Depth and Breadth for an Efficient Brain: No Short Cuts

Maturation of a neural network. Over time, new nodes are formed 

with their respective connections, and existing connections are 

strengthened. The overall system, still maintains a small world 

structure, and its original base structure.

What are the sorts of activity over the lifespan that shape the efficiency of our brains? Short of taking a pill or undergoing microneurosurgery, how do we engage in cognitive processes that encourage favorable levels of neurotransmitter activity and optimal configurations of neural connectivity? For that matter, is it possible to bypass all the "hard work" of thinking and doing and just pop a pill to make our minds more intelligent? To preempt the latter question, perhaps there is no short cut. But that does not mean we give up. Rather, it means it is all the more critical to lay the right foundations, and it also means, it is never too late to start.

A recent development in our understanding of neural structure might be mapped onto this set of physical properties. Based on graph theory, we now know that the way in which the human brain is wired resembles a small-world network. That is, neurons are connected to each other in the brain such that there is an optimal balance between short-distance, local, connections with close neighboring neurons, as well as long-distance connections via hub neurons. This balance of having both types of connections results in the most efficient structure with which information can be transmitted from one neuron to another, on average. Too many local connections, and information must shuttle through an adverse number of short-range synapses before reaching a distant neuron, increasing time of transfer. Too many long-distance connections, and also information must ridiculously pass through distant neurons before arriving at the neuron which is just beside. Other properties emerge that also are used to characterize the degree to which a network is a small-world network - level of clustering and randomness of connections. Using such indices, we now know that the evident connectivity of the brain seems to represent a high-level of efficiency with regards to the processing of information pertaining to stimuli, memory, thought, and action. Because of such neural organization, we are able to read or hear, comprehend, remember, reason, and respond, all literally within the blink of an eye.

With this background, we come back to the opening questions. If our brains are generally already efficient, how does this efficiency change with age, and if it goes down (as we are apt to assume), how do we keep it at optimum efficiency for as long as possible apart from the use of chemical and physical interventions? How do we optimize our small-world networks via mental interventions?

Lifelong brain-stimulating habits linked to lower Alzheimer's protein levels

Lifelong brain-stimulating habits linked to lower Alzheimer's protein levels: People who have made mental engagement a lifelong habit have lower levels of a key protein linked to Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study by neuroscientists. The findings could provide support for cognitive therapies to help prevent the onset of a debilitating disease.

Rodrigo y Gabriela Return to Mexico City in Triumph

Rodrigo y Gabriela Return to Mexico City in Triumph: The Mexican-born guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, after honing skills and an eclectic style abroad, are welcomed by fans in their hometown, Mexico City.

Solar Eruption Triggers Strongest Radiation Storm in 7 Years - Mashable

Solar Eruption Triggers Strongest Radiation Storm in 7 Years - Mashable:

National Geographic

Solar Eruption Triggers Strongest Radiation Storm in 7 Years Mashable A huge eruption on the Sun has caused the strongest radiation storm since 2005, which is due to hit Earth on Tuesday, Jan 24, possibly causing widespread communications interference. The eruption occurred late on January 22, 2012 sending a burst of ... Huge solar eruption to reach Earth todayTG Daily Largest Solar Radiation Storm in Six Years Headed Toward EarthBusinessWeek Astronauts in Space Safe from Huge Solar Radiation StormSpace.com Fox News -Los Angeles Times -USA TODAY all 690 news articles »

Genetic contributions to stability and change in intelligence from childhood to old age

Genetic contributions to stability and change in intelligence from childhood to old age:

Genetic contributions to stability and change in intelligence from childhood to old age

Nature advance online publication 18 January 2012. doi:10.1038/nature10781

Authors: Ian J. Deary, Jian Yang, Gail Davies, Sarah E. Harris, Albert Tenesa, David Liewald, Michelle Luciano, Lorna M. Lopez, Alan J. Gow, Janie Corley, Paul Redmond, Helen C. Fox, Suzanne J. Rowe, Paul Haggarty, Geraldine McNeill, Michael E. Goddard, David J. Porteous, Lawrence J. Whalley, John M. Starr & Peter M. Visscher

Understanding the determinants of healthy mental ageing is a priority for society today. So far, we know that intelligence differences show high stability from childhood to old age and there are estimates of the genetic contribution to intelligence at different ages. However, attempts to discover whether genetic causes contribute to differences in cognitive ageing have been relatively uninformative. Here we provide an estimate of the genetic and environmental contributions to stability and change in intelligence across most of the human lifetime. We used genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from 1,940 unrelated individuals whose intelligence was measured in childhood (age 11 years) and again in old age (age 65, 70 or 79 years). We use a statistical method that allows genetic (co)variance to be estimated from SNP data on unrelated individuals. We estimate that causal genetic variants in linkage disequilibrium with common SNPs account for 0.24 of the variation in cognitive ability change from childhood to old age. Using bivariate analysis, we estimate a genetic correlation between intelligence at age 11 years and in old age of 0.62. These estimates, derived from rarely available data on lifetime cognitive measures, warrant the search for genetic causes of cognitive stability and change.

Learning the Exception to the Rule: Model-Based fMRI Reveals Specialized Representations for Surprising Category Members

Learning the Exception to the Rule: Model-Based fMRI Reveals Specialized Representations for Surprising Category Members:

Category knowledge can be explicit, yet not conform to a perfect rule. For example, a child may acquire the rule "If it has wings, then it is a bird," but then must account for exceptions to this rule, such as bats. The current study explored the neurobiological basis of rule-plus-exception learning by using quantitative predictions from a category learning model, SUSTAIN, to analyze behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. SUSTAIN predicts that exceptions require formation of specialized representations to distinguish exceptions from rule-following items in memory. By incorporating quantitative trial-by-trial predictions from SUSTAIN directly into fMRI analyses, we observed medial temporal lobe (MTL) activation consistent with 2 predicted psychological processes that enable exception learning: item recognition and error correction. SUSTAIN explains how these processes vary in the MTL across learning trials as category knowledge is acquired. Importantly, MTL engagement during exception learning was not captured by an alternate exemplar-based model of category learning or by standard contrasts comparing exception and rule-following items. The current findings thus provide a well-specified theory for the role of the MTL in category learning, where the MTL plays an important role in forming specialized category representations appropriate for the learning context.

HPB launches mental health kit for the elderly

HPB launches mental health kit for the elderly: SINGAPORE: Senior citizens can guard against dementia and other mental illnesses linked to ageing with a new first aid kit.

Robot brain implanted in a rodent: Researcher implants robotic cerebellum to repair motor function

Robot brain implanted in a rodent: Researcher implants robotic cerebellum to repair motor function: With new cutting-edge technology aimed at providing amputees with robotic limbs, a researcher has successfully implanted a robotic cerebellum into the skull of a rodent with brain damage, restoring its capacity for movement.

How the brain makes memories: Rhythmically

How the brain makes memories: Rhythmically: The brain learns through changes in the strength of synapses -- the connections between neurons -- in response to stimuli. Now, researchers have found there is an optimal brain rhythm, or timing, for changing synaptic strength, and hence learning.

