#hippocampus — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #hippocampus, aggregated by home.social.
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https://www.europesays.com/ie/642293/ Childhood trauma affects brain pathways linked to adult anhedonia #Anhedonia #Brain #Éire #Health #Hippocampus #IE #Ireland #Neuroscience #Preclinical #Research #Trauma
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DATE: August 15, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Adolescent binge drinking permanently alters adult brain sensitivity to alcohol
Heavy drinking during adolescence may leave the adult brain unusually sensitive to alcohol, according to a study published in Molecular Psychiatry. Experiments in male mice found that binge-like drinking during adolescence permanently changed how alcohol affected hippocampal nerve cells, although the altered response was reduced by the medication baclofen.
Adolescence is a period of rapid brain development. Systems involved in seeking rewards become highly active during the teenage years, while brain regions responsible for planning and self-control continue maturing. This imbalance may make adolescents more likely to take risks, including consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short period.
Previous animal studies have linked heavy adolescent drinking with lasting changes in memory, anxiety, impulsivity, and responses to alcohol. However, scientists have known less about the specific cellular processes that could make the developing brain especially vulnerable.
The new study focused on GIRK channels, which are structures in nerve cells that allow potassium to move across the cell membrane. Their activity generally makes nerve cells less likely to fire. Alcohol can activate these channels, helping produce some of alcohol’s effects on the brain. The researchers also examined activin A, a signaling protein involved in brain development, learning, and emotional behavior.
In the study conducted by researchers at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, Germany, the team worked with male mice. The animals were either adolescents, approximately 30 to 45 days old, or adults aged three to five months. Adolescent mice were given access to 20% alcohol during their active period for about two weeks. They were then kept alcohol-free until adulthood.
Electrical activity was recorded from nerve cells in the hippocampus, a brain region important for memory and involved in alcohol-related effects. In mice that had never consumed alcohol, activin A had opposite effects depending on age. It increased the cells’ sensitivity to alcohol during adolescence but reduced alcohol sensitivity in adulthood.
This developmental change normally acted like a switch. However, mice that had consumed alcohol heavily during adolescence did not show the usual adult response. Even after a lengthy alcohol-free period, their adult hippocampal cells remained highly sensitive to alcohol.
The altered cells showed stronger GIRK channel activity and became less likely to fire when exposed to alcohol. In some experiments, alcohol suppressed the firing of most tested nerve cells from mice with adolescent drinking experience.
The team also tested baclofen, a drug that activates GIRK channels and is sometimes prescribed off-label (meaning it is used for a condition it was not officially approved to treat) for alcohol use disorders. In the mouse brain slices, baclofen reduced the unusually large alcohol-induced GIRK response seen after adolescent drinking. The researchers noted: “This finding introduces not only a putative [proposed] new mechanism of therapeutic action, but, with the hippocampus, also a new site of action, with direct implications for [alcohol use disorder]-associated cognitive deficits and affective [mood] disorders.”
The study has several important limitations. For instance, the experiments focused mainly on the hippocampus, while alcohol affects many brain areas. Additionally, the study utilized mice exposed to alcohol for only two weeks, and thus its drinking model may not reflect the variety, duration, or social context of adolescent alcohol use in humans.
The study, “Heavy adolescent drinking makes the adult brain more vulnerable to ethanol by permanently altering the age-dependent interplay between alcohol, GIRK channels and activin,” was authored by Sophia Stürzenberger, Nicolas Bülow, Liubov S. Kalinichenko, Rebecca Licha, Volker Eulenburg, Marc Dahlmanns, Christian P. Müller, Fang Zheng, and Christian Alzheimer.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AdolescentDrinking #AlcoholResearch #BrainDevelopment #GIRKChannels #ActivinA #Hippocampus #AlcoholSensitivity #Baclofen #MolecularPsychiatry #ADHDtoAlcoholImpact
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DATE: August 15, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Adolescent binge drinking permanently alters adult brain sensitivity to alcohol
Heavy drinking during adolescence may leave the adult brain unusually sensitive to alcohol, according to a study published in Molecular Psychiatry. Experiments in male mice found that binge-like drinking during adolescence permanently changed how alcohol affected hippocampal nerve cells, although the altered response was reduced by the medication baclofen.
Adolescence is a period of rapid brain development. Systems involved in seeking rewards become highly active during the teenage years, while brain regions responsible for planning and self-control continue maturing. This imbalance may make adolescents more likely to take risks, including consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short period.
Previous animal studies have linked heavy adolescent drinking with lasting changes in memory, anxiety, impulsivity, and responses to alcohol. However, scientists have known less about the specific cellular processes that could make the developing brain especially vulnerable.
The new study focused on GIRK channels, which are structures in nerve cells that allow potassium to move across the cell membrane. Their activity generally makes nerve cells less likely to fire. Alcohol can activate these channels, helping produce some of alcohol’s effects on the brain. The researchers also examined activin A, a signaling protein involved in brain development, learning, and emotional behavior.
In the study conducted by researchers at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, Germany, the team worked with male mice. The animals were either adolescents, approximately 30 to 45 days old, or adults aged three to five months. Adolescent mice were given access to 20% alcohol during their active period for about two weeks. They were then kept alcohol-free until adulthood.
Electrical activity was recorded from nerve cells in the hippocampus, a brain region important for memory and involved in alcohol-related effects. In mice that had never consumed alcohol, activin A had opposite effects depending on age. It increased the cells’ sensitivity to alcohol during adolescence but reduced alcohol sensitivity in adulthood.
