What I've been reading

The Dumbest Generation (How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) by Mark Bauerlein.

Early in the book, Bauerlien tries to dislodge (successfully to an admirable extent) the quintessential and perpetual generation gap lament.
He makes a bold and honest case on the ground reality. Clay Shriky's and Jeff Davis's of the world have a passionate and (sorry to say) idealistic view because the reality is dichotomous. Overwhelming percentage of Millennials use the "digitial explosion" for extertainment and acquistion of knowledge not only is sidelined but mostly ignored (inspite of it's propitiousness).
To be fair to the Millennial's, the absymal standards parents provide today doesn't help. The cognitive surplus from the baby boomers to some extend has been the catalyst for this dumbest generation. The current foundation of  "Perpetual Adolescence" (more on that later) provides even worse standards to emulate. Here's some ground reality through the "Millennial's eyes" outside the digital realm,  unconsciously searching for paragons:(of-course there are exceptions)

• Since the day they were born, they probably would have never (or hardly) seen their parents read a book or have an intellectual passion for the happenings in the world. But when they reach their teen, they hear their parents preach the virtues of life and to their ears, it sounds like cognitive dissonance.
• The omnipresence of a curmudgeonliness is contagious and they see it as  essential part of life.
• "Politically Correct" society creates a dichotomous personality or creates a rebellion in them eschewing everything.

All of above for the syllogistic ease are bundled into peer pressure, which is one of major causes but not the only cause of this vicious downfall.
Recently I was listening to this excellent talk on TED Mid-Altlantic by Aneesh Chopra about Obama's request for need for self learning computer to personalize the learning experience. My view is even if knowledge comes in an instant "brain uploadable" format, kids wouldn't line up for it unless its perceived cool and goes with the ephermeral fad. This is a case of Bayesian Inference going bunkers, since these changes needs to come bottom-up and the geniuses have been perceptually trying for a top-down approach in vain. Thats the paradox we are facing and sooner we realize it, the better its for the society. Until then we have to be content with the occasional "Outliers" emerging out of the quagmire. Thats the way the world always worked and probably we got exicted by the hope digital revolution promised to break this visicious cycle. But these new breed of Outliers are going to much better since they realize the digital age provides an opportunity to master the reverse osmosis of knowledge.
One thing that's scary or could even be a solace, a hope is that there is good chance that the Millennials might be the first generation to defy death. What happens then? Will we have a dumbest generation forever or they would eventually catch up since time would lose its significance?

When I was kid, my mom used to say a quote which roughly translates in English  - " No one can wipe theft from the face of earth, unless and until the thieves themselves have a change of heart ." That probably will remain true until neuroscience and genetics catch up for good. No?

Until then the debate should continue and more books on this subject should be written since thats the only way we can keep the civilization, civilized.

Grieving Chimps

This is a heart breaking picture of Chimps lining up to watch Dorothy being wheeled away, who died of heart failure:

National Geography report here (thanks). A single picture reveals an immense truth which people refuse to comprehend till date because of their blind belief in an abstract "philosophy". The onus is on the farce of "unique consciousness" where ubiquitousness of consciousness is conspicuous.(earlier post)

Difference between Physiological and Cognitive Preception

Richard L. Gregory  contructs a fascinating "Peeriodic Table of Illusions":

