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What the Freud is Up with Dreams?
Ranging from the Eastern Mediterranean in the 7th century, to China in the 16th century, and finally to Europe in the 17th century, dream interpretation has been viewed as a decryption of supernatural communications and symbolic messages. Sigmund Freud, the academically (in)famous founder of the field of psychoanalysis, whole-heartedly supported the hypothesis that dreams contain deeper meaning. He consequently produced one of the seminal works on the subject, quite obviously named, The Interpretation of Dreams. Today, revelatory and efficient techniques, such as MRI and EEG, have far surpassed Freud’s interpretive dream journal methods, and allow scientists to look at dreams from a very different perspective. Although these advancements lend more credibility to the field of oneirology, it is still somewhat tainted by its psychoanalytic past. Some even go as far to say that studying dreams is “academic suicide”. Nevertheless, modern neuroscience has forced Freud’s ideas to the background, making room for new theories of memory consolidation, experience organization, and emotional stabilization.
Let's hope he doesn't show up in your dreams.
Since dreaming occurs while sleeping, it is no surprise that the sleep cycle, during which the brain experiences patterns of varying electrical activity, has been implicated in dream theories. Each cycle consists of five stages – two stages of light sleep, followed by two stages of deep sleep, and completed with a stage of rapid eye movement sleep (REM). Unfortunately, there is no representative electrical pattern associated with dreaming, but REM and non-REM sleep have both been connected to the brain’s analysis of waking experiences. Pierre Maquet at the University of Liege, Belgium, observed deep non-REM sleep and found that the brain’s electrical activity mimicked the electrical activity elicited during waking experiences.
Not only do we replay events in our dreams, but we also seem to process, integrate, and store the information for future use. Robert Stickgold of Harvard University found that those who had non-REM dreams about a task that they were asked to complete, proceeded to do better on it. Stickgold proposes that “non-REM dreaming might be more important for stabilizing and strengthening memories, while REM dreaming reorganizes the way a memory is stored in the brain, allowing you to compare and integrate a new experience with older ones”. On a different, albeit related note, daydreaming activates a part of the brain called the default network. This region has previously been shown to be associated with memory processing. Be sure to mention this to your professor next time you’re caught not paying attention in class.
Matt Walker of the University of California acknowledges that dreaming has an important role in memory, but argues that the main function is emotional homeostasis. Walker has found that REM sleep facilitates the strengthening of negative memories. He believes that experiencing the negative emotion in a dream state can diminish the intensity of the emotion, making it easier to deal with. In those with post-traumatic stress disorder, however, this process seems to fail. Boston University’s Patrick McNamara agrees with Walkers’ speculation. He believes that “non-REM dreams help us practice friendly encounters, while REM dreams help us to rehearse threats”.
While dreaming, the brain rewires itself and forms new connections. It seems that this curious kind of consciousness does not reveal our secret desires or open windows into our hidden selves, but instead plays an integral role in making us who we are. Sorry, Siggy.
To view the original article from New Scientist, click here!
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D.C. Somers
Devyn Buckley
The Psychology of Facebook
Psych Central’s April Fool’s Day Joke for 2011 was an article that read: “Facebook Revealed to be Psychology Experiment Gone Wrong.” The author used a fake source of Harvard University and several quotes from ‘professor of psychology’ Mark Zuckerberg. This article seemed pretty believable…for about a day.
The researchers behind this project claimed to be interested in “whether or not people in the class would immediately become competitive and try and gain as many friends as possible.” And though this research experiment is far from the truth, the psychological implications of Facebook are certainly a reality.
Rishi Bandopadhay of PsyBlog equated Facebook networking to a competitive sport. He listed 7 rules to ‘get ahead’ using Facebook.
- Get between 100 and 300 friends. (You don’t want to look like a loner, or like you are trying too hard)
- Court attractive friends (Walther et al. (2008) found that attractive friends boosted the perceived attractiveness of participant’s profiles)
- Understand the 7 motivations (Joinson (2008) found 7 basic motivations for using Facebook: connecting with old or distant friends, social surveillance (see what old friends are up to, but without talking to them), looking up people met offline, virtual people watching, status updating and content)
- Don’t let your partner use Facebook (Muise et al. (2009) found that the more time spent on Facebook, the more jealousy)
- Guard your privacy
- Display your real self
- Use Facebook to get a job
Is Facebook really this competitive? I can’t remember the last time I noted how many Facebook friends someone had or judged their popularity by their friends’ good looks. Facebook can also tell you a lot about someone’s personality.
Buffardi and Campbell of the University of Georgia found that individuals’ level of activity on their social networking website is strongly correlated to their level of narcissism; this finding is relatively obvious. It’s easy to see which friends of ours, whose ‘activities’ constantly show up on our newsfeed, are self-centered.
Next Orr, Sisic, Ross, Simmering, and Arseneault set out to study correlations of shyness to various aspects of social networking websites. They found that shy people spend considerably more time on Facebook than people who are not; however, these shy people also had considerably fewer friends, despite their increased time spent on Facebook. So the quiet kid who sits in the back of your Statistics class has probably Facebook stalked you, but you’ll never be receiving a friend request because that person does not have the guts to hit “Send Request.”
