Training Old Brains To Be More Like Young Brains

Joaquin Anguera, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, filmed a demonstration of the NeuroRacer video game. | YouTube

Brain scientists have discovered that swerving around cars while simultaneously picking out road signs in a video game can improve the short-term memory and long-term focus of older adults. Some people as old as 80, the researchers say, begin to show neurological patterns of people in their 20s.

Cognitive scientists say the findings, to be published Thursday in the scientific journal Nature, are a significant development in understanding how to strengthen older brains. That is because the improvements in brain performance did not come just within the game but were shown outside the game in other cognitive tasks.

Further supporting the findings, the researchers were able to measure and show changes in brain wave activity, suggesting that this research could help understand what neurological mechanisms should and could be tinkered with to improve memory and attention. The research “shows you can take older people who aren’t functioning well and make them cognitively younger through this training,” said Earl K. Miller, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not affiliated with the research. “It’s a very big deal.”

The study highlights an emerging field in which researchers are trying to better define and even expand the limits of attention, which is seen as crucial to performance, memory and intelligence. Previous studies, done at the University of Rochester and focused more on young people, show that heavy use of certain off-the-shelf, intense shooting games can lead to improvements in a user’s ability to ignore distractions, and even learn. Daphne Bavelier, who led that research, cautioned that the field was young, and that brain training could have side effects, like changing how the brain functions for the worse. “We know we can rewire the brain, but the challenge is how to do it properly,” she said. “We’re in the primitive age of brain training.”

Read more at NYT

Thanks, Steve

Monkey Monday | Chimp Chooses Human Porn

Photo by Pablo Herreros

Gina [the chimpanzee is] a resident of the Seville Zoo in Spain. To enliven Gina's nights, officials apparently decided to install a television, protected behind glass, and gave her a remote control so she could change the channels herself. 

... “The surprise was when they found that within a few days, Gina was not only using the remote control perfectly well, but that she also used to choose the porn channel for entertainment ... ” [primatologist Pablo] Herreros wrote. “Although a small study estimated that porn films are only watched for about 12 minutes on average, the truth is that human and non-human primates possess an intense sexual life.”

NY Daily News

Monkey Monday | The Legendary FuManchu

FuManchu, a late resident of the Omaha Zoo, frequently would be found lounging in the trees outside his exhibit when zoo employees arrived in the morning. Fu's James Bond-esque escape plots are the stuff of legend, and showcase the depth of the animal's foresight and imagination.

High-tech surveillance was the only way that zookeepers were able to keep up. Long after zoo employees had left for the night, Fu would climb into the air vents connected to his enclosure and follow them to a dry moat surrounding the orangutan exhibit. Inside the moat was a locked door that employees often used. The clever ape would pull out a small piece of metal wiring that he kept hidden under his cheek throughout the day, and proceed to pick the door's lock. 

How Fu Manchu learned to pick locks remains a mystery. But it's the ape's cunning planning skills, demonstrated by his ability to keep they wiry tool hidden from zoo employees all day, that show the depth of an orangutan's intelligence.

Mother Nature Network

Pareidolia | Eyeball In The Sink

Click image to enlarge

The best optical illusions are often the ones we happen upon unintentionally, which is exactly what happened when redditor Liammm decided that water circling the drain of his sink would make for a nice photographic subject. "Out of boredom, I tried to take a photo of ... my sink draining," wrote Liammm yesterday when he ... posted his photo to reddit's "mildly interesting" forum. "I got a photo of an eye shaped whirlpool instead."

The illusion is even more pronounced when you're looking at a thumbnail of the image.

reddit pics via io9

Just Add "Neuro-"

Source

Where's the bacon section?

Steven Poole in The New Statesmen:

An intellectual pestilence is upon us. Shop shelves groan with books purporting to explain, through snazzy brain-imaging studies, not only how thoughts and emotions function, but how politics and religion work, and what the correct answers are to age-old philosophical controversies. The dazzling real achievements of brain research are routinely pressed into service for questions they were never designed to answer. This is the plague of neuroscientism – aka neurobabble, neurobollocks, or neurotrash – and it’s everywhere.

In my book-strewn lodgings, one literally trips over volumes promising that “the deepest mysteries of what makes us who we are are gradually being unravelled” by neuroscience and cognitive psychology ... In general, the “neural” explanation has become a gold standard of non-fiction exegesis, adding its own brand of computer-assisted lab-coat bling to a whole new industry of intellectual quackery that affects to elucidate even complex sociocultural phenomena.