"Let's concentrate on perception: it is tricky enough. I've tried to classify illusions in a way that shows the principles underlying them, starting with physical causes, moving on to physiological disturbances of neural signals, and finally to cognitive processes - where the brain tries to make sense of sensory signals, not always successfully.
The distinction between physiological and cognitive is not straightforward. It's rather like the distinction between how a machine works and what it does. For example, a can opener needs two descriptions: the mechanism of levers and cutters, and what this does to open a can.
That distinction between physiological and cognitive has "real-world" consequences. Think of the placebo effect, which suggests close connections between the physiological and the cognitive-psychological. So different types of illusions could be significant in ways we do not yet know. That's why I have constructed my Peeriodic Table of Illusions (bad pun intended) thus: blindness, the ambiguities, instability, distortion, fiction, and paradox, plus their causes.
Starting with blindness perhaps seems odd but the many kinds of blindness and accompanying visual phenomena tell us much about perception. Blindness ranges from the physiological, with no sensation of light and colour (congenitally or from injury or disease) to various mind blindnesses, such as agnosia, when light, colour, movement and form are perceived but the object seen lacks meaning.
Another form is change blindness, where a person fails to notice big differences in a picture or scene - sometimes even when someone in that scene has been substituted.
Next come the ambiguities. Confounded ambiguity illusions depend on a failure to properly distinguish between two objects, in poor light or because of our ageing senses. Differences in the brightness of regions of an object or scene help us see detail; limited light makes the visual brain choose whether neural activity is due to the presence of light or to neural "noise". Both neural noise and light fluctuate randomly so to see anything reliably we need significantly more photons."
"One of the most famous kinds of instability illusion is created by the use of those repeated patterns so typical of 1960s Op Art, which make the picture appear to be moving. Again, the causes are controversial. One view is that these patterns stimulate brain regions in the V5 area to produce sensations of movement. Or it may be that there is motion at the retina from eye tremor, and from the lens trying to focus the image, which may stimulate the movement systems - especially from high-contrast repeated lines.
Distortion illusions are arguably the most controversial since they most concern the distinction between illusions created by receiving neural signals (reception), where things can go wrong physiologically, and illusions of misreading signals (perception), where things can go wrong cognitively; back to the physiological versus the cognitive again."

The best part is the evolutionary illusion created by nature:
"One "fiction" concerns the blind spot on the retina, where the optic nerve is. One of nature's most amazing illusions is that we don't see this region as a black hole in visual space. The brain generally "fills in", using surrounding colours and patterns.One of nature's most amazing illusions is that we don't see our blind spot."

Second Chances...

Last Sunday on 60 minutes, Andre Agassi spoke about his auto biography - "Open". For starters -  he hated tennis, had a fake hair duo and was into drugs in 1997. On the surface, its easy to dismiss these revelations as an ubiquitous celebrity syndrome but inside the teared up eyes was a man who understood the immense significance of the second chance life offered him. There was point in his life, when he and he alone had to choose one of the two paths life had offered him. He choose the right path but the choice he made came with not publicizing his actions. It was a burden he decided not to carry life long. The critical factor which drove him in the right direction was through self reflection sans any tutelage. That's one splendid story for youngsters to look up to find peace and order when chaos hit their life and deduce self reflection as a sine qua non in life.

I never had sympathy for drug addicts nor I could relate to them since I despise drugs but now I can see my fallacy. Its not fair to stereotype and "one size fits all" is never a valid theory for anything in life. Not everyone is prudent enough and they do make stupid mistakes (yeah, to err is human). When someone shed's the devil inside, they open up a life long struggle not to sway the other side again. It's is not a easy task and his perseverance speaks volumes of his character. He is one lucky man since the second chance bought with it a wonderful mate and family. I bet he relishes every moment of it.

I have tried to look at him eschewing my biases - love of tennis, a fan, active mirror neurons et al., but I don't think I can over look the exposure effect, the nemesis averted by Max.

Closer look at FOXP2 gene

Early this year NY times reported on how FOXP2 changed the mouse "squeak", exciting the dreamer in me to envision a day Max conversing with me in English:

"The gene, FOXP2, was identified in 1998 as the cause of a subtle speech defect in a large London family, half of whose members have difficulties with articulation and grammar. All those affected inherited a disrupted version of the gene from one parent. FOXP2 quickly attracted the attention of evolutionary biologists because other animals also possess the gene, and the human version differs significantly in its DNA sequence from those of mice and chimpanzees, just as might be expected for a gene sculpted by natural selection to play an important role in language.
In a region of the brain called the basal ganglia, known in people to be involved in language, the humanized mice grew nerve cells that had a more complex structure. Baby mice utter ultrasonic whistles when removed from their mothers. The humanized baby mice, when isolated, made whistles that had a slightly lower pitch, among other differences, Dr. Enard says. Dr. Enard argues that putting significant human genes into mice is the only feasible way of exploring the essential differences between people and chimps, our closest living relatives."