This developmental change normally acted like a switch. However, mice that had consumed alcohol heavily during adolescence did not show the usual adult response. Even after a lengthy alcohol-free period, their adult hippocampal cells remained highly sensitive to alcohol.
The altered cells showed stronger GIRK channel activity and became less likely to fire when exposed to alcohol. In some experiments, alcohol suppressed the firing of most tested nerve cells from mice with adolescent drinking experience.
The team also tested baclofen, a drug that activates GIRK channels and is sometimes prescribed off-label (meaning it is used for a condition it was not officially approved to treat) for alcohol use disorders. In the mouse brain slices, baclofen reduced the unusually large alcohol-induced GIRK response seen after adolescent drinking. The researchers noted: “This finding introduces not only a putative [proposed] new mechanism of therapeutic action, but, with the hippocampus, also a new site of action, with direct implications for [alcohol use disorder]-associated cognitive deficits and affective [mood] disorders.”
The study has several important limitations. For instance, the experiments focused mainly on the hippocampus, while alcohol affects many brain areas. Additionally, the study utilized mice exposed to alcohol for only two weeks, and thus its drinking model may not reflect the variety, duration, or social context of adolescent alcohol use in humans.
The study, “Heavy adolescent drinking makes the adult brain more vulnerable to ethanol by permanently altering the age-dependent interplay between alcohol, GIRK channels and activin,” was authored by Sophia Stürzenberger, Nicolas Bülow, Liubov S. Kalinichenko, Rebecca Licha, Volker Eulenburg, Marc Dahlmanns, Christian P. Müller, Fang Zheng, and Christian Alzheimer.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AdolescentDrinking #AlcoholResearch #BrainDevelopment #GIRKChannels #ActivinA #Hippocampus #AlcoholSensitivity #Baclofen #MolecularPsychiatry #ADHDtoAlcoholImpact
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DATE: August 15, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Adolescent binge drinking permanently alters adult brain sensitivity to alcohol
Heavy drinking during adolescence may leave the adult brain unusually sensitive to alcohol, according to a study published in Molecular Psychiatry. Experiments in male mice found that binge-like drinking during adolescence permanently changed how alcohol affected hippocampal nerve cells, although the altered response was reduced by the medication baclofen.
Adolescence is a period of rapid brain development. Systems involved in seeking rewards become highly active during the teenage years, while brain regions responsible for planning and self-control continue maturing. This imbalance may make adolescents more likely to take risks, including consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short period.
Previous animal studies have linked heavy adolescent drinking with lasting changes in memory, anxiety, impulsivity, and responses to alcohol. However, scientists have known less about the specific cellular processes that could make the developing brain especially vulnerable.
The new study focused on GIRK channels, which are structures in nerve cells that allow potassium to move across the cell membrane. Their activity generally makes nerve cells less likely to fire. Alcohol can activate these channels, helping produce some of alcohol’s effects on the brain. The researchers also examined activin A, a signaling protein involved in brain development, learning, and emotional behavior.
In the study conducted by researchers at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, Germany, the team worked with male mice. The animals were either adolescents, approximately 30 to 45 days old, or adults aged three to five months. Adolescent mice were given access to 20% alcohol during their active period for about two weeks. They were then kept alcohol-free until adulthood.
Electrical activity was recorded from nerve cells in the hippocampus, a brain region important for memory and involved in alcohol-related effects. In mice that had never consumed alcohol, activin A had opposite effects depending on age. It increased the cells’ sensitivity to alcohol during adolescence but reduced alcohol sensitivity in adulthood.
This developmental change normally acted like a switch. However, mice that had consumed alcohol heavily during adolescence did not show the usual adult response. Even after a lengthy alcohol-free period, their adult hippocampal cells remained highly sensitive to alcohol.
The altered cells showed stronger GIRK channel activity and became less likely to fire when exposed to alcohol. In some experiments, alcohol suppressed the firing of most tested nerve cells from mice with adolescent drinking experience.
The team also tested baclofen, a drug that activates GIRK channels and is sometimes prescribed off-label (meaning it is used for a condition it was not officially approved to treat) for alcohol use disorders. In the mouse brain slices, baclofen reduced the unusually large alcohol-induced GIRK response seen after adolescent drinking. The researchers noted: “This finding introduces not only a putative [proposed] new mechanism of therapeutic action, but, with the hippocampus, also a new site of action, with direct implications for [alcohol use disorder]-associated cognitive deficits and affective [mood] disorders.”
The study has several important limitations. For instance, the experiments focused mainly on the hippocampus, while alcohol affects many brain areas. Additionally, the study utilized mice exposed to alcohol for only two weeks, and thus its drinking model may not reflect the variety, duration, or social context of adolescent alcohol use in humans.