... Happily, a new branch of the neuroscienceexplains everything genre may be created at any time by the simple expedient of adding the prefix “neuro” to whatever you are talking about. Thus, “neuroeconomics” is the latest in a long line of rhetorical attempts to sell the dismal science as a hard one; “molecular gastronomy” has now been trumped in the scientised gluttony stakes by “neurogastronomy”; students of Republican and Democratic brains are doing “neuropolitics”; literature academics practise “neurocriticism”. There is “neurotheology”, “neuromagic” ... and even “neuromarketing”. Hoping it’s not too late to jump on the bandwagon, I have decided to announce that I, too, am skilled in the newly minted fields of neuroprocrastination and neuroflâneurship.

Illumination is promised on a personal as well as a political level by the junk enlightenment of the popular brain industry. How can I become more creative? How can I make better decisions? How can I be happier? Or thinner? Never fear: brain research has the answers. It is self-help armoured in hard science. Life advice is the hook for nearly all such books ... Quite consistently, their recommendations boil down to a kind of neo-Stoicism, drizzled with brain-juice. In a self-congratulatory egalitarian age, you can no longer tell people to improve themselves morally. So self-improvement is couched in instrumental, scientifically approved terms.

More here.

Via 3 Quarks Daily

Monkey Monday | Genius Chimp

Natasha outperformed other chimps on tests given by researchers to measure intelligence.

Esther Herrmann | Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Certain apes appear to be much smarter than others, with at least one chimpanzee now called "exceptional" when compared to other chimps. The standout chimp, an adult female in her 20s named Natasha, scored off the charts in a battery of tests. The findings, published in the latest Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, suggest that geniuses exist among non-humans, but that no one attribute constitutes intelligence. Instead, a perfect storm of abilities seems to come together to create the Einsteins of the animal kingdom.

Natasha's keepers at the Ngamba Island chimpanzee sanctuary in Uganda knew she was special even before the latest study. "The caretakers named Natasha as the smartest chimpanzee, precisely the same chimpanzee that our tests had revealed to be exceptional," study authors Esther Herrmann and Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology wrote. "All three of the most experienced caretakers included Natasha in their lists (of the most intelligent chimps)," they added.

Natasha has made headlines over the months for her attention-grabbing antics. For instance, she repeatedly escaped her former enclosure, surrounded by an electric fence. She did this by tossing branches at the fence until she didn't see a spark, letting her know that the power was off. She also learned how to tease humans, beckoning them to throw food her way, only to spray the unsuspecting person with water. Herrmann and Call decided to study this chimp, along with numerous others, to see if there really are chimp prodigies among non-human great apes.

Read more about Natasha and the study's methodology at Discovery News.

Via Primates in the News

Hayley Morris | Undone

Undone | Hayley Morris | Vimeo

A drifting man struggles to pull objects from the roiling sea below him and scrambles to keep the objects from slipping through his fingers. A stop-motion animation using textured and tactile materials, as well as personal imagery, that represents the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Inspired by my grandfather.

Brain Pickings

Monkey Monday | Chimpanzee Demonstrates Understanding Of Human Speech

Panzee | Discovery News

A 25-year-old chimpanzee named "Panzee" has just demonstrated that speech perception is not a uniquely human trait. Well-educated Panzee understands more than 130 English language words and even recognizes words in sine-wave form, a type of synthetic speech that reduces language to three whistle-like tones. This shows that she isn't just responding to a particular person's voice or emotions, but instead she is processing and perceiving speech as humans do.

"The results suggest that the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans may have had the capability to perceive speech-like sounds before the evolution of speech, and that early humans were taking advantage of this latent ability when speech did eventually emerge," said Lisa Heimbauer who presented a talk today on the chimp at the 162nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Diego.

Heimbauer, a doctoral candidate and researcher at Georgia State University's Language Research Center, and colleagues Michael Owren and Michael Beran tested Panzee on her ability to understand words communicated via sine-wave speech, which replicates the estimated frequency and amplitude patterns of natural utterances. A few of the test words were "tickle," "M&M," "lemonade," and "sparkler."

Link via Monkeys in the News

Researchers Pinpoint Self-consciousness In Brain

Feeling embarrassed? You can probably thank your pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC), a boomerang-shaped region of the brain nestled behind the eyes. Cognitive scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, and U.C. Berkeley probed the neuroanatomy of embarrassment by asking healthy people and those with neurodegenerative diseases to sing along to the Temptations’ “My Girl.” Horns blared, strings flowed and the subject’s voice soared—and then the music and professional vocals were stripped away. The subjects had to watch a video of their own solitary singing while researchers measured their racing hearts, sweaty palms, squirms and grimaces. Those with damage in the right pACC were least likely to cringe at their own performance.

The study, presented in April at the American Academy of Neurology conference in Hawaii, adds further evidence that this brain region has a role in many emotions, says U.C.S.F. postdoctoral fellow Virginia Sturm. Among them are the self-conscious emotions, including embarrassment, pride and guilt, which are felt in the context of others’ imagined reactions. Embarrassment, Sturm says, may have evolved to motivate us to repair social bonds that become strained when we fall short of expectations.

