We learn from others by observing their actions and the resulting outcomes. That way we’re able to use the experience of others to guide us in areas where we may not have personal experience. Research described in a paper titled “Fictive Reward Signals in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex” (published May 15, 2009 in Science) shows that some brain cells (neurons) in the anterior cingulate cortex carry information about both the potential reward of a particular act and the experienced outcome.
Author: Donald Doherty
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Not Being Present in the Moment Takes Emotional Toll
Perhaps you’ve heard about being mindful from practitioners of meditation or maybe you try to be mindful in your everyday life. Then you know that being mindful is about being present in the moment. New research suggests that those who are mindful are happier.
Research described in the paper “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind” (published November 12, 2010 in Science) utilizes an iPhone application to accumulate experience sampling data to an online data repository at TrackYourHappiness.org. According to the authors, experience sampling is the most reliable method for investigating real-world emotions. The technique involves randomly contacting people as they engage in their everyday activities and asking them to report their thoughts, feelings, and actions at that moment.
The team reported three findings from their research based on data from 2,250 adults living in the United States. First, people’s minds frequently wander (46.9% of samples). Second, they found that people were less happy while their minds were wandering than when they were not. This was true during all activities. Third, they found that what people were thinking about was a better predictor of their happiness than was what they were doing.
Our ability to think of things that are not presently happening seems to take an emotional toll. Why is mind wandering apparently the brain’s default mode of operation? Stimulus independent thought is apparently what enables people to reason and plan.
Would you like to track your personal happiness and find out what factors are associated with greater happiness for you personally? You can become a participant at TrackYourHappiness.org. When you do you’ll also contribute to studies like the one reviewed here and help to increase our scientific understanding of happiness.
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Brain’s Supporting Cells Put on the Brakes
When people think about activity in the brain they usually think about neurons. Neurons are the brain cells that send signals to and receive signals from other neurons. They communicate electrically by supporting electrical impulses known as action potentials. When an action potential reaches another neuron it communicates with it through a special structure known as a synapse, which includes a very small space between the sending and receiving neurons. The action potential causes a chemical, known as a neurotransmitter, to be released from the sending neuron, which then crosses the space in the synapse, and binds to receptors on the receiving neuron where it influences electrical signaling.
Another kind of brain cell known as glia are often thought of as “supporting” cells (glia literally means glue in Greek) and are often ignored when scientists think about how the brain does its signal processing to support, for example, sensation or perception. New research adds to the evidence that glia may be just as important as neurons for signal processing in the brain. The paper “Channel-Mediated Tonic GABA Release from Glia” (published November 5, 2010 in Science) demonstrates that glia are an important source for at least some of the tonic inhibition found through much of the brain.
Tonic inhibition is like keeping the brakes engaged in an automobile that is revved up and ready to go. If you release the brakes, the car is off and running until you brake again. In the brain, many neurons would be revved up and ready to fire a lot of action potentials if the “brakes” weren’t kept on through tonic inhibition. In fact, the loss of appropriate tonic inhibition is one possible reason for epileptic seizures.
In their new paper, the research team demonstrates that the glial cells in a particular part of the brain known as the cerebellum have ion channels (bestrophin 1) that chronically release an inhibitory neurotransmitter (most likely GABA) onto neurons known as granule cells and a particular set of axons known as parallel fibers. The resulting tonic inhibition is clearly in the position to play a significant role in signal processing in the cerebellum. Future research should provide insight into what that role is and if the same or similar mechanisms involving glial cells can account for tonic inhibition in other parts of the brain.