The study, “Heavy adolescent drinking makes the adult brain more vulnerable to ethanol by permanently altering the age-dependent interplay between alcohol, GIRK channels and activin,” was authored by Sophia Stürzenberger, Nicolas Bülow, Liubov S. Kalinichenko, Rebecca Licha, Volker Eulenburg, Marc Dahlmanns, Christian P. Müller, Fang Zheng, and Christian Alzheimer.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AdolescentDrinking #AlcoholResearch #BrainDevelopment #GIRKChannels #ActivinA #Hippocampus #AlcoholSensitivity #Baclofen #MolecularPsychiatry #ADHDtoAlcoholImpact
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Taxi Drivers Rarely Die Of Alzheimer’s – How Complex Mental Maps And Spatial Reasoning Protect Your Brain [why knowing your way around might help you stay sharp]
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https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650 <-- shared technical article
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https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082194 <-- shared paper
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https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597 <-- shared paper
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x <-- shared paper
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https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/learn-the-knowledge-of-london <-- details of @Transport for London’s ‘The Knowledge’ details
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https://youtu.be/u7gp8KBP7ak?si=X1xXcysZF2LayFkx <-- shared video, ‘The People Who Have To Remember 25,000 Streets | The [London] Knowledge - The World's Toughest Taxi Test’
--
H/T @ Jennifer Psillas, GISP | GIS Project Manager at City of Tucson Parks and Recreation
“Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S…
Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.
This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs. The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn’t seem to experience a similar advantage.
Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer’s risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It’s one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer’s damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study [link above], neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years…”
#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance #paramedic #TheKnowledge #London #UK #Alzheimer #mapping #mentalmaps #spatialmapping #navigation #spatialreasoning #brain #hippocampus #brainhealth #death #mortality #disease #publichealth #scans #occupation #job -
Taxi Drivers Rarely Die Of Alzheimer’s – How Complex Mental Maps And Spatial Reasoning Protect Your Brain [why knowing your way around might help you stay sharp]
--
https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650 <-- shared technical article
--
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082194 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x <-- shared paper
--
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/learn-the-knowledge-of-london <-- details of @Transport for London’s ‘The Knowledge’ details
--
https://youtu.be/u7gp8KBP7ak?si=X1xXcysZF2LayFkx <-- shared video, ‘The People Who Have To Remember 25,000 Streets | The [London] Knowledge - The World's Toughest Taxi Test’
--
H/T @ Jennifer Psillas, GISP | GIS Project Manager at City of Tucson Parks and Recreation
“Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S…
Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.
This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs. The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn’t seem to experience a similar advantage.
Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer’s risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It’s one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer’s damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study [link above], neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years…”
#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance #paramedic #TheKnowledge #London #UK #Alzheimer #mapping #mentalmaps #spatialmapping #navigation #spatialreasoning #brain #hippocampus #brainhealth #death #mortality #disease #publichealth #scans #occupation #job -
Taxi Drivers Rarely Die Of Alzheimer’s – How Complex Mental Maps And Spatial Reasoning Protect Your Brain [why knowing your way around might help you stay sharp]
--
https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650 <-- shared technical article
--
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082194 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x <-- shared paper
--
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/learn-the-knowledge-of-london <-- details of @Transport for London’s ‘The Knowledge’ details
--
https://youtu.be/u7gp8KBP7ak?si=X1xXcysZF2LayFkx <-- shared video, ‘The People Who Have To Remember 25,000 Streets | The [London] Knowledge - The World's Toughest Taxi Test’
--
H/T @ Jennifer Psillas, GISP | GIS Project Manager at City of Tucson Parks and Recreation
“Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S…
Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.
This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs. The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn’t seem to experience a similar advantage.
Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer’s risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It’s one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer’s damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study [link above], neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years…”
#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance #paramedic #TheKnowledge #London #UK #Alzheimer #mapping #mentalmaps #spatialmapping #navigation #spatialreasoning #brain #hippocampus #brainhealth #death #mortality #disease #publichealth #scans #occupation #job -
Taxi Drivers Rarely Die Of Alzheimer’s – How Complex Mental Maps And Spatial Reasoning Protect Your Brain [why knowing your way around might help you stay sharp]
--
https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650 <-- shared technical article
--
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082194 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x <-- shared paper
--
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/learn-the-knowledge-of-london <-- details of @Transport for London’s ‘The Knowledge’ details
--
https://youtu.be/u7gp8KBP7ak?si=X1xXcysZF2LayFkx <-- shared video, ‘The People Who Have To Remember 25,000 Streets | The [London] Knowledge - The World's Toughest Taxi Test’
--
H/T @ Jennifer Psillas, GISP | GIS Project Manager at City of Tucson Parks and Recreation
“Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S…
Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.
This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs. The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn’t seem to experience a similar advantage.
Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer’s risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It’s one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer’s damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study [link above], neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years…”
#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance #paramedic #TheKnowledge #London #UK #Alzheimer #mapping #mentalmaps #spatialmapping #navigation #spatialreasoning #brain #hippocampus #brainhealth #death #mortality #disease #publichealth #scans #occupation #job -
Taxi Drivers Rarely Die Of Alzheimer’s – How Complex Mental Maps And Spatial Reasoning Protect Your Brain [why knowing your way around might help you stay sharp]
--
https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650 <-- shared technical article
--
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082194 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x <-- shared paper
--
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/learn-the-knowledge-of-london <-- details of @Transport for London’s ‘The Knowledge’ details
--
https://youtu.be/u7gp8KBP7ak?si=X1xXcysZF2LayFkx <-- shared video, ‘The People Who Have To Remember 25,000 Streets | The [London] Knowledge - The World's Toughest Taxi Test’
--
H/T @ Jennifer Psillas, GISP | GIS Project Manager at City of Tucson Parks and Recreation
“Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S…
Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.
This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs. The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn’t seem to experience a similar advantage.
Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer’s risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It’s one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer’s damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study [link above], neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years…”
#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance #paramedic #TheKnowledge #London #UK #Alzheimer #mapping #mentalmaps #spatialmapping #navigation #spatialreasoning #brain #hippocampus #brainhealth #death #mortality #disease #publichealth #scans #occupation #job -
To any #Hippocampus researchers out there:
"representational drift" - is it good or bad?In the early #PlaceCells days, we would have said a neuron is not a place cell if it's not stable with time.
Now, drift is often interpreted as a marker of "temporal coding" or "flexibility".
What do you think? -
To any #Hippocampus researchers out there:
"representational drift" - is it good or bad?In the early #PlaceCells days, we would have said a neuron is not a place cell if it's not stable with time.
Now, drift is often interpreted as a marker of "temporal coding" or "flexibility".
What do you think? -
To any #Hippocampus researchers out there:
"representational drift" - is it good or bad?In the early #PlaceCells days, we would have said a neuron is not a place cell if it's not stable with time.
Now, drift is often interpreted as a marker of "temporal coding" or "flexibility".
What do you think? -
To any #Hippocampus researchers out there:
"representational drift" - is it good or bad?In the early #PlaceCells days, we would have said a neuron is not a place cell if it's not stable with time.
Now, drift is often interpreted as a marker of "temporal coding" or "flexibility".
What do you think? -
To any #Hippocampus researchers out there:
"representational drift" - is it good or bad?In the early #PlaceCells days, we would have said a neuron is not a place cell if it's not stable with time.
Now, drift is often interpreted as a marker of "temporal coding" or "flexibility".
What do you think? -
https://www.europesays.com/at/324630/ Wie Navigation und Alltagsrisiken Demenz-Schutz beeinflussen #AI #Alzheimer #Ambulanzfahrer #Amyloid #ApoeE4 #ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #AT #Austria #Biomarker #Bluthochdruck #Dementz #Gesundheit #Health #Herzzeitvolumen #Hippocampus #KI #KünstlicheIntelligenz #Navigation #Österreich #Rauchen #Risikofaktoren #Taxifahrer #Typ2Diabetes
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https://www.europesays.com/at/324216/ KI-Atlas zeigt Mikroglia-Verlust im Hippocampus ab 50 #AI #Alzheimer #ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #AT #Atlas #Austria #Bioinformatik #Einzelzell #Genom #Gesundheit #Health #Hippocampus #Immunsystem #KI #KünstlicheIntelligenz #Mikroglia #Neuroimmunologie #Österreich #Science
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https://www.europesays.com/at/323281/ KI-Atlas zeigt Mikroglia-Kollaps im Hippocampus ab 50 Jahren #AI #ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #AT #Austria #BlutHirnSchranke #Demenz #Gesundheit #Health #Hippocampus #Immunzellen #KI #KünstlicheIntelligenz #Mikroglia #Neuroinflammation #Österreich #Science #Zellalterung
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https://www.europesays.com/at/323213/ Super-Ager: Gene reichen nicht – doppelt so viele neue Neuronen im Alter #AI #Alzheimer #Apoe #ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #Astrozyten #AT #Austria #Biomarker #Demenz #EinzelzellSequenzierung #Gehgeschwindigkeit #Gesundheit #Health #Hippocampus #KI #KünstlicheIntelligenz #Lebensstil #Mobilität #Neurogenese #Österreich #Prävention #SuperAger #Tau
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At 50, the Brain's Resident Immune Cells Begin to Give Way
If this matters to you, share it.
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At 50, the Brain's Resident Immune Cells Begin to Give Way
If this matters to you, share it.
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At 50, the Brain's Resident Immune Cells Begin to Give Way
If this matters to you, share it.
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At 50, the Brain's Resident Immune Cells Begin to Give Way
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At 50, the Brain's Resident Immune Cells Begin to Give Way
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https://www.europesays.com/at/322769/ SuperAger: Warum Gehirne auch bei Risiko-Genetik leistungsfähig bleiben #AI #Apoe #ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #Astrozyten #AT #Austria #Bewegung #Bluthochdruck #Demenz #Diabetes #Gesundheit #Health #Hippocampus #KI #KünstlicheIntelligenz #LebenslangesLernen #Mobilität #Neurogenese #Neuronen #Österreich #Prävention #SozialeIsolation #Superager
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https://www.europesays.com/at/320740/ Das Gehirn tauscht ab 50 heimlich seine Immunzellen aus #Alzheimer #AT #Austria #BlutHirnSchranke #Demenz #Entzündung #Gehirn #Gesundheit #Health #Hippocampus #Immunzellen #Mikroglia #Österreich
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…During pursuit, sweeps narrow and track a moving target; after sudden target changes, they reorient before the animal turns; during backward locomotion, they reverse; and even during #REM sleep, sweep structure is modulated.
A fascinating view of #ThetaSweeps as an attention-like mechanism for querying #CognitiveMaps in real time.
#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #GridCells #PlaceCells #Navigation
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…During pursuit, sweeps narrow and track a moving target; after sudden target changes, they reorient before the animal turns; during backward locomotion, they reverse; and even during #REM sleep, sweep structure is modulated.
A fascinating view of #ThetaSweeps as an attention-like mechanism for querying #CognitiveMaps in real time.
#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #GridCells #PlaceCells #Navigation
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…During pursuit, sweeps narrow and track a moving target; after sudden target changes, they reorient before the animal turns; during backward locomotion, they reverse; and even during #REM sleep, sweep structure is modulated.
A fascinating view of #ThetaSweeps as an attention-like mechanism for querying #CognitiveMaps in real time.
