“I think we’re getting closer to harnessing neurogenesis to improve cognition and mood in humans. This research may also help explain a bit of a mystery in the field, which we still don’t understand, regarding how the hippocampus can be involved with both cognition – which is its classic function – and in mood and anxiety-related functions. Perhaps the fact that pattern separation affects both the cognitive and mood domains is the beginning of an answer to that paradox,” said Dr. Hen. _StemCells

René Hen, PhD, professor of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, in the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, has discovered a possible escape hatch by which some members of society might escape the Idiocracy. It involves the use of chemicals called “BAX inhibitors.” Particular members of that class of drugs have the potential to preserve newborn stem cells in the brain’s hippocampus. And doing that could make all the difference in the course of a person’s life success and happiness.

After boosting the number of neurons in the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved in memory and mood, the researchers tested the mice in both learning and mood-related tasks and looked for changes in behavior. The researchers found specific effects on learning tasks that involve a process called pattern separation, which is the ability to distinguish between similar places, events and experiences.

“This process is crucial for learning because it enables us to know whether something is familiar or novel,” said Dr. Hen. “If it is familiar, you move on to the next bit of information; if it’s novel, you want to be able to recognize that it’s new and give it meaning. These mice, with just more adult-born neurons, and no other changes in the brain, basically learn better in tasks where they have to discriminate between similar contexts.”

Earlier strategies for manipulating neurogenesis, according to the investigators, were broader and less specific. “In addition to stimulating neurogenesis, these earlier methods exerted many other effects on the brain. As a result, you never knew with these older manipulations what’s due to neurogenesis, or what’s due to the other effects that these manipulations cause, and, indeed, what we find is that when you stimulate just adult neurogenesis, you actually get a subtle effect. Unlike broader manipulations, it does not affect all forms of learning, it’s very specific to tasks that require pattern separation,” said Dr. Hen.

Pattern separation is not only important for learning; it may also be important for anxiety disorders, including post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and panic disorder. People with PTSD, say the researchers, have a more generalized fear response, so that when they are placed in a situation that reminds them of even one aspect of their trauma, they frequently have a full fear response.

…The researchers say that the genetic strategy used to stimulate neurogenesis in their experiments can be mimicked pharmacologically, potentially leading to the development of new drugs to reverse pattern separation deficits. One such class of drugs the investigators are currently testing – BAX inhibitors – works by blocking cell death.

“These drugs are basically doing the same thing that we did with our genetic manipulation-namely, increasing the survival of the young neurons which normally undergo a process of cell death that eliminates at least half of these neurons. Now instead of dying, the neurons will go on to survive,” said Dr. Sahay.

Some BAX inhibitors have been developed for stroke research, where the goal has also been to prevent neurons from dying. The Columbia researchers plan to begin testing the BAX inhibitors in mice shortly. And if they produce cognitive benefits, the testing will be extended to clinical trials to determine if there’s also a beneficial effect in humans. _StemCells

This is all related to the length of time required before antidepressants are able to bring about a full “antidepressive response.” The full effect of modern antidepressants requires new stem cell production in the hippocampus — but that takes time to achieve. Drugs capable of rapid and prolonged increases of hippocampal stem cells could conceivably keep anxiety and depression at bay, while improving a person’s cognitive capacity.

No, this is not NZT. As mentioned here previously, a drug that could achieve the effect of the fictional NZT would have to stimulate changes in gene expression on multiple levels, and across a wide range of brain centers.

Smart drugs alone will not achieve the goal of smarter, better-rounded, and happier humans. Educational and environmental interventions would also be necessary, to blunt the Idiocratic brainwashing effect of modern media, modern academia, and modern popular culture, while allowing the brain to develop newer, more functional pathways.

Realistically, it will take 15 years at the earliest to see the early promise of this type of medication come to fulfillment. But a single ray of hope in the distance is worth a lot to a person immersed in the modern rush to Idiocracy.

More 5April2001: An example of rapid brain plasticity in human adults
The PNAS Abstract from the actual study

Previously published at Al Fin

As noted here before, improved neurogenesis in the hippocampus is associated with antidepressant and anti-anxiety behaviours in animal studies — and probably in humans. It does no good to live longer with younger brains if we are unable to enjoy our added time and brainpower.

Al Fin Longevity

I don’t remember if I’ve made this point here before — if I have, I suspect it’s probably buried in some lengthy block of text, so I’m going to go ahead and give it its own post.

