The recency ratio is associated with reduced CSF glutamate in late-life depression

Glutamate is the principal excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, and is thought to be involved in the process of memory encoding and storage. Glutamate disturbances have also been reported in psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and major depressive disorder (MDD), and in Alzheimer’s disease. In this paper, we set out to study the relationship between cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) glutamate levels and memory performance, which we believe has not been reported previously. In particular, we focused on recall performance broken down by serial position. Our prediction was that the recency ratio (Rr), a novel cognitive marker of intellectual impairment, would be linked with CSF glutamate levels. We studied data from a group of cognitively intact elderly individuals, 28 of whom had MDD, while 19 were controls. Study results indicated that Rr levels, but no other memory score, were inversely correlated with CSF glutamate levels, although this was found only in individuals with late-life MDD. For comparison, glutamine or GABA were not correlated with any memory performance measure

Rewiring the Nervous System with Art Therapy: Advocating for an Empirical, Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Approach to Art Therapy Treatment of Traumatized Children, A Literature Review

Devastatingly, children’s exposure to trauma and stressful life events is pervasive and spans a range of human experiences. Advances in neuroscience demonstrate that such traumas experienced during childhood can deleteriously rewire a child’s nervous system, in-turn altering their brain’s organization, development, and function. Left unresolved, the impacts of trauma can compound across a child’s lifetime manifesting in a host of negative psychological and health outcomes. Timely and neurosequentially-based interventions are key to helping traumatized children heal and achieve their full potential. This review of art therapy literature identifies current neurobiological-informed art therapy models for children who have experienced trauma. A substantial gap was revealed to exist between the integration of neuroscience concepts into art therapy practice and the availability of quantitative studies to empirically demonstrate art therapy’s effect on a child’s brain structure and function. This thesis proposes an empirical, interdisciplinary approach to art therapy, that sensitively aligns with the child’s developmental stage as well as with their impaired nervous system

Ageing Futures: Towards Cognitively Inclusive Digital Media Products

This thesis is situated in a moment when the theory and practice of inclusive design appears to be significantly implicated in the social and economic response to demographic changes in Western Europe by addressing the need to reconnect older people with technology. In light of claims that cognitive ageing results in an increasing disconnection from novel digital media in old age, inclusive design is apparently trapped in a discourse in which digital media products and interfaces are designed as a response to a deterministic decline in abilities. The thesis proceeds from this context to ask what intellectual moves are required within the discourses of inclusive design so that its community of theorists and practitioners can both comprehend and afford the enaction of cognitive experience in old age? Whilst influential design scholarship actively disregards reductionist cognitive explanations of human and technological relationships, it appears that inclusive design still requires an explanation of temporal changes to human cognition in later life. Whilst there is a burgeoning area of design related research dealing with this issue—an area this thesis defines as ‘cognitively inclusive design’—the underlying assumptions and claims supporting this body of research suggests its theorists and practitioners are struggling to move beyond conceptualising older people as passive consumers suffering a deterioration in key cognitive abilities. The thesis argues that, by revisiting the cognitive sciences for alternative explanations for the basis of human cognition, it is possible to relieve this problem by opening up new spaces for designers to critically reflect upon the manner in which older people interact with digital media. In taking a position that design is required to support human cognitive enactment, the thesis develops a new approach to conceptualising temporal changes in human cognition, defined as ‘senescent cognition’. From this new critical lens, the thesis provides an alternative ‘senescentechnic’ explanation of cognitive disconnections between older people and digital media that eschews reductionism and moves beyond a deterministic process of deterioration. In reassessing what ageing cognition means, new strategies for the future of inclusive design are proposed that emphasise the role of creating space for older people to actively explore, reflect upon and enact their own cognitive couplings with technology.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

A systematic evaluation of the psychological and behavioural effects of the combined consumption of glucose and caffeine and comparison to the effects produced by consuming either substance in isolation

Extensive research has found glucose and caffeine to have beneficial effects on cognition and mood. Broadly, glucose has been found to improve memory and caffeine to improve attention and alertness. Relatively little research has investigated the effects of their combined consumption, although to date, similar effects on cognitive performance and mood have been found. The aim of this thesis was to systematically evaluate the behavioural effects of combined consumption of these substances and compare them with the effects of consuming either substance in isolation. Moderating factors, such as cognitive effort, were considered along with the evaluation of neural and neuroendocrine responses. The first study (chapter 2) found evidence of beneficial effects of caffeine, glucose and their combination on memory and mood, with individual effects varying across doses. However, concurrent measurement of the neuroendocrine response found no effects (chapter 3). Investigation into pre-retrieval administration of the substances memory performance (chapter 4) found no effects of any substance, in contrast to the beneficial effects found for pre-learning administration. A parallel assessment of glucose and caffeine on different attentional networks and systems (chapter 5) failed to find any effects on this aspect of cognitive performance. In chapter 6 the effects of the substances on participants who were in a sub-optimal state were examined. The findings were not able to show that effects of the substances can be more clearly elucidated when participants are not performing optimally. The final experimental study (chapter 7) investigated the effects of caffeine and glucose on neurocognitive processes, but no beneficial effects were found. Overall, the findings suggest that the effects of caffeine, glucose and their combination are modulated by dose and domain

