Month: March 2011

Think Feedback Not Failure

I came across an old newspaper cutting from the Irish Times recently – an article by NLP practitioner, Carmel Wynne on the theme of how we live up to our expectations of success or failure.

Your thoughts, feelings and actions run like habitual programmes in the brain.  Just as you can upgrade and change computer programs you can change your mental programmes.

Your thoughts have a structure that you can alter.  You can transform how you think. Doing so offers you life-changing possibilities because your mind is so powerful.

When you change your thinking about a situation you change your feelings.  It’s not the situation but how you think about it that makes it pleasant or unpleasant.

It’s amazing how your brain responds to what you believe is true.  What is considered overcrowding in a train is experienced as atmosphere in a nightclub.  If you hold the belief that too many people in a train make for an uncomfortable environment you are right.  If you think that lots of people crowded together in a nightclub make for a wonderful atmosphere your brain produces feelings of enjoyment in response to your thoughts.

Changing beliefs is not easy.  Yet one tiny change can have a huge impact on your life.  Think what would happen if you stopped using the word ‘Failure’.  It would bring about significant changes in how you think and feel.

Substitute the word ‘Feedback’ and you eliminate all the negative connotations that are linked with failure.  Feedback encourages constructive thinking and has a positive impact on creativity.

Failure is a concept that creates negativity.  It breeds pessimistic thinking.  The feelings of inadequacy and discouragement that accompany the belief that you are not measuring up discourage and de-motivate further efforts.

When you eliminate the concept of failure and replace it with the idea of getting feedback the whole focus shifts.  Feedback puts attention onto learning what works and doesn’t work.  This information allows the person to take risks and seek different solutions.

Feedback allows for flexibility.  When you recognise something is not working you take another approach.  You let go of ‘Ill-formed’ language when you discard the word ‘Failure’.  Just think of the impact of this tiny alteration.

The effect of replacing one word potentially changes your feelings and for those who are self-aware your internal experience.  What a powerful tool for personal growth and achievement.

I need hardly tell you that no two people respond to the same event in identical ways. Some people are naturally optimistic and others are pessimistic.  Psychologist Martin Seligman has discovered three major attitudes that distinguish the two.

Optimists view downturns in their lives as temporary blips in the graph.  Basically they see troubles and difficulties as delayed success.  They view misfortune as situational and specific.

The three Ps of pessimism are Permanence, Pervasiveness and Personalising.  Pessimists generalise, think they screw up everything and blame their own incompetence or ineffectiveness.

Helplessness, passivity and inaction influence the attitude of pessimists to setbacks.  Their belief that they screw up everything creates expectations of failure.

Realistic optimists maintain a positive attitude in the face of adversity.  Their ‘Can do’ attitude allows them use their skills to actively address problems.

Failure or feedback – it’s up to you!


Weekly Round-Up

Can meditation change brain signature?

This week..how the brain corrects perceptual errors, how meditation and hypnosis change the brain’s signature, a new method for delivering complex drugs directly to the brain, the brain development of children, and how regular exercise helps overweight children do better at school. 

New research provides the first evidence that sensory recalibration – the brain’s automatic correcting of errors in our sensory or perceptual systems – can occur instantly.

In Meditation, Hypnosis Change the Brain signature the Vancouver Sun reports that mindfulness training is ‘a valuable, drug-free tool in the struggle to foster attention skills, with positive spinoffs for controlling our emotions.’

Oxford University scientists have developed a new method for delivering complex drugs directly to the brain, a necessary step for treating diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Motor Neuron Disease and Muscular Dystrophy.

A new study has found that a mother’s iron deficiency early in pregnancy may have a profound and long-lasting effect on the brain development of the child, even if the lack of iron is not enough to cause severe anemia.

Children with Tourette syndrome could benefit from behavioural therapy to reduce their symptoms, according to a new brain imaging study.

Regular exercise improves the ability of overweight, previously inactive children to think, plan and even do mathematics, Georgia Health Sciences University researchers report.

Image Credit: Photostock

Weekly Round Up

 

 

Is the internet changing the way we think?