Today New Scientist reportson follow up studies:

"Earlier this year, Wolfgang Enard's team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, spliced this human version of Foxp2 into mice. The mice didn't start speaking, but their sub-sonic vocaliszations changed, as did the shape and activity of neurons in a brain area that goes awry in people with Foxp2-related language disorders.
To discover what Foxp2 does differently in humans, neuroscientists Genevieve Konopka and Daniel Geschwind at the University of California, Los Angeles, grew human brain cells lacking Foxp2 in Petri dishes. To some they added human Foxp2 and to others the chimp version. They then recorded all the genes that were affected. Out of the hundreds of genes controlled by Foxp2, they identified 116 that responded differently to the human version of Foxp2.
This set of genes fits well with Foxp2's suggested role in the evolution of language and speech, says Konopka. Many control brain development or have been linked to cognition. Others are involved in controlling body movement and guiding the development of facial and laryngeal tissues that are essential for articulation.
Evolutionary studies of Foxp2 suggest it acquired its human-specific changes in the last half million years of human evolution – roughly when language is thought to have emerged. Geschwind has done preliminary studies of the evolution of the 116 genes that Foxp2 affects, which suggest they may have a similar history. "It brings up the possibility, which is not at all remote, that these genes may have evolved in concert," he says, adding that this may even be true for other genes involved in language.
While the results hint at a central role for Foxp2 in the evolution of language, Geschwind cautions against calling it "the language gene" as some have in the past. "Either Foxp2 itself is pretty damn important," he says, "or it's part of a regulatory circuit – something else is regulating Foxp2 that no one else has found yet."
Geschwind's team carried out a second experiment, comparing patterns of gene activation in adult human and chimpanzee brain tissue. They found a striking overlap between the genes whose activity was different in the human brain tissue and the set of genes that are controlled differently by human Foxp2.
The finding is preliminary, but if confirmed, it might mean a significant part of the difference between human and chimpanzee brains could be explained by two small changes in one gene, says Wolfgang Enard. "That would be really amazing."
With 116 genes to follow up on, Geschwind and Konopka have their work cut out for them, says Pasko Rakic, a neuroscientist at Yale University. This paper provides a starting point for future molecular studies on the basis of the evolution of language."

I am not good with languages (more on that later) but my theory is that language scar of mine has paradoxically been a great adhesive for my bond with Max.

Andrew Sullivan vs David Brooks

Its been a while since I watched such a fascinating debate between Sullivan and Brooks on the Andrew's new book (then), The Conservative Soul.

 




Their consensus had the most revealing (should have been self evident to the masses, duh!!) message than their critic, the lack of "Epistemological Modesty". In other words, the humility of accepting the limits of what we know or awareness of what we don't know.

Blind and Mirror Neurons

More research on Mirror Neurons reveals:

"The results of this study illustrate that visual experience is not necessary for the development and function of the mirror system. Congenitally blind subjects showed mirror network activation in response to action sounds in the same brain areas that were active in response to both visual and auditory stimuli in sighted individuals. The authors conclude that the human mirror system can develop without visual input and is able to process information about actions that comes from other sensory modalities, as well.
In essence, when blind people hear the actions of others, they use the same network of cortical brain areas that sighted people use when they observe such actions. This fits into what we already know about how some regions of the brain are recruited for different uses by blind people. For example, congenitally blind individuals rely on areas in the visual cortex to acquire information about an object’s shape and movement through other senses like touch and hearing. As Ricciardi, Pietrini and colleagues point out, the recruitment of visual brain areas for nonvisual recognition in congenitally blind individuals indicates that neither visual experience nor visual imagery is required to form an abstract representation of objects."

