Cortical arousals can assist in healthy sleep

A new research on rats has shown that cortical arousals and brief awakenings during sleep exhibit non-equilibrium dynamics and complex organisation across time scales, which are necessary for spontaneous sleep-stage transitions and for maintaining healthy sleep.

The study by Prof Plamen Ch Ivanov of Boston University and his colleagues has been published in the journal of Computational Biology.

Sleep is traditionally considered to be a homeostatic process that resists deviation from equilibrium. In that regard, brief episodes of waking are viewed as perturbations that lead to sleep fragmentation and related sleep disorders.

While addressing aspects of sleep regulation related to consolidated sleep and wake and the sleep-wake cycle, the homeostatic paradigm does not account for the dozens of abrupt sleep-stage transitions and micro-states within sleep stages throughout the night.

Ivanov and colleagues hypothesised that while sleep is indeed homeostatic at time scales of hours and days, non-equilibrium dynamics and criticality underlie sleep micro-architecture at shorter time scales.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers collected electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings of brain activity over multiple days in normal rats and in rats with injuries to the parafacial zone, a brain region that helps regulate sleep.

"Paradoxically, we find that the 'resting' state of healthy sleep is maintained through bursts in cortical rhythm activity that obey similar temporal organisation, statistics, and mathematical laws as earthquakes," Ivanov says.

"Our findings serve as building blocks to better understand sleep, and could help improve the detection and treatment of sleep disorders."

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Neuroscientists have identified how exactly a deep breath changes your mind

Breathing is traditionally thought of as an automatic process driven by the brain-stem—the part of the brain controlling such life-sustaining functions as heartbeat and sleeping patterns. But new and unique research, involving recordings made directly from within the brains of humans undergoing neurosurgery, shows that breathing can also change your brain.

Simply put, changes in breathing—for example, breathing at different paces or paying careful attention to the breaths—were shown to engage different parts of the brain.

Humans’ ability to control and regulate their brain is unique: e.g., controlling emotions, deciding to stay awake despite being tired, or suppressing thoughts. These abilities are not trivial, nor do humans share them with many animals. Breathing is similar: animals do not alter their breathing speed volitionally; their breathing normally only changes in response to running, resting, etc. Questions that have baffled scientists in this context are: why are humans capable of volitionally regulating their breathing, and how do we gain access to parts of our brain that are not normally under our conscious control. Additionally, is there any benefit in our ability to access and control parts of our brain that are typically inaccessible? Given that many therapies—Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, trauma therapy, or various types of spiritual exercises—involve focusing and regulating breathing, does controlling inhaling and exhaling have any profound effect on behavior?

This recent study finally answers these questions by showing that volitionally controlling our respirational, even merely focusing on one’s breathing, yield additional access and synchrony between brain areas. This understanding may lead to greater control, focus, calmness, and emotional control.

The study,  began by observing brain activity when patients were breathing normally. Next, the patients were given a simple task to distract them: clicking a button when circles appeared on the computer screen. This allowed the Dr. to observe what was happening when people breath naturally and do not focus on their breathing. After this, the patients were told to consciously increase the pace of breathing and to count their breaths. When breathing changed with the exercises, the brain changed as well. Essentially, the breathing manipulation activated different parts of the brain, with some overlap in the sites involved in automatic and intentional breathing.

The findings provide neural support for advice individuals have been given for millennia: during times of stress, or when heightened concentration is needed, focusing on one’s breathing or doing breathing exercises can indeed change the brain. This has potential application to individuals in a variety of professions that require extreme focus and agility. Athletes, for example, have long been known to utilize breathing to improve their performance. Now, this research puts science behind that practice.

Beyond studying the ability of humans to control and regulate their neural activity volitionally, the study was also unique in that it utilized a rare method of neural research: directly looking inside the brains of awake and alert humans. Typical neuroscience studies involving humans use imaging techniques (i.e. fMRI or EEG) to infer the neural activity in people’s brain from outside the skull. But studies involving electrodes implanted in humans’ brains are rare. The ability to look inside the humans’ brains allows us to study thinking, deciding and even imagining or dreaming by directly observing the brain. The study subjects in our work were patients who had electrodes implanted in their brain as part of a clinical treatment for epilepsy. These patients were experiencing seizures that could not be controlled by medication and therefore required surgical interventions to detect the seizure focus for future resection.