Ageing: Longevity hits a roadblock

Ageing: Longevity hits a roadblock:

Ageing: Longevity hits a roadblock

Nature 477, 7365 (2011). doi:10.1038/477410a

Authors: David B. Lombard, Scott D. Pletcher, Carles Cantó & Johan Auwerx

Increased expression of sirtuin proteins has been shown to enhance lifespan in several organisms. New data indicate that some of the reported effects may have been due to confounding factors in experimental design. Here, experts discuss the significance of these data for research into ageing. See Letter p.482

Equilibrium in the brain: Excitation and inhibition remain balanced, even when the brain undergoes reorganization

Equilibrium in the brain: Excitation and inhibition remain balanced, even when the brain undergoes reorganization: Every second, the brain's nerve cells exchange many billions of synaptic impulses. Two kinds of synapses ensure that this flow of data is regulated: Excitatory synapses relay information from one cell to the next, while inhibitory synapses restrict the flow of information. Scientists can now show that excitatory and inhibitory synapses remain balanced -- even if the brain undergoes reorganization.

Neuroscience: When lights take the circuits out

Neuroscience: When lights take the circuits out:

Neuroscience: When lights take the circuits out

Nature 477, 7363 (2011). doi:10.1038/477165a

Authors: João Peça & Guoping Feng

Circuit-level perturbations in the brain's electrical activity may underlie social-interaction deficits seen in people with schizophrenia and autism. A new optogenetic tool was instrumental in making this discovery. See Article p.171

The ageing systemic milieu negatively regulates neurogenesis and cognitive function

The ageing systemic milieu negatively regulates neurogenesis and cognitive function:

The ageing systemic milieu negatively regulates neurogenesis and cognitive function

Nature 477, 7362 (2011). doi:10.1038/nature10357

Authors: Saul A. Villeda, Jian Luo, Kira I. Mosher, Bende Zou, Markus Britschgi, Gregor Bieri, Trisha M. Stan, Nina Fainberg, Zhaoqing Ding, Alexander Eggel, Kurt M. Lucin, Eva Czirr, Jeong-Soo Park, Sebastien Couillard-Després, Ludwig Aigner, Ge Li, Elaine R. Peskind, Jeffrey A. Kaye, Joseph F. Quinn, Douglas R. Galasko, Xinmin S. Xie, Thomas A. Rando & Tony Wyss-Coray

In the central nervous system, ageing results in a precipitous decline in adult neural stem/progenitor cells and neurogenesis, with concomitant impairments in cognitive functions. Interestingly, such impairments can be ameliorated through systemic perturbations such as exercise. Here, using heterochronic parabiosis we show that blood-borne factors present in the systemic milieu can inhibit or promote adult neurogenesis in an age-dependent fashion in mice. Accordingly, exposing a young mouse to an old systemic environment or to plasma from old mice decreased synaptic plasticity, and impaired contextual fear conditioning and spatial learning and memory. We identify chemokines—including CCL11 (also known as eotaxin)—the plasma levels of which correlate with reduced neurogenesis in heterochronic parabionts and aged mice, and the levels of which are increased in the plasma and cerebrospinal fluid of healthy ageing humans. Lastly, increasing peripheral CCL11 chemokine levels in vivo in young mice decreased adult neurogenesis and impaired learning and memory. Together our data indicate that the decline in neurogenesis and cognitive impairments observed during ageing can be in part attributed to changes in blood-borne factors.

Theory of Psychoneuroenergetics

Number of concepts ~ k_n * Number of synaptic connections ~ k_e * Amount of energy expended

Error and Perfection

Perhaps one consistent aspect of the human condition is the innate struggle to achieve an idealized mental state. At each point in our consciousness, we have a goal, and we seek to meet that goal. The problem is that we always never meet those goals. There is always error, and we cannot stand it.

Our minds then try to reduce this error through adaptation. One method of adaptation is to change the goal so that it is closer to what we can achieve. This can be realized by having a modified goal, or a completely new goal. Interestingly, having a "no goal" state is in itself an idealized goal which can result in error when we seek to achieve it. Another adaptative method is to change the way we achieve the goal. We can re-analyze our previous behavior to reason which actions led to more or less error, and modify those behaviors accordingly.

Formal representations of this heuristics can easily be implemented. However, the question remains as to how the goals come to be about. Contribution from environmental and genetic forces can then be considered this level.

Final resolutions will either be that no error, or goal-relative perfection, is achieved, or else the ability to adapt is halted.

"What" Precedes "Which": Developmental Neural Tuning in Face- and Place-Related Cortex

"What" Precedes "Which": Developmental Neural Tuning in Face- and Place-Related Cortex: "

Although category-specific activation for faces in the ventral visual pathway appears adult-like in adolescence, recognition abilities for individual faces are still immature. We investigated how the ability to represent 'individual' faces and houses develops at the neural level. Category-selective regions of interest (ROIs) for faces in the fusiform gyrus (FG) and for places in the parahippocampal place area (PPA) were identified individually in children, adolescents, and adults. Then, using an functional magnetic resonance imaging adaptation paradigm, we measured category selectivity and individual-level adaptation for faces and houses in each ROI. Only adults exhibited both category selectivity and individual-level adaptation bilaterally for faces in the FG and for houses in the PPA. Adolescents showed category selectivity bilaterally for faces in the FG and houses in the PPA. Despite this profile of category selectivity, adolescents only exhibited individual-level adaptation for houses bilaterally in the PPA and for faces in the 'left' FG. Children only showed category-selective responses for houses in the PPA, and they failed to exhibit category-selective responses for faces in the FG and individual-level adaptation effects anywhere in the brain. These results indicate that category-level neural tuning develops prior to individual-level neural tuning and that face-related cortex is disproportionately slower in this developmental transition than is place-related cortex.

"

How Merkel Decided to End Nuclear Power

How Merkel Decided to End Nuclear Power: "Angela Merkel, her allies say, is ready to lead Germany into an era in which wind and solar energy can replace nuclear plants. But she faces hurdles."

Data are traveling by light

Data are traveling by light: "Regular LEDs can be turned into optical WLAN with only a few additional components thanks to visible light communication (in short, VLC). The lights are then not just lighting up, they also transfer data. They send films in HD quality to your iPhone or laptop, with no loss in quality, quickly and safely."

How Eating Frog Legs Is Causing Frog Extinctions

How Eating Frog Legs Is Causing Frog Extinctions: "

Frog legs are still an amazingly popular food item around the world, including here in the U.S. According to a new report, an average of 2,280 metric tons of frog legs are imported into this country each year--that's the equivalent of somewhere between 450 million and 1.1 billion frogs. Another 2,216 metric tons of live frogs are imported every year for sale in Asian-American markets. [More]

"

First artificial neural network created out of DNA: Molecular soup exhibits brainlike behavior

First artificial neural network created out of DNA: Molecular soup exhibits brainlike behavior: "Researchers have now taken a major step toward creating artificial intelligence -- not in a robot or a silicon chip, but in a test tube. The researchers are the first to have made an artificial neural network out of DNA, creating a circuit of interacting molecules that can recall memories based on incomplete patterns, just as a brain can."

Can humans sense Earth's magnetism? Human retina protein can function as light-sensitive magnetic sensor

Can humans sense Earth's magnetism? Human retina protein can function as light-sensitive magnetic sensor: "New research shows that a protein expressed in the human retina can sense magnetic fields when implanted into Drosophila, reopening an area of sensory biology in humans for further exploration."

