Dana Foundation Blog

From the Archives: Mother’s Day

With Mother’s Day just around the corner (put your cards in the mail today!), it’s a good time to revisit what articles from Dana’s archives tell us about mother-child relationships.

Some of the studies highlighted on Dana.org may seem bleak, as they study parenting in situations of abuse and neglect. But they all highlight how important a supportive, caring parent is to a developing child.

From the Archives: Smells

I associate many smells with spring—flowers blooming, strawberries arriving at the farmer’s market, horseradish, matzo, and wine (Passover’s nearly here).

A few days ago, a tweet from @FragrantMoments reminded me of a Cerebrum article from 2001, “Ah, Sweet Skunk! Why We Like or Dislike What We Smell,” by Rachel S. Herz.

Our reactions to smells, writes Herz, are not innate (except, maybe, my aversion to those flowers thanks to the resulting itchy eyes and sneezing):

From the Archives: Love and Lust in the Brain

Since love is on the brain today, it seemed the perfect opportunity to look back at Dana’s articles on love, lust, and attraction. The selected articles span more than a decade, and included in the mix is a Cerebrum piece from Rutgers’ anthropologist Helen Fisher, who is something of a go-to love expert for the media and is sure to be quoted in numerous articles today.

Brains Do It: Lust, Attraction, and Attachment
By Helen E. Fisher
January 01, 2000  

With classic understatement, anthropologist Helen Fisher suggests that the three emotional systems—lust, attraction, and attachment—“are somewhat disconnected in human beings...” But the situation is not hopeless, Fisher argues; the role of the prefrontal cortex in humans is to control and direct these emotions—if we so choose.

Neurobiology Affects Love and Attraction
By Kathlyn Stone
January 02, 2009  

Research presented at the 2008 Society for Neuroscience meeting revealed aspects of what happens in the brain of someone feeling intense love, as well as the sensory and molecular processes involved in love and mating.

The Chemistry of Love: In Search of the Elusive Human Pheromones
By Brenda Patoine
February, 2009

Chemical messages wafting off other people’s bodies clearly influence sexual attraction and mating behavior in humans. Just don’t call them pheromones - yet. 

The Brain Signature of Love
By Kayt Sukel
February 10, 2011

Neuroscientists are demonstrating that romantic love is represented by a unique pattern of activation in the brain.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

-Ann L. Whitman

From the Archives: Suicide Prevention

In this month’s Cerebrum article, “Suicide and the United States Army,” Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a retired Army colonel, explains how the U.S. Military now collects data on suicides. She recommends ways to put that data to use through new strategies—like means restriction and service animals—that could bring down the high suicide rate in the military.

In July of 2011, Kay Redfield Jamison wrote the Cerebrum article “Suicide in the Young: An Essay.” She said:

“We know, first, that suicide is a terrible killer of the young. In the United States, suicide is the third major cause of death in 15-to-19-year-olds and the second leading cause of death in college-age students. In 1996, more teenagers and young adults died from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, stroke, and lung disease combined. Suicide kills the young dreadfully and disproportionately. And, across the world, in those between the ages of 15 and 44, suicide is the second leading killer of women and the fourth of men.”

These numbers have not changed much. According to the CDC, suicide is still the third leading cause of death for 15-24 year olds, and for every completed suicide in this age range, there are 100-200 unsuccessful suicide attempts.

Dr. Ritchie says in her new article that military suicide differs from civilian suicide in part due to the role of mental illness. Most soldiers who commit suicide have not been diagnosed with a mental illness, although substance abuse issues can be a factor. She writes that an accumulation of stressors, like pain, disability, and estrangement from friends and family are more common risk factors among active duty personnel.

In contrast, in the civilian population, writes Dr. Jamison:

“We have compelling evidence from a large number of studies that the single most important factor in suicide is psychopathology: More than 90 percent of all people who kill themselves suffered from a major psychiatric or addictive illness (depression, manic-depression, schizophrenia, or alcohol and drug abuse), a severe anxiety disorder, or borderline or antisocial personality disorder. Those who are victims of both depression and alcohol or drug abuse are especially at risk. Most people who were depressed will not kill themselves. But of those who do, the majority were profoundly depressed.”

This, too, remains true today.

So what can be done to prevent suicide in the civilian population? The National Institute for Mental Health recommends treating underlying disorders, like depression and substance abuse, while addressing suicide risks. Studies have shown that cognitive behavior therapy can effectively reduce the number of suicide attempts. A combination of medication and therapy may be even more effective. In addition, primary care physicians should be better trained to recognize warning signs of suicide.

If someone you know talks to you about suicide, take him or her seriously. Call 911 or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

--Johanna Goldberg

From the Archives: Top 10 Stories of 2011

We have a deep archive of great stories about the brain and the people who study it, and thanks to the internet, none of it is further than a quick search away. Here are the stories folks found most popular on www.dana.org from Dec. 15, 2010, to Dec. 15, 2011.

