Week 3 – Susan Brennan

As a high school English teacher of twenty years, I witnessed first-hand the alarming increase in the number of autistic students. The intensity with which other students react to autistic students, the isolation autistic children must feel, and the lack of information on this disorder all make this a topic that needs more attention.

I can think back to many of my own awkward social experiences and many of them are rooted in some miscommunication or failure to read a situation correctly. Perhaps that is why former students like Ryan stand out in my memory. Ryan was incredibly bright and he was a nice kid. He wasn’t “normal,” that much was patently obvious upon meeting him. He obsessed about certain topics, garnered the snickers of his classmates, and all the while seemed completely oblivious to the eye rolls and the raised eyebrows. I adored him.

The discovery of the Fusiform Facial Area, an area of the visual cortex that is hardwired for facial recognition, provides the most plausible explanation when you consider all the possible causes for this disorder. I don’t buy the idea that the inability to connect with others socially is the result of being rejected by society because of the autistic child’s odd behavior. Most children are diagnosed with autism at a relatively young age. I find it difficult to believe that a four or five year old would have enough social awareness to know he was breaking social conventions in his communication and even if he did, I’m not sure he would care. My own four year-old who is not autistic has no problem yelling out “POOPY HEAD!” or other acutely embarrasing remarks when we are in the grocery store. Not only does he fail to share in my mortification at the inappropriateness of his remarks, but he is proud of himself for evoking so much attention. So this idea that autistic children recoil from others because they are somehow ashamed that they are not acting appropriately doesn’t quite make sense to me .

When I talk to a friend from high school about his own son, it seems clear that the root of the problem with autism is physiological. His own son who is roughly the same age as mine will not hug his parents or siblings, will not look directly at them, and will only engage in contact unless it’s initiated by him. Even kids who are teased mercilessly in high school aren’t traumatized to the point they lose the ability to look someone in the eye. The defecit in social cues just doesn’t seem to be explained by any environmental stimuli.

In an article entitled “Characterizing ad Improving Face Processing Skills in Children with Autism,” a treatment for treating the inability to read facial features is being researched – with promising results. The idea is to use “Visual Training and Assessment” to help autistic children develop the ability to conceptualize objects holistically. One specific method is called “RISE” or Random Image Structure Evolution. The idea is that a picture is presented first with degradations and then becomes increasingly clearer. In essence, the process teaches patients how to fill in the blanks when they are trying to configure a person’s facial features. The idea of neurogenesis might support the idea that it is possible to not just strengthen weakened visual neurons, but perhaps generate new ones, especially since the majority of autistic patients are children.

Another interesting article posted on the “Attention Learning Center” website is using neuro-feedback through EEG to provide biofeedback to patients to increase their ability to recognize social cues. According to the website, “Dr. Linden is in the process of identifying two distinct EEG patterns with the Asperger’s patient. Both of these patterns show a disconnection in the areas of the brain associated with recognizing facial gestures, emotions and expressing feeling. These EEG patterns may be the first biological markers available to diagnose Autism and Asperger’s.”

The one last thought that came to mind on this subject has to do with how sometimes what we’ve always thought of as a single function (vision), may have two components to it, like the difference between visual stimuli that is used for perception vs. visual stimuli that is used for actions. Couldn’t this be applicable to the problem of autism? On “Austism-Help.Org.” a typical symptom of autism is “…children with Aspergers syndrome may have an unusually sophisticated vocabulary at a young age…but have difficulty understanding metaphorical language…they understand the cognitive basis of humor but…lack understanding of its intent.” So just as vision can be used for different purposes, so too could facial recognition. Perhaps facial recognition is used for communication as well as social acceptance and belonging.