Brain-like computing a step closer to reality

Brain-like computing a step closer to reality: "The development of 'brain-like' computers has taken a major step forward. A new study involved the first ever demonstration of simultaneous information processing and storage using phase-change materials. This new technique could revolutionize computing by making computers faster and more energy-efficient, as well as making them more closely resemble biological systems."

Brain performs near optimal visual search

Brain performs near optimal visual search: "Visual search is an important task for the brain. Surprisingly, even in a complex task like detecting an object in a scene with distractions, we find that people's performance is near optimal. That means that the brain manages to do the best possible job given the available information, according to researchers."

Aneyoshi Journal: Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone

Aneyoshi Journal: Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone: "Stone tablets in coastal Japan, some more than six centuries old, are inscribed with simple messages about tsunamis, or give the toll from past disasters."

Spatial navigation training protects the hippocampus against age-related changes during early and late adulthood

Spatial navigation training protects the hippocampus against age-related changes during early and late adulthood: "Publication year: 2011
Source: Neurobiology of Aging, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 16 April 2011
Martin, Lövdén , Sabine, Schaefer , Hannes, Noack , Nils Christian, Bodammer , Simone, Kühn , ...
It is unknown whether lifestyle, including mental stimulation, and appropriate training interventions, may directly improve spatial navigation performance and its underlying neural substrates. Here we report that healthy younger and older men performing a cognitively demanding spatial navigation task every other day over 4 months display navigation-related gains in performance and stable hippocampal volumes that were maintained 4 months after termination of training. In contrast, control groups displayed volume decrements consistent with longitudinal estimates of age-related decline. Hippocampal barrier density, as indicated by mean diffusivity estimated from diffusion tensor imaging, showed a quadratic shape of increased density after training followed..."

Reversible large-scale modification of cortical networks during neuroprosthetic control

Reversible large-scale modification of cortical networks during neuroprosthetic control: "

Reversible large-scale modification of cortical networks during neuroprosthetic control

Nature Neuroscience.
doi:10.1038/nn.2797

Authors: Karunesh Ganguly, Dragan F Dimitrov, Jonathan D Wallis & Jose M Carmena

"

Better a sprint than a marathon: Brief intense exercise better than endurance training for preventing cardiovascular disease

Better a sprint than a marathon: Brief intense exercise better than endurance training for preventing cardiovascular disease: "Exercise is important for preventing cardiovascular disease, especially in children and adolescents, but is all exercise equally beneficial? New research reveals that high intensity exercise is more beneficial than traditional endurance training."

A synaptic organizing principle for cortical neuronal groups [Neuroscience]

A synaptic organizing principle for cortical neuronal groups [Neuroscience]: "Neuronal circuitry is often considered a clean slate that can be dynamically and arbitrarily molded by experience. However, when we investigated synaptic connectivity in groups of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex, we found that both connectivity and synaptic weights were surprisingly predictable. Synaptic weights follow very closely the number of connections in a group of neurons, saturating after only 20% of possible connections are formed between neurons in a group. When we examined the network topology of connectivity between neurons, we found that the neurons cluster into small world networks that are not scale-free, with less than 2 degrees of separation. We found a simple clustering rule where connectivity is directly proportional to the number of common neighbors, which accounts for these small world networks and accurately predicts the connection probability between any two neurons. This pyramidal neuron network clusters into multiple groups of a few dozen neurons each. The neurons composing each group are surprisingly distributed, typically more than 100 μm apart, allowing for multiple groups to be interlaced in the same space. In summary, we discovered a synaptic organizing principle that groups neurons in a manner that is common across animals and hence, independent of individual experiences. We speculate that these elementary neuronal groups are prescribed Lego-like building blocks of perception and that acquired memory relies more on combining these elementary assemblies into higher-order constructs."

[Review] How to Grow a Mind: Statistics, Structure, and Abstraction

[Review] How to Grow a Mind: Statistics, Structure, and Abstraction: "

Authors: Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Charles Kemp, Thomas L. Griffiths, Noah D. Goodman"

200-300 bodies found in Japan's tsunami-hit Sendai

200-300 bodies found in Japan's tsunami-hit Sendai: "TOKYO: Around 200 to 300 bodies were found in a part of Japan's quake and tsunami hit Pacific coast town of Sendai, police said Friday according to media reports."

Alcoholic Beverages Induce Superconductivity

Alcoholic Beverages Induce Superconductivity: "

Wine can help keep conversation flowing at a dinner party. And now it looks like that wine may aid in materials science as well. Japanese researchers discovered that hot alcoholic beverages induce superconductivity in iron-based compounds.

 

[More]"

Why information can't be the basis of reality

Why information can't be the basis of reality: "

Is everything information? This seductive idea animates the brand-new book The Information by James Gleick (Pantheon 2011), which I just rave-reviewed in The Wall Street Journal . Gleick's book is, among other things, an in-depth biography of information theory, which the Bell Labs mathematician Claude Shannon invented in 1948 to provide a framework for improving the efficiency of communications.

A growing number of scientists, Gleick writes, are beginning to wonder whether information "may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself." This notion has inspired other recent books, including Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd (Vintage 2007), Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife (Penguin 2007), Decoding Reality by Vlatko Vedral (Oxford 2010) and Information and the Nature of Reality , a collection of essays edited by Paul Davies (Cambridge 2010). But the everything-is-information meme violates common sense.

[More]"

Effects of Cell Phone Radiofrequency Signal Exposure on Brain Glucose Metabolism [Preliminary Communication]

Effects of Cell Phone Radiofrequency Signal Exposure on Brain Glucose Metabolism [Preliminary Communication]: "

Context The dramatic increase in use of cellular telephones has generated concern about possible negative effects of radiofrequency signals delivered to the brain. However, whether acute cell phone exposure affects the human brain is unclear.

Objective To evaluate if acute cell phone exposure affects brain glucose metabolism, a marker of brain activity.

Design, Setting, and Participants Randomized crossover study conducted between January 1 and December 31, 2009, at a single US laboratory among 47 healthy participants recruited from the community. Cell phones were placed on the left and right ears and positron emission tomography with (¹⁸F)fluorodeoxyglucose injection was used to measure brain glucose metabolism twice, once with the right cell phone activated (sound muted) for 50 minutes ('on' condition) and once with both cell phones deactivated ('off' condition). Statistical parametric mapping was used to compare metabolism between on and off conditions using paired t tests, and Pearson linear correlations were used to verify the association of metabolism and estimated amplitude of radiofrequency-modulated electromagnetic waves emitted by the cell phone. Clusters with at least 1000 voxels (volume >8 cm³) and P < .05 (corrected for multiple comparisons) were considered significant.

Main Outcome Measure Brain glucose metabolism computed as absolute metabolism (µmol/100 g per minute) and as normalized metabolism (region/whole brain).

Results Whole-brain metabolism did not differ between on and off conditions. In contrast, metabolism in the region closest to the antenna (orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole) was significantly higher for on than off conditions (35.7 vs 33.3 µmol/100 g per minute; mean difference, 2.4 [95% confidence interval, 0.67-4.2]; P = .004). The increases were significantly correlated with the estimated electromagnetic field amplitudes both for absolute metabolism (R = 0.95, P < .001) and normalized metabolism (R = 0.89; P < .001).

