tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80450674535055926692023-11-15T23:22:10.950-08:00Scientific ChickRelevant science for everyoneDr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-80891320894436214852014-09-11T22:14:00.000-07:002014-09-11T23:01:56.529-07:00Scientific Chick has a new job!<span style="font-size: large;">While there are about a million new science articles I should be telling you about, in this post I want to share with you some very exciting news: Scientific Chick is now Professor Scientific Chick!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is very exciting because as long as I can remember I've always wanted to be a prof. Sabbaticals, conferences in exotic locations, armies of students working for you while you "go to meetings" (in Whistler), what's not to love? I've been working towards this for a long time. This is how it happened:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My (3) regular readers (hi mom!) already know I have a PhD in Neuroscience, during which I looked at what happens to learning and memory in the aging brain. Living in Canada's most expensive city on a grad student salary and running experiments that never worked was a true test of character. People would tell me "these are the best years of your life" and I would just laugh hysterically and go back to poking brains and attempting every black magic trick in the book to get my stuff to work (spoiler alert: those people were right all along).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />I then spent an undetermined number of years as a "postdoc". For those of you who may not be familiar with the wonderful world of academia, a "postdoc" (real name: Postdoctoral Fellow) is someone who isn't quite satisfied with getting a PhD and feels they need to "train more" (synonym: masochist). I did my postdoc at the <a href="http://neuroethics.med.ubc.ca/" target="_blank">National Core for Neuroethics</a> at UBC, where my research remained in the realm of aging but shifted from obscure animal work to real-life work: I've specialized in studying how the online environment is used to share and learn about brain health in aging.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I was really lucky that my postdoc environment allowed me to do all sorts of (fun) things professors get to do: write grants, supervise students, <a href="http://brainmattersvancouver.ca/" target="_blank">chair conferences</a>, organize science outreach activities for the general public, and more! (but sadly no sabbaticals, though I did go to a few exotic-ish locations for conferences). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">After applying for jobs day and night (and also attempting more black magic), I landed an Assistant Professor position at the same National Core for Neuroethics where I did my postdoc, with a second affiliation as Faculty of the <a href="http://www.centreforbrainhealth.ca/" target="_blank">Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health</a>, where you'll find me today. I continue my research on <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130715-908565.html" target="_blank">online health for dementia</a>. I'm slowly building my army. But mostly, I write stuff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">That's the news! Stay tuned for more actual science, coming soon!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjJgXRk1f7P0PJGPR5scseI5hnGGWcxKu-eKO7F-K7-hc2ygyfRXjDgWjgQpCByBCT_ZzZv2IZjJm7MZFLj4U0SvQ2nFxchvPv44kJTOHFpGtjAFRTIq8bRHwm14eiEk6GnALzBJcvUHL/s1600/professor-works-funny.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjJgXRk1f7P0PJGPR5scseI5hnGGWcxKu-eKO7F-K7-hc2ygyfRXjDgWjgQpCByBCT_ZzZv2IZjJm7MZFLj4U0SvQ2nFxchvPv44kJTOHFpGtjAFRTIq8bRHwm14eiEk6GnALzBJcvUHL/s1600/professor-works-funny.jpg" /></a></div>
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(Image from <a href="http://humorgags.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Humor Gags</a>)Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-64578865298418289332013-04-30T17:36:00.002-07:002013-04-30T17:36:31.704-07:00So you found some science on the Internet... (Part 2)
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFQ8Gw8W_pMcGHYgyu7BGK0sR9P5gXbfrPStseN25dRgPFTEUqeD7vsK4V28mI-u92k_tIeZqU382BEYamEArrrI6fVOO0-FMT4YT0w0FCWnK0tzc4nQ7UfE8PQdJxnId-x_RAeXZC18Z/s1600/placebo1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFQ8Gw8W_pMcGHYgyu7BGK0sR9P5gXbfrPStseN25dRgPFTEUqeD7vsK4V28mI-u92k_tIeZqU382BEYamEArrrI6fVOO0-FMT4YT0w0FCWnK0tzc4nQ7UfE8PQdJxnId-x_RAeXZC18Z/s1600/placebo1.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">10 amazing findings about placebos</span></h2>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2013/04/so-you-found-some-science-on-internet.html" target="_blank">part 1</a> of the series I brought up placebos briefly and I
promised you more. It’s important to discuss placebos because many successes of
health products and interventions that are not supported by the medical
community can at least be attributed in part to the placebo effect. Your brain
is a powerful machine and the effects of the placebo can be extremely
convincing. Here are some interesting facts about placebos:
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span>Placebos can be somewhat of a self-fulfilling
prophecy: if someone is told a placebo acts as a muscle relaxant, their muscles
actually relax.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>For some conditions (such as mild depression, or
some coughs), placebos work just as well as drugs with active ingredients. </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>Rats experience the placebo effect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>The placebo effect can work even if the patient
is told they are taking a placebo (but keep in mind: in this kind of trial,
it’s impossible to <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2013/04/so-you-found-some-science-on-internet.html" target="_blank">blind</a> the participants!).</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>The placebo effect works better if the
intervention is more invasive or severe. The placebo effect is stronger and works on more people when a fake drug is injected with a needle than when it's simply swallowed in pill form.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>To properly control for the effect of certain
surgeries, clinical trials are sometimes conducted with a group receiving a
sham (fake) surgery. The ethics of doing this are often debated (your thoughts in the comments!).</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>Pills with a visible, well-known name brand work
better than pills that look generic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>The placebo effect can work in reverse: if given
a placebo and told it will produce negative side effects (like headaches),
nearly 1 in 5 people will experience those side effects. This is called a
nocebo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>The color of placebo pills matters: “hot” colors
like red and orange work better as stimulants, and “cool” colors like blue and
green pills have a tranquilizing effect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span>In
some countries, doctors can prescribe placebos. A common use case? Placebo
antibiotics for… viral infections*! </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcIhgUO_6B3bfHwv4tGgPS89GSSOw64EcmSUoaIFNZ4GYPmuBG3o9Z9jP8Om72Wb-1osolQv9Frnkk8VdysS0aaJFGsjHJiXFgAWlP0P6_dZBkj0NBiwPMwuPo9kag5-nG9xCWmc0Q_vRD/s1600/placebo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcIhgUO_6B3bfHwv4tGgPS89GSSOw64EcmSUoaIFNZ4GYPmuBG3o9Z9jP8Om72Wb-1osolQv9Frnkk8VdysS0aaJFGsjHJiXFgAWlP0P6_dZBkj0NBiwPMwuPo9kag5-nG9xCWmc0Q_vRD/s400/placebo1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>References:</b> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Flaten MA et al. (1999) Drug-related information generates
placebo and nocebo responses that modify the drug response. Psychosomatic
Medicine 61(2):250-5. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Pittrof R (2011) Placebo treatment in mild to moderate
depression. The British Journal of General Practice 61(584):222.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Nolan TA et al. (2012) Placebo-induced analgesia in an
operant pain model in rats. Pain 153(10):2009-16.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Kaptchuk TJ et al. (2010) Placebos without deception: a
randomized controlled trial in irritable bowel syndrome. Plos one 5(12):e15591.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Kaptchuk TJ et al. (2006) Sham device v. inert pill:
randomized controlled trial of two placebo treatments. British Medical Journal
332(7538):391-7.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Dowrick AS and Bhandari M (2012) Ethical issues in the
design of randomized trials: to sham or not to sham. The Journal of Bone and
Joint Surgery 94(suppl 1):7-10.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Branthwaite A and Cooper P (1981)Analgesic effects of
branding in treatment of headaches.British Medical Journal 282(6276):1576-8.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Rosenzweig P et al. (1993) The placebo effect in healthy
volunteers: influence of experimental conditions on the adverse events profile
during phase I studies. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics 54(5):578-83.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">de Craen AJ et al. (1996) Effect of colour of drugs:
systematic review of perceived effect of drugs and of their effectiveness.
British Medical Journal 313(7072):1624-6.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Hrobjartsson A and Norup M (2003) The use of placebo
interventions in medical practice – a national questionnaire survey of Danish
clinicians. Evaluation and the Health Professions 26(2):153-65.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Avid Scien<span style="font-size: xx-small;">tific Chick readers will know that antibiotics cannot treat or cure infections caused by viruses.</span> </span></span></div>
Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-32672170366685647092013-04-21T22:52:00.000-07:002013-04-21T22:52:15.199-07:00So you found some science on the Internet... (Part 1)
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy0e_k6J5y6VehI6CosGNdUeZYEJrbT101H3QuD4qdvBpJTPEsxyGdpwPXq_KSEiNu_U4tE3Q9Acl1S86zCiN4_mTpczMmK1FUS1AS4PojrvIIi7tC4-Q7pQ87_uOOo33L7GNgepMl2O94/s1600/catscience.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy0e_k6J5y6VehI6CosGNdUeZYEJrbT101H3QuD4qdvBpJTPEsxyGdpwPXq_KSEiNu_U4tE3Q9Acl1S86zCiN4_mTpczMmK1FUS1AS4PojrvIIi7tC4-Q7pQ87_uOOo33L7GNgepMl2O94/s320/catscience.png" width="243" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cats and science together on the Internet</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Internet hosts a wealth of information, and, for
those concerned with their health and well-being, this can be both a blessing
and a curse. I’ve recently come across a website that promotes various health
and nutrition measures under the label of “science” (<span style="font-size: large;">and</span> even “real good
science”!) all the while discrediting the work of some academics. While it’s obviously not the first time I’ve seen this
sort of thing, this particular website hit home because it targets a community
that’s close to me. The truth is, you can find science to support nearly
anything, but not all science is created equal. I can’t prevent people
from using “science” to support their claims, but I *can* tell you about what
actually is “real good science”, how to spot it, and how to make informed
decisions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">For this first post in the series, I want to introduce you
to the gold standard for scientifically proving that something works (for
example, that a drug treats a disease, or that a diet makes you lose weight):
the <b>double-blind, randomized controlled</b>
trial. Let’s start at the end:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A <b>controlled</b>
trial means that the intervention you are testing (for example, a pill to treat
stomach ulcers) is compared with a control intervention. The control can be a
placebo (a fake intervention), like a sugar pill. You might think that anything
works better than a sugar pill. Not so! Placebos are very effective for many
conditions (for more on placebos, stay tuned for Part 2!). That’s why it’s very
important to make sure that the effectiveness of your pill for stomach ulcers
is not due to the placebo effect.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">While placebos <span style="font-size: large;">ca<span style="font-size: large;">n be</span></span> the ideal control, it’s not always
practical, or ethical, to conduct a trial using a placebo. If for example you
are testing a new cancer drug, you don’t necessarily want your control group t<span style="font-size: large;">o</span> receive a placebo, and so go drug free, for the duration of the trial.
Another type of control would be to use a drug that is already on the market, has
known effects, and has already been tested thoroughly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Randomiz<span style="font-size: large;">ation</span></b> in the context of a controlled clinical trial means assigning
participants randomly to either the new intervention group or the control
group. Why is randomization important? It helps avoid a phenomenon called bias.
Imagine that researchers really believe the new pill for stomach ulcers will
work better than anything that already exists. They might be tempted to assign
the sickest participants to the intervention group and the others to the
control group. Seems like the right thing to do, yes? Unfortunately, not so.
It’s possible that as stomach ulcers progress, they respond differently to
various drugs, and by not assigning the participants randomly you might mask or
exaggerate the effects of your new product. Well-designed trials should be
randomized whenever possible.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In a <b>double-blind</b>
randomized controlled trial, two groups of people are “blinded”. The
participants are blinded in that they don’t know whether they are receiving the
new intervention or the control, and the experimenters are blinded in that when
they are analyzing the data, they don’t know who received what. Blinding a study really helps to limit the biases. That said,
it’s not always possible to blind everyone. Sometimes an intervention (like an
exercise program) is pretty obvious. But like randomization, it should be done
whenever possible.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Double-blind, randomized controlled trial are pretty much as<span style="font-size: large;"> </span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">good as it gets when you’re trying to prove something – they </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">are the most
reliable form of scientific evidence because they<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>have all the possible
elements in place to avoid false cause-and-effect evidence. Let’s look at one last example. Say
I’m trying to prove that a special diet involving eating large quantities of
bacon helps people lose weight. So I recruit 10 overweight participants and I
closely monitor their diet, making sure they eat their extra-large amounts of bacon.
