Neuro-science or neuro-nonsense?

Today, the brain sells. Take an old idea, put ‘neuro’ in front of it and you have an apparently exciting new product.  It seems that everything from energy drinks to training companies are getting in on the act, there is even a music app you can get for your smartphone that claims to be “scientifically optimised” to boost your attention span by up to 400% using “neuroscience based music”.  Sadly, most of these claims are neuro-nonsense.

MyBrain International is different.  Rather than trying to persuade you with snazzy advertising, we would rather prove our case by giving people the opportunity to experience our offering first-hand.  To do this we are running a free seminar in central London on the 8th September.

Who should attend?
The seminar is open to senior managers, trainers and HR professionals who are interested in learning how use of the MiND tool could benefit their organisations.  More specifically, the seminar will cover the following areas:

• An overview of the neuroscientific research that has led to the identification of the causal link between the psychology of a person and the physiology of their brain.
• An explanation of how that research led to the development of MiND, the world’s first neurometric.
• Details of how MiND differs from psychological profiling tools including an explanation as to why those differences are so valuable in team-building, leadership, coaching and numerous other applications.
• A demonstration of the ways in which MiND and the subject of neuroscience provides people with genuinely new insights into why they are the way they are and in what ways other people may differ.

If you are interested in attending please email enquiries@mybrain.co.uk providing your details and a contact number.  We will then get in touch to provide further details and to confirm your attendance.

CIPD 2015 L&D Show

Thank you to everyone who visited the MyBrain stand at the recent CIPD Learning & Development Show in London.  It was a great pleasure to meet and chat with so many people with a genuine interest neuroscience.

During the two days of the show there was hardly ever a quiet moment - more than 200 people visited the stand and left their business cards.  We were also impressed by how multinational the conference was with people from as far afield as Australia and India.  In total we counted more than 10 nationalities just from the visitors to our stand!

For those people who have booked to complete the MiND Practitioner training we look forward to seeing you soon, and to everyone else we look forward to keeping in touch and to seeing you again sometime in the future.

Cool, risky teenagers

I have two teenagers and anyone who has brought up that age group will know they tend to show off and take riskier decisions when they are around their friends. It is a well researched area that teenagers are more likely to speed when driving, use alcohol and other drugs and even break the law, when with their friends.
 
It isn’t just about peer pressure or daring each other though. Neuroscientists are interested in looking for reasons to explain how the process of making decisions differs when teenagers are in groups. Jason Chein, Professor of Psychology at Temple University, Philadelphia took brain scans of teenagers and adults when they were playing a video game in which they drove a car and had to make decisions as to whether to stop at intersections or speed through into oncoming traffic.

The experiment found that when teenagers had friends watching in another room, they were more likely to speed through even though they were not talking to each other at the time. Simply the awareness that they were being watched by their peers influenced their decisions about risk and the underlying brain activity. The reward centre of the brain was more active when they were being watched, leading to more risky decisions, than when they weren’t being observed by their peers.

It may be that kids are anticipating how cool they will seem after pulling off something perceived as risky. But it could also be that simply being with friends turns on the reward centre of the brain, giving more immediate focus to that rather than the part of the brain that urges caution during split-second decision making. Clearly this is just a preliminary piece of research, but it does make me wonder what I can do to try and get my teenagers to take a risk and get out of bed in the mornings!

Not tonight darling

The clinical trials of the drug flibanserin were the first ever that tested a drug that works at the level of the brain to enhance libido in women reporting low sexual desire.

Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, John Thorp McAllister comments that while flibanserin was a poor antidepressant, it appeared to increase libido in lab trials.

He conducted multiple clinical trials and the women in the studies who took it for low sex drive reported significant improvements in sexual desire and satisfactory sexual experiences. These subjects didn’t report any specific change in mood or depression

The drug is known to alter the level of serotonin in the brain and it shows promise as the first drug to treat female libido in this manner, rather than drugs which increase blood supply to the sex organs. More trials are required but I bet this will be a popular drug when it is able to be subscribed by doctors. And surely increased sex has a positive effect on depression?

Why chimps can't talk

Scientists have long since wondered why it is that humans developed the ability to express themselves through speech whereas other animals haven’t.  In the past, most research focused on the circumstances of human evolution, implying that speech developed as a result of the need for more advanced communication.  But more recently, scientists have begun to look at the generic makeup of humans to see if there is a more fundamental reason.

A recent article in the journal ‘Nature’ considered research being undertaken by the University of California where they are comparing a gene called ‘FOX2P’ to the same gene in chimpanzees, our nearest relative in the animal kingdom.

During their experiments they applied FOX2P genes from humans and chimps to cells in the laboratory to see which circuits they activated.  To their surprise, they found that the human and chimpanzee versions of the gene triggered different reactions.  Despite the crude similarities between chimpanzee and early human brains, it appears that the human version of the FOX2P gene ‘switches on’ the circuits in the brain that are associated with language and speech, the so called Broca and Wernicke regions, whereas the chimpanzee version didn’t.

The FOX2P gene had previously been known to be implicated in speech, as defects in the gene were known to cause speech and language impairment, but the extent of its involvement is a new discovery that paves the way for new avenues of research.  For example, by identifying the genes that are influenced by FOX2P it may be possible to develop cures for a variety of speech related problems and conditions.

The implication this research has for furthering our understanding of the development of the human brain, is that it appears language may have developed as a result of a genetic mutation, rather than as the result of environmental requirements and Darwinian evolution.

Mother hen

British researchers at Bristol University, School of Veterinery Sciences have shown that hens show empathy to their young – the first time this has been shown in a bird.

Making use of technical advances in non-invasive monitoring, the researchers found that domestic hens show a clear physiological and behavioural response to their chicks’ distress.

During one of the controlled procedures, when the chicks were exposed to a puff of air, the hens’ heart rate increased and eye temperature decreased. The hens also changed their behaviour, and reacted with increased alertness, decreased preening and increased vocalisations directed to their chicks.

Empathy was once thought to be a completely human trait and that the brains of mammals functioned for survival and reproduction, not for any purpose of emotional intelligence. Of course this finding has implications for the welfare of chickens in battery farms and research labs.

It also supports the theory that in humans our empathetic ability resides in the 'lower' parts of the brain, areas such as the limbic system and brain stem, which we have in common with other mammals.

Switching off fear

Researchers at Stanford University have found that stimulating a particular brain circuit can counter fear. Pulses of light triggered the stimulation in mice and boosted their willingness to take risks. Inhibiting it had the opposite effect and made them more timid.

Neuroscientist Professor Ken Deisseroth targeted a circuit within the amygdala area of the limbic brain working within the specialist field of optogenetics, where nerve cells become photo-sensitive. The action of the cell can therefore be controlled and switched on or off by using different wavelengths of light.

The mice became much more comfortable in situations they would otherwise be wary of – such as being in wide open spaces. As soon as the light was pulsed into the brain circuit, the mice were much more willing to explore. Yet changing the pulse to a different wavelength turned the mice much more anxious.

This could be the beginning of some interesting debates around treating human anxiety and panic, which of course can be debilitating for many people.

I wonder if optogenetics is responsible for our behaviour in laser games and discos?!