Conclusions In healthy participants and compared with no exposure, 50-minute cell phone exposure was associated with increased brain glucose metabolism in the region closest to the antenna. This finding is of unknown clinical significance.

"

Robot Butler Hitching Ride to Space on Shuttle Discovery - Fox News

Robot Butler Hitching Ride to Space on Shuttle Discovery - Fox News: "

CBC.ca

Robot Butler Hitching Ride to Space on Shuttle Discovery Fox News Life aboard the International Space Station will get a little cushier when a robot butler arrives at the orbiting lab later this week. The space shuttle Discovery, slated to launch Thursday afternoon, is carrying a humanoid robot named ... Space shuttle Discovery fueled for its last flightReuters Final countdown: Space shuttle Discover blasts off for the last time todayDigitaltrends.com Space shuttle Discovery poised for final liftoffUSA Today Space.com -The Daily Citizen all 1,919 news articles »

"

National Margarita Day: Recipes to Celebrate With! - myGLOSS

National Margarita Day: Recipes to Celebrate With! - myGLOSS: "

HULIQ

National Margarita Day: Recipes to Celebrate With! myGLOSS It's National Margarita Day! Who knew? But now that you do know, we've got some recipes to help you celebrate the holiday with classic recipes and some tasty variations too. First, a good margarita has to have good chips and salsa to go with…so pick up ... It's National Margarita DayMyFox Chicago Today is National Margarita DayCorpus Christi Caller Times It's National Margarita Day - do you have a favorite NJ Mexican restaurant?NJ.com Huffington Post -Long Island Press -San Antonio Express all 42 news articles »

"

Scientists steer car with the power of thought

Scientists steer car with the power of thought: "Computer scientists have developed a system making it possible to steer a car with your thoughts. Using new commercially available sensors to measure brain waves -- sensors for recording electroencephalograms (EEG) -- the scientists were able to distinguish the bioelectrical wave patterns for control commands such as 'left,' 'right,' 'accelerate' or 'brake' in a test subject."

Scientists customize a magnet's performance by strategically replacing key atoms

Scientists customize a magnet's performance by strategically replacing key atoms: "Scientists have strategically replaced key atoms in a gadolinium-germanium compound, causing changes in the resulting alloy's ferromagnetism. The discovery may eventually help as materials scientists search for new, exotic substances for use in today's and future generations of high-tech products."

Researchers aim to resurrect mammoth in five years

Researchers aim to resurrect mammoth in five years: "TOKYO - Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years' time."

Learning to move machines with the mind

Learning to move machines with the mind: "Publication year: 2010
Source: Trends in Neurosciences, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 20 December 2010
Andrea M., Green , John F., Kalaska
Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) extract signals from neural activity to control remote devices ranging from computer cursors to limb-like robots. They show great potential to help patients with severe motor deficits perform everyday tasks without the constant assistance of caregivers. Understanding the neural mechanisms by which subjects use BCI systems could lead to improved designs and provide unique insights into normal motor control and skill acquisition. However, reports vary considerably about how much training is required to use a BCI system, the degree to which performance improves with practice and the underlying neural mechanisms. This review examines these diverse findings, their..."

HDB's first eco-precinct

HDB's first eco-precinct: "SINGAPORE: Singapore's public housing has gone green."

Doctors may have found HIV cure

Doctors may have found HIV cure: "WASHINGTON: An American man is still HIV-free more than three years after receiving a stem cell transplant, suggesting the first-ever cure of the virus that causes AIDS, German doctors said Wednesday."

Ageing study to be done in 3 phases

Great news! Something practical at least...

Ageing study to be done in 3 phases: "SINGAPORE : The five-year study in Marine Parade on ageing, announced by Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong on Sunday, will be carried out in three phases."

Singapore's salad days are over

Posting in Nature about Singapore's research funding system.
Perhaps one should not blame a country, but bite down and realize that to produce something, one needs to work hard...
But at the same time, the need for and nature of freedom in research is poorly understood in most government and industrial organization, in my opinion.

Singapore's salad days are over

Singapore's salad days are over

Nature 468, 7325 (2010). doi:10.1038/468731a

Uncertainty has replaced confidence as economic reality bites science in the city-state and scientists find that their research funds now come with strings attached.

Goodbye Champaign, IL.

This is for all my friends past and present in Champaign-Urbana, IL. And this is difficult.

It is difficult to say goodbye to you. It means I cannot see you as often as I like. It means that our paths will go separate ways. It means that all the things we've experienced together in the past will be faint memories and I cannot touch them.

This has been and always will be my home. For here is where I have left a part of my heart. That part will very soon split into a hundred pieces, and each go their own way to various parts of the earth. Is this not the most painful thing in the world?

Till we meet again.

Neuroscience: Movement decoded

Neuroscience: Movement decoded: "

Neuroscience: Movement decoded

Nature 466, 534 (2010). doi:10.1038/466534f

J. Neurosci.30, 9659–9669 (2010) 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5443-09.2010Brain signals in monkeys have been decoded and used to reconstruct three-dimensional arm movements, raising the possibility of future neuroprosthetic devices that people who are paralysed could use to control robotic arms for

"

Brain-like computing on an organic molecular layer

Brain-like computing on an organic molecular layer: "One big advantage a brain's circuitry has always had over a computer's is its ability to evolve as it tackles complex problems. Now, scientists have created a tiny computing device with a brain-like 'evolutionary circuit.'"

This is really really cool technology.

Reasoning about social conflicts improves into old age [Psychological_And_Cognitive_Sciences-BS]

Reasoning about social conflicts improves into old age [Psychological_And_Cognitive_Sciences-BS]: "It is well documented that aging is associated with cognitive declines in many domains. Yet it is a common lay..."

Aging and wisdom PNAS article just out.

No gain from brain training

"The largest trial to date of "brain-training" computer games suggests that people who use the software to boost their mental skills are likely to be disappointed.

The study, a collaboration between British researchers and the BBC Lab UK web site, recruited viewers of the BBC science program "Bang Goes the Theory" to practice a series of online tasks for a minimum of ten minutes a day, three times a week, for six weeks. [More]"

No one would debate that the transfer of training on a specific task to another is meager. What is a better framework to understand this work, however, may be to ask what kinds of training affect what kinds of cognitive ability. One key may be how abstract a level of processing is involved...

Neural mechanisms of ageing and cognitive decline

Key review article just out in Nature.

Neural mechanisms of ageing and cognitive decline

Nature 464, 529 (2010). doi:10.1038/nature08983

Authors: Nicholas A. Bishop, Tao Lu & Bruce A. Yankner

During the past century, treatments for the diseases of youth and middle age have helped raise life expectancy significantly. However, cognitive decline has emerged as one of the greatest health threats of old age, with nearly 50% of adults over the age of 85 afflicted ...

Two views of brain function

Two views of brain function:

Publication year: 2010
Source: Trends in Cognitive Sciences, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 4 March 2010
Marcus E., Raichle

Traditionally studies of brain function have focused on task-evoked responses. By their very nature, such experiments tacitly encourage a reflexive view of brain function. Although such an approach has been remarkably productive, it ignores the alternative possibility that brain functions are mainly intrinsic, involving information processing for interpreting, responding to and predicting environmental demands. Here I argue that the latter view best captures the essence of brain function, a position that accords well with the allocation of the brain's energy resources. Recognizing the importance of intrinsic activity will require integrating knowledge from cognitive and systems neuroscience with cellular and molecular..."