At the end of my study, I find that 6 out of 10 participants lost weight. What
does this mean? Pick the right answer<span style="font-size: large;">: </span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">a) Bacon is an effective weight-loss tool (60%
success! Is<span style="font-size: large;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> that a lot<span style="font-size: large;">?) </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">b) Bacon didn’t change anything – had the
participants just </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span>gone on with their regular diet, 6 of them would have lost </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span>weight anywa<span style="font-size: large;">y </span> </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">c) Bacon worked as a placebo for 6 of the
participants<span style="font-size: large;"> </span> </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">d) The experience of being monitored closely by
researchers </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span>led the participants to pay closer attention to their diet and </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span>exercise, and 6 of them lost weight because aside from </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span>bacon they improved
their die<span style="font-size: large;">t </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">e</span>) </span>Bacon worked as a weight-loss tool for 2
participants and </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span>4 participants experienced the placebo effec<span style="font-size: large;">t </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">f</span>)</span> </span>The researchers secretly worked for the Bacon<span style="font-size: large;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>Consortium <span style="font-size: large;"></span>and this whole thing was a marketing exercise<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">g</span>) We have no idea what this means because the<span style="font-size: large;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span>experiment <span style="font-size: large;"></span>was not designed well.</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That’s right.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Double-blind randomized controlled trials are not entirely
without flaws (no scientific method is!). They typically take a very long time
to come together and are very expensive to conduct, which can sometimes (but
not always) mean that relatively wealthy organizations pay for them (for more
on who pays for science, stay tuned for a later installment in this series). Other flaws are shared with many different types of
research. That said, while these trials are not perfect, they are still the
gold standard. So the first thing to look for when you are researching a health
intervention online is whether a double-blind, randomized controlled trial has
been done. </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX3Jj46Gzsydk4OI_KbbANDM4vi-PgRy8OXo55un1hp7P0QXjZvUc2yJMRx7tPlWxxWr-HycWiV6HYxILoY3uYDdf2IKod1eGcx3FX6tN-VJzY_fJ7tOTLKWxKkb6JN_skxfDlzE2Jhbfv/s1600/dogbacon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX3Jj46Gzsydk4OI_KbbANDM4vi-PgRy8OXo55un1hp7P0QXjZvUc2yJMRx7tPlWxxWr-HycWiV6HYxILoY3uYDdf2IKod1eGcx3FX6tN-VJzY_fJ7tOTLKWxKkb6JN_skxfDlzE2Jhbfv/s1600/dogbacon.png" /></a></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Stay tuned for part 2, on the placebo effect!</span></span></div>
Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-39457433639415482452013-03-23T15:59:00.000-07:002013-03-23T15:59:44.282-07:00Save your brain cells
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YVh8hT2x3GMJjJaFN396RAdQnhpBY9DY2J-UdHXb7QbMU7DvwP3JW7CE6RzWyo6lXxf7qalyHPF4oj1zeqkEx19WGkZv2DmsY02qB2gFuUvIBYP1Ju-vc30uxANtbwR3VXa-VuDCnvlY/s1600/PowerClean.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YVh8hT2x3GMJjJaFN396RAdQnhpBY9DY2J-UdHXb7QbMU7DvwP3JW7CE6RzWyo6lXxf7qalyHPF4oj1zeqkEx19WGkZv2DmsY02qB2gFuUvIBYP1Ju-vc30uxANtbwR3VXa-VuDCnvlY/s320/PowerClean.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I’m not the most coordinated person on this planet. </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You know that kid who could never tap on her head and make circles on
her belly at the same time? That was me. </span>While I
can hold my own on the mountain bike trail and poke at mice brains, there are
certain things I will never do well, like dancing. Don’t even get me started on
“zumba”. So naturally I was a little nervous
when I joined a new gym class recently, especially since it involves learning
new movements. I’m always so envious of those who seem to learn new things
effortlessly, whose bodies respond immediately to what their brains are saying.
So I was very excited when I found out about new research that suggests all my
pain and suffering might pay off in the end.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It’s a common misconception that adult brains don’t grow.
For a long time, scientists thought adults had a finite number of brain cells,
and it was all downhill from there (grim, I know). We now know there is hope
for us all – some areas of your brain continue to grow brain cells throughout
your entire lifetime, at a rate of 5,000 to 10,000 new cells per day. Good news
right? Don’t get too excited. We also know that over half of those new cells
die within a few weeks of their birth.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ok, get excited again (what a rollercoaster!): there are
things you can do to prevent the death of those brain cells, and one of those
things is learning new stuff.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In one recent experiment, scientists had three groups of
rats undergo a procedure called eyeblink conditioning. This experiment is based
on Pavlov’s work – he’s the one who found out that if you ring a bell shortly
before you feed your dog every day, eventually just ringing the bell will be
enough to activate the dog’s saliva glands. Eyeblink conditioning is very
similar – it involves ringing a bell and then stimulating the rat’s eye,
leading to a blink. Eventually the rat learns to blink when it hears the bell
without the need for the actual stimulation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The researchers carried out the eyeblink conditioning with
three groups of rats. One group received a drug that prevented them from
learning anything, one group received a drug that made learning easier, and one
group didn’t get any drug (that would be the control group). After the rats
went through learning (or attempting to learn) the eyeblink procedure, the
researchers looked at how many new brain cells had been saved by the process.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The rats that received the drug that prevented from learning
predictably didn’t learn anything and also predictably didn’t save any new
brain cells. The rats that received the drug that helped them learn saved new
brain cells, but no more and no less than the group of rats that learned without
any drug. Pretty boring results so far, yes?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But wait! The researchers then closely looked at all the
animals that learned the task and reanalyzed how many new brain cells they
saved based on how long the rats took to learn to blink. What they found was
most intriguing: the longer a rat took to learn the task, the more new brain
cells it saved, regardless of whether it received the drug or not.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What this means is that the best way to save a maximum
amount of new brain cells is by having a hard time learning something but
ultimately being successful. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now don’t go bragging about being a slow learner just yet - for one thing,
the timing of the experiments I described above is very tricky (especially the
timing between the eyeblink conditioning and when new cells are counted). We also know very little about the role of those new brain cells and whether they get integrated in existing networks in the brain, and I
don’t need to remind you that results obtained in rats don’t necessarily apply
to us. That said, it’s well proven that learning is good for your overall brain
health, so go ahead and join that zumba class. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvc5oev4ZrD66I6ih2j3txII-oHkGxVjsiT_f8mPwuQUbdIg14LV_bJSyt7PhOqIE220yY8nbUV-QqUjyfE1O5bnwnUgeA8mgxnvL_3WSCjmpqgCTs22fg5QOPzA59LNidibcFAZgJ7RG-/s1600/ZUMBA1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvc5oev4ZrD66I6ih2j3txII-oHkGxVjsiT_f8mPwuQUbdIg14LV_bJSyt7PhOqIE220yY8nbUV-QqUjyfE1O5bnwnUgeA8mgxnvL_3WSCjmpqgCTs22fg5QOPzA59LNidibcFAZgJ7RG-/s320/ZUMBA1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reference: Curlik DM and Shors TJ (2011) Learning increases
the survival of newborn neurons provided that learning is difficult to achieve
and successful. J Cogn Neurosci 23(9):2159-2170.</span></span></div>
Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-79287478663351523542012-12-15T00:14:00.000-08:002012-12-15T00:14:58.274-08:00Wait for it
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZO9InM8Nj7wkdB_NV79K7COHp_iwGYfIAFeswl4KXD4KIyETsnqo_iQywceR2ewLcsxZzfPvaoBO_h5xv831iMJWU0MHTxo2Aq5YlNHi8yLRVPKZDCk05NpkCmDMYjLfNnwKAaIxN0qK/s1600/Commute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZO9InM8Nj7wkdB_NV79K7COHp_iwGYfIAFeswl4KXD4KIyETsnqo_iQywceR2ewLcsxZzfPvaoBO_h5xv831iMJWU0MHTxo2Aq5YlNHi8yLRVPKZDCk05NpkCmDMYjLfNnwKAaIxN0qK/s320/Commute.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My commute, on a good day</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On most days I bike to work. It’s my way of “walking the
walk” – I write enough about the benefits of exercise, it would be a little embarrassing
if I were a couch potato. Riding in involves climbing a big hill early(ish) in
the morning, but I usually just get into a low gear and think about stuff and I
barely notice it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not this morning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This morning, there was a headwind. A cold headwind. It felt
like I was pedaling against a wall. I was trying to convince myself that I was
enjoying it – looking at the view, trying to feel the oxygen in my brain. But
at some point I let out a big sigh and thought “who am I kidding, this is
miserable!”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Even so, I knew full well that tomorrow, I would be back on
the bike first thing in the morning. So I wondered – why do I continue to bike
in, even in the winter, in the rain, in the cold, up the hill – even though I
sometimes don’t derive any immediate pleasure or benefit? The answer, of
course, is that rationally, I know that no matter how miserable it is at the
moment, in the long run it’s good for me – it’s good for my health, my weight,
my ability to prevent and fight illness, and, as anyone who reads this blog
knows, my ability to ward off cognitive decline as I get older.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This process of holding off on immediate rewards (driving in
to work in a warm car with some Christmas music playing) to benefit from later
rewards (health) is called delayed gratification. It was most famously studied
using marshmallows: in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0yhHKWUa0g" target="_blank">well-known study</a>, young children were given the choice
between eating one marshmallow immediately, or waiting a few minutes and
receive two marshmallows (giving rise to some pretty <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EjJsPylEOY" target="_blank">hilarious antics</a>). The
researchers followed-up on the children many years later, and found those who
were successful in displaying delayed gratification (and so resisted eating the
one marshmallow) were doing better on several outcomes such as academic success
and ability to handle stress.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In a more recent study, a team of researchers investigated
whether there is a link between the ability to delay gratification as a child
and weight in adulthood. They found that one’s performance on a delayed
gratification task (similar to the marshmallow experiment) was associated with
his or her <a href="http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/" target="_blank">body mass index</a> (BMI) thirty years later. In short, the kids who
were able to wait the longest for a bigger reward had lower BMIs as adults.
