Do Brains Process Melodies and Lyrics Separately or Together

Does the brain process the lyrics of a song separately from the music, or are the two elements processed as one? Daniela Sammler of the Max Planck Institute and a team of scientists may have uncovered the truth about the human brain. The group observed an MRI brain scan of a person listening to music, in order to identify when regions of the brain were processing just music and just lyrics. There were also some parts in which the music and lyrics were being processed together. Prior to their experiment, they were aware that people with aphasia (who are not able to speak), are still able to "hum a tune". This suggests that music and lyrics are each processed independently. Sammler believed that if she were to alter the tune of a song, but keep the same lyrics, the inactive areas of the brain would be processing the lyrics (and vice versa). Areas of the brain that were inactive when both the tune and the lyrics remained the same were believed to be processing both.

The group conducting the experiment wrote 6 different sets of songs to determine if 12 volunteers were having different brain functions. Some songs had different melodies, but had the same lyrics. Another set had different lyrics, but the same melodies. In a third set, all the songs had different lyrics and melodies. From the MRI scans, the team was able to see that one part of the brain, the superior temporal sulcus, was mainly responsible for responding to the songs. In the middle of the STS, the lyrics and melodies were being processed as a single, uninterrupted signal. Though in the front of the STS, only the lyrics seemed to be processed, while the melody was nowhere to be found. The team did not find the portion of the brain for processing the melodies, possibly because there may be no individual process for them in an average brain (although experienced musicians may have this process).

After the experiment was completed, Sammler concluded that the brain first processes the music and lyrics together. Then, Sammler explained, a more complex process is used to decode the significance of the lyrics, and the music is treated separately. "The more they are processed, the more they are separated" she says. She argues that the level of inactivation in the superior temporal sulcus was not what would be expected if the music and lyrics were, in fact, being processed at the same time.

Although Sammler has come to her conclusion, there are still varied opinions among the researchers and other scientists. Martin Braun of Neuroscience of Music is not convinced that the brain is ever processing both the music and lyrics at once. "Activation of a particular brain area by different stimuli doesn't imply that these different stimuli are integrated. The stimuli might just have a similar effect on the area." he argues. If the truth is discovered, it should be a major factor in gaining further knowledge about the brain.


Sources
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn18626/dn18626-1_536.jpg
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18626-music-and-lyrics-how-the-brain-splits-songs.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=life

By Emily Siegel and James Buchsbaum

How Does The Brain Process Songs

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Over Protective Parents

Over Protective Parents

By Alex Scheman and Amanda Shepherd

Overprotective and controlling parents may mean well, but in the long run could be slowing down their child's brain growth which are linked to mental illnesses. Children with parents who are highly protective or neglectful may be more likely to psychiatric disorders which are also related to defects in part of the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that concerns behavior, learning, judgment and personality. To test this, Kosuke Narita of Gunma University, Japan, scanned the brains of 50 people in their 20s and told them to fill out a questionare concerning their relationship with their parents throughout the first 16 years of their life. The questionare was called the Parental Bonding Instrument and was known internationally to unravel relationships between children and their parents.
Narita and his team discovered that children with overprotective parents had less grey matter in the area surrounding the prefrontal cortex than those who had healthy parent-child relationships. The grey matter is part of your nervous system that is in your brain. An interesting observation was that neglectful fathers, not mothers, stimulated less grey matter. This part of the brain develops during childhood and abnormalities there are common for people with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. Narita thinks that an over release of stress hormone cortisol, either from neglect or too much attention, and the reduced making of dopamine due to poor parenting causes the grey matter growth to stop.
Stephen Wood, who studies adolescent development at the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre in Australia, challenges this. He claims that these children may be born with abnormalbilites and other mental illnesses thus causing a rocky parent to child relationship. This brings up the potencial for a reverse order variable. Wood also points out that the test excluded people with a lower status and economic class, which may be contributing factors of childhood. These observations have opened up possible data flaws in the experiment. Although this test might not have been a success, the experiment opened up the eyes of many people in the parental and scientific community.

This is pointing to where the prefrontal cortex of the brain is. This is the part of the brain that concerns personality, judgement, behavior and learning.


Acknowledgements: none


Sources:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18633-mom-and-dad-stop-stifling-me--its-damaging-my-brain.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=life
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&client=firefox-a&hs=hhy&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=define%3A+prefrontal+lobe&btnG=Search
http://www.shockmd.com/wp-content/dorsolateral-prefrontal-cortex3.jpg

Over Protective Parents

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IVF Babies have High Risk of Diabetes, Obesity and other Metabolic Disorders

In 1978, the first test tube baby was born. A test tube baby is created through the process of In Virto Fertilisation (IVF), which is when egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside the womb. Scientists extract the ova (egg) from the ovaries of the woman. They then put the egg in a liquid with the sperm, which allows the egg to be fertilized.

