Brain •

How Science and Religion Live in Our Brains

March 25, 2016 By Georgia Dawson Leave a Comment

Science and religion occupy two different parts of our brain

STATES CHRONICLE – Science and religion, or faith, have always been considered to be opposites, although if we look closely, we might find that they have several things in common. Most of the times we see people split into two big groups: the ones who believe in science and the ones who believe in a god.

A recent study shows that the reason some people are more rational and other are more faithful can be found in the structure of our brains. It was already known that our brain can be split into left and right that one part stands for analytical issues, critical thinking while the other stands for creativity and empathy.

This idea of opposition and tension between different parts of our brain is known as the opposing domains hypothesis. The two different parts of our brains are suppressed in turns, depending on the issue we are confronting with. If we need critical thinking then our brain will be less empathetic and the other way around.

So, faith is linked to the empathetic part of the brain, while science is part of the analytical area. And just as all the others, they tune out depending on how a person sees the world. The researchers conducted a study on 159 to 527 subjects.

The ones who had strong analytic thinking were more likely to discourage any spiritual belief while the ones who wore religious were more likely to show greater moral concern. However, the researchers weren’t able to demonstrate a cause and effect for this.

Because women tend to be more empathetic than men, most women also tend to be more spiritual or religious. If you think that people who are religious might be less intelligent than the others, you should bear in mind that 90 percent of the Nobel Prize laureates were religious or spiritual in some way.

Moreover, although most people believe science and religion are in constant conflict, it appears that people who are very scientific-minded and those who are very religious don’t see this conflict and may even see the two as being complementary.

Besides, 76 percent of scientists reported belonging to a religion while only 15 percent of scientists see a conflict between religion and science.

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Why Reading is Good for You

March 17, 2016 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Reading has been scientifically proved to improve your cognitive abilities

STATES CHRONICLE – I enjoy reading very much mostly because it is a form of entertainment and relaxation at the same time and also because the stories manage to get me to a whole new world. But besides these, let’s say, purely entertaining reasons, there are also some scientific reasons that make reading good for you and your health.

What reading doesn’t do is improve your eyesight or help you build muscle. For that, you can go to the gym. However, reading improves your cognitive abilities, and this has been scientifically proven.

First of all, reading can improve your memory. Unlike watching a movie, reading a book is different as it works parts of your brain such as language, vision, associative learning. In other words, people who read have a more complex brain than those who don’t read. Moreover, exercising your memory will also help decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s, as suggested by a study conducted in Chicago.

Reading can also reduce your stress levels. While we all feel relaxed when we get back to our book at the end of the day, scientists have proved that only 6 minutes of reading can actually reduce stress by up to 68 percent. So, reading works even better than listening to music or simply going for a walk.

Reading can also improve your attention span and help you to be able to focus more easily on a task. This is especially helpful for children as reading a story can help their brain process things as they happen, in a sequence: beginning, middle and end. The kids manage to link cause and effect and are less likely to mix things up, which will than transfer into real-life situations.

Some studies have also shown that reading can make you live longer. A study from Harvard Medical School suggests that reading helps you make a “reserve” which you can use later in life to prevent brain cell loss. Researchers from the U.K. suggest that a book club is the perfect solution to keep yourself young as not only will you be reading but you will also be socially interacting with people having the same interests as you.

All in all, reading does help a lot, so it is recommended that you replace watching TV with reading a book. And while you still have to exercise to keep your body as healthy as your mind, you should make sure you have a book with you wherever you go.

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Protective exposure of radiation on brain reduces risk of memory loss

September 24, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Protecting specific area of the brain during a radiation therapy substantially reduces memory loss in the cancer patients, a new study shows.

According to the study, protecting the stem cells that reside in and around the hippocampus substantially reduces the rate of memory loss in the cancer patients during whole-brain radiotherapy without a significant risk of recurrence in that area of the brain.

Hippocampus are C-shaped area in the temporal lobe on both sides of the brain that are associated with the ability to form and store memories.

“Memory loss, especially short-term recall, is an important consideration for patients receiving whole-brain radiotherapy,” says the study’s co-principal investigator, Minesh P. Mehta, M.B., Ch.B., professor of radiation oncology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “We found that reducing the radiation dose to the stem-cell niches surrounding the hippocampus during treatment was clearly associated with memory preservation without an inordinate risk of relapse in that portion of the brain. The findings far exceeded our expectations.”

Study

A total of 113 patients were recruited between 2011 and 2013; investigators were able to evaluate 42 patients at four months and 29 patients at six months.

Patients in the study, the majority of them with lung cancer that had spread to the brain, were treated with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), which enabled doctors to shape the radiation beams to avoid the hippocampus.

Researchers used a standardized cognitive function assessment — the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT) — to measure patients’ baseline memory, such as their ability to recall information immediately or after a delay, with follow-up at two, four and six months.

Dr. Mehta says that the radiation affects cognitive function by damaging nerve cells as well as stem cells, which help to regenerate nerve cells that support memory formation. “These stem-cell niches are exquisitely sensitive to radiation and are involved in neurogenesis — the process of generating new neurons, or nerve cells. Although we call it hippocampal-avoidance radiotherapy, we really are targeting the stem-cell niches in and around the hippocampus,” Dr. Mehta says.

Why do we sleep? Scientists say it boosts production of brain cells

September 4, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Why do we sleep? Why we feel frustrated and annoyed whenever we don’t have a good sleep? Scientists have discovered the answers for these questions. They say we sleep as it replenishes a type of brain cell.