Basically one thing I’ve noticed in whatever passes for “science journalism” these days (not that ALL of it calls for scare quotes, but enough of it does to merit them here) is that often articles are written and headlined in such a way that blurs the distinction between what researchers observed and/or recorded (i.e., data), and what this data means (to either the researchers or the authors of articles covering the research).

For instance, take the cat-cognition study I referenced in two recent posts. The study itself had some flaws (which I won’t relate again here as I covered that in detail in the aforementioned recent prior posts), but by far the most bizarre thing I saw in response to the study was the vast number of popular articles announcing “Study Proves Dogs Smarter Than Cats”, and similar sentiments along those lines.

As far as I could tell, there was no data whatsoever to support this notion of dogs being categorically “smarter” — all the data really revealed was a difference in performance between the tested (rather small) sample sets of dogs and cats on a particular task. The implications of this task performance difference were discussed in the applicable paper(s), with the experimenters suggesting various interpretations of their own (some of which could stand for some rigorous criticism), and then the media had a kind of frivolous field day making their own further interpretations (but acting as if their particular interpretations had actually been objectively observed during the experiments).

Which is, you know, kind of a major category error. An interpretation isn’t directly observable at all, and someone with a decent grasp of scientific methodology (and you don’t need to be a professional scientist to acquire this) will pretty much always maintain awareness of this. If you read a paper of a well designed study you will probably find it very heavy on the data and very light on the firmly-stated conclusions. But a lot of people don’t understand, or don’t care, that being “tentative” in this manner isn’t a weakness of science, but an essential strength and source of both flexibility and responsiveness to incoming information.

Anyway, though, this isn’t some screed in defense of cat cognition (though I do think many cat cognition studies suffer from terribly poor design). I am just using that subject as something I can easily point to as a concrete example. Really my concern here has to do with far too many people, whether they be researchers, journalists, or simply curious laypersons, failing to distinguish between “what was measured/recorded” and “what can reasonably be concluded based on what was measured/recorded”.

Too often it seems that conclusions based on stereotypes, unexamined assumptions, or sheer unmitigated ignorance get taken as somehow tantamount to Really Significant Data That Means Something Important.

This is not only an intellectual integrity/rigor problem, in my opinion, but an ethical one as well — e.g., I’ve encountered a truly stunning amount of “interpretation/data blurring” in the realm of autism research, which of course has the potential to impact actual living autistic people in serious ways.

Phrases like “lack of Theory of Mind”, “lack of empathy”, etc., are pulled out of who-knows-where, defined poorly if at all, but then astoundingly offered up as objectively existing based on observations that could very well mean something else entirely (which is totally aside from the problem of the wrong observations being counted as significant or insignificant in the first place).

Of course I do not mean to say that interpretation is always bad and ought to be avoided — rather, I just think too often interpretations are put forth too firmly and too prematurely, to the detriment of the subjects they seek to explore or point out. And like I’ve repeated several times here already, interpretations can get muddled with data to the point where questions that could really benefit from a lot more data do not receive this benefit. In other words, when people presume they already know everything there is to know about something, they may be less inclined to bother obtaining further information on it.

(Moreover, when this muddling becomes habitual, I suspect it also becomes really difficult for people to know when an interpretation is valid. But that’s a whole other post!)

So in any case I will stop now, hopefully keeping this post at a more generally readable length than I am usually capable of (writing “long” posts is often the only way I can ever write anything at all). Because this is something I think about a lot, have experienced direct consequences from, and also see as being a concern for other sorts of humans and non-humans whose well being all too often can hinge upon the interpretive whims of others.

Existence is Wonderful

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Green Food is a popular term used to describe young cereal grasses such as barley grass, wheat, rye and oats, before the grass is changed to grain. Cereal grasses have long been cultivated for their energy-dense granules, but change the profile of green cereal plants as they grow up fast. Chlorophyll, protein, antioxidants and vitamins in cereal grasses declines sharply and the amount of cellulose (indigestible fiber) increases. (more…)

Since the 1960s a number of critiques have been developed about the misrepresentations inherent in the images which portray minority groups. Critiques have been increasingly made of what are seen as demeaning images of women, gays, the living elderly index, ethnic groups and regional minorities. Here the assumption is that such groups suffer from the imposition of negative stereotypes: images which do not accurately represent their everyday realities and aspirations. (more…)