I have been reading raving reviews about the talk on Mirror Neurons by V.S Ramachandran (and here) at TED India conference last week and I hope, TED post their videos online soon (waiting six months for Henry Markram's speech was a torture).

I loves these final words in the Edge essay by V.S Ramachandran:
"Given the inherent complexity of the human brain, it is unlikely that there will be a single climactic solution like DNA (although I don't rule it out). But there may well be many instances where such a synthesis is possible on a smaller scale and these may lead to testable predictions and novel therapies. They may even pave the way for a grand unified theory of mind of the kind physicists have been seeking in trying to unify gravitation, relativity and quantum mechanics.
When such a theory finally emerges we can either accept it with equanimity or ask "Now that we have solved the problem of self, what elseis there?""

Oxytocin - Lesson 2

Evil Monkey's second post on Oxytocin, this one on effects of Oxytocin on females. It's a know fact that Oxytocin and females are like "peas and carrots", nevertheless its fascinating to learn how a single hormone can have such a profound impact on who we are (excluding the life long social and cultural impact). Here's a effects of Oxytocin on different stages of a females life:

"Birth:
In pregnant women, oxytocin has one of it's major roles (you might say it's the most important, but given the importance of the OTHER roles of oxytocin, it's a toss-up). Oxytocin is released at the end of fetal development (and sometimes during), and results in uterine contraction, making it one of the most important hormones at birth (the other one is progesterone, which gets HUGE right before birth).

The coolest thing about oxytocin during parturition is that it's controlled under a positive feedback cycle. Goes like this (in the very, very simplified version):

1) Baby is big and heavy, and presses against the cervix.
2) Cervix feels the burn and stretches a little.
3) The muscle stretching of the cervix triggers receptors which send nerve impulses to the brain.
4) Brain releases oxytocin.
5) Oxytocin further softens and dilates the cervix.
6) Baby weight pushes downward on the softened cervix and stretches it.
7) Lather, rinse, repeat.
8) BABY!!!

"Positive feedback" is the stretching of the cervix which promotes oxytocin, which promotes stretching, which promotes MORE oxytocin. The actions of the hormone trigger the release of more hormone. If you're like Sci, you will think this is really, really cool.

However, oxytocin is not necessarily NEEDED for birth. There are oxytocin knockout mice that do not have oxytocin and can still reproduce (but these are knockout animals, and so growing up without oxytocin, their bodies could compensate). But it's very clear that oxytocin is very important in the normal birth process. In fact, it's SO important that oxytocin analogues (drugs that mimic oxytocin, such as Pitocin) are used to induce labor, and oxytocin receptor antagonists (which block the actions of oxytocin, like the drug Tractocile) are used to stop premature labor and uterine contractions. So, pretty important.

Lactation:

 

You can see up there the important things for oxytocin, the alveoli (those little frond things), the milk sinus (also known as the sac), and the nipple opening, which is surrounded on the outside by the areola, which is the dark area of the nipple. While other hormones (like prolactin) are involved in actually MAKING milk, oxytocin is very important for releasing it, in what's known as the let-down reflex.

Goes like this (again, the simplified version, the complicated version involves dopamine and a host of other hormones):
1) Baby sucks at nipple
2) The sensation of suckling heads to the brain (skipping some detailed steps here).
3) The hypothalamus is stimulated and oxytocin is released from the posterior pituitary.
4) Oxytocin in this case acts to contract the muscles around the alveoli in the breast.
5) The squeezed alveoli deliver milk to the milk sinus via the duct.
6) Baby sucks, milk comes out.

Orgasm:
Oxytocin is actually important in sexual arousal for both men and women (I'll cover more about the men in the next post). During sexual arousal, oxytocin increases rapidly, with a big burst at orgasm. In fact, in women, the strength of orgasm is directly correlated with the amount of oxytocin. Oxytocin levels correlate to sexual arousal in women, as well as the amount of vaginal lubrication present. Not only that, oxytocin fluctuates along with a woman's menstrual cycle, being highest in the ovulatory phase and follicular phase, and lowest in the luteal phase (The follicular phase and ovulatory phase are the preparation and release of the egg, respectively, and fertility will peak at ovulation for obvious reasons. The luteal phase is the phase after ovulation, as the egg sits around and grows old until the shedding of the uterine lining during menstruation at the end of the month. Sci will probably have to blog about this sometime).

