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Is web surfing good for your brain health?

Many of you reading this might be happy to hear the results of this new study as reported at esciencenews.

The researchers at UCLA (in press at American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry) compared reading and surfing the internet in 25 subjects between 55 and 76 years old. During these two tasks the subjects brains were scanned using fMRI. The more interactive endeavor of surfing the internet ended up activating the frontal brain regions which are involved in decision making.

Internet searches revealed a major difference between the two groups. While all participants demonstrated the same brain activity that was seen during the book-reading task, the Web-savvy group also registered activity in the frontal, temporal and cingulate areas of the brain, which control decision-making and complex reasoning.

It also appears that greater experience with net surfing resulted in greater brain activation.

In fact, researchers found that during Web searching, volunteers with prior experience registered a twofold increase in brain activation when compared with those with little Internet experience. The tiniest measurable unit of brain activity registered by the fMRI is called a voxel. Scientists discovered that during Internet searching, those with prior experience sparked 21,782 voxels, compared with only 8,646 voxels for those with less experience.

This is an interesting result and I am not sure you would see this in a younger group of subjects because even the lowest level of web surfers are pretty savvy. But if you have watched an older generation family member who did not grow up with the net, or adopted in when it came into general use, they seem lost when on the net - partially scared of doing something wrong, but just in general not fully using the tool to even a small percentage of its ability. Though I think anybody can adapt to get good use and hence probably good brain activation from surfing on the net.

As Small, one of the authors pointed out:

…the minimal brain activation found in the less experienced Internet group may be due to participants not quite grasping the strategies needed to successfully engage in an Internet search, which is common while learning a new activity.”With more time on the Internet, they may demonstrate the same brain activation patterns as the more experienced group,” he said.

All of this makes perfect sense to us surfers. If we were guessing the results before this experiment and comparing say TV watching, reading, and surfing; we would guess that TV watching would have the lowest activity, followed by reading, then internet surfing.

Compared with simple reading, the Internet’s wealth of choices requires that people make decisions about what to click on in order to pursue more information, an activity that engages important cognitive circuits in the brain.

Now I am not a gamer but it might be reasonable to propose if gaming was included as a comparison that it would produce an even greater range of activation.

Either way, surfing the net because it engages the frontal lobe via decision making (compared to passive intake of information) might be a good exercise for your brain and keep it nice and healthy as you age.

Hmmmm maybe my last 10 years haven’t been a total waste.

For any of you fans of the singularity you will have to check out this short 15 minute video; “Designing the human brain” (hosted at seedmagazine).

One component of the singularity is when man humans are able to build computers as powerful as the human brain. Some also think of this point as when we get artificial intelligence (AI) up to the level (and beyond) of the human brain. Many approaches to AI have been largely software driven (top down) with the thought that the we don’t  have to understand the biology of the brain. The difference between a rat and us is that we have more of these columns and that the connections between them are more complicated and diverse (see )

Ray Kurzweil, and others, running with Moore’s Law predicted that by 2013 we will reach a point of computer power able to run human brain functional simulation (see here (2001 essay), and his book, The Singularity is near). Further on, by 2025 there will be supercomputers capable of ‘uploading’ human brains (only 17 years from now).

The video features Henry Markram, from the blue brain project, giving a talk at MIND08. What makes this talk interesting is instead of taking a top down approach to obtaining human level intelligence this group is taking a bottom up approach (ok - if the cortex is considered the bottom). They are trying to “create a biologically accurate functional model of the brain”. To accomplish this they are first reverse engineering the brain - database this (500 petabytes) - then forward engineer this into mathematical models where they can run brain simulations on IBM supercomputer hardware. The piece they have started out, which they think is the most strategic, is the neocortical column. These neocortical columns he refers to as our microcircuits that enable us to have our higher cognitive functions. The difference between a rat and us is that we have more of them and that the connections between them are more complicated and diverse (see this piece regarding the small-network properties of the human brain). Each column is made up of 10,000 neurons  (400 different ‘types’) with 30 million connections.

They expect to have a full scale human brain model within 10 years. Markram says they will need a computer 20,000 time more powerful (exoflop ability) than any computer that exist currently (2008) along with 200 petabytes of memory. The 2018 date of full scale human brain model puts us about 5 years behind Kurzweil’s 2001 prediction (not sure about his updated 2005 predictions in ‘The singularity in near‘) - but reasonably close. Of course Markham is also only predicting that his team will be able to accomplish this goal within 10 years.

