Internet use may help you search and find...a healthier mind

Here's an inducement for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and fellow seniors who've stayed off the information superhighway: if you take the on-ramp now, you'll get extra benefits in the form of improved cognitive dexterity and better short-term memory. So says a study presented today at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in Chicago.

 A team of UCLA researchers scanned the brains of 24 older adults--half of them Internet savvy, the others not--as subjects performed a task that simulated an Internet search. After providing online training for those with little Internet familiarity, the researchers instructed subjects to spend at least seven hours over the next two weeks conducting practice Internet searches, exploring websites and reading information on a range of questions. When they returned, the subjects' brains were again scanned by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines, which detect blood flow throughout the brain's many regions, as the subjects conducted another round of simulated searches.

Researchers found that for the Internet-"naive" subjects, two weeks of cruising the information super highway had revved up brain function markedly. Before they had been trained to conduct Internet searches, the newbies--who had an average age of 66.8 years--had used many of the regions of brain associated with judgment, visual and spatial perception, and higher-order reasoning to perform their faux-search task. But a scan of their brains found that after two weeks of honing their search-skills, the newbies used those brain regions as well as several others when performing the faux-search task.

And not just any regions: Their brains showed activation in portions of the superior and medial frontal gyrus and the inferior frontal gyrus. Those are regions of the brain key to decision-making, working memory and interference resolution--the skill of fending off distracting intrusions and allowing necessary ones while "bookmarking" one's place in a task to return.

After the training, the brain function of the Internet-naive adults during the task looked pretty much like that of the Internet-savvy older adult subjects, whose ages averaged 62.4 years. But the Internet-savvy adults actually seemed to be dogging it on the second try, using less brainpower  than they had the first time to perform the faux-search task. That's probably because they had recognized the task the second time around, and found it easier to do, researchers said.

UCLA neuroscientist Gary Small, author of the book iBrain and one of the study's authors, said the study makes clear that for older adults looking to sharpen their memories and boost their cognitive fitness, the answer is at their fingertips. Small, who researches memory function and conducts seminars to improve it, has argued that society's growing reliance on technology is likely helping to "rewire" our brains in ways that are not fully understood. While he says heavy reliance on technological conveniences can be a significant cause of inattention, mastering new information technologies can be a powerful means of brain-building.

-- Melissa Healy 

Rodent of the week: Gabapentin may be unsafe for developing brains

A study performed in mice and in cell culture suggests that the heavily prescribed drug gabapentin halts the formation of new synapses, or nerve connections, in the brain. That ability may be the reason the drug is effective in treating epileptic seizures and pain. But the findings also suggest that the medication may harm fetuses and young children, whose brains are still developing.

Stanford University researchers examined the interaction between neurons and brain cells called astrocytes. Previous studies showed that a protein that astrocytes secrete, thrombospondin, is critical to the formation of the brain's circuitry. In the study, researchers found that thrombospondin binds to a receptor, called alpha2delta-1, on the outer membrane of neurons. In a study in mice, they showed that the neurons that lacked alpha2delta-1 could not form synapses in response to the presence of thrombospondin.

Alpha2delta-1 is the receptor for gabapentin. That has been known, although scientists did not understand how gabapentin worked. But the new research revealed that when gabapentin was given to mice, it prevented thrombospondin from binding to the receptor, thus stopping the synapse formation.

While gabapentin, which is sold under the trade name Neurontin, does not dissolve pre-existing synapses, it prevents the formation of new ones. That's why the medication may be dangerous if given to pregnant women or young children, the authors said. The majority of the brain's synapses are formed in utero and early childhood.

"It's a bit scary that a drug that can so powerfully block synapse formation is being used in pregnant women," Dr. Ben Barres, a professor of neurobiology and the senior author of the study, said in a news release. "This potential effect on fetal brains needs to be taken seriously. Right now, doctors have the view that gabapentin is the safest anticonvulsant. There is no question that pregnant women with epilepsy who have been advised by their neurologists to continue their anticonvulsant treatment with gabapentin during their pregnancy should definitely remain on this drug until instructed otherwise. But there is no long-term registry being kept to track gabapentin-exposed babies. Our findings are saying that we need to be following up on these newborns so that their cognitive performance can be studied as they grow older."

The study is published online in the journal Cell.

-- Shari Roan

Photo: Advanced Cell Technology Inc.

Drug testing could stop 'academic doping'

Students taking important exams could one day find themselves in the same position as professional athletes -- submitting to a drug test before the big event. The practice of students taking cognitive-enhancing drugs, such as methylphenidate, has become so common that those who don't "dope" are at an unfair advantage, argues a psychologist writing in the new issue of Journal of Medical Ethics.