Interestingly, <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2011/01/new-years-resolutions-through-delayed.html" target="_blank">another study</a> found that children who already have a high BMI
score poorly on a delayed gratification task – a nice convergence of evidence
from different sources.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Avid Scientific Chick readers can no doubt point to an
important limitation of this study. Repeat after me: correlation does not imply
causation. The fact that kids who did well at delayed gratification later had
lower BMI’s does not mean that being good at delayed gratification <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">causes</i> one to have a lower BMI. There
are several potential confounders here, some of which were not controlled for,
such as the BMI of the participants as children. That said, the findings remain
interesting – it’s not completely out of the park to think that improving
self-regulation and self-control could have an impact on weight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There is a little coda to my earlier story about biking
against a wall of wind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPXdW2PXp5mY_KdiqmcfZFjSwknMB71qMmM97fFEtH7T4FNrzVCz7PQ3qyR7AwdGNVN2K04iGQMV7g_U4HUQ93CICQq5BG-MYuJX-zwr5JfFUJLA1TeJzYmEeD7QYXihymNxwhEcngLDbR/s1600/Coyote-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPXdW2PXp5mY_KdiqmcfZFjSwknMB71qMmM97fFEtH7T4FNrzVCz7PQ3qyR7AwdGNVN2K04iGQMV7g_U4HUQ93CICQq5BG-MYuJX-zwr5JfFUJLA1TeJzYmEeD7QYXihymNxwhEcngLDbR/s320/Coyote-02.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">About halfway up the hill, at the peak of my frustration,
almost as if on cue, a huge coyote emerged from the forest, and started
trotting along the bike path as I was biking. It was a big fluffy beast, and
for a second I was scared, but it was minding its own business, and eventually
started making its way across the street. Still excited from my encounter, I
turned my head, and there was another equally huge coyote sitting just next to
the bike path, in the forest, staring me down. I couldn't believe it. I've seen
coyotes before, but never this big, never this close, and never on my way to or
from work. They were beautiful creatures and my heart was warmed. Delighted
with this turn of events, and with the fact that this morning’s gratification
was instant and not delayed, I grinned like an idiot all the way to work.<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Reference: Preschoolers’ delay of gratification predicts
their body mass 30 years later. Schlam TR et al. (2012) The Journal of
Pediatrics Aug 18 [Epub ahead of print].</span></span></div>
Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-16287330108224388572012-12-06T16:22:00.001-08:002013-03-23T16:03:46.817-07:00You're not that tired<style>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhfXFdpH7FApQPWW9FqPgN1_OgXdmqWlj6WtXp49E69J7IwDhRPDk_rs7zZe3_aOIaQ1A-tTvWBBkRUmVaZ3NCQ-W98h76S6y7uF5RNEC9g6KPQE_-5fy2ntqKVMZg-Xc0drLmCy0YZAU9/s1600/tired.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhfXFdpH7FApQPWW9FqPgN1_OgXdmqWlj6WtXp49E69J7IwDhRPDk_rs7zZe3_aOIaQ1A-tTvWBBkRUmVaZ3NCQ-W98h76S6y7uF5RNEC9g6KPQE_-5fy2ntqKVMZg-Xc0drLmCy0YZAU9/s320/tired.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A few years ago, good friends of mine dragged me to a
viewing of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379557/" target="_blank">Touching the Void</a>, a movie about the extraordinary survival of a
mountain climber against all odds. I remember coming out of that movie thinking,
“Wow, when I complain that I’m tired, I’m really not that tired – I have so
much more in me”. It might sound corny, but over the years, I’ve thought about
this movie several times, and it has inspired me in many ways.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Which part of your body decides when you can and can’t go
on? In exercise science, the debate has been going on for years. Some
researchers think it’s the heart – you can only exert your big muscle so much.
Others link stamina and endurance to lung capacity – measures like VO2 max (how
much oxygen your body transports and uses during exercise) have been linked to
performance in sports. More recently, measures like the lactate threshold (the
exercise intensity at which lactic acid starts to accumulate in your blood)
have become popular. Professional athletes are poked and prodded to try to
figure out what makes a winner, but somehow with each theory comes at least one
or two outliers. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In an effort to investigate what drives people to push
themselves and what sets the limits, British researchers came up with an
interesting experiment using cyclists.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Each cyclist in their study had to complete four trials of 4
kilometers on a stationary bicycle. The first trial was just to get used to the
equipment and the setting. The second trial was the real deal – they had to go
as fast as possible, and their time was stored and used as the “baseline” time,
or their “personal best”. During the last two trials, the participants “raced”
against themselves – an avatar representing them was projected onto a big
screen in front of them, and they could track their progress in relation to
that of their avatar. The idea is that the avatar on the screen was going at
the same speed as the cyclist’s 2<sup>nd</sup> trial (the one used to set their
personal best). The researchers were hoping to learn whether a cyclist could
beat their trial time by chasing themselves to the finish line, thus
establishing a new best time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">You can probably guess the outcome of the study: all the
participants beat their best time when they raced against it. But there’s a
twist: in one of the last two trials, the researchers tricked the cyclists: the
avatar was actually going 2% faster than their previously established personal
best. And every participant beat that time, too! So guess what? It’s not in
your heart, or your lungs, or you legs. It’s all in... your brain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">What the study tells us is that you have a little energy
reserve, even when you think you’re going all out. Your brain doesn’t want you
to tap that reserve, because if you get into that habit, you might use it up
and die. So it keeps it hidden. It makes you feel like you’re going to die even
though you’re not. But the reserve is available – throw in a little deception
and a little competitiveness (or, in the case of the mountain climber, a little
actual fear for your life), and you can gain access to it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So there you have it! Next time you didn’t sleep well and
you’ve been going all day at work and running errands and working out and you
just feel like collapsing on the couch and having a nap… Dr. Julie says…
Collapse on the couch and have a nap. But do it <i>knowing</i> you could also clean the house if you really wanted to.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Reference: Effects of deception on exercise performance:
implications for determinants of fatigue in humans. Stone MR et al. (2012) Med
Sci Sports Exerc. 44(3):534-41.</span></span></div>
Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-91024809882762754262012-11-30T23:07:00.000-08:002013-03-23T16:05:04.457-07:00It's time to have "the talk"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIpypswCb1e8VyIZbsFKj6lNsmGW8lY_b56XjIeXOFWwQYDZYtiwqMgKgAifVUitrXaVSgsE0bMM9kaxMiZDebqRVnrkCR53vgXDF4wn02SJhhFr7nJ49NLRXJACef2r4Ie3ed8jQgsm11/s1600/Ragdoll_and_Bunny.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIpypswCb1e8VyIZbsFKj6lNsmGW8lY_b56XjIeXOFWwQYDZYtiwqMgKgAifVUitrXaVSgsE0bMM9kaxMiZDebqRVnrkCR53vgXDF4wn02SJhhFr7nJ49NLRXJACef2r4Ie3ed8jQgsm11/s320/Ragdoll_and_Bunny.bmp" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Please enjoy this cuteness as a reward for reading this post</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">No, I'm not talking about the "birds and bees" talk. This "talk" is one you should have with your parents, or your partner, not your children. It's not an easy talk. You're not going to want to talk about it. They are not going to want to talk about it. But the discussion is important, and it should take place sooner than later. This "talk" is about advance health care directives.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Essentially, establishing "advance health care directives" (sometimes called a "living will") means deciding ahead of time how you want to be treated if you are no longer able to make decisions for yourself because you are ill (for example, with dementia) or incapacitated (for example, after a car crash). These decisions include things like whether you'd want to have a feeding tube, be treated with antibiotics, or be resuscitated with CPR if your heart fails (and many other decisions!). In general, people go about this in one of two ways: either by appointing someone to make decisions for them should it be necessary, or by writing down instructions for treatment, such as the kinds of treatments they would be ok with and the kinds they wouldn't want. Ideally, the advance directives should be a combination of both.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now you're probably sitting there thinking "I'm way too young for this" (aren't we all), or "my parents are well, there's no need". And that's exactly the problem: by the time you need advance directives, chances are it will be too late. Our ability to make decisions for ourselves over our lifetime is like a bell curve: it's pretty low when we're young, still low-ish in our pre-teen/teenage years (hence the need for the "birds and bees" talk), then it peaks in adulthood, and starts declining again as we get older. So ideally we should start this discussion at our peak. I know I'm being a complete bummer suggesting we all sit down and talk about death and illness at our peak. But there's a good chance you'll thank me later.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm currently attending the Leadership Program for Physicians and Leaders in Long-Term Care in Vancouver (my talk is tomorrow and I should definitely be preparing for it instead of writing this!). There's a lot of discussion at the conference around advance directives. The main problem is that a lot of people don't have them! </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There's some uncertainty over how much physicians actually follow advance directives. In some areas they have to and in others they don't. Really what it comes down to is everyone is better off if they have at least had the discussion - at the conference, one presenter mentioned how older adults who have advance directives tend to enjoy a better quality of life, and a better death. I know, I know. You're don't want to be reading about death on a Friday night. If you need a break, here are some kittens: <a href="http://animal.discovery.com/tv/too-cute-kittens/kitten-cam/" target="_blank">click here</a>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As I said before, it's not an easy discussion. "Ah, ok, so, yeah, one day I might have dementia, or be in a car accident and suffer brain damage, and well I think I'd rather...". But hey, a lot of discussions are unpleasant ("Ah, ok, so, yeah, I dropped your brand new iPhone in the toilet"). So just do it. And don't just sit down and write this by yourself, either - speak to a loved one, or a relative, about what your thoughts are, and also involve your doctor - they can absolutely help with this, and may be able to provide you with useful tools. Advance directives should be an ongoing discussion, not a one-time thing - revisit your choices once in a while, and always keep someone in the loop.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I realize this isn't my most uplifting post, but as science moves forward, we face new choices that are important to talk about. So chatter away!</span></span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-27227101657390386712012-11-15T20:33:00.001-08:002013-03-23T16:05:36.230-07:00Go lift some weights and call me in the morning<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzlAQqg7zP0lnyh-h7T0YsYiZj8BXYkC5Omnh74ewIuSF-80rrUJsLTJffMTE-rzcRRhogODl0n2xtkBZiYPjYP4uHjhlkCRbFACxJyd5w9be2Q6d4Rkszu0VyTbYLEjzxTIk6VDfStdFE/s1600/Mom-Gangnam-Style-900-600-600x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzlAQqg7zP0lnyh-h7T0YsYiZj8BXYkC5Omnh74ewIuSF-80rrUJsLTJffMTE-rzcRRhogODl0n2xtkBZiYPjYP4uHjhlkCRbFACxJyd5w9be2Q6d4Rkszu0VyTbYLEjzxTIk6VDfStdFE/s320/Mom-Gangnam-Style-900-600-600x400.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">In my last post I told you that I would reveal the one thing you can do to have a significant, positive and lasting effect on your brain health as you get older. See if you can spot it in the following list:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">a) Learn to dance <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5lo3VCXJF8" target="_blank">Gangnam style</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">b) Join a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X--g9CjYKhE" target="_blank">choir</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">c) Catch a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eKnAeK2VOY" target="_blank">wave</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">d) Pump some <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qZX7KgqVpM" target="_blank">iron</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ok, that was a trick question. All of these answers are somewhat correct, but I was looking for the "most" correct answer (flashbacks to undergrad, anyone?): Pump some iron.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">I realize I sound like a broken record - I've already written about how aerobic exercise can promote healthy aging <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2009/09/yet-another-reason-to-exercise.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2010/10/walk-in-park.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and I've even already written about resistance training, or lifting weights, <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2010/06/little-known-benefits-of-pumping-iron.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">So why am I at it again? Because it's important! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">I'm fresh out of the 2012 <a href="http://agingandsociety.com/" target="_blank">Aging and Society</a> Conference, where researchers came together to discuss what works and what <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2012/11/if-only-i-had-better-brain-part-ii.html" target="_blank">doesn't</a> when it comes to healthy aging. It turns out everyone pretty much agrees that exercise is hands down the most effective intervention to keep your brain cells happy into old(er) age. All sorts of different types of exercise, ranging from simply walking to attending resistance training classes, are associated with different types of improvements in cognition, memory, and even brain size. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">Of course, there are different levels of effort involved with different types of exercise, or even when talking about a single form of exercise. When my friend Jess asks me to go for a walk, she means a power walk: it usually involves going up hills, sweating like a pig (even though pigs, ironically, <a href="http://www.neatorama.com/2011/08/29/the-expression-sweating-like-a-pig-has-nothing-to-do-with-pigs/" target="_blank">don't sweat much</a>), and barely having enough breath for girl talk (though somehow we always seem to find it). When my friend Al and I go for a walk, what he means is a "mosey": we stop to look at the view, pet the dog, chit chat with strangers, and have more than enough breath for lengthy discussions about life, work, and the possibility of alien lifeforms. When it comes to brain health, whether you're walking or pumping iron, a little sweating and effort can go a long way. For example, resistance training has been proven to be most effective when the load, or how much weight you are working with, increases over time. So kick the intensity up a notch: there will still be plenty of time for chit chat around a post-exercise, antioxidant-rich mug of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matcha" target="_blank">matcha</a> (my new obsession - stay tuned).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now that the obvious has been (re)stated, I want to take this opportunity to discuss the idea that perhaps lifestyle interventions such as exercise could be <a href="http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=48851&cn=110" target="_blank">prescribed by your doctor</a>. We know that exercise can improve cognition in aging but also conditions like depression. Should physicians prescribe lifestyle changes? Or are diet, exercise, and other lifestyle activities choices we should make ourselves? How would you feel if your doctor prescribed you exercise instead of pills? Would you be more motivated to exercise if the prescription came from your doctor instead of from your friendly Internet science blogger? Your thoughts in the comments!</span><br />
