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Good communication is a matter of getting “in sync” with others, as you’ve probably noticed when you’ve seen people match their steps perfectly as they walk, and imitate each other’s gestures as they talk, and use each other’s phrases and grammar. Last week, this paper reported this kind of coordination in the most important place of all: When people converse, it reports, regions of their brains synchronize their activity. “Neural coupling,” they argue, is a key part of communication.
Uri Hasson, Lauren Silbert and Greg Stephens recorded Silbert telling a 15-minute story while an MRI scanner recorded changes in activity levels in various regions of her brain. The researchers then played the recording to 11 volunteers while their brains were MRI-ed. As they listened, the paper reports, their brains’ patterns of activity matched Silbert’s.
The work is a nice departure from models that look for activity in “thebrain,” because, of course, communication doesn’t take place in isolation. It also challenges the notion that listening and talking are neatly separated activities: “neural coupling” took place in both “comprehension” and “production” regions of the listeners’ brains.
Especially interesting, as Michael Balter points out, were the regions in which the listeners went first: As they heard the story, their brains fired in a pattern that matched Silbert’s, but hers came a moment later. They were, it seems, anticipating what she would say, priming themselves to hear what they expected. The better the match between Silbert’s brain activity and these “predictive anticipatory responses” in a listener, the better the listener understood the story.
Thanks to some ingenious experiments by Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett in the 1930’s, we know that listeners often “fill in” details of what they are hearing (and that their memories of the speaker don’t distinguish between what they actually heard and what they supplied themselves). When students retold a folk tale he had given them to read, Bartlett found, they added some details (for instance, where the story read “that Indian has been hit,” some students recalled an Indian being killed, others an Indian being hit by an arrow). They also changed some unfamiliar facts (making the story’s Indians “row” their canoe like proper English undergraduates). You can try it yourself: Read the story here, then re-tell it in a couple of days from memory, then compare what you’ve written or recorded to the original.
Yet these people felt sure that their memories of the story were accurate. They didn’t notice the difference between what they had read and what they had supplied themselves. Why such confidence? Bartlett proposed that the mind understands the world by means of “schemas”—mental maps that relate actions and objects to each other. Once learned, the schema works rather like a form with blanks to be filled in. Once I know you’re talking about Indians and canoes, I “fill in” arrows and moccasins even if you don’t mention them (and I if you bring in samurai swords I might miss it, because those don’t fit the schema).
Perhaps Hasson et al.’s paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has touched on the physiological correlates of Bartlett’s schemas. Perhaps, too, it has pointed to the physiological basis for the pleasure people take in synchronized activities—singing together in tune, marching together in time, doing the “wave.” If “neural coupling” is essential to understanding others, then it would make sense that people would find it pleasurable and seek to create it.
Stephens, G., Silbert, L., & Hasson, U. (2010). Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1008662107
Source: Dr Mercola’s Diverticulitis diet
Most physicians will recommend that you consume a high-fiber diet. Fiber softens your stools, allowing them to pass through your intestines and colon more quickly and easilyIf you have a mild case of diverticulitis, your physician will likely prescribe a specific diet as part of your treatment plan. While it may not completely treat the illness, it can give your digestive system a chance to “rest,” so that it can recover from the infection.
Most physicians will recommend that you consume a high-fiber diet. Fiber softens your stools, allowing them to pass through your intestines and colon more quickly and easily. Some of the best fiber-rich foods include:1, 2
•Vegetables (artichokes, Brussels sprouts, carrots, peas and broccoli) and vegetable juices
•Fruits, including raspberries, blackberries, pears, apples and avocados
•Potatoes
•Legumes, such as navy beans, kidney beans, black beans, lima beans and split peas
•Whole grains, such as brown rice, quinoa and bulgur
But in severe diverticulitis cases, switching to a high-fiber diet too soon may not be effective, and may only worsen the symptoms. Instead, your physician will likely recommend a clear liquid diet first.3
Start by eating homemade bone broth, made from lamb, beef, chicken or fish, and with some cooked vegetables and meat. This will help heal leaky gut syndrome, boost your immune system and heal the digestive tract.4
Bone broth provides you with easily digestible nutrients, such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, silicon and sulfur. The gelatinous collagen in bone broth also has amazing curative properties. It is a hydrophilic colloid that attracts and holds liquids, including digestive juices, hence supporting proper digestion.
Aside from pure and clear water, ginger tea is another soothing drink that you should add to your diet. Sip on warm ginger tea two to three times daily, as it will help reduce inflammation and aid in digestion. This healing food works wonders on your immune and digestive systems.
Once your diverticulitis symptoms have lessened, you can move on to consuming easily digestible foods, ideally grated, steamed and pureed fruits and vegetables. Avoid those that have tough skins and small seeds that may accumulate in the diverticula sacs. Some of the best choices are carrots, beets, grapes, apples, lettuce and watercress. You can juice them, but leave out the fibrous areas until your body has adjusted to them.
