How beneficial is yoga for the brain?

While aerobics has long been known for strengthening the brain and the growth of neurons, only a few studies have examined how yoga affects the brain. A review of the science finds evidence that yoga enhances many of the same brain structures and functions that benefit from aerobic exercise.

The review has been published in the journal Brain Plasticity. Focusing on 11 studies of the relationship between yoga practice and brain health. Five of the studies engaged individuals with no background in yoga practice in one or more yoga sessions per week over a period of 10-24 weeks, comparing brain health at the beginning and end of the intervention. The other studies measured brain differences between individuals who regularly practice yoga and those who don't.

Each of the studies used brain-imaging techniques such as MRI, functional MRI or single-photon emission computerized tomography. All involved Hatha yoga, which includes body movements, meditation and breathing exercises.

"From these 11 studies, we identified some brain regions that consistently come up, and they are surprisingly not very different from what we see with exercise research," said University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Neha Gothe, who led the research with Wayne State University psychology professor Jessica Damoiseaux.

Though many of the studies are exploratory and not conclusive, the research points to other important brain changes associated with regular yoga practice, Damoiseaux said.

The amygdala, a brain structure that contributes to emotional regulation, tends to be larger in yoga practitioners than in their peers who do not practice yoga. The prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex and brain networks such as the default mode network also tend to be larger or more efficient in those who regularly practice yoga.

Like the amygdala, the cingulate cortex is part of the limbic system, a circuit of structures that plays a key role in emotional regulation, learning and memory, she said.

The studies also find that the brain changes seen in individuals practicing yoga are associated with better performance on cognitive tests or measures of emotional regulation.

The discovery that yoga may have similar effects on the brain to aerobic exercise is intriguing and warrants more study, Gothe said.

"Yoga is not aerobic in nature, so there must be other mechanisms leading to these brain changes," she said. "So far, we don't have the evidence to identify what those mechanisms are."

Yoga helps people with or without anxiety disorders manage their stress, Gothe said.

"The practice of yoga helps improve emotional regulation to reduce stress, anxiety and depression," she said. "And that seems to improve brain functioning."

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Different Types Of Meditation Change Different Areas Of The Brain,

There’s been a lot of discussion about what kinds of mental activities are actually capable of changing the brain. Some promises of bolstered IQ and enhanced brain function via specially-designed "brain games" have fizzled out. Meanwhile, meditation and mindfulness training have accumulated some impressive evidence, suggesting that the practices can change not only the structure and function of the brain, but also our behavior and moment-to-moment experience.

A new study finds that three different types of meditation training are linked to changes in corresponding brain regions. The results, have a lot of relevance to schools, businesses and, of course, the general public.

Participants, who were between 20 and 55 years of age, engaged in three different types of training for three months each, totaling a nine-month study period. The first training was dubbed the “Presence” module, and was very similar to focused awareness meditation, an ancient practice that's been studied a lot in recent years. In this study, participants learned to focus their attention, bringing it back when it wandered, and to attend to the breath and to their internal body sensations.

The second training was called “Affect,” which sought to enhance empathy and compassion for others—participants learned “loving-kindness” (metta) meditation, and did work with partners, the goal of which was to enhance one’s compassion and empathy. 

The last was the "Perspective" module, akin to mindfulness or open-monitoring meditation. Here, the focus was on observing one’s own thoughts non-judgmentally and enhancing understanding of the perspectives of others.

The researchers wagered that training in each of these methods would lead to volume increases in corresponding brain areas. And this was largely what they found, as they scanned the participants’ brains at the end of each module and compared groups against one another. Training in Presence was linked to enhanced thickness in the anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which are known to be strongly involved in attention. Affect training was linked to increased thickness in regions known to be involved in socially driven emotions like empathy; and Perspective training associated with changes in areas involved in understanding the mental states of others, and, interestingly, inhibiting the perspective of oneself.

The results are exciting in that they offer an even more nuanced look at how meditation can change the brain, and in a relatively short amount of time. Lots of research has found that experienced meditators have significantly altered brain structure and function, but a growing number of studies has also found that relatively brief meditation training in novices (for instance, the well-known eight-week MBSR program) can also shift brain function, improve well-being, and reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.

And, the authors say, the results may be applicable in a number of settings, for kids and adults alike. “Our findings suggest a potential biological basis for how mindfulness and different aspects of social intelligence could be nurtured."

They add that this kind of sensitivity is especially important nowadays, as our community becomes more global, and understanding of others' experiences more essential.

“With growing globalization, inter-connectedness, and complexity of our societies, ‘soft skills’ have become increasingly important," they say. "Social competences, such as empathy, compassion, and taking the perspective of another person, allow for a better understanding of others’ feelings and different beliefs and are crucial for successful cooperation.”

Meditation, in its different forms, may be a powerful way to boost the types of intelligence that matter most.