A New Spin on Conductivity: Electric Signals Can Propagate through an Insulator

Possible inorganic myelin sheath?

A New Spin on Conductivity: Electric Signals Can Propagate through an Insulator:

An electric insulator, in the simplest terms, blocks the flow of electric current. So it would be a bit counterintuitive, to say the least, if a current on one side of an insulator could produce voltage on the other. [More]

Reduced Neural Selectivity Increases fMRI Adaptation with Age during Face Discrimination

Key project finally published! This took quite a while, but it was worth it.

[Link to article if you have journal access]
[Link to Pubmed abstract access]

By Joshua O., Goh , Atsunobu, Suzuki , Denise C., Park
Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA; Center for Vital Longevity, University of Texas, Dallas, TX, USA.

Ventral-visual activity in older adults has been characterized by dedifferentiation, or reduced distinctiveness, of responses to different categories of visual stimuli such as faces and houses, that typically elicit highly specialized responses in the fusiform and parahippocampal brain regions respectively in young adults (Park et al., 2004). In the present study, we demonstrate that age-related neural dedifferentiation applies to within-category stimuli (different types of faces) as well, such that older adults process less distinctive representations for individual faces than young adults. We performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging adaptation experiment while young and older participants made same-different judgments to serially presented face-pairs that were Identical, Moderate in similarity through morphing, or Different. As expected, older adults showed adaptation in the fusiform face area (FFA), during the Identical as well as the Moderate conditions relative to the Different condition. Young adults showed adaptation during the Identical condition, but minimal adaptation to the Moderate condition. These results indicate that older adults' FFA treated the morphed faces as Identical faces, reflecting decreased fidelity of neural representation of faces with age.

NeuroImage, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 6 February 2010

Origami and the Brain

Origami. The art of folding paper into shapes using a single sheet of paper without tearing or cutting. Perhaps, at an abstract level, this may be likened to what our brains do. We have one brain. We can't make big changes to it, like take one part of the brain and manually "connect" it to another part of the brain. Rather, we have to work within the limits of certain neural connection rules to establish a certain way to get to an end state.

For example, some rules may be related to the fact that our neurons have many short range local connections with neighboring neurons, as well as, some long range connections to more distant groups of neurons. Establishing and pruning these connections is dependent on time and stimulation from external as well as internal events. These events can be cognitive or biological or physical (e.g. the intention to retrieve a memory, or some neurotransmitter regulation, or some visual energy input, respectively). Within this system, our brains try to represent external information, and to generate certain actions or responses.

In a similar manner, in origami, each fold is like an imprint of an event that happens. The effect of folding, however, is limited by the thickness, elasticity, and size of the paper, as well as the force of the folding. Folding could be a sharp strong crease, a light depression, or a curve. Folding also occurs along specific lines or regions on the paper at a time. Finally, folding has temporal order. Through a combination of these factors, the paper encodes what forces have been exerted on it, and represents all of that in a particular physical form. The end state.

The end state maybe be a meaningful shape, or it may have a meaningful function. We can transform a simple piece of paper into a form of a crane, or a box, or a really complex shape (origami experts have been able to do wonders!). We can even use the tension inherent in the folded paper as a spring with tremendous kinetic energy when released. We can also use folding to allow a large piece of material that ordinarily would not fit in specific area to conform to the shape and therefore fit in the area.

Likewise, the brain performs an interesting function in incorporating sensory information from the physical world and representing all the rich material within a single piece of organic tissue. This "folding" of information from one state to another may be a framework to understand neural function.

Consider that we can quantify the physical forces and characteristics of a piece of paper and its folds. Based on low level parameters, we can then determine what the origami will look like, what it can do, what properties its resulting form maintains. Applying a similar method to parameterize neural function may allow us to better describe how the properties of the brain relate to cognition and behavior. For example, the ease with which a paper folds may be dependent on the thickness of the paper (for a given material elasticity/rigidity/brittleness). This will in turn determine how much force must be applied to the paper to achieve a fold of a certain angle. In the same way, one property of the brain may be how strong the connections in a certain neuronal region may be. The stronger the connections, the easier it may be for a signal in one region to affect the activity in another. Another case in point, the brain maintains a certain level to generate new neurons in key parts of the cortex. Neurogenesis is known to occur even in late adulthood in the hippocampus and the peri-ventricular walls. Importantly, recent studies have shown that neurogenesis may be helpful in overcoming drug addiction. A possible mechanism might be that the new neurons enable the brain to represent existing addiction behaviors (information "folding"), in a new way that discourages addiction [link to relevant post]. Moreover, it is possible that different individuals have different rates, or ability, of neurogenesis, and external events or neurochemical interventions may also encourage neurogenesis. It is this rate of neurogenesis that might be a candidate parameter that determines how much a particular brain can fold.

Of course, this is all analogical. There is no necessary association between paper and brain. But, this presents an interesting way to approach the problem of quantifying brain function. Paper folding has been applied to several interesting real life problems. For example, the folding of solar-energy panels into a satellite so that large plates fit into a small structure for launching, and unfold in space to achieve maximum surface area for efficient energy collection. In addition, protein folding occurs according to the electro-chemical forces at the molecular level. Paper folding has been applied to understanding and even manipulating these forces to make protein molecules that achieve specific helpful biomolecular functions. Here's an example of applying origami to practical problem from an MIT group [link].

After all, the reason why origami is meaningful, is because we perceive cranes in a few simple folds.

The Automation of Science

Article from Science:

[REPORTS] The Automation of Science
"A robot scientist discovers orphan enzymes that take part in yeast metabolism."

This was published a while ago. But it may be worth mentioning because it could be the pivotal moment in AI.

Increasing neurogenesis might prevent drug addiction and relapse

Article from ScienceDaily:

Increasing neurogenesis might prevent drug addiction and relapse
"Researchers hope they have begun paving a new pathway in the fight against drug dependence."

This makes computational sense. Adding new neurons creates the possibility of forming new inhibitory connections, as well as de-potentiating the strength, or contribution, of existing ones. Such predifferentiated neurons serve as fresh unwritten computational space for which new behaviors and cognitions can be learned. In addition, old pathways which have been entrained and which are hard to change (because of prolonged experience or intensity) can have their effects counterbalanced.

Boston 2009

Click here to view these pictures larger

New Year Thoughts

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

"No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

"Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.

"If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also."

1 John 4:7-21

How difficult it is to love! How easy it is to know we have to do it, to say it. But it is next to impossible to do it. John gives a good reminder that inspires and defines for us what life we should be living. If we chase after anything, it should be love. For God is love. This is the contemplation on the eve of 2009.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Separation vs. Association

A key function of the brain is to first, process the fact that we are encountering different types of stimuli at every moment, and second, process the simultaneous fact that while there are these different types of stimuli, there are also many consistencies that reflect modifications of the same stimulus at a higher level of abstraction.

One way to evaluate what a cortical region may be doing with respect to this separation/association dichotomy may be to determine the number of neurons at the first level relative to the second level.