#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #GridCells #PlaceCells #Navigation
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…During pursuit, sweeps narrow and track a moving target; after sudden target changes, they reorient before the animal turns; during backward locomotion, they reverse; and even during #REM sleep, sweep structure is modulated.
A fascinating view of #ThetaSweeps as an attention-like mechanism for querying #CognitiveMaps in real time.
#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #GridCells #PlaceCells #Navigation
-
…During pursuit, sweeps narrow and track a moving target; after sudden target changes, they reorient before the animal turns; during backward locomotion, they reverse; and even during #REM sleep, sweep structure is modulated.
A fascinating view of #ThetaSweeps as an attention-like mechanism for querying #CognitiveMaps in real time.
#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #GridCells #PlaceCells #Navigation
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Finally out, and this sounds like a beautiful one from the Moser lab: New #Science paper (unfortunately behind a paywall💰) on #ThetaSweeps in the #entorhinal-#hippocampal #navigation circuit. In #rats 🧭🐀, these #theta-locked sweeps are not fixed scanning patterns, but can be rapidly redirected toward #behaviorally relevant locations. …
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Finally out, and this sounds like a beautiful one from the Moser lab: New #Science paper (unfortunately behind a paywall💰) on #ThetaSweeps in the #entorhinal-#hippocampal #navigation circuit. In #rats 🧭🐀, these #theta-locked sweeps are not fixed scanning patterns, but can be rapidly redirected toward #behaviorally relevant locations. …
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Finally out, and this sounds like a beautiful one from the Moser lab: New #Science paper (unfortunately behind a paywall💰) on #ThetaSweeps in the #entorhinal-#hippocampal #navigation circuit. In #rats 🧭🐀, these #theta-locked sweeps are not fixed scanning patterns, but can be rapidly redirected toward #behaviorally relevant locations. …
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Finally out, and this sounds like a beautiful one from the Moser lab: New #Science paper (unfortunately behind a paywall💰) on #ThetaSweeps in the #entorhinal-#hippocampal #navigation circuit. In #rats 🧭🐀, these #theta-locked sweeps are not fixed scanning patterns, but can be rapidly redirected toward #behaviorally relevant locations. …
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Finally out, and this sounds like a beautiful one from the Moser lab: New #Science paper (unfortunately behind a paywall💰) on #ThetaSweeps in the #entorhinal-#hippocampal #navigation circuit. In #rats 🧭🐀, these #theta-locked sweeps are not fixed scanning patterns, but can be rapidly redirected toward #behaviorally relevant locations. …
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https://www.europesays.com/at/316025/ Gehirnalterung: Ab 50 schwächt sich die Immun-Schutzbarriere messbar #AI #ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #AT #Austria #BlutHirnSchranke #Doi #Gehirnalterung #Gesundheit #Health #Hippocampus #Immunsystem #KI #KognitiveGesundheit #KünstlicheIntelligenz #Mikroglia #Neuroimmunologie #Österreich #Science
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DATE: August 5, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study of “super movers” suggests exceptional mobility in late life is a powerful marker of brain health
Older adults who maintain exceptionally fast walking speeds into their eighties tend to experience less cognitive decline and have a lower risk of developing cognitive impairment. New research published in the journal Neurology indicates that these individuals, dubbed “super movers,” do not necessarily have less Alzheimer’s-related brain pathology but instead possess structural advantages in the brain that might help them cope with aging. These findings provide evidence that superior physical mobility in late life acts as a strong marker of brain resilience.
Walking speed is a well-established marker of overall health in older age. As people age, their gait naturally slows down. A small subset of the population maintains walking speeds well above average into their eighties and nineties. Scientists call these older adults “super movers.”
Previous research indicates that super movers tend to have fewer chronic health conditions, healthier lifestyles, and a younger biological age than their peers. Because physical health is closely tied to brain health, scientists wanted to see if this exceptional physical mobility translates to better mental function.
“Most research focuses on why people walk slower as they age,” said Joe Verghese, a professor and chair of neurology at Stony Brook University. “We wanted to understand the opposite: why some adults over 80 maintain exceptional mobility and whether that reflects healthier brain aging.”
The rationale for the study was to explore whether super movers have a lower risk of developing cognitive impairments or dementia. The authors also wanted to examine whether these individuals have healthier brain structures or less buildup of the physical markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease. To answer these questions, the researchers combined data from three distinct, large-scale health databases.
First, the authors analyzed data from an international network of health and retirement studies. This sample included 3,989 adults aged 80 and older from the United States, England, Europe, China, and Mexico. None of these individuals had Alzheimer’s disease or dementia at the beginning of the study.
The researchers defined super movers as those whose walking speeds were at least 1.5 standard deviations above the average for their specific age and sex. A standard deviation is a statistical measure that shows how much variation exists from the average. This means these super movers were in roughly the top seven percent of walkers for their demographic.
The researchers then tracked the participants for an average of 3.4 to 5.4 years. They monitored the subjects to see who developed cognitive impairment. The findings suggest that super movers have a notably lower risk of experiencing cognitive decline.
Super movers had a 51 percent lower relative risk of developing new cognitive impairment compared to regular movers. Out of the 3,715 participants analyzed for this specific risk, the overall incidence of cognitive impairment was much lower for those with exceptional walking speed. “The effect size was large,” Verghese said. “Super movers had about a 50% lower risk of developing cognitive impairment than their peers.”