Factors that affect the result of the IVF include the age of the woman, the normalcy of the uterus and semen quality, the success or failure of fertilization, and the number of embryos transferred. Now, more than three million babies are born through IVF. Risks have increased from about one in 15,000-20,000 to one in 4,000 cells.

First clues of problems with babies born through IVF was in 2001 with animal cloning studies. Scientists realized that in IVF there was a higher chance in offspring syndrome (abnormalities) and heart defects. Since they used the same procedures with animals, they predicted that it would affect babies too.

Though most test tube babies are born healthy, a large group are at a risk for low birth weight, which is associated with obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes (high blood sugar). At Temple University School of Medicine, Carmen Sapienza, a geneticist, is observing to groups of children. One group is born naturally, and the other is born through IVF. Sapienza was especially interested to see a chromosomal modification in the children born through IVF. Found out that 5 to 10 percent of modifications were in test tube babies. Sepienza says that these chromosomal modifications altered nearby genes, and that several of these genes express the metabolic disorders, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

After the egg is fertilized, the embryos are either killed purposefully or accidentally, or frozen. Many people believe that IVF is inhuman and wrong. But others believe that infertile people must be able to have children. The survival rate of each embryo is 36% for a mid-aged woman (30-50).

Acknowledgments:
-http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=assisted-reproduction-genetics
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_fertilisation
-http://images.google.com/

By Dominic, Vahimir, and Giancarlo

Ivf Babies Have High Risks Of Diabetes, Obesity And Other Metabolic Disorders

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Mini Labs and Plant-Based Vaccines Look to Stop Next Pandemic

Last year, the H1N1 virus, and it's rapid worldwide spread showcased the global system's inability to swiftly and effectively distribute vaccines for newly discovered strains of influenza. In fact, the first H1N1 vaccines were distributed in October of last year, even though the first cases were reported that April. Project GreenVax, which is being led by the Texas Plant-Expressed Vaccine Consortium, looks to fix this problem before another possible pandemic develops.

Part of the reason why the H1N1 vaccines took so long to be distributed is that the process used to create them was very inefficient. Chicken eggs were used to create most of the vaccines; doctors would slightly open an egg and inject the virus into the fluid surrounding the embyro. The virus multiplies for a few days, until the eggs are opened again to remove the virus, purify it, and prepare it for use in a vaccine. This process takes up to 2 weeks in total, and doesn't produce a large number of vaccines. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it would take 900 million eggs to produce 300 million vaccines.

The scientists behind Project GreenVax believe that they are able to create vaccines at a much more productive rate, and much quicker using plants. By using essentially the same process, just substituting plant leaves for chicken embryos, it is possible to reduce the time needed to create the vaccine and increase the number of vaccines that could be made. The only problem is that, despite more than a decade of research, there still haven't been "any approved vaccines made using the plant-based approach".

This is most likely because of the fundamental differences between plant cells and animal cells. However, Project GreenVax is devoted to finding a way to use plants to create a more effective method of creating vaccines. They have a combined $61 million in funding, and start research next week.

NOTE: The powerpoint should be up sometime before Wednesday

Link Between Influenza Outbreaks and Humidity

Jeffrey Shaman, an Oregon State University atmospheric scientist, has discovered a link between absolute humidity and influenza outbreaks. This discovery does not shock the scientific community in that scientists have long suspected a link between humidity and seasonal(epidemic) flu outbreaks.  While scientists have focused on relative humidity, absolute humidity is the actual amount of water in the air, irrespective of temperature. Researchers used thirty-one years of observed absolute humidity conditions to create a mathematical model of influenza and found that the simulations reproduced the seasonal cycle of influenza in the United States.

            Beginning observations in New York, Washington, Illinois, Arizona and Florida, then spreading to the rest of the continental U.S.  Shaman and his colleagues discovered that the start of many influenza outbreaks during the winter came after a period of weather that was drier than usual. Shaman makes it a point to clarify that a dry period is not a necessary requirement to trigger an influenza outbreak, nor can the information help predict where there will be an influenza outbreak . However, this discovery could have a major impact on the development of strategies forlimiting spread of infection.

Outbreaks Of Influenza Linked To Changes Of Ab

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Lacking Telomeres May Make You Age Faster

Lacking Telomeres May Make You

Age Faster

By Clay Walsh and Dana Berger

Scientists may have made a breakthrough in establishing the cause and speed of biological aging by researching telomeres. Telomeres are DNA pieces on the end of chromosomes which help protect the chromosomes from damage and degrading over time. They are almost padding or protection to the weak DNA inside of them. Some scientists now think that these shrinking as cells divide is the cause of biological aging. First, it is important to know the difference between biological and chronological aging. Biological aging is how your cells are physically after the splitting of these cells. Chronological age merely refers to how long you have actually lived. What these scientists are saying is that someone with smaller telomeres who has lived 45 years may actually have the body of a 55 year old individual.