If the ratio of neurons at the first relative to second level is large, then the function of the second level is probably to associate. This is a many-to-few limitation. So various permutations and combinations at the first level are funneled into the reduced dimensionality of the second level. Therefore, some combinations are subsumed.

If the ratio of neurons from first to second levels is small, then there is the potential for expansion. The problem becomes a few-to-many scenario. The same combination at the first level may elicit several possible outcomes at the second level. There is information expansion.

...

Slicing up HM's brain

Watch HM's brain being documented, slice by slice.

Click here for live link. At the time of this posting, they are already at the occipital structures. So they may finish soon. Not sure what will happen to the link or the video once this entire process is done.

HM was a famous epileptic patient who had much of his medial temporal structures removed as a treatment for the epilepsy. The result of this operation rendered HM unable to form new long-term memories. This finding was instrumental in the notion that the medial temporal structures, such as the hippocampus, is important for memory. Since his operation, HM has been heavily studied. HM passed away on the 8 Dec 2008 due to respiratory failure. [More about HM]

PhD Degree

Got my degree today in the mail. This has got to be the hardest sheet of paper to obtain in your lifetime!

Boston 2009

This is my first time to Boston, the beginning of America. The brief history is that the revolution of early settlers began here against the British colonialist at the time. It was a bunch of people living in Boston Commons, who held radical views of freedom, that banded together and stood up to the military authorities at the time. Today, Boston is full of history...and oysters.

In fact, Charlene and I are here for the Psychophysiological Society annual meeting. This is the 50th anniversary of the conference and there was much to celebrate. This was my first time to attend this conference, and I was a little unsure of what to expect. Of course, this is not a neuroscience conference, so I did not expect to see the usual crowd. But to my surprise, I actually met a lot of old friends here. A bunch of people from the cognitive aging group, some people from Singapore, some friends from Japan, and a lot of people from Illinois! It felt good that this conference was, to me, more about meeting people than it was explicitly about the posters and talks, although some of those were interesting.

Back to the oysters. Have I ever told you that Boston oysters (which are actually mostly from Maine or at least, further out at sea and are so technically not from Boston), are awesome? You can taste the sea in them. Basically, you should eat these raw. Don't even bother with the lemon, and don't drown yourself in oysters. Have a few, like 3 or 4. And stop. And let the ocean water that was sucked up by the oysters cleanse your body as it permeates your mouth. Seriously, that's really what its like.

Fortuitously, we also met an old Singaporean friend who brought us to an awesome place farther out from Boston (Chung Shin Yuan) for the best bowl of 牛肉面, 豆漿 and 油條 that I have had in a long time.

And now...back home! Yay!

Berlin 2009

After participating for a week in a conference in Chicago (Society for Neuroscience, 2009), Charlene and I headed towards Europe. She was attending another conference (Society for Psychophysiological Research, 2009) and I was attending a vacation.

The origins of this trip to Europe for me, began with quite a lot of trouble. Namely because at the time of thinking about going for this trip, I was caught up in writing my dissertation, flying about between labs, worrying about data, and the future, and about spending money, and going home. But things happened, and I thought that this would be worth it, with the pleasant company (of course that alone is enough!), the seeing of new places, and the partaking of glorious beer and sausages. Besides, some people reflected to me that Berlin is a donut of a place.

This was my first time to Berlin, and my first time to Europe, actually. And I have to say, it was more than worth it. The culture alone is enough to leave a novel thought in my head. And that is saying something! One is reminded of reality, and its depth, which brings a sense of peace. But, enough of such philosophical nonsense. Here's a sample of the most impressionable experiences.

While Charlene was hard at work in the SPR conference meetings, I took a walk around Alexanderplatz and Museum Insel. For those of you who are well informed, Alexanderplatz is where Jason Bourne arranged to meet Nicki, "kidnapped" her in front of a bunch of snipers surrounding the area, brought her to one of the station underground service rooms, interrogated her and frightened the socks of of her to find out some secret info. This photo shows the world clock that is at Alexanderplatz.

We met Koki there and his friend, Goran, works at the Max Planck Institute (which I also visited). Goran mentioned this rather hole-in-the-wall place that sold the famous curry wurst. It is called Konnopke's Imbiss, and is at Eberswalderstrasse. The shop is basically a trailer underneath the train tracks. There is apparently always a long line of people waiting to buy the curry wurst, along with a large family of pigeons. Careful while standing there! The curry wurst is probably not anything special...but in the cold of the Berlin autumn weather, standing around with friends, and with a Berliner Pilsner, any sausage instantly transforms into a gourmet satisfaction.

On the last night of our time there, Charlene and I caught some Berlin Opera in authentic diaphragmatic German. Ich lieber du, Ich lieber du! The Rosenkavalier was the opera. Again, worth watching for its beauty. After that, we strolled down the famous Unter de Linden and saw the famous Brandenburger Tor (not the alcoholic burger, but the Brandenburg gate). Before seeing this, I thought, its just a gate. After seeing it, I thought, wow...a lot of things happened here. Incidentally, there is really a U2 train station here, in coincidence with the U2 band, which played here during the celebration of the fall of the wall.

We also managed to pass by the wall without taking a photo of it...so too bad. This is because the wall is really gone. Nuff said.

Finally, we ended our trip with a belly full of Eisbein (the famous Berlin pork knuckles) and the famous Berlin meat balls. In the famous Berlin restaurant called Standig Vertretung. Which is located at Friedrichstrasse. Incidentally, Friedrichstrasse is where Jason Bourne dashes out from the hotel (also in Berlin, Berliner Zeitung), runs to the train station to evade the cops, jumps onto a boat under the station (which is over the Spree river), climbs back up on the other side of the bridge, and gets into another train and escapes.

Berlin...Ich glauber sie haben mein beir, vergessen!

More photos [here]

Developments after...

This has got to be the wettest year ever. The rains got so bad this year that snow aphids snowed down on our small little town of Champaign. Winter rears its cold face around the corner now.

The reason why I am posting this now, is because I have just returned from a series of inspirational events. Traveling north and south between Champaign and Dallas takes its toll at times. You get up early at 6am, clean up, and get on the 7.30am flight (2 hrs). Reach DFW. Get onto the shuttle for the rental car mall of the airport (takes 15min). Get the car, drive to the Dallas lab (20min). Work. Check-in to Embassy Suites (which is an awesome hotel!). And on trips back, leave the lab by 4pm. Return the rental car, take the shuttle to terminal B of DFW. Pass security. Have a beer and a burger at TGIF in the airport before getting on the 6.50pm flight back to Champaign, and be picked up by a familiar face.

Do this 20 times.

Recently though, work has been progressing. Papers are being submitted. Finally. And hopefully accepted! But I think the most inspiring event happened yesterday. Instead of going south, I headed north and gave talks at Northwestern. The data seems well received and everyone seems so interested and in agreement. I felt glad. It was worthwhile to drive up 3hrs and back 3hrs for that one day of wonderful meetings and interactions.

Now, the main concern are next steps. Where to go after this one year of post-doctoral research? Another post-doctoral position? Faculty? Tough decisions with too many factors that plague my mind, that give no clear direction. No amount of grad school prepares you for this! For life!

One can only dive in.

PhD

Well, it is the start of the first weekend after defending. How was the defense? It was utterly fun. How often can you squash 5 brilliant minds in one room and have them talk about your work? How often can you debate with them and have them listen to your thoughts on things? How often can you hear them agree or even disagree with you in the most honest sense of it all? I would wish this on anybody who dares to try.