Chemically enhanced academic performance is cheating, says Vince Cakic, of the department of psychology at the University of Sydney, Australia. Already, he notes, medications meant to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are used by college students to improve their test scores. And many other cognitive-enhancing medications, which he calls nootropics, are being developed for diseases such as Alzheimer's. While the ADHD drugs improve performance only modestly, future drugs for dementia may make a big difference in an individual's capacity to study and test scores. "The possibility of purchasing 'smartness in a bottle' is likely to have broad appeal to students with normal or above average cognitive functioning to begin with," he wrote

Rules prohibiting the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports fail unless athletes are subjected to routine urine tests, Cakic says. The same strategy would likely be necessary to prevent cheating in academics. According to his paper, the use of methylphenidate and amphetamines is as high as 25% on some U.S. college campuses. The most academically competitive schools are thought to have the highest usage rates of these drugs. The more students who take the drugs, the more non-cheating student are put at a disadvantage and thus may feel compelled to cheat, too.

"It is apparent that the failures and inconsistencies inherent in anti-doping policy in sport will be mirrored in academia unless a reasonable and realistic approach to the issue of nootropics is adopted," Cakic wrote.

Cheating is not the only worry for college administrators. The rampant use of nootropics may lead to serious health problems in some students who take them without a doctor's approval.

". . . there is a greater need to examine the safety and efficacy of putative nootropics in the healthy rather than only in clinical populations," he wrote. "However, the widespread non-medical use of methylphenidate suggests that students will use nootropics regardless of their safety and legality."

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Keith Beaty / Toronto Star / ZUMA Press

Background TV noise impairs parent-child interactions, study finds

The sounds emanating from a television have become the backdrop for family life in the United States. But that constant drone can affect the quality of parent-child interactions, according to a study published today in the journal Child Development.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts studied 50 children, ages 1 to 3, each of whom was with a parent in a university child study center. In the first half of a one-hour session, the parent and child were in a room without a TV, and in the other half-hour the parents chose a program to watch -- not a child's show but something aimed at adults, such as "Jeopardy!"

The researchers found that both the quality and quantity of parent-child interactions declined when the television was on. Parents spent about 20% less time talking to their children, were less active, less attentive and less responsive to their children.

About one-third of all young children grow up in households where the television is on all or most of the time, even when no one is watching, according to previous studies. It's unlikely babies and toddlers understand much of the content of programs for older children or adults. It's just background noise. Yet another study, published last year in Child Development, found that background TV noise disrupts a child's solitary play with toys as well. "Both findings may in part explain the negative associations found between early exposure to television and subsequent development," the authors of the current study wrote.

Parental attention is likely to be even less in actual homes compared to the child-study center, the authors said. And, in an ongoing study, preliminary findings suggest that the quality of parent-child interactions also decreases when a children's television program is on.

-- Shari Roan

Another reason to control blood pressure

Chronic high blood pressure puts people at risk for a heart attack or stroke. Now a study shows that it may also cause memory problems, even among middle-aged people.

The research, published in the current issue of Neurology, showed that people with high diastolic blood pressure (that's the bottom number in a blood pressure reading) were more likely to have problems with memory and thinking skills compared to people with normal diastolic readings. For every 10-point increase in the reading, the odds of a person having cognitive problems was 7% higher. The study controlled for other factors that could affect cognition, such as age, smoking, exercise level, education or other illnesses. High blood pressure is defined as a reading equal to or higher than 140/90. The study involved almost 20,000 people, age 45 and older, from across the country who participated in a stroke study but had never had a stroke or mini stroke.

Researchers suggest a higher diastolic reading signals that the smaller arteries in the brain are weakening, which can result in subtle brain damage.

"It's possible that by preventing or treating high blood pressure, we could potentially prevent cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to dementia," the lead author of the study, Dr. Georgios Tsivgoulis, of the University of Alabama, said in a news release.

The National Institutes of Health is currently organizing a large study to learn whether aggressive control of blood pressure can lower the risk of various conditions, including cognitive decline.

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Los Angeles Times

Depressed and confused? Let the sun shine

Rainy days have long been tied to a poor mood, while sunshine often lifts one's spirits. A new study now suggests that a lack of sunlight is associated with reduced cognitive function among depressed people as well.

Researchers at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, looked at national data from 14,474 people. They found that among people with depression, low exposure to sunlight led to a significantly higher probability of cognitive impairment, such as poorer memory. The relationship was found even when the researchers adjusted for seasonal differences.

"This new finding that weather may not only affect mood, but also cognition, has significant implications for the treatment of depression, particularly seasonal affective disorder," the lead author of the study, Shia Kent, said in a news release.

Kent said that the physiological mechanisms and neurochemicals that cause seasonal depression may also have an effect on cognition. Light has been shown to affect blood flow in the brain, which can impact cognitive functions.

The study "also suggests the possibility that light therapy that is prescribed for seasonal affective disorder may also improve cognitive function," the authors wrote.

The study is published in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Health.

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Giuseppe Cacace / AFP/Getty Images

No racial bias? Really? A brain scan may give you away.

Our brains may empathize along racial lines, even if we report no such bias. 

Observers shown video clips of subjects receiving painful stimuli showed increased brain activation in the areas associated with empathy and emotion when subjects shared the observer’s race, Chinese researchers reported in a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience on Wednesday. 