Week 2 – Bailey Paskiewicz

In middle school, I remember being posed with the question “Would you rather be blind or deaf?” At the time I probably answered with something like “Well man, I love music so I guess I’d be deaf or whatever.”   According to neurophysiologist, Oliver Sacks, the answer to that question resides in how old you are. As one ages into adulthood, both the loss of vision and the loss of hearing have equal amounts of glitches associated with them. Learning language, however, relies mostly on, auditory cues, and hearing phonemes, and morphemes.  Therefore, it would be better to be blind.  One study done by Rob Bell showed that we are always listening to something: whether it be consciously listening to music or unconsciously hearing white noise. But have you ever listened for silence? Without deafness, it is impossible to obtain absolute silence. Silence possesses a complexity that most will never experience.

My mother used to nag me when I was younger “Why don’t you just listen? It’s so simple!!” Is it though? I often times have a difficult time putting the pause button on my life and delving into what really happens when my mom hassles me about listening. Auditory perception starts with a stimulus traveling in the form of a sound wave. When the sound wave hits the eardrum, it causes it to vibrate which stimulate miniscule hair cells that line the basilar membrane within the cochlea. The hair cells moving (stimulus) are enough for the basilar membrane to generate an action potential, which sends the information back to the brain. The complexity does not stop there; it is only the beginning. The brain is a maze for the action potentials to navigate through.  How we interpret these signals is called auditory perception. During the entire neuronal pathway leading up to the thalamus, neurons are frequency tuning. Author of Cognitive Neuroscience, Michael Gazzinga states that neurons work as a whole; “individual cells do not give precise frequency information but provide coarse coding indicates that our perception must depend on the integrated activity of many neurons (p. 167).” This finding is supported by the use of tonotopic maps. Tonotopic maps show a relationship between the neurons location and frequency tuning with the resolution of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging).

The thought of going to a class where a professor lectured in a monotone voice was sometimes enough to keep me from going to class. It wasn’t because I couldn’t understand the professor; his frequency variations in his words and syllables were so minute  that I dozed off easier in lecture. Frequency variation is a key factor in word and music identification. Without it, everything would just sound the same, and we wouldn’t be able to comprehend what was being articulated .  Another function of hearing is to figure out “where” you are relative to your surroundings. The “where” problem allows us to hit snooze on our alarms before class, or direct our attention to an important speaker. It’s like playing a game of a constant game of Marco Polo.

Now in college, if posed with the question “would you rather be blind or deaf,” I think my answer would remain constant with that of my middle school self. I enjoy being able to sit on my bed with my best friend having a heart-to-heart, or blaring Bon Iver on my speakers on a cloudy day. I could live without my sight; I’ve got four other senses that would help me to see .