Some of the visuals of this video are quite impressive.

We live in interesting times, and interesting near-future times.

via: mindhacks and psique

One great brain hack would be to improve your brain efficiency.

Our brains have evolved to use more and more of the total energy that we intake in effort to have higher functioning brains (see previous post).

Additionally, as we age our brain becomes less efficient – it not only feels this way but scientific research also supports this notion. But what are the mechanisms behind the reduced brain efficiency as we age and is there anything we can do about it?

Efficiency in this case is the metabolic cost (energy via food consumed) versus brain information processing capability (you know that whole reduce prediction error and survive thing).

The nervous system like the internet (and ecosystem) is a complex network with various connections between different brain areas (which has evolved to maximize our survivability). In general the brain has small-network properties (many local connection with few long range connections). It is suggested that the small-network assembly evolved in the brain to maximize information processing efficiency while minimizing cost (an optimization problem). The evolving of the brain is a wiring problem (just like computer chip or internet design), with a very real limit of energy. And while shorter connections would be the best energy solution there is the opposite evolutionary drive for long distance connections to bring about more complex connections – better thinking capacity (due to full integration of all available incoming data and processing). So a push pull problem.

Achard and Bullmore (2007) (freely available) measured the efficiency and cost of the human brain functional networks. What is interesting about this work is that it combines network thinking (think internet, math) and the brain. They specifically measured functional connectivity between 90 cortical and subcortical regions. In older people (66.5 years old) compared to younger (24.7 years old) the efficiency was disproportionally reduced (compared to cost). This was both for local and global connectivity.

In general in the older subjects there was reduced efficiency in hubs such as dorsal cingulate, middle frontal and inferior temporal gyri.

Well so far they are telling us what we already know; as we age our brain has reduced efficiency. But the question becomes why is an older brain less efficient? We could look at the hundreds/thousands of protein that are altered as we age. Possibly a needle in a haystack problem. One of the many proteins that are altered with age is the level of the D2 receptor (which decreases with age) for dopamine – is this a possible culprit?

Therefore, the researchers used an antagonist (blocking compound) to the D2 receptor and found very similar results as the effect of aging on brain efficiency (reduction both locally and globally). Interestingly, efficiency was reduced in both the old and young subjects. One might have hypothesized that either there would be a floor effect in the old (they couldn’t become that much less efficient) or that the young would have enough buffer and that even with a reduction in a component of efficiency (e.g D2) that the system would be robust enough to maintain efficiency. However, both groups had a reduction in efficiency, though overall there was less efficiency lost in the younger group.

Additionally, there was a greater reduction in brain efficiency with aging as compared to D2 blocking, suggesting that the reduction of D2 with aging is not the only thing contributing to the reduced brain efficiency – but at least it appears to be an important factor.

The similar results with age and D2 blocking suggest that the dopamine system may be involved in optimizing the economical performance of the brain. Now what this means is:

As people age not only is there a reduction of dopamine cell bodies but also decreased density of dopamine projections to the cortex and striatum. Additionally, there is also a reduction of D2 receptors in the striatum and overall these changes appear to have a direct impact on the brain’s energy efficiency.

Now what else, other than age, may cause a reduction in dopamine, or more specifically the D2 receptor? Obese people have lower D2 binding levels. This would suggest that obese people brain’s may be less efficient. It is even conceivable the excess calories that obese people are consuming results in a reduction in efficiency since the brain doesn’t need to be so efficient (abundant supply of energy) (but this is another chicken or egg problem). At least these are testable hypotheses.

Additionally, there is a specific polymorphism in the D2 receptor (A1+ allele) that results in a 20-30% reduction in D2 density in the striatum. Would this group of people also have a reduction in brain efficiency? This has not been tested as far as I know.

How can you increase your D2 levels so you can improve your brain efficiency ?

I am guessing you have already figured it out – research indicates exercise increases the level of the D2 receptor (only tested in the rat at this point).

Take home message:

Brain hack to improve brain efficiency: exercise to increase the level of the D2 receptor to improve your brain efficiency.

Do not become overweight since this appears to lower D2 levels. And since D2 levels also decreases with age all the more impetus to exercise to starve off the age induced reduction in brain efficiency. Once again, get out there and exercise to improve your brain health.

There are possibly other ways to increase your D2 level and hence your brain efficiency - I will cover them at another time.