1. Video Games Affect the Brain—for Better and Worse (from Cerebrum)

We hear conflicting reports about how video games affect our brains. One study will suggest that video games help us learn; another might imply that they make young people more aggressive. Douglas A. Gentile, Ph.D., argues that how games influence our brains is not an either-or proposition; games can have both positive and negative consequences, and which of these results researchers find depends on what they are testing. Gentile proposes that researchers focus their investigations on five attributes of video game design to tease out these disparate effects. (Posted July 2009)

2. Basal Ganglia Contribute to Learning, but Also Certain Disorders (from BrainWork)

Move over, hippocampus: The basal ganglia, a group of interconnected brain areas located deep in the cerebral cortex, have proved to be at work in learning, the formation of good and bad habits, and some psychiatric and addictive disorders. (Jan. 2007)

3. Brains Do It: Lust, Attraction, and Attachment (from Cerebrum)

Did you ever experience the unsettling sense that your sexual desires, romantic longings, and feelings of long-term emotional unionwere racing down different tracks? And perhaps ask yourself: Which of these is love? The three tracks may be different brain circuits, says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University researching the brain chemistry of emotions associated with mating, reproduction, and parenting. With classic understatement, she suggests that the three emotional systems—lust, attraction, and attachment—“are somewhat disconnected in human beings...” But the situation is not hopeless, Fisher argues; the role of the prefrontal cortex in humans is to control and direct these emotions—if we so choose. (January 2000)

4. Visualizing How We Read (news)

Neuroimaging is opening a window into how we learn to read. Acquiring this complex, demanding skill, researchers find, is a richly orchestrated process that recruits and connects diverse brain regions. Ultimately, researchers hope, what’s learned in the laboratory will guide more powerful teaching methods adapted to the quirks and variations of individual children’s brains. (March 2011)

5. The World Needs People With Asperger’s Syndrome (book review of American Normal)

"The world needs the Asperger’s people," says Temple Grandin in this extensive review of both a book and the field. "After all, the social people who sat around the campfire talking were probably not the makers of the first stone spear. It is also likely that the most social people did not create the great culture of our civilization, such as literature, art, engineering, music, science, and mathematics. Genetics and biology provide the world with different kinds of minds. Whether or not these minds make great contributions to society is determined by both biology and the environment." (Oct. 2002)

6. Effects of Music Training on Brain and Cognitive Development in Under-Privileged 3- to 5-Year-Olds - Preliminary Results (Research summary)

A report on one of the studies included in our Arts & Cognition initiative, researchers including Helen Neville study tested the hypothesis that music training causes improvements in several diverse aspects of cognition, and that one way music training produces these effects is by improving attention. They enrolled 88 children from Head Start preschools, measuring their test scores at baseline, prior to musicial intervention, and again following the intervention. "There were strong and significant improvements in non-verbal IQ and numeracy and spatial cognition within a group measured before and after training (i.e., within-group differences) in children who received music training and those who received attention training." (March 2008)

7. How Music Helps to Heal the Injured Brain (from Cerebrum)

The use of music in therapy for the brain has evolved rapidly as brain-imaging techniques have revealed the brain’s plasticity and have identified networks that music activates. Armed with this growing knowledge, doctors and researchers are employing music to retrain the injured brain. Studies by this essay's authors, Michael Thaut, Ph.D. and Gerald McIntosh, M.D., and other researchers have revealed that because music and motor control share circuits, music can improve movement in patients who have suffered a stroke or who have Parkinson’s disease. Research has shown that neurologic music therapy can also help patients with language or cognitive difficulties, and the authors suggest that these techniques should become part of rehabilitative care. Future findings may well indicate that music should be included on the list of therapies for a host of other disorders as well. (March 2010) 

8. The Frustrating No-Man’s-Land of Borderline Personality Disorder (from Cerebrum)

Can the label “brain disease” be applied to a cluster of willful, irritating, often manipulative behaviors—from aggressiveness to roller-coaster emotional attachments—that may cause even psychiatrists to dismiss a patient as simply “impossible”? Impossible or not, these behaviors are part of a syndrome that psychiatry has consigned to the borderland between neurosis and psychosis, a gray area where more than one in ten psychiatric outpatients may be wandering, often without appropriate professional care—and where thousands will commit suicide. 

Psychiatrists Larry J. Siever and Harold W. Koenigsberg argue that the complexity of borderline personality disorder may stem from the interaction among genetic vulnerabilities (such as extremes of temperament), early experiences, and vast differences in patients’ coping patterns. Patients must be held responsible, they argue, but so must the mental health professionals whose role is to understand and help them. (Oct. 2000)

9. Left Hand, Left Brain: The Plot Thickens (from Cerebrum)

Over the centuries, humans have been intrigued, and disturbed, by those among us who are “lefties,” writes Carolyn Asbury. Why favor a different hand from the other 90 percent of humanity? Is it biological destiny? Choice? Scientists have sought patterns among the left-handed and thought they saw links with everything from musical talent to mental illness. Science’s discovery of another asymmetry, between left and right brain, added greatly to the complexity—but perhaps also the importance—of understanding “handedness.” Geneticist Amar Klar has a theory that seems to explain a great deal, if only the gene required by the theory can be found. (Oct. 2005)

10. Protecting the Brain from a Glutamate Storm (from Cerebrum)

When a stroke or head injury releases a flood of the chemical messenger glutamate, the excess glutamate leaves damaged neurons in its wake. Israeli scientist Vivian Teichberg, Ph.D., has developed a new method that may protect the brain from this destruction by harnessing the brain’s natural ability to keep glutamate levels in check. (May 2007)

--Nicky Penttila