Loneliness and 3 Degrees of Separation

John Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago who has written a book called "Loneliness," teamed up with two other researchers to study the effect of loneliness in social networks. They used data from the Framingham Heart Study, which has followed thousands of people in Framingham, Massachusetts, since 1948. This time researchers looked at loneliness in the second generation in the study (e.g., 5,124 people. Loneliness is not necesarily based on the people right around you.

Study results showed that if a direct connection in your social network is lonely, you are 52 percent more likely to be lonely. At two degrees of separation (a friend of a friend) it's 25 percent. At three degrees of separation (someone who knows your friend's friend) it's 15 percent.

The results have been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. They were also mentioned in "Connected," a book written by Dr. Nicholas Christakis at Harvard University and James Fowler at the University of California, San Diego. The book explores how happiness, obesity, smoking, and other behaviors (as well as habits)are contagious among groups of people who know one another. It may be important to hang out with smart, happy, healthy, functional people . . .

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/12/04/loneliness.social.network/index.html

Sleep Deprivation

When you are sleep deprived, the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness may often become blurred. Recently research has shown that state "dissociation" is more common that anyone previously suspected. State dissociation is defined as the presence of more than one vigilance state concurrently. Vigilance states are defines as awake, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and non-REM sleep. Forgetfullness and daydreaming may be examples of this, but also more bizarre and even criminal behaviors could be, as well. In addition, perhaps 20% of vehicle accidents are related to sleep deprivation. Check out the article.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427291.000-are-you-asleep-exploring-the-minds-twilight-zone.html?full=true

Brain and Religion-NonReligion

For any of you who have wondered if religion is "loaded" in a different place in the brain, etc., etc., etc., you may enjoy reading this abstract of a UCLA research project. Published by Plos One, the summary is entitled: "The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief." It appears that "religious thinking" is more aligned with areas that govern self-representation, cognitive conflict, and emotion. Non-religious thinking (e.g., facts) is more associated with memory retrieval networks. Bottom line is that while both types of thinking engage broad areas of the cerebrum, the difference between belief and disbelief appears to be content-independent. Researchers hope this study furthers their undrestanding of how the brain decides to accept statements of all kinds as valid descriptions of the world.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#abstract0

Neuromyths

New Science recently posted an article reporting on conclusions reached at "Decade of the Mind" symposium recently held in Germany. No surprise, they figure it's time to get some practical information into the classroom -- about how the brain learn best. They also included some "myths" that are being debunked. Check out the site and enjoy . . .


http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327265.800-brain-science-to-help-teachers-get-into-kids-heads.html

Calorie Restriction and Aging

Reports from researchers at the National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: a 30% caloric restriction begun in rhesus monkeys in adulthood reduces risk of the most common age-related conditions--diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and brain atrophy--by one third. (Calorie Restriction Slows Aging in Monkeys, by Katherine Bourzac)

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22977/

Living Cells as Chemical Computers

For years the computer metaphor has been used to try to better explain aspects of human-brain function. Now, potentially every cell in the body may be functioning somewhat like a computer. At least that seems to be the perception of Dennis Bray in his new book entitled: Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell. In a nutshell (as summarized by Graham Lawton in NewScientist Opinion), living cells are chemical computers. They take information from the environment and process it to produce behavioural "outputs". The processing units are proteins, which perform all the same operations as the logic gates of a computer. Inputs from the environment cause the proteins to flip shape, to aggregate, and to chemically modify other proteins in a cascade of information processing that sweeps through the cell until it reaches effector proteins that make the cell move or change shape . . . Bray's book is available on Amazon.com.