Given that detection requires the patient to have a spontaneous seizure in order to identify the exact seizure onset location, which can take days, the patients are kept in the hospital with electrodes continuously monitoring their brain activity.

The research findings show that the advice to “take a deep breath” may not just be a cliché. Exercises involving volitional breathing appear to alter the connectivity between parts of the brain and allow access to internal sites that normally are inaccessible to us. Further investigation will now gradually monitor what such access to parts of our psyche that are normally hidden can reveal.

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Sleep spindles may help in improving memory retention

Want to strengthen your cognitive skills regarding any relevant information? Sleep spindles can help you in retaining new memories related to any newly learned information when you sleep.

Sleep spindles are half-second to two-second bursts of oscillatory brain activity -- occurring during non-rapid eye movement sleep stages two and three -- and measured in the 10 to 16 Hertz range on an electroencephalogram (EEG). 

Previous researches had shown that the number of spindles during the night could predict a person's memory the next day.

"While it has been shown previously that targeted memory reactivation can boost memory consolidation during sleep, we now show that sleep spindles might represent the key underlying mechanism," said a researcher.

"Thus, direct induction of sleep spindles -- for example, via transcranial electrical stimulation -- perhaps combined with targeted memory reactivation, may enable us to further improve memory performance while we sleep."

For the study, the researchers devised an experiment in which people learned to associate particular adjectives with particular objects and scenes.

Some study participants then took a 90-minute nap after their study session, whereas others stayed awake.

While people napped, the researchers cued those associative memories and unfamiliar adjectives.
The results showed that the memory cues led to an increase in sleep spindles.

Interestingly, the EEG patterns during spindles enabled the researchers to discern what types of memories -- objects or scenes -- were being processed.

"Our data suggest that spindles facilitate processing of relevant memory features during sleep and that this process boosts memory consolidation," he said.

Also, the new understanding of the way the brain normally processes and strengthens memories during sleep may help to explain how that process may go wrong in people with learning difficulties, the researchers added.

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Pistachios, wlanuts and peanuts help to improve memory

Daily consumption of nuts such as pistachios, peanuts and walnuts may improve cognition, healing, learning, memory and other key brain functions, a study claims.

Researchers found that some nuts stimulated several brain frequencies more than others.

Pistachios, for instance, produced the greatest gamma wave response, which is critical for enhancing cognitive processing, information retention, learning, perception and rapid eye movement  during sleep, they said.

Peanuts, which are actually legumes, but were still part of the study, produced the highest delta response, which is associated with healthy immunity, natural healing, and deep sleep.

Researchers found variances between the six nut varieties tested, all of them were high in beneficial antioxidants, with walnuts containing the highest antioxidant concentrations of all.

Prior studies have demonstrated that nuts benefit the body in several significant ways: protecting the heart, fighting cancer, reducing inflammation and slowing the ageing process.

"This study provides significant beneficial findings by demonstrating that nuts are as good for your brain as they are for the rest of your body," said the principal investigator of the study.

He said that future studies could reveal that they make other contributions to the brain and nervous system as well.

The team developed a pilot study using consenting subjects who consumed almonds, cashews, peanuts, pecans, pistachios and walnuts. 

Electroencephalograms (EEG) were taken to measure the strength of brainwave signals. EEG wave band activity was then recorded from nine regions of the scalp associated with cerebral cortical function.
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Daily consumption of nuts such as pistachios, peanuts and walnuts may improve cognition, healing, learning, memory and other key brain functions, a study claims.

Researchers at Loma Linda University in the US found that some nuts stimulated several brain frequencies more than others.

Pistachios, for instance, produced the greatest gamma wave response, which is critical for enhancing cognitive processing, information retention, learning, perception and rapid eye movement ..

Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/61674074.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Daily consumption of nuts such as pistachios, peanuts and walnuts may improve cognition, healing, learning, memory and other key brain functions, a study claims.

Researchers at Loma Linda University in the US found that some nuts stimulated several brain frequencies more than others.

Pistachios, for instance, produced the greatest gamma wave response, which is critical for enhancing cognitive processing, information retention, learning, perception and rapid eye movement ..

Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/61674074.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppstDaily consumption of nuts such as pistachios, peanuts and walnuts may improve cognition, healing, learning, memory and other key brain functions, a study claims.

Researchers at Loma Linda University in the US found that some nuts stimulated several brain frequencies more than others.

Pistachios, for instance, produced the greatest gamma wave response, which is critical for enhancing cognitive processing, information retention, learning, perception and rapid eye movement  during sleep, they said.

Peanuts, which are actually legumes, but were still part of the study, produced the highest delta response, which is associated with healthy immunity, natural healing, and deep sleep.

Researchers found variances between the six nut varieties tested, all of them were high in beneficial antioxidants, with walnuts containing the highest antioxidant concentrations of all.

Prior studies have demonstrated that nuts benefit the body in several significant ways: protecting the heart, fighting cancer, reducing inflammation and slowing the ageing process.

However, Lee Berk, associate dean for research at Loma Linda University said that too little research has focused on how they affect the brain.

"This study provides significant beneficial findings by demonstrating that nuts are as good for your brain as they are for the rest of your body," said Berk, principal investigator of the study published in the FASEB Journal.

He said that future studies could reveal that they make other contributions to the brain and nervous system as well.

The team developed a pilot study using consenting subjects who consumed almonds, cashews, peanuts, pecans, pistachios and walnuts.
Electroencephalograms (EEG) were taken to measure the strength of brainwave signals. EEG wave band activity was then recorded from nine regions of the scalp associated with cerebral cortical function.

Epilepsy is treatable and treatment simpler with advanced technology

With advancement in healthcare, epilepsy is eminently treatable now. Nearly 70% of patients who are initiated to the advanced treatment, as a result of latest technology, become free of seizures or epileptic fits within 1 to 2 years and in about half of them, the drugs can be tapered off in due course.

Neurosurgeons from across the world deliberated the latest technological advancement in treating persons with epilepsy. From mapping brain deficiencies to localising the deficiencies and surgically correcting it without affecting the complex areas around, neurosurgery has come of age, with advanced mapping devices, technological assistants to carry out surgery with optimum precision. 

Advanced functional Magnetic Resonating Imaging, PET scan or positron emission tomography scan, QEEG or quantitative electroencephalograph to identify areas of over or under-activity of brain, Extra-operative Intracranial EEG(ICEEG) to monitor progress of treatment, Stereo-EEG to monitor the electric activity on the surface and deep inside the brain are some of the new-age machines that help make treatment of epilepsy more advanced with optimum results at reduced cost.

International experts - Dr. Dileep Nair, Head of Adult Epilepsy and Dr. Imad Najm, Director Epilepsy Centre from the Cleveland Clinic, USA, Dr. Richard Wennberg, Director, Clinical Neurophysiology and national experts like Dr. K. Radhakrishnan former Director of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology and present Director of Amrita Advanced Centre for Epilepsy, Dr. Malla Bhaskar Rao of NIMHANS spoke on the efficacy of various treatment protocols for epilepsy.

India has one-sixth of the global burden of epilepsy, with 12 out of every 1000 people affected and an annual increase of six per every ten thousand Indians. Of the 70 million persons with epilepsy worldwide, nearly 12 million are estimated to be in India.

Ironically, almost 90% of people with epilepsy in India do not receive any treatment. Lack of knowledge of anti-epileptic drugs, poverty, cultural beliefs, stigma, poor health infrastructure and shortage of trained professionals contribute to the treatment gap. There are not more than 20 centers in the country that are capable of treating drug resistant epilepsies.

The international and national experts will also perform advanced techniques hands on at the Amrita Advanced Centre for Epilepsy, which is one of the advanced centers in the country for treatment of this neurological disorder.

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