Are Runners Dopamine Machines?

We've all heard how exercise can prevent heart disease and maintain brain plasticity.  More good news regarding the positive effect of exercise, this time running, was presented recently at the Society for Neuroscience's 2009 meeting. Neuroscientist
Judy Cameron of the University of Pittsburgh showed exercise may have a protective effect against Parkinson's disease.

Cameron's study was conducted on rhesus monkeys.  A group of monkeys were divided to follow three different exercise plans for three months.  The first group really just sat around and watched others exercise.  The second group jogged for thirty minutes daily and the third group ran, on a treadmill, at a speed that brought  heart rates up to 80% capacity. After the 3 months,MPTP, a neurotoxin that inhibits dopamine production, was injected into the brains of all monkeys.  This neurotoxin is the same one present in the brains of humans suffering Parkinson's disease.

The results were astounding.  The monkeys that ran suffered no ill effects from the injected neurotoxin, while the sedentary monkeys lost motor function of their left arms.  The jogging monkeys did better than the sitting ones, but by far, the runners remained the healthiest.

My questions are:
1. Will Cameron be able to rehabilitate the sedentary rhesus monkeys by putting them on a strict running program or is their motor function impaired permanently?  
2. Would persons experiencing the early symptoms of Parkinson's benefit from joining a local running club and a training for a marathon? Or at what point is exercise no longer helpful?

What Are Your Invariant Representations?

Genes dictate the overall architecture of the [brain's] cortex, including the specifics of what regions are connected together, but within that structure the system is highly flexible.

-Jeff Hawkins (2004), Neuroscience Researcher

Scientists often refer to the human brain as "wired". This term is misleading because it calls to mind an incorrect image of brain physiology. Substances, such as blood and hormones, and impulses, move through the brain in patterns that are often started and set by individual experience. A live brain is soft and pliable and truly, there are no wires involved. A more appropriate term, though clunky, is Jeff Hawkins's Invariant Representation.

An invariant representation is simply a neuronal pattern with enough connections to other patterns to make a human memory. The more complex a web of patterns is, the more actual brain space (mental space) it takes up. That is why, the brain of a violist practicing 6 hours a day, for the last five years, will be different then your brain, if you're spending 6 hrs/ day playing Wii Tennis.

Actress Jennifer Lopez said,

Until you`re twenty, you have the face you are born with, and after that you have the face you deserve.

The same thing applies to your brain. Your genes determine what you start with. Eventually, depending on how you have spent your time, you will have the brain you deserve.

Music On My Mind

Are you good at tuning into the smallest nuances of human speech and its emotional variations? It could be because you started piano lessons at age seven. Neuroscientist Nina Kraus believes musical experience not only sharpens your hearing for music but also alerts you to emotions expressed in speech, such as anger or sadness. The more time (both daily and across the years) a musician has practiced the more obvious the effect. This has hopeful implications for the treatment of mental disorders related to decreased emotional connectivity, such as autism. Maybe we will soon see music lessons especially tailored for autistic children.
In Venezuela, musician Jose Abreu tailors music education to improve the lives of 300,000 poor children, one lesson at a time. Children admitted to his program sign up to practice an orchestral instrument every day they eat, for many hours. They learn classical music from expert musicians and each other. Eventually they join the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra, travel the world and gain a discipline that will forever lift them from poverty. The current conductor of the
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, is a graduate of Abreu's program.
You don't have to be mentally disabled or living in the poorest neighborhood of Caracas to benefit from the practice of music. Yet it is rare for non-musically trained adults to seriously take up the discipline of music. We somehow find time to hit the gym and even finish a New York Times crossword puzzle now and then.
Could it be our society is so focused on expertise and competence, that it is difficult for adults to start something, they will be terrible at for a few years, from scratch?

More Knowledge Please

There is probably no limit to what science can do in the way of increasing positive excellence.
So far, it has been physical science that has had the most effect upon our lives, but in the future physiology and psychology are likely to be far more potent.
-Bertrand Russell (1960), British Philosopher

The most difficult human endeavor is self-control.
As a conscious being, you are aware of your body, but the organ in which consciousness occurs, the brain, is not aware of itself. That is why neuroscientists study the brain at work, psychologists experiment to understand behavior and analysts dissect motives. We so want to understand ourselves because deep down we know, with understanding comes freedom and with freedom, the possibilities are infinite.