When you feel better, you can start to add fiber-rich foods, including raw fruits and vegetables and unrefined grains, such as fermented grains, black rice, quinoa, and sprouted lentils, to your diet.
Remember that digestion starts in the mouth, so make it a habit to chew each bite of your food thoroughly, or until it is nearly liquefied. The more you break down the food before it goes to your stomach, the more readily absorbed the nutrients become.5
Food plays a great role in how you manage diverticulitis, so remember to discuss your diet needs and restrictions with your physician. Write down your questions, and make sure that you clarify which foods are safe and which ones are not. You can also ask for a referral to a nutrition specialist who can help you come up with a well-balanced meal plan to alleviate your condition.6
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CCRCs. Life Plan Communities. Assisted living. Here’s what you need to know about levels of care in senior living communities.
Watch this video to learn about CCRCs, a senior living option that provides multiple levels of care on one campus.
In this video, senior living residents share why they moved when they did—and what influenced their decision to move.
There is more than one right way to finance senior living. From selling your home to long-term care insurance and other assets, here’s how you can afford senior living.
Find out what residents love about the dining—and socializing options—available in their communities.
Meet the members of the men’s table at Redwood Terrace in Escondido, California, and find out how they built a family in senior living.
Meet two couples who made a fresh start in HumanGood communities—and find out how moving has allowed them to get the care they need.
Try these balance exercises for seniors to help with fall prevention.
In an interview with The Times, the president attacks those who could hold him to account.
Comments
The G.O.P. used to be willing to govern. Not now. Comments
Republicans are working hard to make Obamacare fail. Comments
Public land is always under threat. We are its enemy — and its savior. Comments
To mark the six-month point of his presidency, we have updated our definitive list of his presidential untruths.
The New York Times Opinion section would like to hear from women about whether they think sexism has become worse since the U.S. presidential election.
Six months into his presidency, our inbox is flooded with criticism of Donald Trump. Here is a sampling.
If done to thwart an investigation, pardons could be a criminal obstruction of justice.
Black women have been choked, molested, raped and killed by police officers fighting the war on drugs.
If China truly wants to be a climate leader, it needs to address its global climate footprint.
Love it or hate it, pro wrestling is one of the world’s great art forms. Comments
They’ll probably try. But here’s why it won’t matter.
Napoleon, Moscow and Trump’s strange projections. Comments
It’s not a pipeline problem. It’s about loneliness, competition and deeply rooted barriers. Comments
The Trump administration is the worst possible messenger. But its message is the right one. Comments
Generals resist budget cuts and other officials may follow suit. But France voted for change and the French president seems willing to provide it.
Glioblastoma is an aggressive cancer, so my way of dealing with it is aggressive. Aggressively positive. Comments
Trump keeps touting his economic record but recent data show the post-election boomlet is fading.
Trump’s people never spoke to any Russians, and if they did they forgot about it, and if they didn’t forget, it was just socializing. Got it? Comments
We had to leave a play date early after one little girl dissolved into tears.
A resident of the Upper East Side says sleep deprivation is a result.
Examining America’s long war in Southeast Asia through the course of a single year.
Instead of reshaping U.S. politics, he has been a standard Republican, albeit an incompetent one.
The administration must show that the U.S. will not tolerate any future efforts by Moscow.
Here’s how we can honor their service to our country.
Lessons from a dialogue with China.
The party is trying to fix the perception that it “just stands against Trump.”
The president is naming (young, right-wing) judges at an unprecedented rate.
I was reassigned to an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies.
The real fight is how much power we want the FCC to have.
There’s a giant mismatch between what Americans want from government and what they’ll pay for with taxes.
We’ve proposed legislation that could easily pass Congress.
The Chinese precept, American researchers conclude, is “do not engage on controversial issues.”
Tell me, old friends, when you look at all this hullabaloo from a very great distance, what do you see?
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By DANIEL HEMEL and ERIC POSNER
If done to thwart an investigation, pardons could be a criminal obstruction of justice.
Source: Frontiers.
Brains from patients with Alzheimer’s disease show changes in bacterial populations compared with healthy brains.
Researchers in the UK have used DNA sequencing to examine bacteria in post-mortem brains from patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Their findings suggest increased bacterial populations and different proportions of specific bacteria in Alzheimer’s, compared with healthy brains. The findings may support evidence that bacterial infection and inflammation in the brain could contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that results in cognitive decline, and eventually death. In the brain, the disease causes neurons to die and break down, and involves high levels of a peptide called amyloid and aggregations of a protein called tau. However, scientists are coming to appreciate that inflammation may also play a role.