In this week’s round-up of the latest discoveries in the field of neuroscience – the evolutionary nature of the brain, how blind people see with their ears, the neuroscience of humour, and how the internet is changing the way we think.

Interesting post on the evolutionary nature of the brain here

Scientists say they have discovered a “maintenance” protein that helps keep nerve fibres that transmit messages in the brain operating smoothly. The University of Edinburgh team says the finding could improve understanding of disorders such as epilepsy, dementia, MS and stroke.

Neuropsychologist, Dr. Olivier Collignon has proved that some blind people can “see” with their ears.  He compared the brain activity of people who can see and people who were born blind, and discovered that the part of the brain that normally works with our eyes to process vision and space perception can actually rewire itself to process sound information instead.

A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that we have much more control over our minds, personalities and personal illnesses than was ever believed to exist before, and it is all occurring at the same time that a flood of other research is exposing the benefits of humor on brain functioning. Nichole Force has written  a post in Psych Central on Humor, Neuroplasticity and the Power To Change Your Mind.

And finally, is the internet changing the way we think? American writer Nicholas Carr believes so and his claims that the internet is not only shaping our lives but physically altering our brains has sparked a debate in the Guardian.

How does the brain respond to natural disasters?

What is the brain's response to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster?

An interesting article in Psychology Today, by Susan Krauss Whitbourne, on our empathetic response to natural disasters.

The Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami of March 11, 2011 was the country’s largest natural disaster. As in all too many previous cases, including the Haitian earthquake of 2010, people around the world are riveted to the television screen and internet as the vast devastation and human toll of these massive disasters continues to unfold.

Media coverage of these events documents, sometimes for days on end, the human toll of nature’s wrath.  Why are people so likely to stay glued to the news media during these times of crisis? Are we all basically rubberneckers at heart who watch these crises with a kind of sadistic voyeurism? Research on the brain regions triggered when watching other people who are in trouble suggests a very different interpretation.  

Click here to read this article in full

Weekly Round Up

The neuroscience of dreaming

In this week’s round-up of the latest discoveries in the field of neuroscience – the neuroscience of dreaming and eureka moments, the teenage brain and new research into Parkinson’s and Alzheimers.

Scientists have long puzzled over the many hours we spend in light, dreamless slumber. But a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests we’re busy recharging our brain’s learning capacity during this traditionally undervalued phase of sleep, which can take up half the night.

Perhaps while sleeping we are gaining new insight into our problems. A new brain-imaging study looks at the neural activity associated with insight. The research, published by Cell Press in the March 10 issue of the journal Neuron, reveals specific brain activity that occurs during an “A-ha!” moment that may help encode the new information in long-term memory.

I’ve written previously about the brain of a teenager being hot-wired to take risk, but now new research shows that just when teens are faced with intensifying peer pressure to misbehave, regions of the brain are actually blossoming in a way that heighten the ability to resist risky behavior.

Brain scans are being used to spot the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease in a UK-based pilot that could revolutionise its diagnosis. Doctors are using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to look at whether particular parts of the brain have started to shrink, which is a key physiological sign of Alzheimer’s. The MRI project is an example of “translational research” – that which will have a direct benefit for patients. And in more translational research news, it emerges that in studies of more than 135,000 men and women regular users of ibuprofen were 40% less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.

New drop-in centre for patients with neurological disorders

TV3 presenter Sinead Desmond, pictured at the launch of a patient drop-in centre by the Dublin Neurological Institute this week

TV3 presenter Sinead Desmond spoke this week of her near-fatal brain haemorrhage nearly three years ago. At the launch of Ireland’s first drop-in centre for people with neurological disorders, she spoke of her gratitude at emerging  unscathed with no brain damage from the experience.

“I have been blessed with a 100pc recovery,” she said. “I met people since who had similar brain haemorrhages and suffered from brain injuries. The recovery can be tough.”

The new centre is housed within the Dublin Neurological Institute at the Mater Hospital in Eccles Street. People with neurological conditions, which include epilepsy, stroke, acquired brain injury, multiple sclerosis, dementia and motor neurone disease, can call in without having to be referred by a GP. They will be able to speak to a specialist nurse, and get free medical information and support.

