Accepted model for brain signaling flawed @ ScienceDaily
Critical reviews on the latest neuroscience research
“If your car is ready to go, you can leave faster than if you have to turn on the engine.”The brain is surprising similar to any other machine; yet vastly different and infinitely complex.
“As a control, the animals were fed on standard rat feed for five days before the fructose diet started. They were also trained on a maze twice per day and tested to see how well they performed. They also placed visual markers in the maze to help the rats remember their way around.”Gomez-Pinilla recounts his experience of testing the rats after six weeks on the sugary diet:
“The second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that did not receive omega-3 fatty acids … The DHA-deprived animals were slower, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signaling each other, disrupting the rats’ ability to think clearly and recall the route they’d learned six weeks earlier.”
“Our findings suggest that consuming DHA regularly protects the brain against fructose’s harmful effects …”
"The DHA-deprived rats also developed signs of resistance to insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar and regulates synaptic function in the brain. A closer look at the rats’ brain tissue suggested that insulin had lost much of its power to influence the brain cells."
"He suspects that fructose is the culprit behind the DHA-deficient rats’ brain dysfunction. Eating too much fructose could block insulin’s ability to regulate how cells use and store sugar for the energy required for processing thoughts and emotions."
“This also might be a strategy for developing drugs to promote cognition and memory – what about drugs that inhibit forgetting as cognitive enhancers?"
“The study reflects a major transition in the focus of neuroscience from disease to well-being.”
The goal is “to use what we know about the brain to fine-tune interventions that will improve well-being, kindness, altruism. Perhaps we can develop more targeted, focused interventions that take advantage of the mechanisms of neuroplasticity to induce specific changes in specific brain circuits.”
"There are risks in technological self-improvement that could jeopardise human dignity. One potential problem arises from altering what we consider to be “normal”: the dangers are similar to the social pressure to conform to idealised forms of beauty, physique or sporting ability that we see today. People without enhancement could come to see themselves as failures, have lower self-esteem or even be discriminated against by those whose brains have been enhanced”, Birnbacher says.
Everybody will enhance theirself to fit what they believe to be correct – what they believe is best for them and society. However, this would drastically affect relations between different cultures – some cultures will be much more advanced than others, and cultures would be much more separated than they are today. This would not only jeopardise international relations, but also the global economy.
“Establishing and maintaining many social relationships requires a great deal of brainpower.”
“…people with larger social networks (including the number of friends on Facebook) also have a larger amygdala (a brain region involved in emotion regulation).”