the evolving mind

While this scientific finding is not surprising, it does fill in a gap in our understanding. For years, perhaps millennia, humans have understood that drinking alcohol brings feel-good sensations. How does it do that? By releasing, at least in part, endorphins in the brain. (Endorphins are endogenous — from within — morphines.)

Author of the new study, Christina Gianoulakis, explains -

Like morphine, endogenous opioid peptides can induce analgesia and a mild euphoric effect, reduce anxiety, and may lead to a general feeling of well being. Therefore, increased release of endogenous opioid peptides in response to drinking could be partially responsible for the mild euphoric and anxiolytic effects associated with low to moderate amounts of alcoholic beverages.

As for the gap-filling material, it is this -

“One mechanism by which alcohol produces its euphoric or rewarding effects is through the stimulation of natural opioid peptides in the VTA, which consequently activates dopamine in this critical pathway,” Le said. “Until now, no one has been able to answer whether alcohol is actually capable of triggering opioid release in the VTA.”

Until now. Gap filled.

In a socially responsible manner Gianoulakis points out that the endorphin release follows only low to moderate consumption of alcohol.

In a less socially responsible manner — after work today I may just go trigger some opioid release in my VTA. Anyone care to join me?

Technorati Links: neurology

Guess what? Language Of Music Really Is Universal, Study Finds

Well, at least if you define language so loosely that it technically isn’t language. Still, the finding was way cool, man. It really made me get my intellectual groove on.

Native African people who have never even listened to the radio before can nonetheless pick up on happy, sad, and fearful emotions in Western music, according to a new report published online on March 19th in Current Biology.

Allow me to speculate here, but it seems to me that by singing words and adding auxiliary sounds you can really stretch out and augment the tonal component to language — the layer expressing emotion. When covering the topic of emotion in my general psychology class I have often used an activity to illustrate the point. Students are challenged, in small groups, to see how many distinct emotions they can express, one emotion per attempt, with the groupmates guessing, when saying this short string of words: Your mother called. Most can successfully express a whole bunch: joy, sadness, surprise, anger, confusion, disgust.

Not to be a party-pooper here, however, but music itself isn’t a language. While it may be a non-symbolic means of communication, something akin to the exaggeration of voice inflections that accompany emotional expression, lacking the symbolic part, music is not language.

For example, the word “apple” is a symbol. It can mean many things. I can bite an apple, I can type on an Apple, and I write about the apple of my eye. But musical sounds, like the ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, in the Jaws movie as the shark approaches, don’t have that flexibility. And that is perhaps why people of different cultures can identify music as happy, sad, or fearful.

Technorati Links: culture, emotion

Wait. This is “Looking Closer” so the above pic is obviously not a who-knows-what orbiting Saturn in the midst of its gorgeous rings. So what is it? Two clues: The pic is x60. And don’t try to read it without a laser.

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: microscope, puzzle

I love the Onion. Although I don’t find it consistently hilarious, the site content hits a humor home-run with me frequent enough to keep me returning.

I loved this bogus “Science & Technology” report.

98% Of Babies Manic-Depressive

Hah! It gets better. But wait, before reading on — and taking in inch from my previous post and going a mile — perhaps you shouldn’t express your delight at the following. Suppress it and your joy may spill into the rest of your day. Maybe. A little. Or maybe not.

NEW YORK—A new study published in The Journal Of Pediatric Medicine found that a shocking 98 percent of all infants suffer from bipolar disorder. “The majority of our subjects, regardless of size, sex, or race, exhibited extreme mood swings, often crying one minute and then giggling playfully the next,” the study’s author Dr. Steven Gregory told reporters. “Additionally we found that most babies had trouble concentrating during the day, often struggled to sleep at night, and could not be counted on to take care of themselves—all classic symptoms of manic depression.” Gregory added that nearly 100 percent of infants appear to suffer from the poor motor skills and impaired speech associated with Parkinson’s disease.

Technorati Links: research

Disgust is a universal human emotion. Presented with a rotten food substance or a rotten thought, people worldwide will crinkle their noses, pull their upper lip toward their nostrils and narrow their eyes.

A recent report of new research into disgust almost caused me to respond that way.

If You Don’t Show Your Disgust, Your Emotions May Stay Negative

I guess it’s a good thing I’m writing this article and expressing myself. Otherwise it might ruin my day. Or would it?

Study author, doctoral candidate Judith Grob, says -

Previous research had already revealed that people who often suppress their emotions tend to be less healthy.

If so, was habitual behavior to blame or personality attributes or something else? My guess is that the previous research was not of the experimental sort that could clearly isolate the influence of the variables in question. Impact on health takes time to develop and measure.