“Alzheimer’s brains usually contain evidence of neuroinflammation, and researchers increasingly think that this could be a possible driver of the disease, by causing neurons in the brain to degenerate,” says David Emery, a researcher from the University of Bristol, and an author on the study, which was recently published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.
So, what’s causing this inflammation? Some genetic risk-factors for Alzheimer’s disease can have effects on the inflammatory response, but infection may also play a role. “Neuroinflammation in the brain may be a reaction to the presence of bacteria,” says Emery. The brain is normally sealed behind specialized blood vessels that make it very difficult for things like bacteria in the blood to enter. However, at least one of the genetic risk-factors for Alzheimer’s disease may cause these blood vessels to lose some of their integrity, which could allow bacteria to enter and colonize the brain.
The research team set out to discover if there were any differences in the types of bacteria present in brains from Alzheimer’s disease patients and healthy brains. “Previous studies looking at bacteria in the Alzheimer’s brain have primarily investigated specific bacterial species,” explains Shelley Allen, another researcher involved in the study. “We wanted to use an unbiased method to obtain the fullest overview possible of the entire bacterial population in the Alzheimer’s brain, and compare these results with those from a healthy aged brain.”
The researchers analyzed eight Alzheimer’s and six healthy brain samples from a brain bank, where people donate their brains after death for medical research. They used a technique called next generation sequencing (NGS) to detect specific bacterial genes. “NGS technology allows millions of these DNA molecules to be sequenced at the same time, providing an unbiased overview of a complex bacterial population,” explains Allen.
They found that the Alzheimer’s brains contained different proportions of specific bacteria compared with the healthy brains. “Comparing the bacterial populations showed at least a tenfold higher ratio overall of Actinobacteria (mostly P. acnes) to Proteobacteria in the Alzheimer’s brain compared with the healthy brain,” says Emery.
However, the researchers were surprised to find that there also appeared to be more bacteria in the Alzheimer’s brains. “Unexpectedly, Alzheimer’s brains gave on average an apparent 7-fold increase in bacterial sequences above that seen in the healthy brain,” says Allen. “The healthy brains yielded only low levels of bacterial sequences, consistent with either a background signal or normal levels present in the blood stream in brain tissue.”
The team caution that the NGS method does not directly indicate actual bacterial numbers, and further work will be required to confirm that bacteria play an active role in Alzheimer’s disease. “We need quantitative studies on the bacterial presence in the brain,” says Allen. “Larger numbers of brain samples are required, and future studies should also investigate if bacteria are involved in other neurodegenerative diseases involving neuroinflammation.”
Funding: The study was supported by Bristol Research into Alzheimer’s and Care of the Elderly, Sigmund Gestetner Trust.
Source: Melissa Cochrane – Frontiers
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain.
Original Research: Full open access research for “16S rRNA Next Generation Sequencing Analysis Shows Bacteria in Alzheimer’s Post-Mortem Brain” by David C. Emery, Deborah K. Shoemark, Tom E. Batstone, Christy M. Waterfall, Jane A. Coghill, Tanya L. Cerajewska, Maria Davies, Nicola X. West and Shelley J. Allen in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. Published online June 20 2017 doi:10.3389/fnagi.2017.00195
Abstract
16S rRNA Next Generation Sequencing Analysis Shows Bacteria in Alzheimer’s Post-Mortem Brain
The neurological deterioration associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), involving accumulation of amyloid-beta peptides and neurofibrillary tangles, is associated with evident neuroinflammation. This is now seen to be a significant contributor to pathology. Recently the tenet of the privileged status of the brain, regarding microbial compromise, has been questioned, particularly in terms of neurodegenerative diseases. It is now being considered that microbiological incursion into the central nervous system could be either an initiator or significant contributor to these. This is a novel study using 16S ribosomal gene-specific Next generation sequencing (NGS) of extracted brain tissue. A comparison was made of the bacterial species content of both frozen and formaldehyde fixed sections of a small cohort of Alzheimer-affected cases with those of cognitively unimpaired (normal). Our findings suggest an increase in bacterial populations in Alzheimer brain tissue compared with normal.
“16S rRNA Next Generation Sequencing Analysis Shows Bacteria in Alzheimer’s Post-Mortem Brain” by David C. Emery, Deborah K. Shoemark, Tom E. Batstone, Christy M. Waterfall, Jane A. Coghill, Tanya L. Cerajewska, Maria Davies, Nicola X. West and Shelley J. Allen in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. Published online June 20 2017 doi:10.3389/fnagi.2017.00195
Can you imagine a United States president cheering the suffering of our citizens and advocating for the failure of our economy? I can’t – until now.
Thanks to your fight, Republicans don’t have the votes to pass TrumpCare. So President Trump’s new plan is to actively sabotage the Affordable Care Act – and with it the lives and livelihoods of 32 million Americans.
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