National Brain Awareness Week runs until Sunday.

What’s going on with Charlie Sheen?

Is Charlie Sheen suffering from bipolar disorder?

As actor Charlie Sheen’s bizarre media blitz continues, viewers are left to ponder if Sheen’s interviews are some kind of brilliant performance art or evidence of an epic meltdown, or some combination of the two. Or is his current behaviour evidence of a more worrying mental illness.

Some psychologists have stated that Charlie Sheen appears to have bipolar disorder. Dr. Drew Pinsky has said that Charlie Sheen appears to be having a “manic episode.”

Another psychologist says that Charlie Sheen is showing classic symptoms of bipolar disorder. “The symptom I see is the pressured speech.” he says. “[Sheen is] really pushing to get those words out; he’s really on a roll. He’s getting everything coming out pretty fast, almost faster than his brain can think and that’s very common with people who have bipolar disorder.” 1

What is bipolar disorder?

Over 300,000 people in Ireland suffer from depression, however a less common form of depression is manic depression also known as bipolar disorder which affects about 20,000 Irish people. Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder characterised by extreme lows with feelings of hopelessness and sadness followed by elated manic highs where in your mind anything becomes possible. 

Vicious cycles

These extremes of mood often follow each other in regular cycles that may be days, months or even years apart although on average there are twice as many episodes of depression then for mania. Like any other mental illness bipolar disorder is related to genetic background and personality type but can also be triggered by stressful events. However in a lot of cases bipolar disorder can arise ‘out of the blue’ when people’s lives’ are going quite well. 

Similarities to classic depression

The depressive symptoms experienced by people with bipolar disorder are similar to those people who experience classic depression.  One minute you are working away in your garden and the next you can be overtaken by profound feelings of despair – a sense of being totally worthless – that can take you down into the depths of depression. In this situation the mood is very low and daily life can become so overwhelming that it can be difficult to endure. As the feelings deepen – thoughts of suicide and a preoccupation with suicide often emerges. 

Manic depression

The German psychiatrist Emil Krapelin coined the term ‘manic depression’ after examining many patients with this condition back in the 1800’s. Even then Krapelin believed that this condition was caused by a specific abnormality in the brain. 

Where in the brain does depression occur?

Depression is associated with a disturbance in the prefrontal lobe of the brain – found just behind the eyes. This region of the brain is involved in judging things to be good or bad. It is also involved in social behaviour and interpreting social situations so it is not surprising that the low mood, reduced motivation and social withdrawal are key symptoms of depression. For this reason, people who are depressed often feel rejected or cut off from the world and blame themselves for wars in distant lands – even though they may have never visited that country. 

The role of amines in depression

Neuroscientists still don’t know for certain why people develop bipolar disorder but they do know that it is related to imbalances in brain chemicals called neurotransmitters which are involved in communication. However, research over the past 40 years has the confirmed that depression is associated with low levels of family of chemicals called amines. Amines are neurotransmitters that help nerve cells to stay in touch with each other. A lack of these amines particularly dopamine and serotonin which are carried by nerve pathways into the frontal lobe leads to a kind of starvation of nerve cells in the frontal lobe – giving rise to the symptoms of depression. 

Reserpine and depression

The link between low amine levels and depression was made when reserpine a drug to lower blood pressure also lowered brain amine levels and caused very profound depression. Also, addictive drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine and alcohol which inappropriately increase amine levels in the brain can trigger depression upon withdrawal. So the message is simple – in order to avoid depression you need healthy levels of these amines in our brain and you need healthy mental health habits to keep them there. 

Medication for depression

Over the past 25 years neuroscientists been working hard to develop drugs that can safely raise amine levels in the brain – the so-called antidepressant drugs – and better, more effective antidepressants come on the market every decade. 

The manic phase of bipolar disorder

In contrast to the depressive phase, the manic phase of bipolar disorder is the ‘polar’ opposite of depression. Feelings of boundless energy and that anything is possible are often felt. Many people are often creative in this phase.  The German composer Robert Schuman experienced bipolar disorder throughout his life. He completed four works in 1829 when in a depressed phase and twenty-five works a year later when in a manic phase. 

