NeuroInterests

… and gay women’s brains are like straight men’s. At least in certain anatomical aspects, so says a study reported in one of my favorite magazines, New Scientist.

Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait.

The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex.

The differences are likely to have been forged in the womb or in early infancy, says Ivanka Savic, who conducted the study at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

The whole article was fascinating, and I don’t feel it to be quite right to paste the whole thing… so go read it at New Scientist, and for god’s sake, get a subscription.

This popped to the top of reddit, and being that it is actually in pubmed… and is ironic (and funny) I thought I’d share!

From pubmed:

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). […] The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. […] Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

This actually kind of fits some of my personal observation. Not observation of penis circumference, mind you, but that individuals that are “homophobic” tend to act a little gay. But hey, the science speaks for itself, man.

It never fails that NewScientist reports on some of the coolest stuff around.

They have hosted at their website right now a video demonstrating (with the hosting USING it over the phone, live) a new technology being developed that allows a user to “talk” to someone on the phone without talking — by tapping into the nerves in their neck!

Check it out!

I owe MindHacks for this one.

I just got finished watching “Psychedelic Science” by Bill Eagles for free off of Google Video. It was one of the best videos I’ve ever seen on the topics of psychedelics. Some of the more interesting topics covered were LSD, Psilocybin, DMT, an interview with Rick Strassman (who wrote The Spirit Molecule), and best of all… it covered ayahuasca, the practice of drinking an herbel drink that contains DMT every fortnight in the religious setting of the UDV church, and interviews a doctor who has regularly used ayahuasca for twenty years. I strongly suggest all of you check it out!

People who had been abused as children and who carried the most protective forms of the gene, called corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor one (CRHR1), had markedly lower measures of depression, compared with people with less protective forms, the researchers found in a recent study.

The findings could guide doctors in finding new ways to treat depression in people who were abused as children, says senior author Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. […]

The study also supports previous evidence that corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and related hormones play a role in depression. Other studies have found increased levels of CRH and altered levels of its receptor in the brains of patients with depression.[…]

The receptor for a hormone acts like a receiver or radar dish for messages sent between cells. CRH stimulates the pituitary gland to release another hormone, adrenocorticotropin, which in turn induces the release of cortisol from the adrenal cortex.

Extreme stress in childhood can over-activate this cascade of hormones, increasing the risk of depression in adulthood, Dr. Ressler says.

“Our results suggest that genetic differences in signals mediated by CRH may amplify or soften the developmental effects that childhood abuse can have — effects that can raise the risk of depression in adults,” he says.

In the study, scientists began by interviewing more than 470 adults and testing their DNA, looking for alternative spellings or SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) in several parts of the CRHR1 gene.

This first group was mostly black and a majority had a monthly income less than $1,000. The researchers measured their symptoms of depression and had them answer questionnaires about childhood trauma. Their responses were categorized as low, mild, moderate and severe.

Overall, people with a history of moderate or severe child abuse had depression symptoms that averaged about double the level of those with low or mild child abuse scores.

Roughly 30 percent of the group had variations in the CRHR1 gene that together appeared to be protective if moderate to severe abuse had occurred. People who had inherited two copies of the most protective forms of the gene, or “haplotypes,” had average depression symptoms that were about half those of people who had not inherited those haplotypes. A haplotype comprises several SNPs that frequently appear together.

These differences in depression symptoms were only seen in people with histories of moderate to severe abuse; depression levels were not significantly different in people with low to mild abuse.

The most significant SNPs appear in the part of the gene preceding the region that encodes the receptor protein, suggesting that the variations may affect its regulation rather than the composition of the protein, the authors say.

The findings were strengthened when the researchers repeated the study in 199 white, middle-income adults and came up with similar results, suggesting that the genetic variations act in a way that is independent of ethnic background or economic status. (Source: Eurekalert)

Corticotropin-releasing hormone is a hormone created by the hypothalamus, a part of the brain important to the circadian rhythm. I’d like to find out if this gene alteration is present higher in populations that have endured generations of abuse. (As an adaptive mechanism)

It’s a stereotype now backed by scientific research: men like video games more than women.

Allan Reiss, MD, and his colleagues have a pretty good idea why your husband or boyfriend can’t put down the Halo 3. In a first-of-its-kind imaging study, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown that the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings is more activated in men than women during video-game play. […]

“The females ‘got’ the game, and they moved the wall in the direction you would expect,” said Reiss, who is director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research. “They appeared motivated to succeed at the game. The males were just a lot more motivated to succeed.”

After analyzing the imaging data for the entire group, the researchers found that the participants showed activation in the brain’s mesocorticolimbic center, the region typically associated with reward and addiction. Male brains, however, showed much greater activation, and the amount of activation was correlated with how much territory they gained. (This wasn’t the case with women.) Three structures within the reward circuit - the nucleus accumbens, amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex - were also shown to influence each other much more in men than in women. And the better connected this circuit was, the better males performed in the game. (Source: Scienceblog)

Scientific American Mind: Psychedelic Healing?
Another great summary of the healing effects psychedelics have shown. Article mentions that prior to the banning of LSD, etc. in the 70’s something around 700 studies had already been undertaken on the substance.

Mind Hacks: Test your corpus callosum
Think your corpus callosum is busted? Check out Mind Hacks test to find out what the case may be.