Here’s a bit about the new research. Number of subjects was not mentioned (tsk-tsk — showing more disgust here) -

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: emotion, research

The goldfish in our backyard pond are in mating mode. Over the weekend I spied two or more males frenetically chasing females around, nose to their . . . sex openings. Yes, I know scant little ichthyology. In the dozen plus years of keeping a goldfish pond, we’ve had very few goldfish offspring. They get eaten. I’m hoping the survival rate might be better this year. We’ve got a great big tangle of underwater vegetation for the fry to hide in.

Speaking of sex, what is the purpose of sexual reproduction vs. say, asexual self-cloning? “Diversity of offspring” is probably a good guess. Diversity is a good thing. In form and behavior it can lead to enhanced chances of survival.

Among humans, a diversity of physical traits is probably a good thing, too (including unseen traits such as resistance to types of parasites, etc.). As a liberal intellectual, I also believe that a diversity of opinions can be a good thing. It provides a more fertile ground for cognitive growth than a homogenous mono-culture of belief.

A group of thinkers I tend to admire and sometimes include myself in is humanists. Though they may go by one title, it is an incredibly diverse group. Those that write blogs do not represent the full spectrum, but to get a small taste you may want to check out the 34th Humanist Symposium over at Atheist Revolution.

Technorati Links: humanism, sexuality, wildlife

If you are a scientist, you could be a mythbuster. By collecting data and testing propositions you may discover that something once believed to be true is not the case. While busting myths may not be your ultimate goal, it is a consequence of what you do.

Personally, I like cognitive surprises. I thought this, but SURPRISE! It seems I was wrong! While I wouldn’t say I experience balloons of happy chemicals descending from the ceiling of my mind — that would be an exaggeration — I welcome the experience. Even if it means I was wrong. (Sure, I accept the finding more quickly if not delivered by a personal nemesis.) There may be a tinges of other emotions involved — sadness, bit of shame, regret — yet the surprise is nonetheless arousing.

Speaking of arousal, we customarily use that term when referring to sexual behavior. And the innate motive for sex is procreation. And people generally have children after getting married. And they all live happily ever after. For children are a blessing. Right?

Maybe not . . .

[A] University of York economist is claiming that the idea that parenting makes us happy is an illusion.

Okay, so maybe children aren’t a blessing at all times. But, overall, don’t they bring parents joy and satisfaction?

“Social scientists have found almost zero association between having children and happiness,” he said. “In a recent study of British adults for example we found that parents and non-parents reported the same levels of life satisfaction. Other studies from Europe and the USA found that parents report significantly lower levels of satisfaction than people who haven’t had children.”

Surprise! Would you like some icecream with your cake?

The “he” in the above is University of New York economist Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee. [Source here.]

Technorati Links: critical thinking, psychology

When a link between genes and behavior is found — that is science. When the cellular and biochemical processes that constitute the mechanisms/processes of that link are identified — that is Grade-A science.

Knowing the nitty-gritty of anything means knowing better. And so, because I want to understand, say, schizophrenia better, simply reading about a genetic link is only mildly satisfying. I want to know more. And more we are beginning to know.

In Blocked Enzyme Reverses Schizophrenia-like Symptoms we encounter hints of some nitty-gritty.

Researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have found that inhibiting a key brain enzyme in mice reversed schizophrenia-like symptoms.

The finding, reported in the March 20 issue of Cell, identified how a particular gene controls this brain enzyme. Better understanding of the relationship could lead to new drug treatments for schizophrenia, the severe brain disorder that affects about 1 percent of the population.

What an exciting time we live in! So much learned; so much left to learn.

Technorati Links: genetics, mental illness

  [From a talk given to a number of groups.]

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Technorati Links: bible, critical thinking, media

Psychoanalysis. Behaviorism. Cerebellum. If you understand the meaning of those terms you know at least a little something of psychology. In a sense, to learn a new subject is to master its language. In the case of mathematics and sciences, the language may include a slew of non-alphabetical symbols.

A difficulty science writers may face is how to translate the material of their field into words and models/analogies without losing something important in translation. Good science is precise and that is precisely why new words are invented and used with greater and greater frequency as you delve deeper into a field. Older words just won’t cut it any more, so you have to adopt or invent sharper ones.

But those new words will make it difficult for experts to know what you are talking about. Consider these sentences from the news release, Particle Oddball Surprises Physicists:

Besides announcing Y(4140), the CDF experiment collaboration is presenting more than 40 new results at the Moriond Conference on Quantum Chromodynamics in Europe this week, including the discovery of electroweak top-quark production and a new limit on the Higgs boson, in concert with experimenters from Fermilab’s DZero collaboration. Both experiments are actively pursuing a very broad program of physics, including ever-more-precise measurements of the top and bottom quarks, W and Z bosons and searches for additional new particles and forces.

Chromodynamics. Electroweak. Boson. Parlez-vous atomic physics?

While I’d love to learn a completely new language or two — maybe Italian and Japanese — keeping up with the languages of science is currently where I put my time and energy.

Technorati Links: philosophy, physics, semantics