Crazy by design : brain research and adolescence : implications for classroom teaching, teacher learning and possibilities of teacher research

This research aims to influence teacher understandings of brain research and its implications for teaching adolescents by addressing the following issues: 1. What are the implications of changes in the adolescent brain for teaching and teachers and the adolescent learning environment? 2. How can teachers better accommodate knowledge of the brain into their understandings and pedagogical practices for adolescents? 3. What can the use of a teacher-as-researcher model contribute to teacher learning in understanding brain research and the adolescent learning environment? To address these questions, this research aimed to: 1. Design, implement and evaluate a teacher learning package that would fill a gap in teacher knowledge by strengthening teacher knowledge of current brain research and deepen teacher understanding of the connection between this research and the adolescent learning environment. 2. Support a team of teachers to use an action research methodology to apply brain-research-informed pedagogical practices, learning tools and ‘essential understandings’ of adolescents in mainstream adolescent educational learning environments to improve educational experience and success. 3. Develop a further teacher learning package that: i) Builds the capacity of teachers outside of my research, and leaders of teachers, to implement action research processes in their own context to improve practice. ii) Describes how teachers at Purple High School (PHS) worked as teacher researchers to use brain research to improve the educational experience and success of adolescent learners, and what they learned about action research as teacher learning. This research addresses these aims and questions by telling the story of three inter-related projects. It engaged with three areas: with neuroscience, with teacher-as-researcher and with the teacher-learning literature and research and built connections to teacher praxis

The Picture Memory Interference Test with Iranian Americans: Does first language impact performance?

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of first language on one\u27s performance on the Picture Memory Interference Test (PMIT). This casual-comparative study examined if Iranian American students whose 1st language is Farsi performed differently from 1st language English-speaking Iranian American and monolingual English-speaking Caucasian students, after controlling for age and gender. To conduct this investigation, 103 Iranian American students who endorsed Farsi as their 1st language and English as their 2nd language were compared to a matched group of 103 monolingual English-speaking Caucasian students. Forty-four Iranian American students who endorsed 1st and 2nd language as English were also compared to a matched group of 44 monolingual English-speaking Caucasian students. The results of the 2 ANOVA conducted indicated that 1st language does significantly influence participants\u27 scores on True Positive responses on the PMIT. Participants who self-identified Farsi as their 1st language recalled fewer pictures correctly on the PMIT when compared to their monolingual English-speaking counterparts. This study revealed the relevance of considering 1st language and cultural differences among ethnic minorities when administering nonverbal assessment measures of visual memory

Extended spider cognition

HFJ received a visiting professor fellowship from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq - Brazil) (PDE PDE232691/2014-2). Research supported in part by a Grant from the John Templeton Foundation to KNL.There is a tension between the conception of cognition as a central nervous system (CNS) process, and a view of cognition as extending towards the body or the contiguous environment. The centralised conception requires large or complex nervous systems to cope with complex environments. Conversely, the extended conception involves the outsourcing of information processing to the body or environment, thus making fewer demands on the processing power of the CNS. The evolution of extended cognition should be particularly favoured among small, generalist predators such as spiders, and here we review the literature to evaluate the fit of empirical data with these contrasting models of cognition. Spiders do not seem to be cognitively limited, displaying a large diversity of learning processes, from habituation to contextual learning, including a sense of numerosity. To tease apart the central from the extended cognition, we apply the mutual manipulability criterion, testing the existence of reciprocal causal links between the putative elements of the system. We conclude that the web threads and configurations are integral parts of the cognitive systems. The extension of cognition to the web helps to explain some puzzling features of spider behaviour and seems to promote evolvability within the group, enhancing innovation through cognitive connectivity to variable habitat features. Graded changes in relative brain size could also be explained by outsourcing information processing to environmental features. More generally, niche-constructed structures emerge as prime candidates for extending animal cognition, generating the selective pressures that help to shape the evolving cognitive system.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Deep Sleep, Cognition, Body Weight, Body Temperature, and Behavioral Distress Responses to New Onset Psychosocial Stressors are Blunted with Age in Male F344 Rats