Scientific American

Monkey Monday | Meditating Marmosets

Goeldi's Marmoset

At the Dutch Biomedical Primate Research Center, marmosets are participating in an experiment in neurofeedback. This is a technique that shows people their brain activity on a monitor and allows them to see what kind of thoughts and techniques get them the desired brainwaves. Once they understand the "trick" to achieving this state, they practice the same way a person would practice a physical activity. Amazingly, this can be done with marmosets as well. The marmosets see the monitors and eventually learn the tricks to meditation, if they are given a food reward after each time they succeed. The researchers however cannot explain the reason and goals of this trance-like state.

This creates an opportunity to filter out some bad data. People with ADHD know that the meditation is meant to help them concentrate, and people with depression know that it is meant to help them feel better. If they succeed, are they feeling better because of the brain waves, or just the attention, encouragement, and expectation of improvement? Since ADHD monkeys don't know why they're meditating, the placebo effect is neutralized, and scientists may be able to study if the actual techniques, or just the hope and attention, are helping people.

Neuroreport | io9

Monkey Monday | Monkeys Can Reason Through Analogy

Baboon Face | Papio papio
Henry Horenstein

A cat takes care of a kitten and a bird feeds fledglings: although the context is different, these two situations are similar and we can conclude that both cases involve a mother and its offspring. For a long time researchers believed that this type of analogical reasoning was impossible without language and that it was restricted to humans or, at best, great apes that had been taught a language. However, two scientists, Joël Fagot of the Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive (CNRS/Université de Provence) and Roger Thompson of the Franklin & Marshall College in the United States, have demonstrated that monkeys are capable of making analogies without language.

The two researchers carried out their experiment on 29 baboons (Papio papio) of variable ages, which could freely perform the proposed exercise (this represents a large number of animals for this type of experiment.) First of all, the baboons were shown two geometric shapes on a touch screen, for example two squares. After they touched one of these shapes, two other pairs of shapes appeared on the screen, such as: a triangle and a star for the first pair and two identical ovals for the second pair. To successfully complete the exercise and be rewarded, the animal had to touch the pair representing the same relation (of identity or difference) as the initial pair (here, the two ovals).

In other words, the baboon had to detect relations between relations, which is the definition of analogy. After an intensive learning period covering several thousand tests, 6 baboons correctly performed the task, thus demonstrating an ability to resolve analogy problems. Furthermore, the researchers suspended the task for nearly one year before proposing it again to the baboons. The animals re-learnt the task much faster than during the initial training, which shows that they remembered the situation.

Science Daily

The Neuroscience Of Brain Farts

Source

Robert T. Gonzalez has written an interesting article about those "D'oh" moments when our brains miscommunicate with our bodies.

Brain farts, the momentary lapses in attention that strike when you least expect them, may actually be rooted in abnormal patterns of brain activity. Neuroscientists call them "maladaptive brain states." We spoke to researchers in an emerging field of neuroscience that examines these brain states to learn about the neurological basis of brain farts, their potential evolutionary origins, and how they might one day be a thing of the past.

For a long time, the mistakes caused by brain farts during monotonous tasks were chalked up to momentary, unavoidable fluctuations in brain activity. Consequently, much of the research since the early nineties surrounding human error and brain activity has been focused on how our brains react to mistakes in order to facilitate processes like correction and learning. In contrast, very little attention has been paid to what goes on in our brains in the moments leading up to a mistake.

But a handful of recent studies have demonstrated that what we refer to colloquially as "brain farts" may actually be rooted in a number maladaptive brain states. These unusual neural patterns happen when you're doing monotonous or repetitive activities — and they can develop as many as thirty seconds before a mistake occurs. It's this aspect of the maladaptive brain state that has led some scientists to conclude that we may one day be capable of predicting, and preventing, the elusive brain fart.

Read the rest of the article and get links for source material at io9.

Crows Hold Grudges And Never Forget A Face

Crows remember the faces of threatening humans and often react by scolding and bringing in others to mob the perceived miscreant, according to a new study published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Since the mob members also then indirectly learn about the threatening person, the findings demonstrate how just a single crow's bad experience with a particular human can spread information about this individual throughout entire crow communities. Given that crows have impressive memories, people who ruffle the feathers of these birds could experience years of retribution.

Read more at Discovery

Monkey Monday | Koko Watches "Tea With Mussolini"

YouTube

Koko watches intently a DVD movie on her TV that she has seen several times before. It is called Tea with Mussolini. When it comes to a sad part, where the boy has to say goodbye to all of his relatives and waves goodbye on the train, Koko turns away from the TV. She then proceeds to sign: "Frown, sad, cry, bad, trouble, mother and Koko-love." Her eyes also look very watery. (Gorillas cry too.)