<br />Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-30008917761027160642012-11-08T19:34:00.001-08:002013-03-23T16:05:54.217-07:00If only I had a (better) brain: Part II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2AIEJwTfO3H2EcfJZYcGMYjMwkX0Oi2bs3or4qx6dx-SRPgWaIvLxCedTJHmhtwO3CIrW4XT7hhsDIH9dWxY5eVFg1O4J7jFmKTTU_34dR3dh8jqxd2-oPS99PxE1sUbGX5hYTODudEL0/s1600/elderly-people-on-computer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2AIEJwTfO3H2EcfJZYcGMYjMwkX0Oi2bs3or4qx6dx-SRPgWaIvLxCedTJHmhtwO3CIrW4XT7hhsDIH9dWxY5eVFg1O4J7jFmKTTU_34dR3dh8jqxd2-oPS99PxE1sUbGX5hYTODudEL0/s320/elderly-people-on-computer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Can we "train" our brains to be brighter, sharper, faster? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A while back I wrote <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/search?q=brain+training&x=0&y=0" target="_blank">a post</a> about a big study looking at "brain training". The researchers wanted to know whether training programs that look like video games (like <a href="http://brainage.com/launch/index.jsp" target="_blank">Brain Age</a> and <a href="http://www.lumosity.com/" target="_blank">Lumosity</a>) could significantly improve brain performance on various tests. The results, in a nutshell, showed that while participants improved on the tasks they trained on (e.g., if the game involved ranking balls from smallest to biggest, the participants got *really* good at ranking balls from smallest to biggest), the improvement didn't carry over to general brain function.Turns out ranking ball sizes doesn't help you remember where you left your keys this morning.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Two years later, what's the word?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm going to shift a little from how I normally do things (review a single article) and tell you about findings I learned about at the recent <a href="http://agingandsociety.com/" target="_blank">Aging and Society</a> conference. At the conference, several researchers talked about brain training in the context of aging. We know that as we get older our cognitive abilities decline - we forget names and words, misplace our shopping lists, and process information a little bit more slowly. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could just spend ten minutes a day playing games on our iPad and successfully counter this decline? Of course it would be fantastic. Not just for us, but also for the companies who are trying very hard to convince us to buy their products to improve our cognition.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The problem is that skills are specific. If you want to become a fabulous jazz pianist, you have to play the piano (preferably jazz songs, too). If you want to become a star ballet dancer, you have to practice ballet. If you want to become a better mountain biker, you have to mountain bike - road biking will improve your leg strength and fitness, but ultimately it won't make you a better mountain biker. So why should things be any different for brain skills?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As it turns out, they aren't. Two years later, nearly all the research conducted in the field of brain training is turning up the same results: people only get better at the tasks they trained on - the improvement doesn't cross over to more general skills, different skills, or everyday life. In one study, a researcher compared a commercially available brain training program with what she called an "active control" - a group that simply played regular video games like Tetris. She found that the group who spent time on the commercially available brain training program actually saw some aspects of their cognition decline compared with the control group. Bummer.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now don't throw out your Brain Age game yet - everyone at the conference agreed that engaging your brain in training programs is better than not doing anything. And most of the researchers felt that while the programs don't work now, it's not to say they'll never work. We are increasingly more knowledgeable about how the brain works, what happens when we get old, and what different training tasks do. So it's quite possible that sometime in the near-ish future (don't ask me when) we could see the advent of brain training programs that do have a significant and lasting impact on cognition.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Until then, there is one thing you can do to have a significant and lasting impact on your brain health... And I'll tell you in the next post.</span></span><br />
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<br />Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-69982588492751275432012-07-21T12:23:00.000-07:002012-07-21T12:23:50.905-07:00Cheezy poofs only taste good when all is right<style>
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In our early years, we are taught about the five senses:
hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell. These senses (supposedly) make up our
own personal toolbox for perceiving the world around us, and we are initially
taught that our senses give us an accurate representation of what we perceive:
cookies always smell like cookies, cheezy poofs always taste oh-so-good.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjky9XNvXb8TvhZ9q-jYCdpzBfSnIcAzAXTZ4Fj-BaGSebOgQjCkA6CbSREbZGvixyF6r4mBHR3dPgG4DUuf3EwZIKJ9HkrV17uFwshDDSfdNghmUNHSS2uTNJbdqZ_5eon7E1DiJrMNq58/s1600/Grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjky9XNvXb8TvhZ9q-jYCdpzBfSnIcAzAXTZ4Fj-BaGSebOgQjCkA6CbSREbZGvixyF6r4mBHR3dPgG4DUuf3EwZIKJ9HkrV17uFwshDDSfdNghmUNHSS2uTNJbdqZ_5eon7E1DiJrMNq58/s320/Grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG" width="320" /></a>This idea that our brain perceives the world exactly as it
is starts to break down when we are exposed to optical illusions: images that
differ from what we think is real. One of my favorite ones is on the right: the
A square and the B square are actually the same shade of grey, even though we
perceive them to be different. As it turns out, neuroscientists are
increasingly finding out that most of our senses, not just vision, are far from
perfect when it comes to representing the world accurately. How we feel, what
we are doing, what we just did, pretty much anything can influence our
perception.</div>
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In a recent study about perception, researchers investigated
the relationship between morality and taste. They started by having
participants read a short story. Not everybody got the same story to read: a
third of the participants read a story in which something morally bad happens
(shoplifting, or a politician accepting a bribe), a third read a story in which
something morally good happens (a gift to a homeless family, or a good
Samaritan stopping a mugging), and a third read a story in which something
boring happens (a student choosing a major, or waiters chit chatting). The
participants were then asked to rate the morality of the story, and not
surprisingly, they rated the stories exactly as you would expect – the
shoplifting and bribe-accepting as being morally bad, and so on.</div>
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The researchers then pretended that the study was over, and
that they were now starting a new study that had to do with product-testing.
The participants were asked to drink a teaspoon of a mysterious drink (in
reality, diluted blue Gatorade), and then rate the taste of the drink on a
scale from very disgusting to very delicious. Can you see where this is going?</div>
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As you might have guessed, the participants that had read a
“morally bad” story rated the drink as more disgusting, and the participants
that had read a “morally good” story rated it as more delicious (the ones who
got the boring story rated it somewhere in the middle). That is to say, the
participant’s experience of a moral judgment significantly influenced their
perception of taste. Seems like we can’t trust any of our senses!</div>
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The researchers discussed the results of this study in the
context of how we process morality and so on, but I think it’s even more
interesting to think of this as a prime example of just how much our brain puts
a personal slant on everything we experience. I also see implications for
issues like overeating and emotional eating. </div>
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Can you think of a time when food tasted different because
of emotional reasons? Share in the comments!</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Reference: The <span>bitter truth about morality - virtue,
not vice, makes a bland beverage taste nice. (2012) Eskine KJ et al. PLoS One
7(7):<span class="citationstartpage"> e41159.</span></span></span></div>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-68191692019516849502012-07-16T21:45:00.000-07:002012-07-16T21:49:15.785-07:00Sitting ducks die... Maybe.<style>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNVyCLKhGFU9wB9xRn4TqffEfUsb66-d78bKFuwZ_pkoh3zYNeRGUILFAjdoMrCfi95Mljs5dfkl7KiU06PegnGUNCLGfsFgUy73d3tK-ll_iz0iQoTPnfW-hkOOGia4eoS0al6FEK-1C5/s1600/sitting-duck.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNVyCLKhGFU9wB9xRn4TqffEfUsb66-d78bKFuwZ_pkoh3zYNeRGUILFAjdoMrCfi95Mljs5dfkl7KiU06PegnGUNCLGfsFgUy73d3tK-ll_iz0iQoTPnfW-hkOOGia4eoS0al6FEK-1C5/s1600/sitting-duck.gif" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I think it’s pretty safe for me to assume that you’re
sitting down right now. Some of you might be so lucky to have a treadmill desk
(on my long list of wants) or you might be reading this on your mobile device
while waiting in line at the grocery store, but chances are most of you are
sitting. Many people around the world do what I call “sitting for a living”,
meaning working at a desk for the larger portion of the day. A recent study
reported that Taiwan, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Japan are the “most seated”
countries with people sitting over 6 hours per day. It’s a no-brainer that
sitting all day is bad for your health – it’s been associated with health
issues like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Conversely, it’s also
known that exercise is good for you and helps prevent health issues like – you
guessed it – Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Based on these
findings, the government has established guidelines suggesting adults get at
least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per week to benefit from
physical activity. </span></div>
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Long work hours combined with all this evidence about the
health benefits of exercise has led to a new label: what I call the “active
couch potato”, one who is both sedentary and physically active. These people,
like me, work 8- to 10-hour days at a desk, but also exercise – for example,
they cycle to work, or jog regularly. So the question becomes: is regular
exercise sufficient to offset sitting all day on most days?</div>
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A recent study tries to shed light on the relationship
between sitting and life expectancy, regardless of exercise. After seeing a
number of dubious headlines about this study such as “Sitting less can boost
your life expectancy” and “Sitting ourselves to death” (gasp!), I thought I’d
take a look at the original research and report back.</div>
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The researchers carried out a “meta-analysis”, which
essentially means an “analysis of analyses”. They looked through previously
published scientific articles on the topics of sitting and life expectancy,
pooled the results together, and crunched the numbers to get a “big picture”.
To make their results easier to understand, they divided sitting habits in
three levels: level 1 means sitting less than a quarter of the time in a normal
day, level 2 means sitting about half the time, and level three means sitting
three quarters of the time or more. What their results show is that going from
level 2 or 3 to level 1 (meaning sitting less) can mean a gain of 2 years in
life expectancy.</div>
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So what? Do we really conclude that sitting is a silent
killer?</div>
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Not so fast. We have many reasons to believe that sitting is
bad for our health, but this article isn’t necessarily one of them. For one
thing, the researchers themselves point out that their results don’t mean that
someone who sits less can expect to live longer. Life expectancy is a measure
that can only apply to populations, not to individuals, so while the study is
relevant in a “big picture” kind of way, it means little for your own personal
habits and life expectancy.</div>
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The authors also make one big assumption in their model:
that sitting more <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">causes</i> a shortened
life expectancy. However, the study results don’t tell us whether there is a
direct cause-and-effect relationship. I talked about confounders in previous posts, and this is a perfect place to continue this discussion.
For my new readers, confounders are variables that the researcher didn’t take
into consideration, which could explain his results in a different way. For
example, in this instance, the researchers find that sitting more shortens life
expectancy. However, the real explanation could be that people who sit more end
up eating more spicy Cheetos, and it’s the chemicals in the spicy Cheetos that
actually shortens their life expectancy. See what I mean? Of course this is a
silly example, but you get the idea (and of course I will never give up spicy
Cheetos).</div>
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Can you think of possible (silly or not!) confounders in
this study? Share in the comments!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdXpQqKSoLi8ldoi4VPsyDrhxm6mLNbL49BgPZd8U_r0KMCAOPB4IpSxlMsfMl9Fd0SWCl7UWRoZ0zlluAQ_g7dFQWruaWoxZ6DIstKalspebK6XLyBw_Z5nGargxPWJ0EavtnoJUUe4K/s1600/treadmill+desk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdXpQqKSoLi8ldoi4VPsyDrhxm6mLNbL49BgPZd8U_r0KMCAOPB4IpSxlMsfMl9Fd0SWCl7UWRoZ0zlluAQ_g7dFQWruaWoxZ6DIstKalspebK6XLyBw_Z5nGargxPWJ0EavtnoJUUe4K/s320/treadmill+desk.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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You can count on more articles about sitting in the future.