This reduced risk was consistent even after adjusting for basic demographic factors like age and sex. The researchers also accounted for the participants’ baseline cognitive performance before the follow-up period. The data provides evidence that super mobility in late life acts as a robust indicator of future cognitive health.
Next, the researchers looked at data from the LonGenity study, which tracks the health of older adults of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. This portion included 197 adults aged 80 and older who underwent annual cognitive tests for an average of 4.4 years. The cognitive tests measured functions like memory recall, mental processing speed, and visual-spatial skills.
A smaller subset of 64 participants also received magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to measure brain structure. An MRI is a medical imaging technique that uses magnetic fields to create detailed pictures of the organs and tissues within the body. In this sample, super movers showed a slower rate of decline in both memory and non-memory tasks.
They specifically maintained better processing speed and visual-spatial skills over time. The brain imaging data indicated that super movers had larger volumes in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a brain region deeply involved in memory formation and spatial navigation.
Specifically, super movers had more volume in the right hippocampus and in localized sub-regions associated with memory and movement. However, the differences in overall cortical thickness were not statistically significant between the two groups. Cortical thickness refers to the width of the outer layer of the brain, which typically thins as people age.
Finally, the authors analyzed autopsy data from a memory and aging project based at RUSH University. This included 692 participants aged 80 and older who had their walking speed measured during life and consented to brain autopsies after death. The researchers examined the brains for physical signs of dementia.
These signs include amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Plaques and tangles are abnormal protein clusters that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. The authors compared the post-mortem brain tissue of super movers to that of regular movers.
Before death, the super movers in this group demonstrated better overall cognitive performance and lower rates of diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease. When examining the brains post-mortem, the authors found no differences in the amount of Alzheimer’s-related plaques and tangles between super movers and regular movers. “Super movers had better cognitive outcomes despite having similar Alzheimer’s pathology at autopsy,” Verghese said.
“That points toward resilience rather than simply having less disease,” Verghese continued. This suggests that super movers do not necessarily avoid the physical brain pathology of aging. Instead, their brains might possess a form of resilience that allows them to maintain sharp mental function. They seem able to cope with the presence of these disease markers better than people with slower walking speeds.
The observational nature of this research leaves open the question of direct cause and effect. The strong relationship between walking speed and brain health does not mean that walking fast directly prevents cognitive decline. A person cannot simply force themselves to walk faster to stave off dementia.
“This is an observational study,” Verghese noted. “We cannot conclude that walking faster prevents dementia, only that exceptional mobility is associated with healthier cognitive aging.” Exceptional walking speed and sharp cognition are likely both outward signs of an underlying resilience in the brain and body.
The threshold used to define super movers is based on statistical averages rather than a strict biological cutoff. This means the specific walking speed required to be a super mover can vary depending on a population’s overall health and average physical fitness. Using relative statistical cutoffs makes it hard to create a universal clinical standard for what constitutes a super mover.
The autopsy sample also consisted mostly of highly educated, health-conscious volunteers. This demographic skew limits how well these specific autopsy findings apply to the general public. Future research will need to examine physical brain pathology in more diverse, globally representative populations.
Scientists hope to identify specific lifestyle factors, such as dietary habits and sleep quality, that support brain resilience. Understanding how environmental conditions and community infrastructure support exceptional aging could inform public health strategies. “We want to identify the biological, lifestyle, and environmental factors that make someone a super mover, with the goal of developing strategies to promote healthy brain aging for everyone,” Verghese said.
Identifying the behavioral and biological traits of super movers might eventually help health professionals preserve cognitive function in all older adults. “Faster walking in later life is a marker of healthy brain aging,” Verghese explained. “Staying active throughout life is one of the best things we know to support both physical and cognitive health.”
Looking forward, the researchers emphasize the importance of positive aging models. “Studying people who age exceptionally well can be just as informative as studying disease,” Verghese said. “They may reveal new pathways to maintaining cognitive health into very old age.”
The study, “Cognitive Aging and Brain Health: A Comparison of Super Movers vs Nonsuper Movers,” was authored by Oshadi Jayakody, Sofiya Milman, Nir Barzilai, Erica F. Weiss, Cuiling Wang, Ying Jin, Helena Blumen, and Joe Verghese.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SuperMovers #BrainHealth #CognitiveAging #MobilityAndMind #BrainResilience #HealthyAging #WalkingSpeed #Hippocampus #DementiaPrevention #AgingResearch
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DATE: August 5, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study of “super movers” suggests exceptional mobility in late life is a powerful marker of brain health
Older adults who maintain exceptionally fast walking speeds into their eighties tend to experience less cognitive decline and have a lower risk of developing cognitive impairment. New research published in the journal Neurology indicates that these individuals, dubbed “super movers,” do not necessarily have less Alzheimer’s-related brain pathology but instead possess structural advantages in the brain that might help them cope with aging. These findings provide evidence that superior physical mobility in late life acts as a strong marker of brain resilience.
Walking speed is a well-established marker of overall health in older age. As people age, their gait naturally slows down. A small subset of the population maintains walking speeds well above average into their eighties and nineties. Scientists call these older adults “super movers.”
Previous research indicates that super movers tend to have fewer chronic health conditions, healthier lifestyles, and a younger biological age than their peers. Because physical health is closely tied to brain health, scientists wanted to see if this exceptional physical mobility translates to better mental function.