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The US Surgeon General just issued a rare advisory about e-cigs like the Juul - here's why vaping is so dangerous

In a rare national advisory, the top US public health official warned Americans of the dangers of e-cigarettes like the Juul, a popular device that lets users inhale nicotine vapor without burning tobacco.

US Surgeon General  said in a new advisory on Tuesday that e-cigs like the Juul are a particular danger to kids and teens, and called for fresh measures to halt their rising popularity.

"We need to protect our kids from all tobacco products, including all shapes and sizes of e-cigarettes" he said in a statement. "We must take action now to protect the health of our nation's young people."

The advisory singles out Juul by name multiple times, saying that the sleek devices are particularly popular among teens because they're easy to conceal and don't emit much odor. It tells parents, health professionals, and teachers to be on the look out for all forms of nicotine-delivery devices, including e-cigs.

His announcement comes on the heels of warnings from several other federal agencies about an explosion of e-cig use, including from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

In November, after new CDC data pointed to a 78% increase in e-cig use among high schoolers, FDA commissioner announced moves to further restrict sales of e-cigarettes to ensure they don't get into the hands of young people. That included a crackdown on flavoured offerings, which researchers say appeal strongly to youth.

Several days before the FDA's announcement, the startup behind the most popular e-cig in the US, temporarily halted it sales  of its falvoured varieties in stores until they agree to adopt the company's new age restrictions and a stronger system for making sure customers are at least 21 years old.

'E-cigs and youth don't mix'

Although smoking conventional cigarettes is uniquely deadly, and vaping appears to be somewhat healthier ( especially for adults looking to switch), public health experts are concerned about how e-cigarettes impact young people.

Because of their runaway popularity, e-cigs could create a new generation of Americans hooked on nicotine, one of the world's most addictive substances and the key ingredient in e-cigs like the Juul, these experts warn. Their concern comes in part from a host of studies which suggest that teens who vape are significantly more likely to go on to smoke regular cigarettes, compared to teens who never vape.
 

This finding could be related to the way nicotine impacts the developing brains of young people. Although the research on e-cigs is still limited because the devices are so new, researchers have a wealth of data on the negative impacts of nicotine on teens who start smoking early.

In brain imaging studies of adolescents who start smoking in their teens, researchers have found signs of reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain tied to planning and decision-making. The same teens perform worse on memory and attention tasks compared with teens who don't smoke.

A clinical pediatrics , spoke about the Juul at the American Society of Addiction Medicine's annual conference this spring. He described some anecdotal effects of nicotine vaping that he'd seen among teens in and around his hospital.

"After only a few months of using nicotine," the Dr. said, the teens "describe cravings, sometimes intense ones." He continued: "After only a few hundred cigarettes - or whatever the equivalent amount of vaping pods - some start showing irritability or shakiness when they stop."

Most e-cigs contain toxic metals, and using them may increase the risk of a heart attack

Beyond e-cigs' impact on the developing brain, a host of health issues related to e-cigs is beginning to emerge.

This spring, scientists took a look at the compounds in several popular brands of e-cigs aside from the Juul and found some of the same toxic metals found in conventional cigarettes, such as lead.

A study published this month showed that people who vape tend to have high concentrations of some of these toxic chemicals in their bodies.

In another study published this summer, scientists concluded that there was substantial evidence  tying daily e-cig use to an increased risk of heart attack. And this fall, a small study in rats suggested that vaping could have a negative effect on wound healing that's similar to the effect of regular cigarettes.

But teens may not be aware of these health risks. Researchers say that could be because so little research has focused specifically on the Juul - the e-cig which currently captures 80% of the market share.

So for a study published in October, researchers  surveyed young people who vaped and asked them whether they used the Juul or another e-cigarette.

Based on their sample of 445 high-school students, the researchers observed that teens who used the Juul tended to say they vaped more frequently compared with those who used other devices. Juul users also appeared to be less aware of how addictive the devices could be compared with teens who vaped other e-cigs.

"I was surprised and concerned that so many youths were using Juul more frequently than other products," a professor of pediatrics who was a lead author of the study, said in a statement.

"We need to help them understand the risks of addiction," she added. "This is not a combustible cigarette, but it still contains an enormous amount of nicotine - at least as much as a pack of cigarettes."

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Low iron, Vitamin B12 level may up anxiety in boys

Iron deficiency and low blood levels of Vitamin B12 in small boys may be associated with behaviour problems, such as anxiety and aggression, when they get in middle school, according to a new study.
The findings showed that iron deficiency, anemia and low plasma vitamin B12 levels in boys at around age 8 were associated with 10 per cent higher mean scores on externalising behaviours such as aggression and breaking of rules.
Iron deficiency was related to an adjusted 12 per cent higher mean on internalising problem scores like anxiety and depression.
"Some parts of the brain develop throughout childhood," said a researcher.

He explained that "structural changes in the basal ganglia, hippocampus, amygdala and prefrontal cortex of the brain may be involved in the development of behaviour problems as these brain regions respond to environmental conditions at different life stages".