Since this one didn’t really answer whether sitting and exercising cancel out,
I’ll keep looking. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Reference: Sedentary behaviour and life expectancy in the USA: a cause-deleted life table analysis. (2012) Katzmaryk PT, Lee I-M. BMJ Open 2:e000828.</span></div>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-70588951040884615962012-07-08T10:37:00.000-07:002012-07-08T11:02:37.529-07:00Hurray for Higgs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwymzsuyjP2Lf0x4Uwv3-jRh4Wh53Te6bbLq4DqD0Pcrob6VsrATxV9MvzmxXOPfRsxpGtOSrLyubn2bc1ydsKBzVtRg0MR_w3_NVoyC4tDtQSG6DxqiYvEsQjZWGKcV7_jPjL2YrtFhL/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-07-08+at+10.27.28+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwymzsuyjP2Lf0x4Uwv3-jRh4Wh53Te6bbLq4DqD0Pcrob6VsrATxV9MvzmxXOPfRsxpGtOSrLyubn2bc1ydsKBzVtRg0MR_w3_NVoyC4tDtQSG6DxqiYvEsQjZWGKcV7_jPjL2YrtFhL/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-07-08+at+10.27.28+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
There has been a lot of discussion in the news recently about the discovery of the Higgs boson particle at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider" target="_blank">Large Hadron Collider</a> in Geneva.<br />
<br />
I'm sure some of you would like to know more about this, and I would have loved to write a good post about the discovery and its implications. Sadly, my knowledge of subatomic particle physics is somewhat limited (and by limited I mean nonexistent).<br />
<br />
So instead, I recommend the following video for an introduction to the Higgs boson:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?id=instant-egghead-what-is-2012-06-29" target="_blank">What is the Higgs Boson?</a><br />
<br />
And since this wouldn't be a proper Scientific Chick article without a good measure of hype debunking, here's a more critical take on the news:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2012/07/04/if-you-want-more-higgs-hype-dont-read-this-column/" target="_blank">Cross-Check Blog</a><br />
<br />
Enjoy!<br />
<br />
<br />Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-42569899781220471732012-07-06T22:02:00.000-07:002012-07-06T22:17:19.250-07:00Healthy aging: As easy as do-re-mi ♪ ?<style>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjszx_kPMXLgfFhMRSBhbpyHl2492E9PKVd_x4_I7jG8BZU9N6GwL_UbeBla6xSVRKHnMM1iuFCWgS01toibpI1UoyGwB2x-RMHbg56e8fk28DijlsGd60syKVmCOo0yUI3PpHwfohxB3zP/s1600/4-HornerPlaysW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjszx_kPMXLgfFhMRSBhbpyHl2492E9PKVd_x4_I7jG8BZU9N6GwL_UbeBla6xSVRKHnMM1iuFCWgS01toibpI1UoyGwB2x-RMHbg56e8fk28DijlsGd60syKVmCOo0yUI3PpHwfohxB3zP/s400/4-HornerPlaysW.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We’re all growing old – for all the recent advances in
science and all the predictions of <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Enders-Game-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0765342294" target="_blank">science fiction</a>, this is still an
inescapable fact. By 2050, there will be roughly 89 million older adults in the
US, twice as many as there are now. While old age chases most of us down if
we’re lucky, that doesn’t mean we’re entirely powerless in the process.</span></div>
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Previous entries in my blog looked at various ways to
promote healthy aging: <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2010/10/walk-in-park.html" target="_blank">walking</a> and <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2010/06/little-known-benefits-of-pumping-iron.html" target="_blank">lifting weights</a>, <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2009/04/secret-to-eternal-youth-say-goodbye-to.html" target="_blank">eating less</a>, <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.ca/2010/10/parlez-vous-francais.html" target="_blank">learning languages</a>. Some of these lifestyle changes, like exercise, are easy to
incorporate later in life, while others, like bilingualism, may depend on the
environment you grew up in. Today’s new finding about healthy aging fits in the
latter category. It's a bit like a lottery: were you one of the lucky ones who benefited from an anti-aging activity in your youth?</div>
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Researchers were interested in how the brain responds to
sound. We already know that brain structures that lie at the base of your
brain, called subcortical structures (<i>sub</i> > beneath, <i>cortical</i> > the outer
layer of your brain) are important for detecting fast-changing sounds like the
ones we make when we talk. The precise timing of your brain reacting to sounds
degrades as you get older, and scientists believe this is why grandma sometimes
doesn’t really follow what you’re saying.</div>
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In this study, the researchers measured the precision of
this timing by putting electrodes on participants’ heads (the outside only!) and
recording the signals their brains generated when they heard the syllable “da”.
As expected, the older participants didn’t have as precise a timing as younger
ones. More interestingly, however, was that this age-related decline wasn’t
nearly as bad in participants who were musicians. </div>
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So the take-home message is that lifelong musical experience
can help make your brain better equipped to deal with aging. No doubt it also comes with other benefits - my grandma, in her eighties, had forgotten much of her adult years but still delighted fellow residents of her care home with her flawless rendition of the "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtNtjspqA-g" target="_blank">Sweet bye and bye</a>". Now of course
while this is an interesting article, the results don't come as a huge surprise – by now you probably have figured out that the
whole “use if or lose it” saying has a lot of truth to it. </div>
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Conveniently, I just bought a piano. Now if only I could
reap all the benefits just by looking at it…</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Reference: Musical experience offsets age-related delays in
neural timing (2012) Parbery-Clark A, Anderson S, Hittner E, Kraus N.
Neurobiology of Aging 33:1483.e1-1483.e4.</span></div>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-88337620089399311712012-06-28T10:32:00.000-07:002012-06-28T10:32:21.150-07:00Science does not rest!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJ2F6bYWWZw7IvvUf0fjW-89alok8ZcYea5WrTg1EkPilYYLOSLErvGRlcDXLVE4VoyU8UY4_RowUM6DEjPV6II9Q8eo0tlP6lD3D6tQ2gM8mTUElEYC-O1pc7NO1NfJqQP0f1mHX7HiH/s1600/i'm+back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJ2F6bYWWZw7IvvUf0fjW-89alok8ZcYea5WrTg1EkPilYYLOSLErvGRlcDXLVE4VoyU8UY4_RowUM6DEjPV6II9Q8eo0tlP6lD3D6tQ2gM8mTUElEYC-O1pc7NO1NfJqQP0f1mHX7HiH/s320/i'm+back.jpg" width="254" /></a>Science lovers, I shall neglect you no more!<br />
<br />
Scientific Chick is back at it. There have been so many developments while I have been away from this blog - new findings about obesity, Alzheimer's disease, gene therapy, stem cells, cancer, sex, you name it!<br />
<br />
I'm pondering new features for this site - for one thing, I promise to get a better picture up there soon! I would like to have a more interactive format, perhaps a forum for debates, seeing as new developments in science, health and technology do not come without controversy...<br />
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In the meantime, though, I'll be bringing some new science stories that I think you'll find interesting, and the occasional ridiculous headline, since I love them so much.<br />
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Stay tuned! And thanks for sticking around so patiently!<br />
<br />Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-67152579667246337662011-05-29T22:55:00.000-07:002011-05-29T23:06:15.544-07:00Live from the sky, somewhere over the prairies<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-2fWOfjZYh_emNjtxNeNSFmfYCGrmEIO9VOYqNYCvKYySZlQp6-ln62c2sBC6ZKZyTE1Sb2u4i2D_ZsiRwzKogy0IQQ9iIBfTQwmPOqgluFLuu17JHsNtkGgexnGLduHSwrNxQ9pWGnPE/s1600/homers-brain.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 113px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-2fWOfjZYh_emNjtxNeNSFmfYCGrmEIO9VOYqNYCvKYySZlQp6-ln62c2sBC6ZKZyTE1Sb2u4i2D_ZsiRwzKogy0IQQ9iIBfTQwmPOqgluFLuu17JHsNtkGgexnGLduHSwrNxQ9pWGnPE/s400/homers-brain.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612386008761077746" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">It’s been a while, science-loving friends, and I apologize. I could list all the things that have kept me away from this blog in the past month, but then I might scare away anyone who is considering the postdoc life. Instead, I will reward your patience with brain news hot off the press: a report from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroethics">neuroethics</a> conference I just attended in Montreal called <a href="http://www.brainmatters2.com/">Brain Matters</a>. As with <a href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.com/2010/11/live-from-san-diego-airport.html">previous conference reports</a>, I will share my insights in bullet-proof format, as my foggy jet-lagged brain cannot write a coherent paragraph at the moment.</span><br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;">The conference brought together a large variety of professionals: neuroscientists, lawyers, bioethicists, philosophers, psychiatrists, you name it. As it turns out, psychiatrists know a joke or two.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;">We heard quite a bit about how the media handles neuroscience news. The consensus is that in most cases (but not all), the answer is poorly. The blame gets tossed around. Journalists hype research too much, but it’s not their fault, they need to sell papers. Researchers hype research too much, but it’s not their fault, they need to get funding. I voted to shift the blame onto grad students. I also thought we could solve the problem easily by making everybody read Scientific Chick. It didn’t take as well as I had hoped.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;">We also heard quite a bit about deep brain stimulation (DBS), a potential treatment for a variety of illnesses and conditions that involves sticking a stimulating electrode in the brain and leaving it there. Right now, this works relatively well for treating advanced cases of Parkinson. The problem is that it comes with side effects and that people undergoing this type of treatment are reporting things like “no longer feeling like themselves”. This brings us to an important question: What does it mean to feel like yourself? One of the most fascinating talks of the conference involved an in-depth discussion of personal identity and how it is or isn’t affected by brain interventions like DBS.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;">There was also a discussion of self-experimentation. Should willing neuroscientists be allowed to stick electrodes in their own brains to advance our knowledge of neuroscience? The speaker argued that we allow people to skydive and bungee jump without having them fill endless forms and run their proposal to do something crazy through an ethics board, so self-experimentation should be no different. I mean, do you want the Nobel Prize or not?</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;">One of the most interesting talks was on placebos. The researcher argued that antidepressants work only marginally better than placebos in most cases (though not all cases), and so we should really ask ourselves whether the small improvement is worth the side effects. I thought of a genius business venture that involves selling sugar pills for every possible condition. Then I remembered that this already exists. It’s called homeopathy.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;">Speaking of placebos, everyone always assumes that they only work because you think you’re getting an active drug. Some researchers were skeptical about this, and so they carried out this fascinating study that involved giving placebos to people with irritable bowel syndrome, but also telling them that they’re getting placebos the entire time. Guess what? They felt better anyway.</span></li></ul><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This blog post is already dragging on too long, but these were just a few of all the very interesting topics and discussions we had over two days. I hope to be back with regular science programming very shortly, so stay tuned for the latest and greatest!</span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-84641056245391681112011-04-10T13:47:00.001-07:002011-04-10T13:52:24.653-07:00Pretty politics<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3eW-CR2WtGaP_V0aWAwSqOdPn-7OANGfQ3EhVr2Njhmb2m94t4QLiMFEpD_fbh1hrsfHMtE8FTbksRva7Y-AfsjcDhcqCBoLcGSb345q8UjGPYstMPcSNrLD-2xrtfasboFar4g7qR5zq/s1600/harper-ignatieff-layton-duceppe.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3eW-CR2WtGaP_V0aWAwSqOdPn-7OANGfQ3EhVr2Njhmb2m94t4QLiMFEpD_fbh1hrsfHMtE8FTbksRva7Y-AfsjcDhcqCBoLcGSb345q8UjGPYstMPcSNrLD-2xrtfasboFar4g7qR5zq/s320/harper-ignatieff-layton-duceppe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594059724559345218" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">My Canadian readers are no doubt preparing for the upcoming federal election. Living in a democracy, we have the opportunity to vote for the candidate we think is most competent (even if sometimes it seems like all options are pretty grim). If we choose well, we may be rewarded: there is much evidence that intelligence and competence correlate with effective performance in politics. Unfortunately, research also shows that intelligence can’t be predicted from one’s appearance. Everyone knows that. That’s why we would never choose a competent candidate solely based on what they look like. Or would we?</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />To evaluate how much looks factor in when choosing a political candidate, Swiss researchers asked over 600 adults to rate which of two faces (in photographs) looked most competent. Little did the participants know, the two faces were actually of two candidates in a past French parliamentary election. As it turns out, over 70% of the participants ended up picking the candidate who had won the election.