While sleeping, there are genes in the brain that are actually turned on. Scientists say these genes are vital for the repair and growth of brain cells.

According to the US researchers, adequate sleep boosts the production of specific brain cells, called oligodendrocytes, that produce the protective layer around the organ.

Oligodendrocytes make myelin (the protective layer) in the healthy brain and in response to injury. Myelin allows electrical impulses to move rapidly from one cell to the next just like the insulation around an electrical wire.

Scientists have known for years that many genes are turned on during sleep and off during periods of wakefulness. These findings could one day lead scientists to new insights about the role sleep plays in brain repair and growth.

Study

In the current study, Chiara Cirelli, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, measured gene activity in oligodendrocytes from mice that slept or were forced to stay awake.

Dr Chiara Cirelli and colleagues found that the production rate of the myelin making cells, immature oligodendrocytes, doubled as mice slept. In contrast, the genes implicated in cell death and cellular stress response was turned on when the animals stayed awake.

“These findings hint at how sleep or lack of sleep might repair or damage the brain,” said Mehdi Tafti, PhD, who studies sleep at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Tafti, however, was not involved in the study reported in the Sep 4 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Why we need to sleep has baffled scientists for centuries. So far we have given a simple reason for the necessity of sleep and i.e. we need to sleep to feel rested and for our mind to function well. However, the biological processes that go on as we slumber have only started to be uncovered relatively with this study.

The study is published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Migraine Headache Leads To Change In Brain Structure: Study

August 28, 2013 By Jack M. Robinson Leave a Comment

A meta-analysis finding conducted by team of researchers of a headache center says migraine can also be linked to the structural changes in the brain of human beings. A published report of the team in Neurology reads brain volume changes and clinically-silent infarct-like abnormalities are correlated with migraine.

The neurological disorder migraine causes results in throbbing headache. It is usually on one side of the brain.

Messoud Ashina, MD, PhD, of the Danish Headache Center at Glostrup Hospital in Copenhagen, and colleagues writes, “White matter brain lesions appeared 68% more often in migraineurs with aura than in those without migraine; a trend for 34% elevated risk of white matter in migraine patients without aura didn’t reach significance.”

However, cautioned the researcher team, as of now it is not perfectly known how these changes arise and whether any clinical significance can be related to it. In fact, it has been known for years and decades that migraine is a benign disorder without having any long-term consequences for the brain.

It is learned the MRI imaging used for excluding the secondary causes of the headache often turns such abnormalities and it worries the neurologists as well as the patients.

The group recommended, “Patients with white matter abnormalities can be reassured… Patients with infarct-like lesions should be evaluated for stroke risk factors. Volumetric MRI remains a research tool.”

The meta-analysis of the team included thirteen clinic-based studies and 6 population-based studies that looked for MRI abnormalities between 1989 and 2013 in migraineurs.

The study was backed by Novo Nordisk Foundation and Lundbeck Foundation.

Migraine is usually associated with photophobia. The patients usually develop increased sensitivity to flashing of lights. Many patients have complained that such trigger factors worst the pain. Unfortunately, although this disease is known for many decades, there is no permanent treatment found for the same.

Migraine has been considered chronic disease for the same reason. There is no perfectly known cause for the migraine headache. However most commonly known triggers of migraine disorder are women on oral contraceptives, oily dietary habits, depression.

Since the new study has found relation of migraine to change in the structure of the brain, now this can be prove helpful to those hundreds of researchers who have been trying to find a permanent cure for sufferers of migraine.

New Studys Suggests Relation Between Brain Hyderactivity to Alcohol Consumption

August 4, 2013 By Sebastian Mc’Mannen Leave a Comment

A new study conducted in Canada by McGill University’s Professor Marco Leyton from the Department of Psychiatry can help in diagnosing and treating patients undergoing treatment caused by alcoholism.

According to a study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research there is a relation between one’s brain hyperactivity to alcoholism.

It is mentioned that some alcoholics are prone to sustain more release of dopamine, a chemical which plays an important role in brains activity. Dopamine functions as a neurotransmitter i.e., it acts as a signal and gives response between the body activity and the brain. Hence an increase amount of dopamine will definitely lead to hyperactivity of some alcoholics.

It was mentioned that they studied 26 individuals 18 males and 8 females aged 18 to 30 from Montreal area. The subjects were asked to swallow three drinks within a span of 15 minutes. Alcohol tolerance test, personality traits and PET Scans of all the subjects were studied.

It was found that people who are at more risk of alcohol release large amount of dopamine which ultimately results in hyperactivity of the subjects.

Dr Leyton said, “There is accumulating evidence that there are multiple pathways to alcoholism, each associated with a distinct set of personality traits and neurobiological features. These individual differences likely influence a wide range of behaviours, both positive and problematic. Our study suggests that a tendency to experience a large dopamine response when drinking alcohol might contribute to one (or more) of these pathways.’’

Leyton also said, ‘’This effect likely contributes to why having one drink increases the probability of getting a second one – the alcohol-induced dopamine response makes the second drink look all the more desirable. If some people are experiencing unusually large dopamine responses to alcohol, this might put them at risk.’’

He concluded saying, ‘’ Although preliminary, the results are compelling. A much larger body of research has identified a role for dopamine in reward-seeking behaviours in general. For example, in both laboratory animals and people, increased dopamine transmission seems to enhance the attractiveness of reward-related stimuli.’’

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