No one knows it all. But the defense is about stating what you know, and what you know you don't know. It is about being honest, and seeking truth. If what you find is real, it will bear itself. If what you think is true, you will find it. Sound familiar?

After the defense, we all went to Jim Gould's to have dinner. And it was, how shall I put it, fun! I think I felt it, that warmth of accomplishment. So that food tastes better. Sweetness has a fragrance, salt floods with depth, sour comes with juiciness, and bitter? There is no bitter.

Soon after, we watched an amazing movie - Inglorious Basterds! What a choice right? Brad Pitt was brilliant. Incidentally, Brangelina was in my defense.

The next day, I cleaned up the mess that was my apartment. It felt good to exert mindless sweat. The day after, we watched Mamma Mia. Tomorrow, BBQ!

That's what PhD is about, what happens before and after.

On the road to Permanent Head Damage

It is just one more week to the final defense. The big D day literally. I have submitted my dissertation draft, after reading it for the hundredth time, re-crunching the numbers for the thousandth, and clicked the save button on Word for the millionth time. After sending the document off, and the first thought that came to mind was how stupid I was. Really. After devoting a whole month of intense thought on the data, I realize that that's all I really knew. And the other things around me took on their own life, grew up, and now, I don't recognitize them. So its going to take a while to reintegrate back into reality.

Now, its just one more powerpoint to go, and then...the same-o same-o. I sure hope all this is worth it! So far, it seems to be. If not for anything then just because life becomes a little clearer as we find out a little more, each step.

I like Douglas Adam's thought: Someone somewhere theorized that the minute a human being sits down and figures out how the universe works, it would immediately be replaced by another more complex universe...some say that this has already happened. Really, what I think about all this is that everything is like a donut. Nuff said.

Agnostic Brain, Biased Mind - what does the FFA do?

Many neuroimaging studies have repeatedly found an area in the human brain that seems to be involved in processing visual faces. This area located in the fusiform gyri in humans, has been affectionately named the fusiform face area or FFA. The FFA is most active when we are looking at pictures of faces, and almost non-responsive to other types of visual items such as objects, houses, scenes, random textures, or a blank screen. Prosopagnosics, who are not able to recognize faces, but are still able to detect the presence of a face and also show no difficulty in processing other types of visual stimuli, have been shown to involve less FFA activity. Even more compelling, patients with lateral occipital lobes lesioned lose some form of object-processing, but show intact face processing. And yet other patients with lesions that have affected the FFA, have problems with face processing (acquired prosopagnosia) but intact processing for other stimuli. The evidence strongly suggests that there is something special about faces, and something about the FFA that deals with this specialization.

The debate regarding the FFA pertain to whether it is the only region or even a critical region that does face processing. Some labs have shown that face processing information can be found in other regions of the brain that are not the FFA. Yet some labs have shown that the FFA is recruited to process fine levels of category distinctions. For example, bird and car experts have been shown to engage some level of FFA activity when processing these stimuli compared to novices. These findings suggest that the FFA is not processing faces per se, but visual representations that have come to require high-levels of fine discrimination through experience, of which faces are the best example of this currently.

I suggest that a more flexible definition is called for when thinking about the FFA and its role in processing visual information. Certainly, it does seem that faces occupy a special place in human experiences. On the other hand, it is difficult to explain why there would be a brain region that codes for faces and faces along based simply based on genetic or biologically determined causes.

In terms of a neural network, if indeed the brain consists of many different sub-types of neural networks that conglomerate to form one large complex network, the FFA is a sub-network specialized to perform a specific operation that is maximized and specialized (trained) for a specific information domain - faces. This or these specific operation(s) could involve identification, discrimination, recognition, or all of these, or even a yet unknown operation. Certainly neural network non-linearities can surprise us! Moreover, these operations have been tuned for a specialized class of stimuli that consists of eyes, nose, mouths, and other visual characteristics of faces when occurring together as a whole (whether from external input, or through internal imagination or retrieval).

What this means is that if you were able to "remove" the FFA, and plug it into a computer so that you can feed this FFA network with inputs and measure its outputs, you could theoretically feed it anything, but the information would be most meaningful or organized when the inputs correspond to information about a face. Of course, this would require us to know what is the language of the input to perform such an experiment.

Other types of inputs may elicit some level of meaningful output of the FFA. Neural network do that. Yet other types may elicit nothing at all. This does not necessarily mean that the FFA outputs from such inputs is useless, nor does necessarily mean that it is used! It is just output. What higher-level brain mechanisms do with the output depends on the task, and how the brain is wired to treat outputs from its sub-networks. It may be ignored, or it may actually incorporate relevant information. That is, the FFA is agnostic to the incoming information. It does not care. It will process it anyway. But other regions decide whether what is it saying needs to be incorporated or not, or if it should be further modified even.

Such a view would reconcile why the FFA is special for faces, yet seems to be carrying some information about other stimuli. It would also be consistent with the idea that information about faces is certainly also available to a certain extent in non-FFA regions, the same principles being applied to these other sub-networks. It would also be consistent with how self-organizing behavior in neural network (see von der Malsburg article [link]) can lead to a consistent topology across every person that processes a particular stimulus in a particular way in a particular spatial location.

This is probably not a new idea, but needs to be clarified in the literature I think.

Wicked Witch of the West steps on Scarecrow Brains with Magic Red Shoes

Charlene and I made this for Qinwei's birthday. We spent a whole week modifying things and planning what we could do to fit the Wizard of Oz theme. This is the result.

Ingredients

Green peppers

Red peppers

Bean sprouts

Rice

Can of corn

Carrots

Squash

Method

Cook the rice. Set it aside when done. First dice up the carrots and squash into small cubes. Make sure the corn is drained and dry. Pre-heat over to 350F. Start frying the carrots and squash in some oil. When they are almost done, add the corn and fry the mix for a few more minutes. Add the rice and mix the ingredients well under high heat. Add salt and pepper to taste. When done, cut the top off the green peppers, remove the seeds, and scoop the fried rice into the green peppers, making sure that they are compact. Coat the peppers with a little oil. Place the stuff green peppers into the oven, you can also bake the red pepper as well, it should take around 15-20 min. While the peppers are baking, stir fry the bean sprouts adding salt and pepper to taste. When the bean sprouts are done, lay them on the plate. Take the peppers out of the oven when done. Cut the red peppers into strips so that you can form little "shoes". Arrange them on the plate of bean sprouts, and place the whole green peppers on top of the red pepper shoes. Done! Wicked Witch of the West steps on Scarecrow Brains with her Magic Red Shoes.

3T Trio finds a new home in Beckman Institute

The Siemens 3T Trio is a full body MRI scanner. The Beckman Institute just recently acquired it. Today, the machine was brought to the basement of the Beckman building and we were fortunate enough to have some free time to glimpsed part of the process.

The scanner was brought in through a hole they have in the back of the building. It had rained the night before, so the ground around the hole was a little soggy. More importantly, they had to move fast because more rain was coming. The movers had to remove the heavy covers on the hole, lift the magnet bore and lower it into the basement, where there is a trolley for them to push the magnet into its final place. The movers took a break halfway because the rain did come anyway, before they could finish, but they continued later. As far as I know, the scanner is in the basement now, just waiting to be tested and used!