Lesson: There is mounting scientific evidence that great apes can feel empathy for others. This example points to the possibility that gorillas, in particular, may also be able to empathize with fictional human characters portrayed by actors—or at least be moved by them.

Your Brain In Love

Graphic: James W. Lewis, West Virginia University (brain), and Jen Christiansen.

Click image to enlarge

... Researchers have revealed the fonts of desire by comparing functional MRI studies of people who indicated they were experiencing passionate love, maternal love or unconditional love. Together, the regions release neuro­transmitters and other chemicals in the brain and blood that prompt greater euphoric sensations such as attraction and pleasure. Conversely, psychiatrists might someday help individuals who become dan­gerously depressed after a heartbreak by adjusting those chemicals.

Passion also heightens several cognitive functions, as the brain regions and chemicals surge. “It’s all about how that network interacts,” says Stephanie Ortigue, an assistant professor of psychology at Syracuse University, who led the study. The cognitive functions, in turn, “are triggers that fully activate the love network.”

Scientific American via Neatorama

The Master Theorem | A Society Of Solvers

Current Theorem: Old McDonald

The Master Theorem was founded by "M" as a secret society for puzzle aficianados at Columbia University. Now membership is open to anyone who can solve one of the Theorems:

The Herculean test of your grit is as follows: Submit the solution, in the form of a word or phrase, to this or any week's puzzle, called a Theorem. As a Member, you'll have the chance to search for hidden Seals throughout the website and compete with other Members by earning points for all of your efforts. As you work your way through the ranks of Membership, you'll have your finger on the pulse of additional invite-only events.

The Presurfer

RSA | Language As A Window Into Human Nature

YouTube | RSA

Steven Pinker is a distinguished professor of psychology at Harvard University where he conducts research on language and cognition. Here he shows us how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings.

Anderson Cooper Dons Bunny Suit To Please Bonobos

YouTube | Gawker

The Number Of Women In A Group Is Linked To Effective Problem-Solving

Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg | Fox News

Many social scientists have long contended that the ability of individuals to fare well on diverse cognitive tasks demonstrates the existence of a measurable level of intelligence in each person. In a study published Sept. 30, in the advance online issue of the journal Science, [researchers from MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College] applied a similar principle to small teams of people. They discovered that groups featuring the right kind of internal dynamics perform well on a wide range of assignments, a finding with potential applications for businesses and other organizations.

"We set out to test the hypothesis that groups, like individuals, have a consistent ability to perform across different kinds of tasks," says Anita Williams Woolley, the paper's lead author and an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. "Our hypothesis was confirmed," continues Thomas W. Malone, a co-author and Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. "We found that there is a general effectiveness, a group collective intelligence, which predicts a group's performance in many situations."

That collective intelligence, the researchers believe, stems from how well the group works together. For instance, groups whose members had higher levels of "social sensitivity" were more collectively intelligent. "Social sensitivity has to do with how well group members perceive each other's emotions," says Christopher Chabris, a co-author and assistant professor of psychology at Union College in New York. "Also, in groups where one person dominated, the group was less collectively intelligent than in groups where the conversational turns were more evenly distributed," adds Woolley. And teams containing more women demonstrated greater social sensitivity and in turn greater collective intelligence compared to teams containing fewer women.

Read more at Science Daily

Introspective Accuracy Is Related To Individual Differences In Brain Structure

White-matter microstructure correlated with introspective ability.

Science | September 2010

In a paper published this week in Science, neuroscientist Stephen Fleming and a team of UK researchers explain that they asked test subjects to engage in a metacognitive exercise while their brains were being scanned. Thoughts qualify as metacognitive if they are thoughts about other thoughts, rather than responses to outside stimuli. In the case of this test, the researchers used a commonly-accepted introspection test. Subjects were asked to do a visual perception test (identifying and rotating objects), and then asked to evaluate whether they performed well on the visual test. The self-evaluation part is what qualifies as metacognitive: You're analyzing your own analysis of something from the outside world.

Fleming and colleagues found that people with more gray and white matter microstructures in a particular area of the prefrontal cortex [anterior prefrontal cortex] tended to be more introspective, which is to say, better at evaluating their own performance on the visual test. People who are more introspective in this way tend to be better decision-makers. Their confidence levels tend to match the accuracy of their perceptions.

... The good news for people who want to heighten their powers of metacognition is that Fleming and his co-authors say it's possible people could "train" themselves to be better at it. The neurons in your brain are constantly changing and growing, so it would be very possible for somebody to do mental exercises that would beef up connections in the introspection area ...

io9