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Nigels Neuroscience nerdery nook

Started by Mesozoic Mister Nigel, November 08, 2014, 02:45:00 PM

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LMNO

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 10, 2014, 03:18:42 AM
This is not that new, but it is quite delightful and I hadn't heard it yet: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-first-real-reason-we-need-to-sleep-2013-10?

QuoteAll of our cells accumulate waste while they are working, and these waste products can be toxic. If they aren't removed they can build up and kill our cells. Throughout the rest of the body the lymphatic system washes these waste products away, but the brain is cut off from these actions because of the blood-brain barrier.

The team just discovered the brain's unique trash disposal system last year — the find was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine on Aug. 15, 2012. It works like a plumbing system.

The brain itself is bathed in a special clear liquid called cerebrospinal fluid, which doesn't mix with the blood and lymph system of the rest of the body. In the study from last year, they found that this fluid travels through special channels and washes the brain out.

There are two types of cells in the brain — the neurons that send signals and the glial that keep them healthy. They found that these glial cells seem to create these cleaning channels around the neurons.

It washes away toxic proteins and removes them from the brain's circulatory system. They are transferred to the general circulatory system, where the liver can remove them.

Quote
In the new study, they found that while the brain is sleeping, the neurons shrink by about 60% and the channels between these cells grow and fill with fluid. The glial cells then activate their pumping system to push the brain's cerebrospinal fluid through these extra spaces and flush out the area around the neurons.

When we wake, these channels squeeze shut again as the cells plump up, and the cerebrospinal fluid is once again found mostly around the surface of the brain, not deep inside it. While awake, this washing process acts at only about 5% of its performance during sleep.

All of this fluid movement is energy intensive, which is why the researchers think it can only happen effectively during sleep. Normally, all of our brain's energy is busy doing normal brain activities that support every thing we do — all of our movements, our thoughts, creating memories, and analyzing the signals that come in through our senses. By shutting these processes down, our brains are able to switch into cleaning mode.

This is fascinating.  Thanks for posting!

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Thanks guys!

I think this is important because it's relevant to all of us; justification, rationalization, self-deception, and other methods of relieving cognitive dissonance.

http://brainworldmagazine.com/the-neuroscience-of-rationalizing-our-mistakes/

QuoteRationalization — it's what helps us sleep better at night.

Right about now, you're probably shaking your head, thinking "I don't do that," but you do. No one is immune to self-justification to some degree, and that's okay because recent research findings suggest that these behaviors aren't entirely our fault. Our brains work in overdrive to preserve our self-image and support our attitudes, even when evidence indicates otherwise.

The mind reassures us, and because of this we often don't realize that it is shaping our behavior. Mental stunts that take place when we rationalize result from cognitive dissonance, a term coined by the social psychologist Leon Festinger. Cognitive dissonance occurs whenever a person holds two conflicting ideas, beliefs or opinions, so we try to find ways to reduce it and let our minds rest easy.

For example, some people smoke two or more packs a day although they know that cigarettes are rather harmful. Many of them try to convince themselves that it's not the case, with ingenious and self-deluding justifications: "Smoking isn't really as harmful as people say" and "Smoking helps me relax and ward off stress — a health risk in itself." That's because dissonance makes us uncomfortable. Depending on the person, the side effects and their intensity can be experienced at different degrees.

Self-justification not only tries to make sense of our mistakes and bad decisions, it also allows us to blur the discrepancy between our actions and our moral convictions. As we use it to keep our self-esteem in balance, we become oblivious to the white lies and reassuring words we whisper to ourselves. In fact, research has proved that the brain has optical and psychological blind spots that enable us to invest in the delusion that we aren't so delusional.

Brain MRI scans show that when we're confronted with dissonant information and use rationalization to compensate, the reasoning areas of our brains essentially shut down while the emotion circuits of the brain light up with activity. In other words, emotions trump logic. Researchers have also concluded by this information that once our minds are made up, it's hard to change them; even reading information that goes against our initial point of view only adds to the justifying that we were right.

- See more at: http://brainworldmagazine.com/the-neuroscience-of-rationalizing-our-mistakes/#sthash.Zbd54mMi.dpuf

Carol Tavris wrote a fantastic book about this, and gives a great interview about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzuvURWpMFE

Here's a good article series that deals heavily with backward rationalization: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201203/self-deception-i-rationalization

QuoteHuman beings are not rational, but rationalizing animals. If they find it frightening to think and painful to change, this is in large part because thinking and changing represent major threats to the beliefs that make up their sense of self. Given this state of affairs, any tectonic shift in a person's outlook is only ever going to occur incrementally and over a long period of time. Moreover, such a tectonic shift is likely to be provoked by an important deterioration in the person's circumstances which overwhelms his ego defences and leaves him with no alternative but to adopt the depressive or undefended position. In Remembrance of Things Past, the early 20th century novelist Marcel Proust tells us, 'Happiness is good for the body, but it is grief which develops the strengths of the mind.'

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

When I was a kid, my mother used to have this thing she would say fairly frequently, about other people "making her the asshole". It always confused me, because it seemed like she was doing a bang-up job of it under her own power.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Dildo Argentino

#18
Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 10, 2014, 04:01:03 PM
When I was a kid, my mother used to have this thing she would say fairly frequently, about other people "making her the asshole". It always confused me, because it seemed like she was doing a bang-up job of it under her own power.

