Hello friends and followers of NFBSupport!
The last week has been a touch difficult as the NFBSupport team came down with the flu! Recovery is coming along, and hopefully by Christmas the team will be back to full operation!
Happy Holidays to all!
Alcohol, Regulation and Risk vs. Reward
A team at the University of North Carolina Health Care discovered a reward circuit in the central nucleus of the amygdala, specifically neurotensin (NTS) neurons, that deals with alcohol use (https://neurosciencenews.com/alcohol-consumption-circuit-15317/). Specifically, they discovered that shutting down or disconnecting NTS neurons resulted in less drinking of alcohol, but did not affect interest in other drinks.
Meanwhile, a team from Santa Clarita University found that shutting down the connection between medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the nucleus accumbens resulted in binge drinking without worry of risk (https://neurosciencenews.com/alcohol-moderation-neuroscience-15324/). Using electric shock as negative reinforcement on mice if they drank alcohol, they discovered that mice stopped avoiding the alcohol lever once this connection was shut down. Possibly a good target for LORETA training?
Belly Fat, Circadian Rhythm, and Flu
Researchers from Iowa State have confirmed the previous discovery that increased BMI leads to increased immune system activity and causes cognition problems, but this time with more detailed information (https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-12-immune-belly-fat-bad.html). The team found that in women the change was caused by lymphocytes and eosinophils and in men it was caused by basophils. Primarily they found that fluid intelligence/flexible thinking took the greatest hit by increased body fat. A great reason to make sure you're on a healthy diet and good exercise plan as you get older.
Older adults living in care and assisted living centers often seem to degrade faster, and a new study from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), Mariana Figueiro, a professor, and the director of the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found light exposure and circadian rhythm (CR) to be a major contributor (https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-12-tailored-quality-life-older-adults.html). In their study they found that mental health was improved by not only being exposed to light in the standard CR, but that the amount of light was a major contributing factor. Indoor lighting is often around 100 lux, and they found that exposure to 300-500 lux minimum during the day improved sleep. Outdoor lighting levels by comparison are usually around 1000-10000 lux during the day. Simply improving light levels during the day and bringing light levels lower at night could see massive improvement.
Research published to PLoS Pathogens has found that future severity of flu infection is determined by which one your body was exposed to first in life, specifically related to H1N1 (bird) and H3N2 (swine - https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-12-flu.html). While they don't understand the mechanism for this yet, the first of these two flus that you are exposed to is the one you end up with a greater resistance to. You do still get some boosted resistance to the other, but not at the same strength as the first strain.
Cool New Toy!
A team of researchers from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville developed a free open-source program for visual representations of brain activity (https://neurosciencenews.com/open-source-eeg-visualization-15297/). They developed this program for use with animal research, but we see a lot of potential with it and as it is a free tool, at the very least it warrants a look!
Video from the creators:
Download link:
Happy New Year to Everyone!
Until Next year!
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