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Memory Formation Influenced By How Brain Networks Develop During Youth

AHA Publisher — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 08:00:49 +0000

Northwestern University via Newswise – CHICAGO — In a new, rare study of direct brain recordings in children and adolescents, a Northwestern Medicine scientist and colleagues from Wayne State University have discovered as brains mature, the precise ways by which two key memory regions in the brain communicate make us better at forming lasting memories. The findings also suggest how brains learn to multitask with age. The study will be published Feb. 15 in Current Biology. Historically, a lack of high-resolution data from children’s brains have led to gaps in our understanding of how the developing brain forms memories. The study innovated the use of intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) on pediatric patients to examine how brain development supports memory development. The scientists found a link between how the brains of people aged 5 to 21 were developing and how well they were able to form memories throughout that 16-year period. For example, younger children, whose brains were not as developed as the adolescent participants, weren’t able to form as many memories as some adolescents. “Our study helps us actually explain how memory develops, not just that it develops,” said corresponding author Lisa Johnson, assistant professor of medical social sciences and pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “By understanding how something comes to be — memory, in this instance — it gives us windows into why it eventually falls apart. “Human memory develops throughout childhood, peaks in your 20s and, for most people, declines with age, even in those who don’t develop dementia.” To address this, her work focuses on the lifespan of memory to provide a holistic approach to understanding brain development and memory, which is why this study focused on pediatric patients. Rhythms of Key Memory Regions of the Brain The study focused on communication between two regions of the brain that play a key role in supporting memory formation: the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and prefrontal cortex (PFC). To learn how these regions talk to one another, the scientists analyzed two brain signals — a slowly oscillating brain wave and a faster oscillating one — that enable communication between regions. The rhythms dictated whether a memory was successfully formed and differentiated top-performing adolescents from lower-performing adolescents and children. Pioneering Intracranial EEG in Pediatric Patients The participants in the study were already undergoing brain surgery for another reason (usually to treat their epilepsy), and the scientists capitalized on this rare opportunity to examine data from electrodes placed directly on the exposed surface of the brain. Following brain surgery, patients spent a week in the hospital for monitoring. This is when Johnson’s team conducted its studies, having the participants look at pictures of scenes to see how well they remembered them. The research team presented them with the same images again and new scenes they hadn’t yet seen (e.g., a different image of an outdoor area) to observe age-related differences in how well study participants remembered what they’d seen. Our Brains Learn to Multitask With Age Another novel finding in the study is that there appear to be age differences in fast and slow theta oscillations—rhythms in the brain that help with cognition, behavior, learning and memory. The slow theta frequency slows down with age, and the fast gets faster. “These rhythms seemed to diverge with age so that they were similar in 5-year-olds and different in 20-year-olds,” Johnson said. “The fact that key memory regions are interacting at both frequencies suggests how your brain is learning to multitask as you get older.” To read the original article click here.

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How Does Your Brain Process Emotions? Answer Could Help Address Loneliness Epidemic

AHA Publisher — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 08:00:18 +0000

University of California – San Diego via EurekAlert – Research over the last decade has shown that loneliness is an important determinant of health. It is associated with considerable physical and mental health risks and increased mortality. Previous studies have also shown that wisdom could serve as a protective factor against loneliness. This inverse relationship between loneliness and wisdom may be based in different brain processes. In a study published in the March 5, 2021 online edition of Cerebral Cortex, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that specific regions of the brain respond to emotional stimuli related to loneliness and wisdom in opposing ways. “We were interested in how loneliness and wisdom relate to emotional biases, meaning how we respond to different positive and negative emotions,” said Jyoti Mishra, PhD, senior author of the study, director of the NEATLabs and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine. The study involved 147 participants, ages 18 to 85. The subjects performed a simple cognitive task of determining which direction an arrow was pointed while faces with different emotions were presented in the background. “We found that when faces emoting anger were presented as distractors, they significantly slowed simple cognitive responses in lonelier individuals. This meant that lonelier individuals paid more attention to threatening stimuli, such as the angry faces.” “For wisdom, on the other hand, we found a significant positive relationship for response speeds when faces with happy emotions were shown, specifically individuals who displayed wiser traits, such as empathy, had speedier responses in the presence of happy stimuli.” Electroencephalogram (EEG)-based brain recordings showed that the part of the brain called the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) was activating differently in lonelier versus wiser individuals. TPJ is important for processing theory of mind, or the degree of capacity for empathy and understanding of others. The study found it more active in the presence of angry emotions for lonelier people and more active in the presence of happy emotions for wiser people. Researchers also noted greater activity to threatening stimuli for lonelier individuals in the left superior parietal cortex, the brain region important for allocating attention, while wisdom was significantly related to enhanced happy emotion-driven activity in the left insula of the brain, responsible for social characteristics like empathy. “This study shows that the inverse relationship between loneliness and wisdom that we found in our previous clinical studies is at least partly embedded in neurobiology and is not merely a result of subjective biases,” said study author Dilip V. Jeste, MD, senior associate dean for the Center of Healthy Aging and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “These findings are relevant to the mental and physical health of individuals because they give us an objective neurobiological handle on how lonelier or wiser people process information,” said Mishra. “Having biological markers that we can measure in the brain can help us develop effective treatments. Perhaps we can help answer the question, ‘Can you make a person wiser or less lonely?’ The answer could help mitigate the risk of loneliness.” The authors say next steps include a longitudinal study and an intervention study. “Ultimately, we think these evidence-based cognitive brain markers are the key to developing better health care for the future that may address the loneliness epidemic,” said Mishra. To read the original article click here.

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