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">To take things a little further, the researchers then carried out a similar experiment in children. They had over 600 children ranging from five to thirteen years old play a computer game that involved a sailing trip from Troy to Ithaca (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey">sounds familiar</a>?). After the game, the children were shown the same two faces used in the adult experiment and were asked to choose who they would prefer to have as captain of the boat. Again, just over 70% of the children chose the election winner.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Interpreting these results can be a bit tricky, but keep in mind that we already know that competent people aren’t necessarily prettier. One thing is clear: the experiments tell us that adult and children use similar types of visual information when judging whether someone is competent or not. The researchers also conclude that voters don’t factor in enough information about the actual performance of candidates when heading to the ballots, relying instead on what candidates look like. While I’m sure they are at least partially right, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to come to this conclusion given the simplicity of the study.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">In any case, the results serve as a good reminder to think about our candidates and to take our civic duties seriously. After all, we wouldn’t judge a book by its cover…</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />Reference: Predicting elections: child’s play! (2009) Antonakis J and Dalgas O. Science 323(27):1183.</span></span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-88912401811820279952011-04-04T22:53:00.000-07:002011-04-04T23:08:08.792-07:00But what about clones?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgaQJPXGn7eC04ldfjQocB4HwGaCmKLyvO3rgDHKVa33zekZvcYbZ36oOoFFp2k-aZEE9-EgEg5IY-zt0nbGlJ9vaT6NVDgRCHB0hZRqjbSs1Zlg3tslwLUpqjqWYb6UFWrjUS9I2oWCq_/s1600/6a00d83518d15e53ef00e5539867e38834-800wi.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgaQJPXGn7eC04ldfjQocB4HwGaCmKLyvO3rgDHKVa33zekZvcYbZ36oOoFFp2k-aZEE9-EgEg5IY-zt0nbGlJ9vaT6NVDgRCHB0hZRqjbSs1Zlg3tslwLUpqjqWYb6UFWrjUS9I2oWCq_/s320/6a00d83518d15e53ef00e5539867e38834-800wi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591974026769960306" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">I feel cheated.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />When I heard all the buzz about a recent Canadian study showing that identical twins don’t share the same DNA, I thought: there’s this week’s blog post. Easy peasy. I imagined the title of the article was probably something like “Identical twins don’t share the same DNA” or, even better: “Just kidding: everybody is unique after all”. Instead, to give you the low-down on this moderately exciting finding, I had to read through a paper called “Ontogenetic de novo copy number variations (CNVs) as a source of genetic individuality: studies on two families with MZD twins for schizophrenia”. So don’t ever say that I don’t love you.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">The finding is very straightforward and fairly intriguing, but before I dish out the details, I have to remind you about two concepts you may not have heard since high school (but rejoice: it's sex-related): meiosis and mitosis. Meiosis is what happens when one cell with two copies of each chromosome divides to produce gametes – in our case, sperm cells and egg cells, each with a single copy of chromosomes. This process is necessary for sexual reproduction. Mitosis is what happens when one cell generates two separate sets of chromosomes and then divides, leaving each daughter cell identical to the mother cell. This process is necessary during early development.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Now onto the article: the researchers were on the hunt for genes that are involved in schizophrenia, and as is often the case in these types of studies, they were looking at identical twins. The idea is that diseases can arise from genes (for example, Huntington’s disease), from the environment (for example, certain forms of cancer), or from a combination of both (for example, certain forms of Alzheimer’s disease). If identical twins have the same genes but only one of them gets a disease (say, schizophrenia), then researchers typically rule out genetics as the cause and examine what differences in the environment of the two twins may have caused the disease. See how that works?</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />In this study, the researchers were particularly interested in a DNA alteration called “copy number variations”. You see, DNA is never perfect, and sometimes cells have abnormal copies of big chunks of your DNA. These copy number variations can be harmless, but they can also cause certain diseases, so geneticists are paying close attention to them. In any case, the researchers found that supposedly identical twins had different sets of copy number variations when compared with their parents (meaning they didn’t inherit these DNA alterations from their parents). The cool thing about this finding is that the researchers can now determine when the alteration happened depending on who has the different copy number variation. If both twins have the same copy number variation, then we know it originated during meiosis (when the parents were generating eggs and sperm). If only one twin has the variation, then we know it originated during mitosis (during development).<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">While the article doesn’t focus all that much on the fact that identical twins have the same DNA (I hate to say it, but we kind of already knew that), this tidbit of information is relevant in two ways. First, it’s going to change how researchers carry out twin studies, because we can no longer assume that identical twins have the same DNA (as if we needed to complicate things further…). Second, this finding might lead to a new way of thinking about genetic diseases.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />So there you have it: we are all unique individuals after all. Up next: your parents aren’t who you think they are. Your “parents” are really bug-eyed aliens from Neptune! (as always, bonus points for the correct reference in the comments…)</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Reference: Ontogenetic de novo copy number variations (CNVs) as a source of genetic individuality: studies on two families with MZD twins for schizophrenia. (2011) Maiti S et al. PLoS ONE, 6(3):1-13.</span></span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-10517207515718492412011-03-27T22:34:00.000-07:002011-03-27T22:39:13.107-07:00Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will break your brain<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqH5ifi5CXW7CVb6sHLEUU1TAtn6__YE2RbnIXkQbaSg_sDjbIf7Rqd2V6OOXeCKV_MsetNOYRfRA6ivlAo2q-518y22PcJ8ava1-dUehUt-LE-yl4X8zjw46xABCu5whKRSFBWw5K9RB_/s1600/brain_words.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 244px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqH5ifi5CXW7CVb6sHLEUU1TAtn6__YE2RbnIXkQbaSg_sDjbIf7Rqd2V6OOXeCKV_MsetNOYRfRA6ivlAo2q-518y22PcJ8ava1-dUehUt-LE-yl4X8zjw46xABCu5whKRSFBWw5K9RB_/s400/brain_words.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589001130209506082" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Sounds familiar? You may have been taught this witty maxim to fend off bullies during the glorious years that are high school. Since then, bullying has become a big deal: its often-devastating consequences are more than ever in the public eye. We already know that childhood abuse in many different forms (sexual abuse, physical abuse, witnessing domestic violence) can have long-lasting impacts. For example, sufferers are found to be more susceptible to depression and suicide, and more likely to engage in fights, do drugs and use a weapon. But what about verbal abuse from peers? </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />To evaluate the effects of peer verbal abuse on the brain and behavior, a team of researchers studied over 800 young adults who had no history of any of the big confounding factors such as exposure to domestic violence, sexual abuse, or physical abuse. The participants were asked to fill out surveys about how much verbal abuse they experienced from peers at school as well as surveys with more general questions about mood, behavior and psychiatric symptoms. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The results show that the more peer verbal abuse one is exposed to during school, the more likely they are to experience anxiety, depression, anger and drug use. As it turns out, verbal abuse from peers is just as bad as verbal abuse from parents in generating these consequences. As well, researchers found that peer verbal abuse that occurs during middle school years (ages 11-14) has the most significant impact (compared with elementary school and high school). I find that surprising, as I remember high school being much worse than middle school, but apparently it has to do with the timeline of brain development, not my personal feelings about high school.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />To dig a little deeper, the researchers selected 63 participants who had experienced varying degrees of peer verbal abuse and had them undergo a brain scan (MRI). They found that participants who had been exposed to a lot of peer verbal abuse displayed abnormalities in their corpus callosum, a big bunch of white matter fibers that connect the left and right sides of your brain. The researchers suggest that this abnormality may explain some of the behaviors and symptoms associated with the abuse (such as depression).</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />While this study convincingly highlights the impact of bullying on the brain and brain function, there are a few things to keep in mind. Repeat after me: correlation does not mean causation. That undergoing bullying is associated with abnormalities in the brain does not mean that bullying necessarily caused these abnormalities. More studies will be needed to uncover that link. As well, the study is retrospective, meaning the authors “go back in time” by asking the participants to remember events from years ago. This can sometimes lead to faulty recalls or false associations. Lastly, I find it a bit strange that the researchers have not looked at the hippocampus of the participants. You may remember that the hippocampus is a brain region important for memory, but it is also involved in emotions, and it has been shown to be susceptible to other forms of abuse. I’m hoping the bullying-hippocampus link will be looked at in a future study.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Overall, though, the study reminds us that bullying is an important and potent childhood stressor. Sticks and stones it is. </span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Reference: Hurtful words: association of exposure to peer verbal abuse with elevated psychiatric symptom scores and corpus callosum abnormalities. (2010) Teicher MH et al. Am J Psychiatry 167(12):1464-71.</span></span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-50352900989320541042011-03-21T10:01:00.000-07:002011-03-21T10:21:25.700-07:00Who are you?<span style="font-family:arial;">It's Scientific Chick's blogiversary! To celebrate two years of sciency goodness, treat yourself to some cupcakes:</span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: arial;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj504KHPZ4ODS4GXvOdoezeHW9-L0O7KwkI0Q-mW6CojByXry7fmfjvv0rYkdq3_OSc2hBV5zLcJuEjP-AmpaA6fXM8rnLwFsXkjvB6-HcxKJShE7fuWhQkNVhwKIfts70JeBJJNXgb4Tq6/s1600/cupcakes+8.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj504KHPZ4ODS4GXvOdoezeHW9-L0O7KwkI0Q-mW6CojByXry7fmfjvv0rYkdq3_OSc2hBV5zLcJuEjP-AmpaA6fXM8rnLwFsXkjvB6-HcxKJShE7fuWhQkNVhwKIfts70JeBJJNXgb4Tq6/s400/cupcakes+8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5586580393821398674" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">I also take this occasion to launch my first-ever "Who are you?" thread. Since I've started this blog, I've been picking science articles that I thought were interesting, and writing about them in hopes that my excitement for science would be contagious. Two years later, it's time for me to think about how to make Scientific Chick better, and how to cater to my readers. This means I need to get to know you! So pretty please, indulge me by answering these easy questions in the comments:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">1) <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tell me about you</span>. Who are you? Why are you here? Do you have a background in science? An inquisitive mind?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2) <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tell me about what you like.</span> What are your favorite stories? What topics are you most interested in? Do you enjoy a meatier science discussion, or are you satisfied with the big picture? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">3) <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tell someone you know about Scientific Chick.</span> Do you have a friend or family member who you think would enjoy this blog? Let them know! Readership keeps me going. :)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Don't be shy! I can't wait to meet you!</span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-30914684391837913652011-03-07T19:40:00.000-08:002011-03-07T20:55:57.586-08:00The stress of having an unattractive partner<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFR5V1nkHW4h4oYy2yBkN5utmJ25bbWaTJ5k6zDXlyDIuYt9FBI_h7DhFtmpC1js0eID_FvZStWSv73C52gdSnz8nwDqEBmCndvs7eY_BeuMO2SQDy78BS8s61SOYGtL1Szf1mZpzg2lOu/s1600/Image1.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 180px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFR5V1nkHW4h4oYy2yBkN5utmJ25bbWaTJ5k6zDXlyDIuYt9FBI_h7DhFtmpC1js0eID_FvZStWSv73C52gdSnz8nwDqEBmCndvs7eY_BeuMO2SQDy78BS8s61SOYGtL1Szf1mZpzg2lOu/s400/Image1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581567616831409634" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Here’s how blog writing usually goes for me: I peruse science journals for a suitable story, read a few articles, pick one, write the blog post, copy the reference, and find a good picture. Then I spend anywhere from an hour to a couple of days trying to come up with a title. For some reason, finding the right title is always the hardest part. So this week, when I saw an article with a title that I could use <span style="font-style: italic;">as is</span> for the blog post, I just knew I had to write about it.