That's a little funny. And quite sad.

I had a rare emote moment with my 16-year-old yesterday. He has come to understand and appreciate the value of having parents who are interested in him and capable of understanding him. (Until recently, he just took it for granted.) He hugged me! (very rare) I was swallowing tears.

But back to neuroscience: I wonder if the same shrinking of neurons and brain-washing (brain-washing!) that occurs in sleep also happens in deep meditation? I expect it would.
Not too keen on rigor, myself - reminds me of mortis

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 11, 2014, 05:09:38 AM
Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 10, 2014, 04:01:03 PM
When I was a kid, my mother used to have this thing she would say fairly frequently, about other people "making her the asshole". It always confused me, because it seemed like she was doing a bang-up job of it under her own power.

That's a little funny. And quite sad.

I had a rare emote moment with my 16-year-old yesterday. He has come to understand and appreciate the value of having parents who are interested in him and capable of understanding him. (Until recently, he just took it for granted.) He hugged me! (very rare) I was swallowing tears.

But back to neuroscience: I wonder if the same shrinking of neurons and brain-washing (brain-washing!) that occurs in sleep also happens in deep meditation? I expect it would.

My mother has some mental health issues. As you know, it's difficult to deal with that as a child. And not so easy as an adult, either.

It is GLORIOUS to have teenagers who appreciate you as a parent. My older two flit between appreciation and opposition roughly 16 times a day. This afternoon I yelled at them to be quiet or go away, and two hours later we were laughing about shared family traits. KIDS.

Brain-washing and meditation: Maybe, depending on what type of meditation. There are some types that enhance perception, in which case, not at all. And there are some types which facilitate shutting-down of brain processes, mimicking sleep, in which case, probably.

I would suspect that in the case of the latter, a nap would be more efficient, although I also think that there are benefits to meditation that go beyond the benefits of sleep, for many people.

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


minuspace

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 11, 2014, 05:09:38 AM
...
But back to neuroscience: I wonder if the same shrinking of neurons and brain-washing (brain-washing!) that occurs in sleep also happens in deep meditation? I expect it would.

Was thinking about that and then, reluctantly, cranio-sacral therapy.  It may not be science, tho IIRC, the method purports to improve CSF circulation.  This would help clean the fluid that washes the brain, perhaps (c) (Traditional Discordian Medicine)

Dildo Argentino

Whoa! Easy there!  :lulz:

The same thing did occur to me, hactually.
Not too keen on rigor, myself - reminds me of mortis

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: LuciferX on November 11, 2014, 10:02:26 PM
Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 11, 2014, 05:09:38 AM
...
But back to neuroscience: I wonder if the same shrinking of neurons and brain-washing (brain-washing!) that occurs in sleep also happens in deep meditation? I expect it would.

Was thinking about that and then, reluctantly, cranio-sacral therapy.  It may not be science, tho IIRC, the method purports to improve CSF circulation.  This would help clean the fluid that washes the brain, perhaps (c) (Traditional Discordian Medicine)

Wait.

By what mechanism do you imagine that rubbing the scalp shrinks neurons, exactly?
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I understand that the desire to believe that woo really for real works is strong, but this thread is for science so if you're going to go there I will ask you to think all the way through it and try to come up with a plausible explanation for the mechanisms by which the woo might work.

There are reasons to think that forms of meditation that induce a sleeplike state (basically, a controlled nap) would also induce the naturally accompanying neuronal shrinking. The leap from there to cranial-sacral massage seems to have no accompanying logic. If you can explain the logic, I might entertain the idea for long enough to stop laughing.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


minuspace

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 12, 2014, 04:11:08 PM
Quote from: LuciferX on November 11, 2014, 10:02:26 PM
Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 11, 2014, 05:09:38 AM
...
But back to neuroscience: I wonder if the same shrinking of neurons and brain-washing (brain-washing!) that occurs in sleep also happens in deep meditation? I expect it would.

Was thinking about that and then, reluctantly, cranio-sacral therapy.  It may not be science, tho IIRC, the method purports to improve CSF circulation.  This would help clean the fluid that washes the brain, perhaps (c) (Traditional Discordian Medicine)

Wait.

By what mechanism do you imagine that rubbing the scalp shrinks neurons, exactly?

We were thinking of cranio- sacral as an adjunct to sleep, not a substitute.  If the washing depends on CSF flowing through the brain, because of sleep, then, cranio-sacral would help circulation to the brain and back, from the lower spine and such.  This helps filtration to prevent washing the brain with "dirty" fluid, hypothetically.  I don't know if CST is considered science, but it seems to work that way.


Reginald Ret

Even it worked that way it would be slightly less effective than chewing bubblegum. And quite a bit more expensive.
Lord Byron: "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Nigel saying the wisest words ever uttered: "It's just a suffix."

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Dildo Argentino

But chewing gum has disadvantageous effects on gastric acid production, doesn't it? :)
Not too keen on rigor, myself - reminds me of mortis

minuspace

Maybe, if the gum had muscle relaxants in it, like a wafer, given the effect it has on paraspinal muscle blood flow [ncbi.nlm.nih.g*v/pubmed/18344850]

minuspace

Anyways, before this goes all off topic.  Great post on brain washing - literally hours of cycles for me.  I love that feeling of coolness that washes over before going gentle into that sweet sleep.  Now I know that may literally be happening - sleep is cool French laundry for the soul.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."