Psych Central- Facebook Revealed to be a Psychology Experiment Gone Wrong
PsyBlog- Facebook: 7 Highly Effective Habits
The Layman’s Guide to Psychology- The Psychology of Twitter, Facebook, and other Social Networking Devices
Infectious Emotions?
Biological systems, such as the circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems, are groups of organs that function together to perform a common task. Some can also participate in crosstalk with other organ systems. The respiratory system, for example, brings in the oxygen that the circulatory system delivers to all the cells of the body, and maintains blood pH. The endocrine and nervous systems are signaling systems that facilitate communication between different parts of the body by use of hormones and neurotransmitters, respectively. These connections are numerous and complex, but it was previously thought that the immune system and the nervous systems were separate and largely autonomous.
In June 2010, Mauricio Vargas and colleagues from Stanford University School of Medicine reported research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that endogenous antibodies play an important role in repairing peripheral nervous system (PNS) damage. Antibodies are a principal part of the adaptive immune response to infection, but this research suggested that antibodies are also able to clear degenerating myelin which inhibits axon regeneration, akin to a homeostasis function. This repair was only present after PNS injury, whereas myelin debris remained in the central nervous system (CNS) white matter for years. The well known blood-brain barrier concurs with this separation in responses, as it is understood to be impermeable to large proteins such as antibodies.
Various new studies, howeve
r, have shown that behavior, mood, and memory can all be influenced by aspects of the immune system, suggesting that antibodies can somehow infiltrate the brain.
Sammy Maloney was a happy and outgoing 12-year-old boy. In 2002, however, his mother started to notice curious deviations in his personality. In six months, he underwent complete mental deterioration and was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette’s syndrome. Shortly afterwards, he was found to be harboring a streptococcal infection, although he exhibited no physical symptoms of one. Interestingly, when he started taking the prescribed antibiotics, his behavior markedly improved.
Madeline Cunningham at the University of Oklahoma has spent several years investigating various behavioral disorders associated with streptococcal infections. Cunningham has shown that antibodies against one group of streptococcal bacteria are able to bind to a site in the brain that controls movement, and consequently trigger the release of dopamine. This could explain the emotional disturbances associated with these types of disorders (1).
Studies also suggest that an activated immune system has other perceivable effects on the nervous system. For example, Jonathan Kipnis of the University of Virginia and his colleagues have shown that learning triggers a stress response in the brain, which causes CD4 cells, a type of T lymphocytes, to gather at the meninges and release interleukin-4. IL-4 switches off the stress response and causes a release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which facilitates memory formation. Interestingly, cancer p
atients treated with chemotherapy drugs often experience various cognitive defects and some memory loss. This is commonly called “chemobrain”, and these studies raise the possibility that it is a consequence of immunosuppression. Finally, an immune response against Mycobacterium vaccae has been shown to improve mood by causing neurons in the prefrontal cortex to release excess seratonin.
So it could be that the blood-brain barrier is kind of leaky after all. Understanding the connections between the immune system and the brain could lead to all sorts of ingenious treatments for various disorders. Perhaps those scientists at Stanford will utilize antibodies to develop a treatment for central nervous system repair. Perhaps we’ll one day be faced with immuno-emotive treatments for depression. Who knows? Anything is possible when a long-standing “truth” turns out not to be absolute – I’m optimistic since scientific advancement is often built on the refinement of prior knowledge.
Happiness is Catching – New Scientist
Endogenous Antibodies Promote Rapid Myelin Clearance and Effective Axon Regeneration after Nerve Injury – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Previous The Nerve Blog post About PNAS Article
Footnote:
(1) Antibodies raised against the Streptococcal M protein and human myocardial tissue, and Guillain-Barre syndrome in response to Campylobacter infection, are well studied examples of cross-reactivity between anti-pathogen antibodies with host tissues.
Smokescreen: Scanning the Addict's Brain
The neuroscience of addiction has been extensively studied, giving priceless insight into what is happening in the addict’s brain and what keeps people hooked on drug-seeking behavior. Most of the research, though, has been all about the chemical changes in the brain, delving into the molecular level of receptors, neurotransmitters, and reward pathways, etc. But a new approach is being taken from research focusing on extended applications of neuroscience, such as linking neuroscience and “social research and communication studies.” In this video, primary researcher Emily Falk explains the work that is being done at the University of Michigan to try to use the brain as a More
Untangling the Wires
Here’s a great video summary from Nature on the recent advances in the field of connectomics by researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and Harvard University:
And the original research, here.
My previous post on Connectomics.
Discussion Preview: Culture-Bound Syndromes with BU Mind and Brain Society
Today, the concept of a ‘culture-bound syndrome’ seems almost mundane. Surely we already know that particular genes and environmental influences can predispose a population to certain diseases. For example, Ashkenazi Jews are at a much higher risk for developing the genetic defect associated with Tay-Sachs disease than other populations, and one is much more likely to contract malaria in tropical and subtropical regions than in, say, Massachusetts. However, these types of disease have biological causes. What is interesting about the phenomena of culture-bound syndromes is that they have no physical mechanism and arise only from the emerging characteristics of one’s culture. More
Middle World
A little self-education goes a long way. Let Richard Dawkins enlighten you (and if you’ve seen this already, it’s never a bad idea to brush up on the basics of life):