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">The article, as you can infer from the title of this post, looks into the relationship between attractiveness of a mating partner and stress in female birds. Most birds, like humans, tend to form monogamous pair bonds that last through the course of at least one reproductive event. Because of this “socially monogamous” system, if there are approximately the same amount of males and females around, most birds will be able to find a partner, but inevitably, a big chunk of females will end up paired with males of “below-average” quality (but I’m sure they have lovely personalities). So the researchers wanted to know, how does that make the female birds <span style="font-style: italic;">feel</span>?</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />As I’m sure you can imagine, rating the attractiveness of one bird over another is no easy feat for human scientists. What’s more, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but you can’t send out mass emails to female finches to fill out online in their spare time (“On a scale of 1 to 7, 1 being Dwight Schrute and 7 being George Clooney, how would you rate Mr. John Finchy?”). Therein lies the beauty of this study: the researchers picked a very creative model to answer their question. They studied a type of finch that comes in two colors: red heads and black heads. Even though they are the same species, red-headed and black-headed finches are partially genetically incompatible (meaning they have a harder time producing offspring), and so these birds tend to have a preference for mating partners with the head color that matches their own (though if there are slim pickings, they will mate with a bird of the other color). Knowing this, the researchers set up an aviary with a whole mix of these birds (males, females, in combinations of red heads and black heads) that had not previously met, waited until every bird had paired off, and then assessed the females’ satisfaction with their mating partner based on two parameters: how long until she would agree to breed, and how much corticosterone (a stress hormone) she had in her blood (don’t worry, a harmless procedure).</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The results show that females that paired with a male of the wrong color laid eggs nearly one month later that the females paired with a male of the same head color. What’s more, females paired with incompatible (“below-average” quality) males had three to four times more stress hormones in their bloods, and this went on for weeks. Who knew that attractiveness could have such an impact on stress levels?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">As it turns out, a widespread strategy used by female birds to deal with unattractive mates is to… select alternative, extrapair fathers for their offspring. <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=6978362">Dan Savage</a> would have a field day if he knew about these little sneaky females…</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ7VMHnHmjYderHoSNfqE0Y-nUdOVcrVrFJvs8Zo1Ye50OBVCsB78iJ3L_upB7XJhGEOrTVd6TAmda4a4sua-YoHkm1zYmEHLLCjaqk1gzhiCZEVV2_9bvtrVs1Xv2k7V5nDnlTcA2cn-l/s1600/pryke-red-black-gouldian-finch-males.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ7VMHnHmjYderHoSNfqE0Y-nUdOVcrVrFJvs8Zo1Ye50OBVCsB78iJ3L_upB7XJhGEOrTVd6TAmda4a4sua-YoHkm1zYmEHLLCjaqk1gzhiCZEVV2_9bvtrVs1Xv2k7V5nDnlTcA2cn-l/s320/pryke-red-black-gouldian-finch-males.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581567316834866562" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Constrained mate choice in social monogamy and the stress of having an unattractive partner. (2011) Griffith SC et al. Proc. R. Soc. B [Epub ahead of print].</span></span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-79718209209478998392011-02-27T10:58:00.000-08:002011-02-27T21:55:52.776-08:00Enlarge your brain in only 8 weeks!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSqjk6jumSXw0VGkPFcp3lGIealyiLuI78fWe-p0oIRVs8Q99eMuPZrHf7gMC_hg73j-NMGGoHiMKmw7UWPbfQhMbp-5noGlEZFMobglp7KKdp6RIYMoRFmgGdOyqzuGu7k0AwQnloZcM/s1600/big_brain_xlg.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSqjk6jumSXw0VGkPFcp3lGIealyiLuI78fWe-p0oIRVs8Q99eMuPZrHf7gMC_hg73j-NMGGoHiMKmw7UWPbfQhMbp-5noGlEZFMobglp7KKdp6RIYMoRFmgGdOyqzuGu7k0AwQnloZcM/s320/big_brain_xlg.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578565231143786130" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Having a big brain seems like a very desirable thing right now (it certainly wasn't "trendy" when I was in high school, though). Games like "</span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.bigbrainacademy.com/">Big Brain Academy</a><span style="font-family:arial;">" measure your success by the size of your virtual brain. In the real world, scientific studies right, left and center extol the virtues of anything ranging from exercise to learning a new language as ways of expanding your gray matter. It turns out that learning to manage your stress might also do the trick, as I found out from a recent article pointed out to me by my friend </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://fawnahareo.com/">Fawn</a><span style="font-family:arial;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The article looks at mindfulness mediation, a practice that involves becoming aware of experiences in the present moment without judging oneself. Many studies have already shown that mindfulness-based stress reduction programs can ease symptoms of anxiety and depression and can improve sleep and attention. But how does it work? To answer this question, researchers studied what mindfulness meditation does to your brain (to learn about what mindfulness mediation does to your pain, see </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://scientificchick.blogspot.com/search?q=mindfulness&x=0&y=0">this post</a><span style="font-family:arial;">).<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">The study looked at a handful of participants enrolled in an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course. This course entails one meeting per week, one full day of training in week 6, and daily homework to do at home (meditation exercises). The experiment was very simple: researchers took a picture of each participant's brain using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at two time points: before the course started, and once it was over (8 weeks later). They also took pictures of the brains of control subjects who didn't take the course (also about 8 weeks apart).<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">By now I'm sure you've guessed the results: yup, the participants who meditated had significantly bigger brains. One area of the brain in particular was bigger: the hippocampus, a region known for its role in memory, but also involved in emotions. The researchers hypothesized that the increase in gray matter in the brain of people who mediate may explain the improvement they experience in dealing with their emotions. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that people who suffer from certain emotion-related diseases and disorders like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder often have a smaller hippocampus.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />While I'm a big believer in meditation (this blog is <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> biased!), there are two limitations of this study worth mentioning. First, the researchers only looked at about 14 participants in each group. That's a pretty small sample, so it will be interesting to see what later experiments looking at more subjects come up with. Second, the mindfulness-based stress reduction program is not only about meditating: it also involves social interaction at the weekly meetings, stress education, and gentle stretching, which the control participants didn't get. So it's quite possible that the effect described here (bigger brains) are not the result of meditation <span style="font-style: italic;">per se</span>. At this point we can't tease it out.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Regardless of these limitations, though, the study drives home an important message: the adult brain can change in response to training. I for one find some comfort in that.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEictj7LrMwuOXYkK1HtTBM8zNKM8xhrKHUdOAQTQw4DkON__UJc1qXT7lONIWMzWF7ERwKvNEZVOEhFnR3xokYp0xP3YntD3HsuRD67SgQfDaK_FJxBSizuE4ppC76Uzi_yZnbfjrf-TlNJ/s1600/23_meditation_image_550_w.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 280px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEictj7LrMwuOXYkK1HtTBM8zNKM8xhrKHUdOAQTQw4DkON__UJc1qXT7lONIWMzWF7ERwKvNEZVOEhFnR3xokYp0xP3YntD3HsuRD67SgQfDaK_FJxBSizuE4ppC76Uzi_yZnbfjrf-TlNJ/s320/23_meditation_image_550_w.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578565054762129650" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;font-size:78%;" >Reference: Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. (2011) Holzel BK et al. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 191:36-43.</span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-81494912002234060672011-02-16T23:02:00.000-08:002011-02-16T23:13:24.235-08:00A picture better be worth a thousand words<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE5r45hhDUP1uk-1NwH6ayQ83pd0zS8Ex_U85mCiPCjVJOi9njjwG22M4daRy-xSsUgR1Xr8RHTf69izacp331oct0j_DYRMHyUfrQp3n_b8b_ofxiJ9MfQurm1lS0Ia7VwTgVuy7d8KC8/s1600/CT-Scan-Heart.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 262px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE5r45hhDUP1uk-1NwH6ayQ83pd0zS8Ex_U85mCiPCjVJOi9njjwG22M4daRy-xSsUgR1Xr8RHTf69izacp331oct0j_DYRMHyUfrQp3n_b8b_ofxiJ9MfQurm1lS0Ia7VwTgVuy7d8KC8/s320/CT-Scan-Heart.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574552106752702834" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">My friend <a href="http://www.michaelsmeanderings.com/">Michael</a> (a.k.a. <a href="http://www.coldestcanadian.ca/yukoner-goes-snorkeling">this crazy guy</a> – would you please send him to New Zealand?) recently <a href="http://www.michaelsmeanderings.com/2011/02/perils-of-parenthood.html">blogged</a> about undergoing what he perceived as an unnecessary medical imaging procedure. He was concerned that this exposure to radiation might impact his fertility. A recent study suggests that Michael should add cancer to his list of concerns.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />We’ve known for a long time that radiation is bad news. Scientists studied atomic bomb survivors and found that those who were closest to the blast had a higher incidence of cancer than survivors who were farther from the blast. While the evidence is conclusive, the atomic bomb delivered a much higher dose of radiation than medical imaging procedures. To tease out whether low-dose radiation from medical imaging procedures also increase one’s risk of developing cancer, a team of researchers from <a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/">McGill University</a> analyzed a group of over 80,000 patients who were admitted to the hospital for a heart attack. They perused the medical records of these patients and noted who received medical procedures involving radiation and who didn’t, and then followed-up by finding out who got cancer later on.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The researchers found that over 10,000 patients developed cancer later on. Interestingly, two-thirds of those cases of cancer were located in the abdomen, pelvis or thorax (presumably the areas that would be subject to medical imaging procedures aimed at the heart). After looking at each patient’s history of procedures, the researchers were able to determine that the more radiation one is exposed to, the higher the risk of developing cancer. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />While the study looks at a large number of patients and shows a significant link between radiation exposure and cancer risk, the researchers were limited in that they only had the information available in the medical records. This means that while they controlled for variables like age and sex, they didn’t know everything about the patients: what they ate, how much exercise they did, what kind of environment they worked in. There may be a confounding variable that we don’t know about. As well, the researchers did not assess mortality as an end-point, and even write, “These patients most likely will die of cardiac-related causes”. So it’s important to remember that the scenario is <span style="font-weight: bold;">not</span> 1) patient has heart attack, 2) patient undergoes medical procedures, 3) patient gets all better heart-wise but develops cancer because of the procedures, 4) patient dies of cancer. It’s likely much, much more complicated than that.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />That said, any medical procedure is all about risks and benefits. We need to weigh the risks of <span style="font-style: italic;">cumulative</span> exposure to radiation (you’ll be glad to know that exposure to radiation from a single test does not substantially increase your risk of cancer) against the value of the information that the medical imaging procedure will provide. Not always an easy task. In Michael’s case, the physician was clear: she was running the test to appease his wife. Now what is that worth to you?<br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Reference: Cancer risk related to low-dose ionizing radiation from cardiac imaging in patients after acute myocardial infarction. (2011) Eisenberg MJ et al. Canadian Medical Association Journal. [Epub ahead of print].</span></span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-35296850750478435522011-02-06T22:05:00.000-08:002011-02-06T22:11:19.866-08:00The Super Bowl: Inspiring traumatic brain injury since 1966!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvBrOKoRwOebzH9lejT3krjoIlhI52MgGJhums0KTdrsQAnO8aSdEfzqJ9S6gJmstpy5kag8KyhzR0aCcX3gRraCemQy1gIB5C1b73T9zn5533h8HeAR27c5yAawnnBUqEOF4uLL-lo-A/s1600/super_bowl.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvBrOKoRwOebzH9lejT3krjoIlhI52MgGJhums0KTdrsQAnO8aSdEfzqJ9S6gJmstpy5kag8KyhzR0aCcX3gRraCemQy1gIB5C1b73T9zn5533h8HeAR27c5yAawnnBUqEOF4uLL-lo-A/s320/super_bowl.