Week 1 – Kurt Schuepfer

The human brain hardly looks impressive… it’s like a big, grey sponge at best. But it’s actually pretty nifty. Just think for a minute about all the amazing stuff it can do. We can study mathematics and use calculus and physics to explore outer space. Or we can bring a crowd to tears with an orchestrated symphony. We can invent computers and refrigerators, make art, and ponder the unknowable and infinite. The human brain can do all these magnificent things that no other animal’s can.
And for us, time travel is not only a work of science fiction. We can look to the past and wonder what it was like to live with the dinosaurs. Or we can think back to that lunch break, and imagine the perfect comeback that we just should have said to our annoying colleague. Or we can go the other way, and plan ahead, telling ourselves that if we want to get an A on the exam next week, we should probably get crackin’ on the studies today! We can forecast how a new pollution policy might affect an entire community. Or we can vote in a fearless leader because they’ve got a plan to save our nation. Dogs don’t make the best constituents. They can’t do these things, but humans can.
Most of the credit for our human coolness, it turns out, must be given to the pre-frontal cortex. This is the part of the brain that helps us plan, compare, predict, and self-reflect. Basically all that awesome stuff you can do that lowly animals can’t is explained away by a bundle of nerve cells by your forehead. It also keeps us out of trouble. Remember that obnoxious guy who cut you off on the sidewalk? Your PFC is why you’re in jail right now. By helping us understand consequences, it helps us live in a civilized society and helps you refrain from acting on those ungodly urges. Well what about the people that DO act on these urges? It turns out that almost all serial killers and others of the criminal ilk show major deficits in this region. So thanks to the PFC, our inlaws don’t know what we really think of them.  But this year at Thanksgiving, you might wanna toast your pre-frontal cortex for making the whole day a lot less awkward.
Human coolness doesn’t stop there. Do you realize how amazing it is to even read this blog entry? At the core of us lies that uniquely human property we call language, thanks to both Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas (the parts of the brain that respectively help us speak and comprehend). This language thing is pretty neat. I can speak in it to you so that we can coordinate our efforts. I can also think in it. I can even think about thinking itself (whoa). It’s called metacognition, and it’s actually a pretty big deal. To reason about our reasoning is critically important in our lives and society. CBT anyone?
And maybe coolest of all, is that our brains think metaphorically. Scientists are revealing a heck of a lot about how our human conceptual knowledge is both structured and shaped by our bodily, sensory experiences. This perspective is called embodied cognition, and it’s been gaining much empirical ground in recent years.
Take a study by Yale’s John Bargh for example. Participants were brought in for an interview and offered either a warm or iced coffee. They were later asked to rate the interviewer across a bunch of dimensions. The results showed that compared to those with the cold beverage, the ones holding the hot coffee saw the interviewer as more pleasant, warm, and welcoming. And neuroimaging studies have explained that feeling something warm is linked to activity in the insular cortex. This is a part of the brain that, in abnormal conditions, has been linked to uncooperative and distrustful behaviors. What does this mean? Well the upshot is that feeling a warm sensation not only makes us look at others as warmer people, but perhaps makes us behave in ways that are more generous, warm, and trusting, as well. All that from you cup of joe. Weird.
This literal-symbolic confusion doesn’t stop at the insular cortex, either; we see it all over the brain. The idea is that our primitive structures had once evolved to help us solve the more basic problems encountered by our nervous systems. And now they’re being coopted for use in our cool, human-y, hypersocial, 21st century Western way.
Take the concept of pain. Some painkillers take effect by blocking substance P, a neurotransmitter involved in physical pain processing. But it turns out that if you block this substance P, people report less social pain in the workplace. And these findings extend to romantic rejection, too. What does it mean for an Advil to help you get through a breakup? In an overly simplified version, if your body can’t feel pain, neither can your mind.
Let’s go back to the insular cortex again. One of its main functions is that it gives rise to the feeling of disgust. It evolved years ago to help us spit out those poisonous berries, but we know today that it plays a big role in our moral cognition. When we read a story about a hate crime or see something we’re at moral odds with, our insula is firing away like we’re about to hurl. We report that some ideas are so deplorable that they make us sick, because it turns out, they actually do.
So what does all this mean besides that I think it’s totally cool? Well I guess I see it as more evidence of our progress. Hope that we’re getting much closer to understanding the parts of our lives that have baffled us for centuries. The scientist in me wants to first figure out how this stuff works before the humanist in me says we can make a better life of it. But I do believe, as history has proven, that the more we understand about our nature, the more opportunities we’ll see to improve our lives. So far, cognitive neuroscience has shed some nice empirical light into this world. So it’s hopeful and exciting to think that there’s still yet much to be discovered.

Nintendo “Brain Training”

A “brain training” program was included in my son’s new Nintendo DSi XL, I assume to make it more palatable for parents whose kids are hooked on handheld devices.  For example, my son did not once look out of the window of the airplane/bus/car  while we were traveling to New York City because he was so engrossed in his electronic games.  I found this an embarrassing reflection of my parenting skills.  My son was quick to pick up on the marketing plan, though, and excitedly told his dad that his Nintendo is “educational”.