So oxytocin is very important physically, helping us enjoy the procreation of the species and allowing the species to get out of the womb and get fed.

Maternal bonding:
This is the part where some people get antsy. For it's true, oxytocin DOES influence behavior. Oxytocin DOES promote things like affiliative behavior with one's young.

Examples: rats, once they give birth, will pick up pups and carry them around. They'll build a nest for them (if they haven't already), and lick them and basically associate with them like good rat mommies. However, if you give a rat mom something to block oxytocin, she will not pick up the pups, carry them around, or make a nest. Giving oxytocin to sheep will induce maternal behavior by sheep for lambs that are not their own, even if the sheep has never given birth.

And this pattern appears to hold true in humans as well. Mothers who have secure attachments to their newborns have stronger activation of the pituitary (where oxytocin is released) when they see pictures of their child, than mothers with less secure attachments. Some studies also indicate that women with particular oxytocin gene regulation may show more signs of "sensitive" parenting. It appears that oxytocin release is a significant part of how women react to their babies, and how much they affiliate with them in the first months of life.
So when it comes down to it, yes, we're influence by our hormones. But we are ALSO under the influence of human society and the environmental influences coming in through our vast prefrontal cortex. And to discount the incredible influences of society and the cortex would be very naive indeed."

The point is if we "know" our hormones, we can change ourselves for better depending deficiency or abundance of a hormone, in addition to the perpetual social sways life brings. I think lot of the this can be achieved sans any pills by understanding more on who we are and interpret that knowledge in the process of self reflection.

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." - Isaac Asimov 

Why smells from childhood mean so much

Few days ago Jonah Lehrer wrote about smell and today an article on New Scientist again talks about the significance of Olfactory bulb.

"Why does the hint of certain smells instantly transport you back to childhood? It may be because the first smell you associate with an object is given privileged status in the brain.
Yaara Yeshurun and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, showed volunteers an object such as a chair or pencil that was unlikely to already be associated with a smell at the same time as exposing them to an odour or sound. An hour-and-a-half later, they showed them the same object with a different odour or sound.
One week later, the researchers showed the volunteers the object again and asked them which odour or sound they associated with it, while scanning their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Volunteers were more likely to mention the first odour – and when they did, their brains showed a characteristic pattern of activity in the hippocampus. This pattern did not appear if volunteers plumped for the second odour, or if they had been exposed to sounds rather than smells.
Yeshurun concludes that the brain reserves a special pattern of activity for memories that represent the first time we have associated a smell with a particular thing – and that such pairings are most likely to be laid down in childhood."

There are three smells I "remember" vividly and comes back to me, haunting me for years. First one is the smell of my great grand mother. She lived with us when I was 7 or 8 years old for just few months and moved with my uncle and later passed away about a year later. She never spoke to anyone, totally incapacitated and I never knew her personally. But her smell comes back "inside me" sometimes (very rare) and I am confident its not from an external  source. Since I inherited her genes, the smell is probably inside me and may be it will come out often as I grow old.

The second smell which I get is the smell of my dad and I do smell like my dad sometimes. Its has a soothing effect on my olfactory bulb and plays a soft lullaby taking me back to the childhood days (I love it!!). My dad lives thousands of miles away but the power of odor dissolves the distance.

The third one is smell of rain and this one is reserved only when I go to India since monsoon rain has its own odor. I cannot begin to explain what all memories that brings with it. Probably the olfactory bulb is the queen of Synesthesia.

What Marcel Proust wrote decades ago was so precise:

"When from a long distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."

A day in the life of your brain: Judith Horstman

Fascinating talk on Brain by a non-neuroscientist !! Her talk is in an inspiration to someone like me who is hooked to neuroscience but living in isolation from the "discovery mills".