This is a full-body scanner, compared to the head-only scanner 3T Allegra. It should provide more uniform signal, although the 3T Allegra is sometimes better for certain sequences, or so I hear. So we'll see which one shines. They will move the 3T Allegra, head-only scanner, which is right now at the BIC down south, up into the Beckman basement as well, once this Trio is fully functional. There will still be about a month or so of testing and installation before we can begin to use it.

If you are my Facebook friend, you can check out other photos I have of this there [Facebook photo link].

An evening at Harvest Moon Drive-In

We went again to Bayern Stube, the German restaurant at Gibson City, just 40 min away from Champaign by car. This was to celebrate Sylvia's completion of her defense and graduating! Bayern Stube sells great beer and sausages, not to mention awesome desserts. Creme brule there is a must.

After dinner, we watched Year One at the nearby Harvest Moon Drive-In theater. Back in the good old days in Singapore, we used to have one drive-in theater at Jurong. This was taken over my mediacorp and turned into some place for housing film sets.

Harvest Moon Drive-In as two screens, and the thrill is not so much the movie, as it is the feel of sitting out under the stars, watching a screen, straining your ears to hear the dialogue from other peoples' car radios (you don't turn on your own because you are afraid the car battery will die out). And have that venture thwarted because the local train rolls by, chugging along on the metal tracks just behind the screen. The mosquitoes make a full meal out of you. Some people bring their sofas out behind the back of their trucks, some people bring their bbq. As the sun sets, the sky is glorious. All these make the movie a wonderful experience, no matter what the movie is about!

Cognitive abilities in kindergartners and first graders: A comparison, evaluation, and extension of models using data from Robinson et al. (1996)

Paper submitted for final in structural equation modeling class, Spring 2009, UIUC Psychology. This paper is a critique of Robinson et al.'s (1996) paper on "The structure of abilities in math-precocious young children: Gender similarities and differences", published in the Journal of Educational Psychology (Vol. 88, Iss. 2, p341-352). This current paper, though, focuses on the age differences in abilities of kindergartners and first graders.

It is known that very young children show less differentiated cognitive abilities. Children who perform well in tests such as those involving math, tend to have correlated performance in other tests such as in verbal tests. As children age and progress towards adolescence, however, their cognitive abilities becomes differentiated so that abilities such as math and verbal abilities are not necessarily equally developed in the child.

Presumably, this occurs because when children are very young, they are untrained and unaffected by external factors such as education and related experiences (e.g. streaming into majors). Thus, the best predictor of the child's performance is the individual difference or a general factor. With age, the child undergoes specialization where children start to develop more specific knowledge in selective domains. Some children become more trained at math, while others at language. Importantly, these abilities aren't always equally developed. This may be the underlying reason for differentiated abilities in older children.

This current paper is a methodological exploration of the data in Robinson et al. (1996) using various modifications of the basic structural equation model. The main results are consistent with differentiated abilities in first graders relative to kindergartners. Some discrepancies in Robinson et al.'s (1996) paper are noted as well.

[Download pdf of paper]

VSS Conference Day 4: Demo Night Exhibit

VSS Conference Day 4: Demo Night Dinner

VSS Conference Day 4: Beach Day

VSS Conference Day 4: My Poster

This poster was presented at VSS Conference 2009 [link to VSS website], morning session [download poster pdf]. This study investigated the effect of task instructions on repetition suppression in the brain. Repetition suppression refers to the phenomenon that the brain response to repeated stimuli is usually reduced or attenuated. It is thought that such reduction in brain response reflects less neuronal recruitment, and hence, a more "efficient" way of processing the same information.
In this study, however, I postulated that under certain circumstances, the brain requires more neuronal recruitment in order to effectively process information for task demands. That is, repetition suppression becomes inefficient because it reduces the degrees of freedom that the brain can use to manipulate existing representations.

The study evaluated brain response in the fusiform region to face-pairs morphed at different levels of similarity. The idea is that the more similar face-pairs are, the more repetition suppression should be observed in the fusiform face area. Participants viewed the face-pairs under two different task instructions. The first task made face-pair similarity irrelevant. In this task, repetition suppression was observed to repeated faces. In the second task, face-pairs were made critical as participants had to make same-different judgments about the pairs. In this task, repetition suppression was eliminated.

The idea here is that in the same-different judgment task, the brain has to represent faces as distinctinctively as possible so that subtle morph differences can be detected. Thus, repetition suppression is prevented, possibly from executive function areas that process task instruction and exert a top-down modulatory control in the fusiform area.

The study also shows that there are individual differences in participants ability to exert this top-down modulation to regulate repetition suppression in the fusiform regions. This study was also performed in older adults, which will be reported in a subsequent research article. Briefly though, it is thought that older adults show declines in behavioral performance because of less distinctiveness in cognitive representations. This design is thus useful as a means to measure and related distinctinveness of representations in the brain and how that affects behavior.

VSS Conference Day 3: Illusion Night

Start of Illusion Night! This is an annual event where conference attendees submit their visual illusions for competition to see who's is the best. The top 10 are selected and show their exhibit here at Illusion Night. You can check out the illusions online [link]. The one that really wowed me was the curveball illusion, its the most dramatic one!

VSS Conference Day 3: Club car to beach

VSS Conference Day 3: Walking to the conference hotel

VSS Conference Day 2: Naples Grande

Touring the hotel lobby grounds.

VSS Conference Day 2: Poster session

Check out the poster session.

VSS Conference Day 1: Arriving at Fort Myers Airport

Just arrived at Fort Myer's airport, Florida. It is 80F and humid. Nice. The airport is about 30 min away from Naples. The shuttle will bring us there. More as we go along in the conference.

Default Network, Meditation, and Focus Training

A recent study found that teaching children to focus improves their health outcome [ScienceDaily report]. In relation to the default network in the brain, perhaps one of the things that such early training does is to improve the individual's ability to regulate default network activity. DN activity has been linked to self-reflection, self-monitoring, day-dreaming, task-unrelated thoughts etc., and has often been seen to be negatively correlated to one's ability to perform a task. That is, the more you are able to disengage your default network, the better you can perform the task. This is presumably because your attention is more focused and not distracted by task-unrelated thoughts.

It is then not hard to see the link between DN activity regulation and meditation. Meditation is an act of self-regulation of thoughts, and has been related to several positive outcomes, in terms of physical and mental health and ability. If we apply to adolescence and aging, perhaps one form of training that would be extremely deterministic of cognitive efficacy in older adults is the amount of focus training experienced.

Likewise, if we were to train indivduals on how to focus their mental thoughts, and improve them over time, might brain activity be modulated? And subsequently, might cognitive abilities be improved or preserved better with age?

A structural model of aging, brain and behavior

Possible working structural model that can be tested with measures of stimulus, behavior, neuro-functional, neuro-anatomical variables. The dynamic influences of age and "culture" can also be tested. Culture here refers to long-term experiences of any kind. More complex models can be postulated from this current framework by adding more factors, or measures, and by also constraining the specific weights and covariances. In the broadest sense, the weights and covariances are modeled linearly. However, certainly, non-linear functions can be imposed. The result of such impositions would be a neural network with non-linear activation functions.