For the study, appearing in a journal, the team examined 3,200 children aged 5-12.

"Interventions to curb these deficiencies must be informed by knowledge of their causes in each specific setting," he said.

Previous research on infants has shown a link between iron deficiency and lower positive affect, or a child's alertness, ability to self-sooth and self-regulation.

These problems may evolve through middle childhood and show up as behavioural concerns in adolescence and lower-self-rated mental health in adulthood.

The researchers found no associations among girls.

"We don't have a clear explanation of why there were sex differences, although we knew it was important to study boys and girls separately because they may differ in the timing of development," he said.

"Studies in rats have found that some micronutrient deficiencies affect male and female brains differently but it is not clear exactly why this may also be the case in humans," he noted.

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Prenatal stress changes brain connectivity in-utero

The time babies spend in the womb is far from idle. The brain is changing more rapidly during this time than at any other time in development. It is an active time for the fetus to grow and explore, and of course connect to its mother. And new evidence from in-utero fetal brain scans shows, for the first time, that this connection directly affects brain development: A mother's stress during pregnancy changes neural connectivity in the brain of her unborn child.

"It has long been thought that the stress of a mother during her pregnancy may imprint on the brain of her developing child," says the author who is presenting this new work today. "Despite the clear importance of this time frame, we presently possess very little understanding of how functional macroscale neural networks build during this precious time in human life, or the relevance of this to future human health and development."

This prenatal work is part of a growing body of research to better understand how the human brain develops across its lifespan, from fetus to old age. "We are interested in how a human brain constructs over time to become the adult brain," says the author whose work focuses on identifying sensitive periods of brain development from childhood into adolescence. She is chairing a session on new findings in brain development at the meeting: "The talks aim to bridge across the very long brain development that gives rise to mature functioning."

Seeing the changing fetal brain
Research in newborns and older children to understand prenatal influences has been confounded by the postnatal environment, the Dr. explains. But recent advancements in fetal imaging allowed her and her team to gain insight into a critical time period in brain development never previously accessible.

Using fetal resting-state fMRI, they examined functional connectivity in 47 human fetuses scanned between the 30th and 37th week of gestation. The researchers recruited the participating mothers from a low-resource and high-stress urban setting, with many reporting high-levels of depression, anxiety, worry, and stress.

They found that mothers reporting high stress had fetuses with a reduced efficiency in how their neural functional systems are organized. It is the first time, imaging has shown a direct influence of maternal stress on fetal brain development, independent of influences of the postnatal environment.
"The major thrill is that we have demonstrated what has long been theorized, but not yet observed in a human, which is that the stress of a mother during her pregnancy is reflected in connectional properties of her child's developing brain," the Dr. says. The data suggest that the brain does not develop in a sequence from simplest systems (e.g., vision, motor) to more complex high-order systems, but perhaps instead first develops the areas that will be most critical in bridging across systems.

The researchers found that the cerebellum played a central role in the observed effects, suggesting it may be especially vulnerable to the effects of prenatal or early life stress. The cerebellum has the highest density of glucocorticoid receptors, which are involved in stress responses, than any other place in the brain. The Dr. and her team plan to further investigate this as a possible mechanism for the stress responses they observed.

Although conducting in-utero brain scans are challenging -- first and foremost because of the always wriggling babies -- working with expectant mothers is quite rewarding, the Dr. says. "A lot of our moms are interested in being part of this research, not because of concerns they have in their pregnancy," she says, "but because they appreciate the heightened vulnerability of budding human life, and this is an opportunity to help other women that may not have the same fortune in their circumstances."

Making connections into adulthood
Cognitive neuroscientists are especially interested in understanding sensitive periods of time when the environment has the largest influence on future brain functions. To identify such times, the team has honed in on connections between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the amygdala.

"A majority of developmental change during childhood and adolescence are the changes in connections," she explains. "We have largely focused on the connections between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex because of the very large changes we have observed there across childhood and adolescence and their central role in emotional behaviors."

Studying awake children as young as 4-years old, the researchers identified developmental periods when the nature of the communication between the amygdala and the PFC operates differently than in an adult. The connections develop very slowly over childhood, with a dramatic shift toward the end of childhood when the transition to adolescence brings about more adult-like characteristics. Looking at coincidental environmental events in childhood, the researchers also found data to suggest that amygdala-medial PFC connections are highly impressionable to external forces.

"The human brain is designed to learn from the environment. This is thanks to the long period of infancy, childhood, and adolescence that humans enjoy," the Dr. says. "What has amazed me most about the developing brain is that it is not simply an immature version of the adult brain but instead is designed to collaborate with the expected care-giving ecology."

Indeed, says the Dr.: "We must consider the developing brain in context, thinking about the role of the environment in shaping the brain. It is a topic that inspires us to promote healthy brain growth, to ask what it is that we do for children in the lifestyles, opportunities, and learning conditions we create for them."

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