Characteristics of corpus callosum problems include (as from Wikipedia):

However, some characteristics common in individuals with callosal disorders include vision impairments, low muscle tone (hypotonia), poor motor coordination, delays in motor milestones such as sitting and walking, low perception of pain, delayed toilet training, chewing and swallowing difficulties, early speech and language delays, and social difficulties. Recent research suggests that specific social difficulties may be a result of impaired face processing.[6] Unusual social behavior in childhood is often mistaken for or misdiagnosed as Asperger’s syndrome or other autism spectrum disorders. Other characteristics sometimes associated with callosal disorders include seizures, spasticity, early feeding difficulties and/or gastric reflux, hearing impairments, abnormal head and facial features, and mental retardation.

BBC reports that a study has found links to migraine headaches and the hypothalamus (which is used for the regulation of circadian rhythm among other things).

In a double-blind placebo controlled study subjects were given high doses of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and found that it lowered rates of depression and anxiety, increased sexual intercourse rates. The study suggests that this is because Vitamin C modulates catacholaminergic activity.

 BACKGROUND: Ascorbic acid (AA) modulates catecholaminergic activity, decreases stress reactivity, approach anxiety and prolactin release, improves vascular function, and increases oxytocin release. These processes are relevant to sexual behavior and mood. METHODS: In this randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled 14 day trial of sustained-release AA (42 healthy young adults; 3000 mg/day Cetebe) and placebo (39 healthy young adults), subjects with partners recorded penile-vaginal intercourse (FSI), noncoital partner sex, and masturbation in daily diaries, and also completed the Beck Depression Inventory before and after the trial. RESULTS: The AA group reported greater FSI (but, as hypothesized, not other sexual behavior) frequency, an effect most prominent in subjects not cohabiting with their sexual partner, and in women. The AA but not placebo group also experienced a decrease in Beck Depression scores. CONCLUSIONS: AA appears to increase FSI, and the differential benefit to noncohabitants suggests that a central activation or disinhibition, rather than peripheral mechanism may be responsible. (Source: Pubmed)

I just got done reading an article put out by BBC News on sensory deprivation: some of the effects sounded strangely analogous to someone using psychedelics. They experienced moments of intense anxiety and paranoia:

“I remember one occasion waking up and having to squeeze my face and my chest and thinking to myself am I still alive “

They experienced hallucinations:

“I’m hallucinating! I thought I could see a pile of oyster shells“

They experienced sensations of alien presences:

Mickey, a postman is seeing mosquitoes and fighter planes buzzing around his head and it’s frightening him. Claire a psychology student doesn’t mind the little cars, snakes and zebras. But she gets scared when she suddenly feels somebody is in the room.

However, perhaps the most interesting thing of all is that all of these people that underwent this experiment measured higher levels of suggestibility afterwards. This was the original intent of the experiment: To see if prisoners who had been subjected to sensory deprivation in times of war would then be more easily to brainwash. This experiment seems to indicate it does.

While the article doesn’t indicate anyone wanting to do it again, specifically… It’s interesting to note at least one of the participants found a lot of value in it.

After just 48 hours, Adam wanted to kiss the man who opened the door to let him out.

“I was let outside and saw the sun and the sky, for the first time in 48 hours. My senses were overwhelmed totally and utterly by the sights, sounds and smells.”

He is glad he did it and proud he didn’t give up early. But he would not do it again.

“It was an amazing experience that was very much worth going through once. It taught me to appreciate my senses and all forms of interaction.”

New research at the University of Haifa found that laboratory rats that were on their own when exposed to uncontrollable conditions, which create a feeling of helplessness, learned to avoid situations which create such feelings better than rats that were exposed to uncontrollable conditions in pairs.The way laboratory rats react to uncontrollable situations in which their behaviors have no influence on subsequent events has been researched in the past. Results show that rats that are exposed to a situation in which they are powerless, for example, electric shocks that they can’t possibly avoid, have a more difficult time learning how to avoid them in the future than rats that were never exposed to situations of helplessness – a phenomenon known as “learned helplessness”. Researchers choose to experiment with rats because they are know as social animals and their brains work much the same way as human brains. However, most of the research done until now was done on rats exposed to uncontrollable conditions when they are alone.

In his doctoral dissertation, Dr. Qutaiba Agbaria, under the supervision of Dr. Richard Shuster, examined the differences in learned helplessness among rats that were exposed to uncontrollable conditions alone and in pairs. The researcher began with the hypothesis that rats would learn to be more adaptable in social situations, or in pairs, however, the research results revealed a very different picture. Rats that were exposed to uncontrollable conditions in pairs coped less well when they were no longer in uncontrollable situations than rats that were exposed to these situations alone.

The next phase of the research examined the influence of a rat that had never been exposed to an uncontrollable situation on a rat that had. These pairs of rats showed greater adaptability than pairs that had been exposed to helplessness as individuals or in pairs. In addition, the researchers did not find outstanding differences between the learning ability of these pairs of rats – where one had been exposed to uncontrollable conditions and the other hadn’t – and pairs that were never exposed to uncontrollable conditions, which means that the effect of “learned helplessness” is effectively erased. “Now that we have see that “learned helplessness” can be “unlearned”, we should continue to examine whether this change is a result of exposure to a rat that was not exposed to helplessness or rather that the social behavior between the two animals has another meaning,” said Dr. Agbaria. (Source: Eurekalert)

This whole experiment struck me as absolutely fascinating. For me, it basically says that if you’re trying to learn a new intimidating skill then it’s best to go at it alone, unless the person coming with you is already a veteran. In other words, learning something new and intimidating is never benefited by having an extra person that is intimidated by the same thing.