The study is the first to use brain imaging technology to confirm subconscious in-group prejudice, a topic that has been investigated since the 1950s.

Perceiving others’ pain is an automatic reaction that activates the same neural circuit in the brain as the one that is activated during first-person pain. This kind of empathic response has been shown, in studies, to be stronger if there is a connection between individuals. For example, a 2002 study showed that white college students who read a passage involving a black or white man charged with a criminal act reported greater empathy for, and assigned more lenient punishments to, the white defendant.

In this study, from Peking University in Beijing, Chinese and Caucasian university participants watched video clips showing faces of Chinese and Caucasian models with neutral expressions receiving either a painful (needle penetration) or non-painful (Q-tip touch) stimulation on the cheek. 

The participants were then asked to rate the amount of pain the model felt, as well as their own level of discomfort while watching the jabs. 

Race had no effect on the survey responses by either Chinese or Caucasian observers. But the same was not true in their brains.

While participants watched the videos, researchers used functional MRI to scan what was going on inside their heads. The scans revealed increased activation in the brain regions that mediate the empathic neural response. But when the painful simulations were applied to subjects who shared a race with observers, the neural responses increased significantly more than when the ones being stuck with needles were of the other racial group.

The findings suggest that bias against those from other groups may exist at a fundamental level in the human mind, despite what self-reports reveal. 

“If this is confirmed in future research, people then should be careful about their own behaviors during social interaction even though we intend to deal with in-group and out-group members equally well at the conscious level of the mind,” says coauthor Shihui Han, a professor at Peking University's Department of Psychology, in an e-mail.

-- Shara Yurkiewicz

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your (right) ear

The answer to your question may depend on which ear you ask. We tend to offer our right ear to speakers and are more likely to say yes to a request addressed into it, reported Italian researchers in a study published in the journal Naturwissenschaften.

Although knowledge of right-ear dominance is nothing new, how the results were generated in this study was: The scientists talked to strangers in nightclubs.

Right-ear preference is one of the best-known asymmetries in humans, transcending gender, ethnicity, age and right- or left-handedness. It is thought to be due to the right ear’s speediness in transmitting information to our brain’s left hemisphere, which dominates in processing language.

Until now, however, most studies on the phenomenon were performed in laboratory-controlled settings, not more “natural” environments.  

To change this, researchers Daniele Marzoli and Luca Tommasi of the Gabriele d'Annunzio University in Italy gathered observational evidence from what they called an “ecological situation”: noisy Italian discotheques.

First, the researchers watched 286 clubbers while they were talking, and observed that 72% of all interactions happened on the listener’s right side.

Next, the researchers had a woman approach 80 men and 80 women, mumble a meaningless request and observe which ear the listener offered. (She then asked for a cigarette.) 

Overall, 58% of the subjects lent their right ear, with females showing a significant preference for doing so. In this situation, when the people who were approached chose the ear they offered, the woman was just about as likely to get a cigarette regardless of which ear she spoke into.

In the final leg of the experiment, the woman went up to a person and chose which ear she spoke into. When this was done, the likelihood of the woman being given the cigarette doubled with requests that were spoken into the right ear: 34 of 88 clubbers offered a cigarette to an asker addressing the right ear, and only 17 of 88 clubbers did the same when addressed on the left.

Why should this be? It is thought that activation of the left and right brain hemispheres correspond with positive and negative judgments, respectively. This asymmetry is linked to two motivational systems: “approach” in the left and “avoidance” in the right. 

The data, which suggest specialization of different sides of the brain for different emotions, are consistent with previous findings. For example, one study from 1991 found that subjects showed a better memory of arguments with which they agreed when the sentences were heard through the right ear, and better remembering of disagreements heard through their left ear.

However, the scientists caution, “Unequal distribution of sound sources in space, type of music played, [or] effect of alcohol intake” all may have had an effect on results.

-- Shara Yurkiewicz

Chewing gum raises kids' math scores

Studies have suggested that something about chewing gum reduces stress, improves alertness and relieves anxiety. But most of this research has been found in a laboratory setting. Now, the first study in people also supports the idea that chewing gum boosts academic performance.

The study was conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and was sponsored by the Wrigley Science Institute. The study included 108 students, ages 13 to 16, who were assigned to either chew sugar-free gum during math class, while doing math homework and during math tests or to refrain from gum-chewing. After 14 weeks, the students' took a math test and their grades were assessed.

Those who chewed gum had a 3% increase in standardized math test scores and had final math grades that were significantly better than the other students. Teachers observed that those who chewed gum seemed to require fewer breaks, sustain attention longer and remain quieter.

Just how chomping gum helps kids crunch numbers is not quite clear.

"We did not explore the mechanism behind this relationship. However, there is research demonstrating an increase in blood flow in the brain during chewing," the lead author of the study, Dr. Craig Johnston of Baylor college of medicine, said in an e-mail.

The study was presented at the Annual Meeting of Experimental Biology 2009 today in New Orleans.

-- Shari Roan

Photo: Aina Cambridge of Lakewood in a 2003 chewing gum contest.