This brain training program focuses on reading and math, and I decided to check out the math training.  After putting in my age, name, and photo a floating head appeared on the screen touting the benefits of the math training for exercising your brain.  fMRI scans were displayed showing brain activity when people were “not thinking about anything” and watching TV.  The floating head explained how to interpret the colors on the brain and emphasized the lack of color patches when people were not thinking about anything in particular.  When watching TV, there was brain activity in the visual cortex (this is not explained by the floating head and I’m wondering if people were watching TV with the sound off because there should be some auditory activity as well?).  Mr. Floating head explained that these are lazy brains – they are not working very hard.  He then showed a brain scan of someone reading out loud and there are color patches all over the cortex.  This brain is working hard!  Floating Head then goes on to explain that brains need to be exercised and that exercise will help the brain become smarter.

Where do I begin?  I am dismayed at the use of fMRI to scare the consumer.  First, people’s brains do not shut off when they are not thinking about anything in particular(can people think about nothing in particular?)  Must we have focused thinking every minute of the day in order to avoid Mr Floating head’s condemnation?  Second, doesn’t brain activity depend what you are watching on TV and how active you are at integrating the material you see?  Also, fMRI uses subtractive analyses.  One’s brain is never inactive so we are always measuring brain activity in comparison to some other situation.  It is always important to know what conditions are being compared.  There may not be much brain activity when watching TV vs listening to the radio, for example.  Third, while there may be some research that shows that exercising your brain can keep it nimble, this is very controversial.  Fourth, if we could train our brain, shouldn’t brain activity decrease rather than increase because our brains are more efficient processors?

With the public having more and more input about what research should be funded, cognitive neuroscientists need to be careful about how they present themselves.  Maybe parents and kids will be excited by this Nintendo brain training program, but what happens when their kids aren’t improving because of this “brain training” that is apparently supported by research?

The Rime of the Ancient Programmer

Knowing how to program is only one skill needed in experimental research.  A more important ability is the patience and thoroughness to assess whether your program is working.  I have had more programming errors than I care to remember, but I catch most of them before we actually start running it in the lab.  I catch them because I start out with the assumption that I’ve screwed everything up.  I have to leave my ego on a shelf somewhere or I won’t catch the errors.  Are the conditions really being presented randomly?  I don’t stop with checking the program to make sure that the Random option is selected.  I run myself through the experiment and check the output file to see if the conditions were actually randomized.  I check the timing to make sure 1 second and 1 second only elapsed between stimulus presentations.  I check everything I can think of.  I even mess up my responses while I’m doing the experiment to make sure that the output file reflects my performance.

However, one programming error recently slipped by me.  It happened because I was rushed.  It was close to the end of the semester and I wanted to pilot this experiment before the subject pool session was over.  I ran myself through a few trials of the experiment, but I did not run through the whole thing.  When, I looked at the datafile it seemed fine.  Not so, not so.  There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling when you discover that you have lost data due to your error and have to start over.  Luckily, we had only managed to run 3 people last Spring because subject pool attendance was so bad.  When I looked at that data, I realized that one of the stimulus colors matched the color of another stimulus, but all the stimulus colors were supposed to be different.  With a larger dataset, I could see that sometimes the color repeated.  Sigh.

Lots of times in my job, and this is not only true for professors, I feel pressure to get things out quickly.  Publish or perish.  It is almost always a mistake to rush.  I have always caught my programming errors before I published any data from an experiment, but it does happen that people have to retract their paper because of a programming error.  Most recently, a highly publicized finding had to be retracted. http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/03/29/0956797611404902.full   I commend these authors for revealing  their programming mistake and take this as a reminder to thoroughly troubleshoot my programs.

