allen SS, Bade T, Hatsukami D, et al. Craving, withdrawal, and smoking urges on days immediately prior to smoking relapse. Nicotine and Tobacco Research (2008), volume 10, issue 1, pages 35-45.

Anthes E. She’s Hooked: Allure of Vices Tied to a Woman’s Monthly Cycle. Scientific American Mind (2010), volume 21, issue 2, pages 14-15.

Cools R, Sheridan M, Jacobs E, D’Esposito M. Impulsive personality predicts dopamine-dependent changes in frontostriatal activity during component processes of working memory. Journal of Neuroscience (2007), volume 27, issue 20, pages: 5506-5514.

Evans SM, Foltin RW. Exogenous progesterone attenuates the subjective effects of smoked cocaine in women, but not in men. Neuropsychopharmaclogy (2006), volume 31, issue 3, pages 659-674.

Evans SM. The role of estradiol and progesterone in modulating the subjective effects of stimulants in humans. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology (2007), volume 15, pages 418-426.

Hu M, Crombag HS, Robinson TE, Becker JB. Biological basis of sex differences in the propensity to self-administer cocaine. Neuropsycholpharmacology (2004), volume 29, issue 1, pages 81-85.

Jackson LR, Robinson TE, Becker JB. Sex differences and hormonal influences on acquisition of cocaine self-administration in rats. Neuropsychopharmaclogy (2006), volume 31, issue 1, pages 129-138.

Vance E. Is estrogen the new Ritalin? Scientific American Mind (2010), volume 21, issue 2, page 6.

You are probably no stranger to the fact that people who have come back from the verge of death have said that it was as if ‘their whole life flashed before their eyes.’

Very recently, unusual research into brain activity just before death offers clues about why such experiences occur.

An analysis of brain activity was carried out in seven sedated, critically ill patients as they were removed from life support. Using EEG recordings of neural electrical activity, a brief but significant spike was observed at or near the time of death—despite a preceding loss of blood pressure and associated drop in brain activity.

What is unusual with this is that it occurs at a very peculiar time point near death, when most people would think that the brain would physiologically die because of an absence of blood to the brain.

The jolts lasted 30 to 180 seconds and displayed properties that are normally associated with consciousness, such as extremely fast electrical oscillations known as gamma waves. Soon after the activity died down (pardon the pun), the patients were pronounced dead.

The researchers who carried out this study think that the predeath spikes are most likely brief, “last hurrah” seizures originating in brain areas that were irritable from oxygen starvation. Living nerve cells constantly maintain an electrical charge gradient, similar to the difference in charge on the poles of a battery. Keeping up this polarity takes energy—in this case, energy created from oxygen. As blood flow slows and oxygen runs out, the cells can no longer maintain polarity and they fire, causing a cascade of activity that ripples through the brain. If these seizures were to occur in memory regions, they could ex­plain the vivid recollections often reported by people who are brought back from near death.

It is difficult to draw further conclusions because in these patients only the forebrain was monitored. The end of a person’s is a poorly researched area – not surprisingly given the ethical red tape that you would have to go through to get permission to do these studies. However, the scientists are hoping to use more sophisticated brain imaging on a larger patient population to assess the entire brain in greater detail during near-death episodes.

References:

Lakhmir S. Chawla, Seth Akst, Christopher Junker, Barbara Jacobs, Michael G. Seneff. Surges of Electroencephalogram Activity at the Time of Death: A Case Series. Journal of Palliative Medicine. December 2009, 12(12): 1095-1100.

Peter Sergo. Going out with a Bang. Scientific American Mind. May/June 2010, volume 21(2), 10.