The Human Animal

Being able to self-regulate our emotions and our behaviors is a large part of what makes us human.
-John Cacioppo (2008), Social Neuroscientist

In the early 1960's part being human meant, among other things, being able to use tools. That theory, debunked by etymologist Jane Goodall's observations of wild chimpanzees, is no longer part of the "what makes us human" list. Today's list is focused on two main, apparently only human, attributes: Our extremely complex social systems and our ability to regulate our emotions. Yet, this new short list also begs editing.
Yes, we are socially complex, you may say. But aren't bees and ants extremely socially organized as well? They are. But they exhibit no where near our level of social interconnectedness. So, I guess, our humanness requires a certain of degree of complexity, a certain societal tipping point that occurred long ago and eventually led to the formation of the modern human brain.
But how about the emotion control point? You probably know at least one person who is frequently "out of control" emotionally. Are the emotionally volatile less human? Of course not. So, can you really make a list to define humanness? I think so, but not quite yet. Neuroscience is still in its infancy as a science and the human brain is not yet fully understood. One thing is clear, humans have huge brains and therein lie the differences between us and them.

Take Care of Your Hippocampus

The Hippocampus is the brain structure responsible for our ability to store short memories and is key in learning. This structure shrinks as we age. The more one uses its functions by constantly being exposed to novelty and new learning the less age-related atrophy will occur. But people of all ages can have premature hippocampal damage. Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University neurobiologist, is a researcher with a message for us all. "Long term stress is bad for the brain," Sapolsky says, because it produces, possibly permanent, hypocampal atrophy. The stress Sapolsky refers to is severe enough to create the life-wilting twins, "learned helplessness" and depression. The longer a person is depressed the faster her hippo campus shrinks, inhibiting future short term memory capabilities and learning. "Keep your life in perspective!" Sapolsky says. Unfortunately the people most likely to need his advice are the least likely to be able to process it. Depression is a shirking of perspective, a possibly destructive honing in on the self. Depression kicks in when sadness over life's bad turns does not resolve. Everyone experiences moments of great sadness, the people that best protect their hippo campus from long-term damage are those who have a growth mindset to begin with. People with a growth mindset expect to grow somehow through their deepest valleys of despair. They know they will come out a different person, a wiser person. Psychologist Carol Dweck believes "People can choose which world they want to inhabit." And that choice makes all the difference.

Robert Sapolsky on You Tube

Interview with Carol Dweck

Up Your Nose Treatments?

The 5 February 2009 issue of the journal Nature reports on cerebral immune cells, microglia, as they may be implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases such as memory loss and dementia; as well as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Narcolepsy. Hyperactivity of these cells may literally eat up synaptic connections. Scientists are still researching and disagree whether the microglia are helpful or harmful in these conditions. Although there are many medical treatments available to aid in easing symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases, no cure is yet available. The key to a cure may be figuring out exactly what microglia are doing at degenerating synaptic connections and figuring out how to stop them.
Futurist, Ray Kurzweil, is very positive about possible cures for these diseases in the near future. If neurodegenerative diseases are caused by inappropriately hyper microglia, the cure is soon to be provided by the insertion of microchips (in truly nano size) into the affected areas of the brain. These microchips would reprogram the cells to act as truly needed for healthy neuronal function. Medical trials are already underway with Parkinson's patients.
I'm hoping by the time I reach the age of common senility scientists will have all this figured out and I can drop by the microchip section of Target to pick up a short-term memory-restoring microchip I insert through my nose.

Beautiful Brainbows

It is intolerable that we do not have [a connection map of] the human brain. Without it there is little hope of understanding how our brains work except in the crudest way.
-Francis Crick (1993), Nobel Laureate Biologist

The January 29,2009 issue of the Journal Nature highlights the work of Harvard biologist Jeff Lichtman. Lichtman's team of researchers are busy meticulously dissecting a mouse's brain, slicing it into single strips of tissue and fixing that tissue onto plastic film for study. But mouse brains are only the sideshow in Lichtman's lab. Intra-neuronal connections and neuron-muscular connections in humans are the main topic of study. Lichtman is using color to map every connection in the human brain. The development of green fluorescent protein in the 1990's, gave Lichtman his first tool. He has been developing more colors to differentiate neural connections for almost ten years now and has named his technique colouring the Brainbow.
The brainbow, Lichtman says, allows you to watch competition [between neurons] in real time. And," he adds, the brainbow shows that the brain is not a mass of discrete anatomical areas, or a collection of chemical ingredients, but a vast loom of connected cells.
This is what we are, lots and lots of connections.
Although the 1990's were labeled "The Decade of the Brain" may be the real decade of the brain still lies in the future. A map of the brain is forthcoming, with that map knowledge of how the human mind actually works will truly begin.