Ownership of the red square

People would be surprised to know that computer programming skills are a key component of psychological research.  Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists are interested in subtle phenomena that have to be isolated by novel experimental designs.  This means that we need to program these experiments ourselves because, typically, no one has run this particular experiment before.  Even if we base our experiment on someone else’s design, we usually change some aspects about it.  I find programming to be one of the most fun things about my job.  It is like a big puzzle and in the end the computer is bent to my will.  Yes, computer, you will present a red square in the center of the screen for 1 second, you will NOT wait for a button press, and the timing better be right!  Given its importance for testing our hypotheses, you’d think computer programming would be a required course in grad school.  However, it is not typically required.  My colleague at MSU, Devin McAuley, has put together an elective class at MSU called “Computer programming for behavioral scientists” that I would have jumped at as a grad student.  However, I, and many of my colleagues, are self-taught computer programmers.  I learned Pascal by myself and was saddened when it became a dead language.  Now I use E-prime which takes less hard-coding, has more drag and drop modules with menus to choose timing, randomization, etc.  I do feel less powerful, though.  In Pascal, it was such an effort to present a red square.  You had to draw lines to make a shape and specify the coordinates, determine the RGB color values, so by the end you felt like you owned that red square.  Now, I just make a red square with in Powerpoint by easily choosing the square shape and filling it in with some pre-specified red color.  Easier, but less satisfying.

The fact that I like and am competent at computer programming makes my job a lot easier.  I don’t have to wait for someone else to do my coding and then wonder if it is right.  The time I invested in learning programming was well-spent.  I can do my own coding, knowing full well that somewhere I have done something wrong, and then can fix it myself

Kindling thoughts about implict timing

I have  to admit to reading an excessive number of detective novels.  I like to think these novels resonate with my scientific tendencies, and that they are not just brain candy.  These novels, however, are really starting to take up a lot of real estate in my bookcase at home.  We recently bought a Kindle so that my secret detective novel addiction will be hidden and not on display for everyone to see (I refuse to remove the entire section devoted to Agatha Christie, though).  I read my first novel on the Kindle about a month ago and was struck about how bad I was at “turning the page”.  I would hit the advance button before I was actually done reading the current page, then would have to go back to that section, find my place, and finish reading.  When this kept happening, I realized that I was timing the turning of the page to how long it would take me to turn a paper page.  When I flip the page of a book, I turn it slowly enough that I can read the end of the last paragraph as the page is turning.  What is creepy and fascinating at the same time is that I had no idea I had timed the turning of a page so precisely.  So much so, that it took me probably 20 pages worth of missed sentences to realize that I was messing up the timing and that the Kindle was not malfunctioning.  A lot has been written about implicit timing and sports or music, but not so much about common-place life skills.  There’s a whole world out there of everday experiences for which we have implicit timing codes.  When to release the handle of a curling iron (this timing does not transfer well to a flat iron!), how long to wait between button presses on the TV remote, when to reach for the toner as it goes whizzing by so that you can replace the cartridge.  We don’t even have to be aware of what we know in order to learn and implement these timing skills.

Potentially Transformative

As I prepare to re-submit a grant proposal, I am thinking about the meaning of the word “transformative”.  Reviewers thought I had a “solid” set of studies, but that I should make a better case for why the proposed research is transformative.  NSF has a helpful webpage(http://www.nsf.gov/about/transformative_research/) that defines and describes the characteristics of potentially transformative research.  This is one of the hardest criteria to satisfy in a grant proposal and my colleagues and I spend a lot of time thinking about how our research “… radically changes our understanding”.  Much of science is incremental rather than transformative, yet incremental is not a bad thing.  A systematic and incremental program of research is often helpful in winnowing the truth from a set of reasonable possibilities.  Incremental does not justify government dollars, however, and government dollars are what I need to do fMRI research.  I have found that the transformative nature of my work is there, but I’m just not used to thinking about it or promoting it.  We are taught to hedge in academia and it feels foolhardy to exclaim how this research will change the world.  By stepping up to the challenge of thinking about my work as transformative, it has actually made me value what I do more and has prompted me to add experiments that will have a greater impact on society.  Here’s to hoping I get funded on the next round!