Complaints associated with aging, including cognitive deficits and sleep loss, are highly prevalent and negatively impact quality of life. Further, with increased age, humans are also more likely to experience new-onset psychosocial stressors, such as divorce, loss of a spouse, and social isolation. Stress has detrimental consequences that in many ways parallel the effects of aging on sleep and cognition. The long-standing stress/ glucocorticoid hypotheses of brain aging posit that stress exposure exacerbates aging symptoms, and extensive prior studies have shown that early life stress exposure does worsen phenotypic aging symptoms. However, despite its prevalence in aged humans, little basic research has investigated the response of aged subjects to new-onset psychosocial stress. Prior work in our lab showed aged rodents to be hyporesponsive to a new-onset acute psychosocial stress. Here, we assess the age-course of this acute response, as well as evaluate the consequences of chronic psychosocial stress exposure in aged animals. Our lab tested two hypotheses. First, we hypothesized that mid-aged animals will have an intermediate response between young and aged to acute psychosocial stress. Second, we hypothesized that aged animals’ will continue to be hyporesponsive during a chronic psychosocial stress. We focused on mid-aged animals for our first study because this age-point serves as the transition period from young to aged and could hold some key information about the transition from healthy to unhealthy brain aging. We used restraints to induce stress, the Morris water maze to test cognitive function, and telemetry devices to characterize sleep architecture and body temperature. We showed that, among age-related acute stress hyposensitive findings (deep sleep loss, hyperthermia, and cognitive deficit), mid-aged animals were hyporesponsive to sleep, but not body temperature or maze performance. This suggests that the failure to manifest a sleep response to stress precedes cognitive and body temperature related stress insensitivity. In our second study, we investigated the influence of new-onset chronic psychosocial stress (three hours per day, four days per week for one month) in young and aged rodents. Aged animals were hyporesponsive to multiple common indicators of stress including distress during the restraint, weight loss, and cognitive deficits, all of which were easily detectable in young animals. These results suggest that the age-related blunting of the stress response is sustained from acute to chronic exposures. While the hyporesponsiveness may seem advantageous in the aged, a failed response could also be maladaptive, reducing a subject’s ability to compensate for a changing environment. Together, this work supports prior observations that stress exposure makes young animals more aged like. Aged animals also showed a more limited response to stress, suggesting that age itself may act as an occluding stressor. Finally, this work points to deep sleep promoting interventions as potential therapeutic strategies for managing age-related changes in stress response

Input and output order of recall as early markers of cognitive decline

This thesis explored the effects of age on free recall patterns in episodic memory. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging instruments were used to investigate the input (i.e., serial position effects) and output (i.e., temporal vs. spatial contiguity) of free recall in younger vs. healthy older individuals and in older adults with cognitive decline. In study 1 (Chapter 4), primacy (intended as the tendency to better remember items presented at the beginning of a list compared to the middle) at delayed recall was the most accurate serial position effect in predicting conversion to early stage Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), from a baseline of cognitively functioning older adults. In study 2 (Chapter 5), age differences in the use of spatial vs. temporal contiguity (intended as the tendency to retrieve items following the temporal, or spatial, context in which they have been learned) were explored in younger vs. healthy older adults. It was found that temporal contiguity was the most utilised associative process in both groups, although older adults showed lower temporal contiguity compared to younger adults. In study 3 (Chapter 6), the universality of temporal contiguity and the relationship between attentional processes and the output order of free recall were examined. Temporal vs. spatial contiguity were investigated during tasks meant to interfere with encoding processes, that is Divided Attention (DA) tasks and tasks involving presentation of verbal vs. pictorial material. Results showed consistent use of temporal contiguity in all experimental conditions, therefore suggesting the ubiquity of temporal contiguity and its involvement in retrieval processes. In study 4 (Chapter 7), the output order in free recall was investigated in younger and older adults in relation to prefrontal blood oxygenation, by means of functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). It was found that areas involved during temporal contiguity change with age, as younger adults showed greater activity of the right prefrontal cortex, whilst older adults engaged alternative or opposite regions. In study 5 (Chapter 8) the use of unrelated memory lists was investigated as a sensitive measure to detect age-related differences on the use of temporal vs. spatial contiguity. Moreover, age-associated differences in the use of temporal contiguity were explored at immediate vs. delayed recall. It was found that unrelated lists are able to detect age-related changes in the use of contiguity effects, and that temporal contiguity is negatively affected in both younger and older adults at delayed recall. In study 6 (Chapter 9) temporal clustering was investigated as potential predictor of conversion to Cognitive Unimpaired Declining (CUD) status, from a baseline of cognitively functioning older individuals. Results supported the hypothesis that temporal contiguity is a marker of cognitive decline, also when controlling for genetic information and for variables typically used in clinical practice. In summary, the findings of this thesis show that the input and output order of free recall, although quite stable, decline with age and that they may be added as a potential tool for early detection in clinical settings, and in the research field

Affective neuroscience, emotional regulation, and international relations

International relations (IR) has witnessed an emerging interest in neuroscience, particularly for its relevance to a now widespread scholarship on emotions. Contributing to this scholarship, this article draws on the subfields of affective neuroscience and neuropsychology, which remain largely unexplored in IR. Firstly, the article draws on affective neuroscience in illuminating affect's defining role in consciousness and omnipresence in social behavior, challenging the continuing elision of emotions in mainstream approaches. Secondly, it applies theories of depth neuropsychology, which suggest a neural predisposition originating in the brain's higher cortical regions to attenuate emotional arousal and limit affective consciousness. This predisposition works to preserve individuals' self-coherence, countering implicit assumptions about rationality and motivation within IR theory. Thirdly, it outlines three key implications for IR theory. It argues that affective neuroscience and neuropsychology offer a route towards deep theorizing of ontologies and motivations. It also leads to a reassessment of the social regulation of emotions, particularly as observed in institutions, including the state. It also suggests a productive engagement with constructivist and poststructuralist approaches by addressing the agency of the body in social relations. The article concludes by sketching the potential for a therapeutically-attuned approach to IR