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570826098358670578" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Most of us spend the day eating nachos and wings, drinking beer, and acting rowdy in front of the television. For those of us who don’t have a television or snack foods in the vicinity (gasp!), we may chose to spend the day looking up scientific articles with a mention of football and writing blogs. I’m going to let you guess what I did.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />High school can be a dangerous place: many will go through those few years carefully balancing social life, self-esteem, some sort of learning and the inevitable characterization of every single person into a specific group (you might be surprised to find out that I fit in the “jock” category). For the athletes, high school can also be dangerous for something very precious: their brains. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />In a recent study, researchers looked at the incidence of concussions in high school sports over eleven years (1997 to 2008). They wanted to know whether certain sports had higher rates of concussions, and whether the incidence of concussions varied by gender, and over time. So they followed 25 high schools in a large public school district and recorded every instance of concussions for twelve sports: football, lacrosse, wrestling, soccer, basketball and baseball for boys, and field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, basketball, cheerleading and softball for girls. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The researchers reported a few interesting findings. They recorded nearly eleven million instances of a student playing a given sport, and out of those, identified 2651 instances of concussions. While boys accounted for just over half of the instances of students playing a sport, they accounted for three quarters of all concussions. Perhaps not surprisingly, football accounted for more than half of all instances of concussions. Baseball was the boy’s sport with the lowest incidence of concussions. For girls, soccer took the lead with the highest incidence of concussions, while cheerleading had the lowest incidence. Unfortunately for all my Canadian readers, the researchers left out our national sport, so I’m not sure how hockey would compare. But hey, we can talk about hockey when the Stanley Cup rolls around.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />What surprised me the most in this study is that the overall rate of concussions increased significantly over time (a 4-fold increase between 1997 and 2008). Football showed the greatest increase in concussion rates over time, but it’s important to note that all twelve sports showed an increased concussion rate over time. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />As for sex differences, the researchers found that for sports that are the same for girls and boys (like soccer and basketball), girls had a higher rate of concussions. However, in lacrosse, where the girl’s game has different rules, protective equipment and nature of play when compared with the boy’s game, girls had a lower concussion rate than boys.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />There are several factors that could explain some of these results: an increase in concussion rates over time could be explained by a greater awareness of this medical phenomenon, and thus an increase in the reporting of concussions. Girls could be showing higher concussion rates for the sports they share with the boys because evidence shows that girls tend to be more willing to report injuries. However, even when all these factors are considered, the study highlights a need to prevent, detect and treat concussions across all sports, not just football. Concussions can be a serious brain injury, especially if complications develop, and repeated concussions are particularly dangerous, as they can lead to dementia. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />In the heat of the Super Bowl, I don’t want to be a complete downer, though: being active during your teenage years can have numerous benefits, and can lead to habits that will last a lifetime and play an important role in preventing a whole load of diseases. So play away, but just make sure to protect that noggin’ (and parents: chose that extracurricular activity wisely)!<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Reference: Trend in concussion incidence in high school sports: a prospective 11-year study. (2011) Lincoln AE and al. Am J Sports Med [Epub ahead of print].</span></span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-89082372835794225762011-01-31T10:19:00.001-08:002011-01-31T11:45:19.159-08:00A day on Alzheimer's disease<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMNdLI4KcNYoDU3iLmMtgu4CwifWfApa5yldQnFSknWTERS_BjIk5s-uPqp8QoYLJj6y7FYttTZZZVFi3L7DksdR1e2Aahcby0RJ-OW2dcrS9hOa0LvPOoQLI31QGEYmUsBoj8BCu3miay/s1600/handwriting.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 160px; height: 227px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMNdLI4KcNYoDU3iLmMtgu4CwifWfApa5yldQnFSknWTERS_BjIk5s-uPqp8QoYLJj6y7FYttTZZZVFi3L7DksdR1e2Aahcby0RJ-OW2dcrS9hOa0LvPOoQLI31QGEYmUsBoj8BCu3miay/s320/handwriting.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568433438348481218" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial;">On Friday I attended a series of seminars on Alzheimer's disease at the </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://ubc.ca/">University of British Columbia</a><span style="font-family: arial;">'s </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.brain.ubc.ca/">Brain Research Centre</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. I think the idea was to showcase Canadian research in the field of dementia to woo politicians (also in attendance) and ask them for more funding. We heard about all aspects of Alzheimer's disease, from its history to its treatment, and in this post I will fill you in on the latest developments.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br />Alzheimer's disease is the number one public health problem in the developed world, with approximately 35 million cases worldwide. In Canada it represents a very expensive problem, estimated to cost 50 million dollars a day. In the time it takes you to read this post, there will be two more people diagnosed with Alzheimer's in Canada. As there are currently no approved treatments that affect the disease itself, there is an urgent need to keep our heads down and power through (bonus points for whoever can identify this reference in the comments) to find a cure.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br />The first "official" patient with Alzheimer's disease was a 51-year old woman named Auguste Deter. She was examined by Alois Alzheimer in 1901. She suffered from impaired memory, aphasia (a language disorder) and disorientation. Alzheimer kept meticulous records: we have a very detailed description of Auguste's condition, and even a sample of her handwriting (see picture). Even though the condition was described in great detail, Alois Alzheimer did not know what had caused Auguste's disease. Today, as one of the researchers at the seminar pointed out, we still don't know what causes Alzheimer's disease, but on a much higher level.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br />We do know that one of the main culprits in Alzheimer's disease is amyloid beta (Abeta), a protein that everybody's brain makes. In the brain of an Alzheimer's patient, though, too much of this protein is being made, and it aggregates in toxic chunks called plaques. The researchers present at the seminar predicted that vaccines against these plaques will fail. However, there are several candidate drugs that could prevent or treat these plaques in clinical trials right now. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br />Interestingly, researchers are also studying naturally occurring compounds: one of the speakers talked about his research looking at whether natural extracts can block the formation of plaques in a "petri dish" model of Alzheimer's (brain cells grown in a dish). He finds that ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, cranberry, rhubarb, blueberry, pomegranate and blackberry all help prevent the aggregation of Abeta. However, he warns that at this point, it is not practical to focus on eating these foods because the concentrations used in the lab are just not possible to recreate in a diet.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br />Beyond the molecular and biological underpinnings of Alzheimer's disease, researchers are also addressing the inevitable changes the world will need to undergo to accommodate a growing prevalence of dementia. For example, one speaker pointed out that many public places such as airports and even hospitals are very difficult to navigate for cognitively healthy people: this represents a true disservice to people with Alzheimer's disease. Efforts are also being made to engage the public (as to avoid more bad news like </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/woman-66-dies-toronto-driveway-no-one-answers-20110117-072013-584.html">this one</a><span style="font-family: arial;">), and to provide resources for caregivers (such as the fantastic </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/society/FirstLink.htm">First Link</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> initiative).</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br />Overall, I'm disappointed to report that I didn't learn of any magical intervention that will rid us of Alzheimer's disease, but it's comforting to know that there is a big research community out there who is taking this problem very seriously and who is tackling it from many different angles. </span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8045067453505592669.post-24708488993700951952011-01-24T22:02:00.000-08:002011-01-24T22:18:10.467-08:00Not-so-subliminal messages<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFMugtPT0PSnVa2N2vb4A9BaFtKQYTypwmDSKF2_9dBd50Q2rqWlAM5WEqvZ4gky0NXepacRGgVkzHN5V_Tp4Dfvg-0XRGWzb03iC1zVQe94Hrvy2shTzkd17sDVyorXdU3-05UlRtgq3_/s1600/10563.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 263px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFMugtPT0PSnVa2N2vb4A9BaFtKQYTypwmDSKF2_9dBd50Q2rqWlAM5WEqvZ4gky0NXepacRGgVkzHN5V_Tp4Dfvg-0XRGWzb03iC1zVQe94Hrvy2shTzkd17sDVyorXdU3-05UlRtgq3_/s320/10563.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566002823943599314" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">For this week’s post, I had originally intended to kick-off the (Vancouver) cycling season with a post about helmets. So I reviewed the recent evidence to see if I could find an interesting paper. Unfortunately, I ran into a problem of the “boring” kind: the evidence out there is pretty much what you think it is: helmets are good, they prevent injuries. While that’s relevant, it doesn’t make for a great post, because, well, you already know this.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Luckily, I stumbled upon a related story that looks at helmet usage amongst… Fictional characters. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, looks at safety practices depicted in movies over time. This may seem like a silly waste of time (or the project of your dreams, if you're a grad student), but we know that children tend to imitate what they see in movies (and that is why my eventual kids will never see the “Jackass” movies). Given that by age 18 the average child has spent two years in front of a screen, we might want to know a little more about the kinds of influences they may be getting from mass media.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The researchers started by identifying the 25 top-grossing G-rated (general audience) and PG-rated (parental guidance suggested) US movies for each year between 2003 and 2007. Of those 125 movies, they excluded movies that were animated, not set in present day, fantasy, documentary or not in English. That left them with 67 movies. The researchers then analyzed the safety practices in all the scenes that included characters with speaking roles either walking, driving or riding in a car, driving or riding in a boat, or riding a bike (for a grand total of 958 scenes).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The results show that in movies, just over half (56%) of motor-vehicle passengers wear seat belts, just over a third of pedestrians (35%) use crosswalks, three quarters of boaters (75%) wear personal flotation devices (or lifejackets), and a quarter (25%) of cyclists wear helmets.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Compared with similar studies carried out in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, there is a significant overall improvement in the depictions of safety practices. However, about half of the scenes still show unsafe practices. What’s more, movie characters rarely suffer the consequences of unsafe behavior. How many times did you see someone get up after falling off a cliff and think “Come on!”. The depictions of unsafe behavior combined with the absence of consequences for these behaviors may lead children to minimize dangers in real life, so parents, make sure you point it out when you see characters acting unsafe!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Now the study excluded quite a few movies for simplicity’s sake, and ended up with a fairly small sample, so it would be premature to generalize these results to all movies out there. I would be especially interested in finding out how animated movies fare, since they definitely cater to a younger crowd (Simba sure learned the consequences of *his* unsafe behavior). A later post, perhaps, if such a study exists!</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT2YEPqBxZLeBv7kwj4xOXZNVx9Hz6yifxdN0Tve0QCbUw4H0KN3E2M0PC2ZW4THD_tGeZAnJoJ5JlSC3rRDFU_PYjuiJz6pCrMebHA4iV0VFMULEpNJol_5vy_RDU4KAdSVhD0QDdnTtz/s1600/matt-damon-in-the-bourne-ultimatum.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 314px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT2YEPqBxZLeBv7kwj4xOXZNVx9Hz6yifxdN0Tve0QCbUw4H0KN3E2M0PC2ZW4THD_tGeZAnJoJ5JlSC3rRDFU_PYjuiJz6pCrMebHA4iV0VFMULEpNJol_5vy_RDU4KAdSVhD0QDdnTtz/s320/matt-damon-in-the-bourne-ultimatum.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566001033465018658" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Definitely not the crosswalk!</span></span><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:78%;"><br />Reference: Injury-prevention practices as depicted in G- and PG-rated movies, 2003-2007. (2010) Tongren JE et al. Pediatrics 125(2):290-4. </span>Dr. Juliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08063821240460369640noreply@blogger.com3