The secret of our success…

If bipolar disorder were due to a bad gene then why has it not been weeded out over the generations? One answer is that despite the truly awful cost to the life of the individual the gene for bipolar depression continues to exist because it confers an advantage on our species such as the creative insights leading to discoveries, inventions and exceptional performances in science, the arts, drama, music, sport and business – contributing to the great advances in our civilization – from which we all benefit. Ironically then, bipolar disorder may be the secret of our success as a species.  

…comes at a very high cost

Very tragically the rate of suicide in bipolar disorder is very high. The cycle of depression and mania lead the German composer Robert Schuman to an attempted suicide in 1854. Almost a quarter (22%) of people with this condition will commit suicide.  This is higher than that observed in schizophrenia. 

Recognizing the manic phase

In severe mania an individual will behave in an uncharacteristic way. They will become very talkative, loud, verbal, very expressive, extremely confident even uncharacteristically confident. Some people will start-up companies in this phase. They will go out and direct traffic, invest unwisely. They don’t see things as being limited by their circumstances or by their personal capacities. In the manic phase literally anything is possible! 

The manic phase can come on quickly or gradually. The person may not be fully aware what is happening to them. They may find themselves drinking more, wanting to be with people, going to pubs and nightclubs and dancing all night despite the fact that they may be too old for it. There is a tremendous pressure to ‘do things’ such as going out to dig the garden at 4am in the morning – for the stay-at-home types. 

The brain, stress and bipolar disorder

Whenever you encounter a stressful situation the pituitary gland in your brain sends a signal to your adrenal glands (just above your kidneys) to release cortisol which in turn gets your body ready for action. However blood cortisol levels are much higher than normal in depression and bipolar disorder causing a general state of high alert including early morning wakening which contributes to mental exhaustion.

Neuroscientists believe that the manic phase is an over activity of the dopamine and serotonin pathways in the frontal lobe.  In this way a dysfunction in the serotonin pathway in the brain has a ‘knock-on’ affect in the regulation the pituitary gland which in turn inappropriately over-activates the adrenals to release too much cortisol. However neuroscientists still don’t know for certain why people develop bipolar disorder.

Lithium and treatment of bipolar disorder

Mania is very resistant to treatment – benzodiazepines, major tranquilizers and antidepressants don’t work adequately. Fortunately there is lithium – an element found as a salt in soil and rocks and thus very cheap to make. Because it is element lithium cannot be patented (owned) by the drug industry. It was for this reason that lithium was largely ignored for years by the pharmaceutical industry. However, even in ancient times lithium was known to be a mild sedative. The mood stabilising effect of lithium was rediscovered by accident by an Australian psychiatrist John Cade in 1949 when working with guinea pigs. After ingesting lithium himself to ensure its safety in humans, Cade published an article “Lithium salts in the treatment of psychotic excitement” – which is still the number one most cited article in the Medical Journal of Australia. Lithium was eventually accepted as a treatment for mania in the 1970s.

Lithium – a truly life saving drug

Initially investigated as a treatment for gout, lithium has the effect of calming nerve cells. While lithium is the conventional treatment for the manic phase of bipolar disorder and reaches the brain within hours it can take up to six weeks to show an effect. Lithium is also very toxic particularly to the thyroid and kidneys. The required dosage 400–600 mg (15–20 mg per kg of body weight) is slightly less than the toxic level, requiring blood levels of lithium to be monitored closely during treatment. Within four to five days of stopping lithium a person can begin to get high again. Despite its limitations lithium is truly is a life saving drug – the only one to have an anti-suicide effect – allowing people to manage their moods and get on with their lives.  

The cup that cheers

Hundreds of soft drinks once included lithium salts or lithia water (naturally occurring mineral waters with higher lithium amounts). An early version of Coca Cola available in pharmacies’ soda fountains was called Lithia Coke and was a mixture of Coca Cola syrup and lithia water. The soft drink 7 Up, originally named “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda”, contained lithium citrate until it was reformulated in 1950. Lithia light beer was brewed at the West Bend Lithia Company in Wisconsin.