“Most research focuses on why people walk slower as they age,” said Joe Verghese, a professor and chair of neurology at Stony Brook University. “We wanted to understand the opposite: why some adults over 80 maintain exceptional mobility and whether that reflects healthier brain aging.”
The rationale for the study was to explore whether super movers have a lower risk of developing cognitive impairments or dementia. The authors also wanted to examine whether these individuals have healthier brain structures or less buildup of the physical markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease. To answer these questions, the researchers combined data from three distinct, large-scale health databases.
First, the authors analyzed data from an international network of health and retirement studies. This sample included 3,989 adults aged 80 and older from the United States, England, Europe, China, and Mexico. None of these individuals had Alzheimer’s disease or dementia at the beginning of the study.
The researchers defined super movers as those whose walking speeds were at least 1.5 standard deviations above the average for their specific age and sex. A standard deviation is a statistical measure that shows how much variation exists from the average. This means these super movers were in roughly the top seven percent of walkers for their demographic.
The researchers then tracked the participants for an average of 3.4 to 5.4 years. They monitored the subjects to see who developed cognitive impairment. The findings suggest that super movers have a notably lower risk of experiencing cognitive decline.
Super movers had a 51 percent lower relative risk of developing new cognitive impairment compared to regular movers. Out of the 3,715 participants analyzed for this specific risk, the overall incidence of cognitive impairment was much lower for those with exceptional walking speed. “The effect size was large,” Verghese said. “Super movers had about a 50% lower risk of developing cognitive impairment than their peers.”
This reduced risk was consistent even after adjusting for basic demographic factors like age and sex. The researchers also accounted for the participants’ baseline cognitive performance before the follow-up period. The data provides evidence that super mobility in late life acts as a robust indicator of future cognitive health.
Next, the researchers looked at data from the LonGenity study, which tracks the health of older adults of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. This portion included 197 adults aged 80 and older who underwent annual cognitive tests for an average of 4.4 years. The cognitive tests measured functions like memory recall, mental processing speed, and visual-spatial skills.
A smaller subset of 64 participants also received magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to measure brain structure. An MRI is a medical imaging technique that uses magnetic fields to create detailed pictures of the organs and tissues within the body. In this sample, super movers showed a slower rate of decline in both memory and non-memory tasks.
They specifically maintained better processing speed and visual-spatial skills over time. The brain imaging data indicated that super movers had larger volumes in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a brain region deeply involved in memory formation and spatial navigation.
Specifically, super movers had more volume in the right hippocampus and in localized sub-regions associated with memory and movement. However, the differences in overall cortical thickness were not statistically significant between the two groups. Cortical thickness refers to the width of the outer layer of the brain, which typically thins as people age.
Finally, the authors analyzed autopsy data from a memory and aging project based at RUSH University. This included 692 participants aged 80 and older who had their walking speed measured during life and consented to brain autopsies after death. The researchers examined the brains for physical signs of dementia.
These signs include amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Plaques and tangles are abnormal protein clusters that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. The authors compared the post-mortem brain tissue of super movers to that of regular movers.
Before death, the super movers in this group demonstrated better overall cognitive performance and lower rates of diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease. When examining the brains post-mortem, the authors found no differences in the amount of Alzheimer’s-related plaques and tangles between super movers and regular movers. “Super movers had better cognitive outcomes despite having similar Alzheimer’s pathology at autopsy,” Verghese said.
“That points toward resilience rather than simply having less disease,” Verghese continued. This suggests that super movers do not necessarily avoid the physical brain pathology of aging. Instead, their brains might possess a form of resilience that allows them to maintain sharp mental function. They seem able to cope with the presence of these disease markers better than people with slower walking speeds.
The observational nature of this research leaves open the question of direct cause and effect. The strong relationship between walking speed and brain health does not mean that walking fast directly prevents cognitive decline. A person cannot simply force themselves to walk faster to stave off dementia.
“This is an observational study,” Verghese noted. “We cannot conclude that walking faster prevents dementia, only that exceptional mobility is associated with healthier cognitive aging.” Exceptional walking speed and sharp cognition are likely both outward signs of an underlying resilience in the brain and body.
The threshold used to define super movers is based on statistical averages rather than a strict biological cutoff. This means the specific walking speed required to be a super mover can vary depending on a population’s overall health and average physical fitness. Using relative statistical cutoffs makes it hard to create a universal clinical standard for what constitutes a super mover.
The autopsy sample also consisted mostly of highly educated, health-conscious volunteers. This demographic skew limits how well these specific autopsy findings apply to the general public. Future research will need to examine physical brain pathology in more diverse, globally representative populations.
Scientists hope to identify specific lifestyle factors, such as dietary habits and sleep quality, that support brain resilience. Understanding how environmental conditions and community infrastructure support exceptional aging could inform public health strategies. “We want to identify the biological, lifestyle, and environmental factors that make someone a super mover, with the goal of developing strategies to promote healthy brain aging for everyone,” Verghese said.
Identifying the behavioral and biological traits of super movers might eventually help health professionals preserve cognitive function in all older adults. “Faster walking in later life is a marker of healthy brain aging,” Verghese explained. “Staying active throughout life is one of the best things we know to support both physical and cognitive health.”
Looking forward, the researchers emphasize the importance of positive aging models. “Studying people who age exceptionally well can be just as informative as studying disease,” Verghese said. “They may reveal new pathways to maintaining cognitive health into very old age.”