Scientists from the University of Leicester led by Nilesh Samani actually examined 500,000 genetic variations to find different telomere lengths in the variations. The scientists found a certain variant inside some people that cause them to have shorter telomeres. This variant is actually genetic, and is passed from parent to child. It is like any chromosome with each parent passing one copy down to their child. Previous studies on animals showed that animals with shorter telomeres actually do have faster biological aging. According to scientists, on average, people with one copy of variant are 4-5 biological years older then someone the same chronological age without the variant. Someone with two copies, one from each parent, looks biologically 6-8 years older then someone their chronological age without the variant.

Samani says that it is actually rather common for people to have at least one copy of the variant. He has said "About 7 percent of people carried two copies of the variant, and 38 percent of people [carried] one copy. He also has said that the scientists do not know if people actually look physically older. It seems like it would be difficult to actually tell or judge if they did. Samani has also brought up concerns of early heart disease, as he works as a cardiologist at the university. He has said that shorter telomeres may lead to earlier heart disease, and that very old people chronologically may have perfect heart health, and some younger people chronologically may be at severe risk. This raises large concerns for people who may consider themselves healthy, but actually are at severe risk. It will be very interesting to see if these scientists are able to distinguish older biological people by looks. It also might be a good idea to research a way to create longer telomere transplants for people to prevent premature aging.

The white pieces on the end are telomeres.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=aging-telomere
Acknowledgements: Scientific American for writing the first article, and Nilesh Samani and the University of Leicester for conducting the research

Lacking Telomeres May Make You Age Faster

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Scorpion Venom Used to Cure Pain

Professor Michael Gurevitz and other scientists at the Tel Aviv University Department of Plant Science are investigating a new way for painkillers to work. They are going to use the natural compounds that can be found in scorpion venom. The research that has been conducted has proven that because the venom has evolved over time, it showed to be extremely effective on the body because there seams to be low side effects after use. This is only a theory that Prof. Gurevitz has made. The way the venom can help reduce pain, is that the venom found in scorpions have toxins called Peptides, which interacts with sodium channels in the muscular system and nervous system. The sodium channels conduct the pain. Scientists believe that if they can isolate the pain receptors in the channels, they can develop an even more effective painkiller than morphine. Along with people following scorpion venom as a painkiller, others have found that it is an efficient way to treat epilepsy.

The Israeli Yellow scorpion's venom works in the way that neurotoxin works. When the neurotoxins get inside the body, the they will almost instantly paralyze the prey preventing them from fleeing, and fighting back. The venom from the Israeli Yellow Scorpion is only affective on small prey, but when the venom is put inside a bigger animal, like a human, there is not as bad of an effect.

There are many dangerous things that need to be worked on right now in the new painkillers with venom in it. The scientists are dealing with the Israeli yellow scorpion which is one of the deadliest scorpions in the world. This scorpion is very poisonous. The Israeli yellow scorpion has 300 different peptides in its venom and only some of them have been researched. Many of the peptides' affects are unknown. There are also many dangers in the scorpion's toxins. Currently Prof. Gurevitz and other scientists are trying to produce these new painkillers with minimized problems of the venom's bad bioactive components.

Though this drug does have some side affects there are great things that can also come from this new pain killer. If the scientists were to successfully produce this painkiller it could solve one of the biggest problems in the medical world today. Aspirin does not help with extreme pain and morphine is an addictive drug. These new drugs would help with serious burns, bad cuts, would be a good thing to use in the military, and would be useful to people with bad injuries after earthquakes and other natural disasters. This new painkiller would work quickly, effectively, and there would be no addiction associated with the drug.

Ack:

- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100216163341.htm?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Netvibes
-www.wilsonsbiologylab.com
-google docs
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc13vSPrXNd4s1wnw70JNJqA-hGZRCQqGmIOLLlWY2pNsdZ826aACAwjtWtYm-gvh-lH9XQy7HR4Su8saA30ZMY3I-ZuQNi0q094HjWCep-qMiW38XxpMc6g4m-6IyUJZtWCn9QN9H-qXJ/s200/arizona_bark_scorpion.jpg
http://files.turbosquid.com/Preview/Content_2009_07_14__00_07_03/scorpio.jpg92B9A1A1-299D-40C6-BBEA7F68FD4402EF.jpgLarge.jpg
- http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flight-international/scorpion.gif

By: Phillip Messineo, Lally Homans, and Gordon Spector