In 2009, Japanese researchers at Oita University reported that low levels of naturally-occurring lithium in drinking water supplies reduced suicide rates. A previous report had found similar data in the American state of Texas. In response, psychiatrist Peter Kramer raised the hypothetical possibility of adding lithium to drinking water.

A possible future treatment?

Research shows that manic depression seems to run in families so genetics also plays a role. Nobel Prize winner Paul Greengard of Rockefeller University, New York believes that a low-level of expression in a gene called P11 – which regulates serotonin levels in the brain – may underlie bipolar disorder. Gene therapy whereby healthy P11 genes are injected into the brain may be a future treatment.    

1 Source: kfor.com

Irish Blog Awards

Being a relative newcomer to the blogging world, it is gratifying to see Inside the Brain listed in a great line up of  finalists for the Irish Blog Awards in the Science / Education category. 

The award is sponsored by Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group and the awards will take place in Belfast later this month.

Although traditional scientific training typically doesn’t prepare scientists to be effective communicators outside of academia, there is a growing movement towards engagement between scientists and the public. It is something that I have always been interested in, and now new media forms, such as blogging, have made communicating scientific discoveries to the public so much more effective.

The 2005 Descartes science communication prize winner, Bill Bryson believes that “so much science is inherently interesting, and more effort is needed to get that across…you need to teach ‘normal’ people the wonder of science – you should be getting that even if you’re never going to be a scientist.”

He advises scientists hoping to communicate their work to the wider world not to ” lose your sense of wonder and don’t forget the wow factor. It’s the same in all walks of life, but for scientists, who might not be the best communicators, to forget these can be particularly tragic.”

That sense of wonder in science is still very much alive in me and I hope with this blog to be able to convey a little of that wow factor to readers for many years to come. Reading through the list of finalists in this awards category I can see that this is as true for them as it is for me.

Best of luck to everyone who has made it through to the final round of the Irish Blog Awards!

Sign your name across your brain

THE LATEST OECD survey reveals that almost one-quarter of Irish 15-year-olds are below the level of literacy needed to participate effectively in society. How can this be after unprecedented investment in Irish schools in the past decade?*

Research in neuroeducation – the brain science of learning – suggests that something is lost in switching from book to computer screen, and from pen to keyboard. Neuroeducation may help to explain the reported decline in literary – particularly writing – skills observed in students over the past decade.

When it comes to learning – the pen is mightier than the keyboard

Do you remember that diary you so assiduously kept or that pen pal you wrote to? Little did you know then, but the mere act of picking up a pen and writing makes you smarter.  The answer may be that reading and writing involves a number of the senses. When writing by hand, our brain receives feedback from our motor actions, together with the sensation of manipulating the pencil to form words on paper. This nerve activity is significantly different from those we receive when touching and typing on a keyboard. This explains why a written signature carries so much weight in the legal and business world – because it reflects the wiring unique to that brain.

The knack to learning is – learning by doing

The trick to all learning is to create an enriched physical learning environment by employing as many of the five senses as possible – seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling – in your learning.  Thus, when writing by hand, the movements involved leave behind a kind of motor memory in the sensorimotor part of the brain, which helps us recognize letters. This implies a nerve connection between reading and writing, and suggests that the sensorimotor system plays a role in the process of visual recognition during reading. This nerve connection is weak or absent in keyboard typing.

Work it out – with pen and paper

In addition, writing involves more ‘doing’ than that observed for keyboard typing and the ‘doing’ actually reinforces the learning process by helping us focus on the task at hand and strengthening the nerve connections. Furthermore, brain scans of avid writers show an activation of Brocas area – a language centre within the brain – while little or no activation of this area is observed in those who had learned by typing on keyboards.

Awaken the living roots in your head – with your pen

The poet and Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney – a master craftsman of the written word – was not far off the mark in his poem ‘Digging’. The poem takes the form of a promise from the poet to his father and grandfather, whose lives were, spent literally digging the soil. In this short poem Heaney acknowledges that he is not a farmer, and will not follow their vocation. But at the start of his career, he vows to translate their virtues into another kind of work:

 The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

 

 *Irish students drop in rankings for literacy and maths, Irish Times, Wednesday, December 8, 2010