Image via Wikipedia

The title of this piece is not meant to convey some quantum physics observation phenomena - rather just the simple giving and receiving of smiles.

Is smiling one of the easiest brain hacks possible - that not only brings happiness to you but also anybody viewing the smile?

Is smiling good for you ?

We have all heard the general idea that smiling can lift your own mood, and I thought I had read about the release of dopamine or serotonin but it was a bit hard to find the actual scientific papers to support this.

However, it is widely reported on many websites regarding how serotonin (good for your mood) is increased with smiling - they just didn’t provide the scientific citation(s). So I am not sure if this is an example of a internet-myth or a difficult to hunt down fact. I will continue to try to hunt down this potential-factoid.

But at the individual subjective level smiling appears to make us feel good (potential chicken or egg problem). Again I remember reading about a study were people are instructed to change specific muscle in their faces until they have formed a smile and/or imitate a smiling face and either of these tasks bring about an improvement in mood (just need to find these).

We have all been told that it takes less muscle to smile rather than frown - but try telling a sad person to smile, look happy, and they would highly disagree with the concept it take less muscle, less energy to smile.

There is actually a book about the science of smiles, which I was somewhat surprised to find out even though I shouldn’t have been.

Beautiful faces are rewarding

I found it interesting that it was easier to hunt down research on how viewing beautiful faces is rewarding compared to is smiling self rewarding. It could be that the smile self-rewarding research is older.

Previously, I covered research that found viewing a favored celebrity is good for your brain because it increased circulating natural killer cells (better immune system) and elevated mood. Additionally, several brain regions lit up when they did brain scans comparing when subjects looked at a favorite celebrity they found attractive versus newscasters they did not find particularly attractive. An earlier 2001 Neuron paper (Aharon et al., 2001) found that attractive faces were rewarding, as fMRI scans indicated reward centers had greater activation when viewing beautiful faces, in particular the nucleus accumbens.

But what about a smile ?

Now we might not all be considered beautiful by the world, but do we all have something that we can share and bring about a positive emotional experience to them? Yes - a smile.

O’Doherty et. al., in 2003 found that an attractive face lit up the viewers medial orbitofrontal cortex, which is known to be involved in stimulus reward. Smiling faces further activated this region. Hence the reward of an attractive face is modulated by that face smiling. No great surprise - if any of us see what we judge as a beautiful face it gives us pleasure, and the person smiles at you - well ding ding ding goes the brain with delight. (they did not specifically test an average looking smiling face)

Even the most hardened individual is usually melted by a babies smile. A 2008 paper (covered by sciencedaily) found that mothers viewing their babies smiling faces had many areas of the brain lit up that were associated with dopamine (a prominent reward neurotransmitter). Now of course mothers reacted at a higher level to their own babies face. But what the authors wanted to point out was:

“These are areas that have been activated in other experiments associated with drug addiction,” said Strathearn. “It may be that seeing your own baby’s smiling face is like a ‘natural high’

These results would come no surprise to anybody that has seen a smiling baby face. While in the above paper they tested the mother I would guess they would get similar (though not quite as strong) results if they tested anybody they pulled off the street to a baby smiling face compared to either a smiling human face, or a non-smiling babies face, or a clock’s face.

Does smiling make you more memorable ?

Tsukiura and Cabiza (2008) reported that smiling faces were easier to remember. Subjects were able to match name-faces in a memory tests with higher accuracy and more quickly compared to neutral faces. The researchers also found a greater connectivity between the orbitofrontal cortex (see previously mentioned smile paper) and the hippocampus (involved in memory) during successful encoding and retrieval for smiling faces. Where it gets interesting that if just the name was used as a retrieval clue the same enhanced connectivity was found for smiling faces, suggesting that the imagery of that smiling face produced the ‘good’ effect.

This suggest that when you meet a new person by smiling they will not only remember your name better but have a better brain connection between one of the reward areas of the brain and the memory encoding/retrieval area.

Take home

So if you have a choice why not smile? It not only brings pleasure to you (subjectively) but also gives pleasure to its recipient and you will be more memorable (and who doesn’t want to be more memorable).

Then why not if you are out in the world; at work, at school, running, biking, sitting at your local coffee shop (unless you are avoiding coffee shops to save some money) share a smile. Do you and the rest of the world some good - by simply smiling.

Goal of the day: Share a smile with a stranger today.

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