The study, “Cognitive Aging and Brain Health: A Comparison of Super Movers vs Nonsuper Movers,” was authored by Oshadi Jayakody, Sofiya Milman, Nir Barzilai, Erica F. Weiss, Cuiling Wang, Ying Jin, Helena Blumen, and Joe Verghese.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SuperMovers #BrainHealth #CognitiveAging #MobilityAndMind #BrainResilience #HealthyAging #WalkingSpeed #Hippocampus #DementiaPrevention #AgingResearch
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DATE: August 5, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study of “super movers” suggests exceptional mobility in late life is a powerful marker of brain health
Older adults who maintain exceptionally fast walking speeds into their eighties tend to experience less cognitive decline and have a lower risk of developing cognitive impairment. New research published in the journal Neurology indicates that these individuals, dubbed “super movers,” do not necessarily have less Alzheimer’s-related brain pathology but instead possess structural advantages in the brain that might help them cope with aging. These findings provide evidence that superior physical mobility in late life acts as a strong marker of brain resilience.
Walking speed is a well-established marker of overall health in older age. As people age, their gait naturally slows down. A small subset of the population maintains walking speeds well above average into their eighties and nineties. Scientists call these older adults “super movers.”
Previous research indicates that super movers tend to have fewer chronic health conditions, healthier lifestyles, and a younger biological age than their peers. Because physical health is closely tied to brain health, scientists wanted to see if this exceptional physical mobility translates to better mental function.
“Most research focuses on why people walk slower as they age,” said Joe Verghese, a professor and chair of neurology at Stony Brook University. “We wanted to understand the opposite: why some adults over 80 maintain exceptional mobility and whether that reflects healthier brain aging.”
The rationale for the study was to explore whether super movers have a lower risk of developing cognitive impairments or dementia. The authors also wanted to examine whether these individuals have healthier brain structures or less buildup of the physical markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease. To answer these questions, the researchers combined data from three distinct, large-scale health databases.
First, the authors analyzed data from an international network of health and retirement studies. This sample included 3,989 adults aged 80 and older from the United States, England, Europe, China, and Mexico. None of these individuals had Alzheimer’s disease or dementia at the beginning of the study.
The researchers defined super movers as those whose walking speeds were at least 1.5 standard deviations above the average for their specific age and sex. A standard deviation is a statistical measure that shows how much variation exists from the average. This means these super movers were in roughly the top seven percent of walkers for their demographic.
The researchers then tracked the participants for an average of 3.4 to 5.4 years. They monitored the subjects to see who developed cognitive impairment. The findings suggest that super movers have a notably lower risk of experiencing cognitive decline.
Super movers had a 51 percent lower relative risk of developing new cognitive impairment compared to regular movers. Out of the 3,715 participants analyzed for this specific risk, the overall incidence of cognitive impairment was much lower for those with exceptional walking speed. “The effect size was large,” Verghese said. “Super movers had about a 50% lower risk of developing cognitive impairment than their peers.”
This reduced risk was consistent even after adjusting for basic demographic factors like age and sex. The researchers also accounted for the participants’ baseline cognitive performance before the follow-up period. The data provides evidence that super mobility in late life acts as a robust indicator of future cognitive health.
Next, the researchers looked at data from the LonGenity study, which tracks the health of older adults of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. This portion included 197 adults aged 80 and older who underwent annual cognitive tests for an average of 4.4 years. The cognitive tests measured functions like memory recall, mental processing speed, and visual-spatial skills.
A smaller subset of 64 participants also received magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to measure brain structure. An MRI is a medical imaging technique that uses magnetic fields to create detailed pictures of the organs and tissues within the body. In this sample, super movers showed a slower rate of decline in both memory and non-memory tasks.
They specifically maintained better processing speed and visual-spatial skills over time. The brain imaging data indicated that super movers had larger volumes in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a brain region deeply involved in memory formation and spatial navigation.
Specifically, super movers had more volume in the right hippocampus and in localized sub-regions associated with memory and movement. However, the differences in overall cortical thickness were not statistically significant between the two groups. Cortical thickness refers to the width of the outer layer of the brain, which typically thins as people age.
Finally, the authors analyzed autopsy data from a memory and aging project based at RUSH University. This included 692 participants aged 80 and older who had their walking speed measured during life and consented to brain autopsies after death. The researchers examined the brains for physical signs of dementia.
These signs include amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Plaques and tangles are abnormal protein clusters that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. The authors compared the post-mortem brain tissue of super movers to that of regular movers.
Before death, the super movers in this group demonstrated better overall cognitive performance and lower rates of diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease. When examining the brains post-mortem, the authors found no differences in the amount of Alzheimer’s-related plaques and tangles between super movers and regular movers. “Super movers had better cognitive outcomes despite having similar Alzheimer’s pathology at autopsy,” Verghese said.
“That points toward resilience rather than simply having less disease,” Verghese continued. This suggests that super movers do not necessarily avoid the physical brain pathology of aging. Instead, their brains might possess a form of resilience that allows them to maintain sharp mental function. They seem able to cope with the presence of these disease markers better than people with slower walking speeds.
The observational nature of this research leaves open the question of direct cause and effect. The strong relationship between walking speed and brain health does not mean that walking fast directly prevents cognitive decline. A person cannot simply force themselves to walk faster to stave off dementia.
“This is an observational study,” Verghese noted. “We cannot conclude that walking faster prevents dementia, only that exceptional mobility is associated with healthier cognitive aging.” Exceptional walking speed and sharp cognition are likely both outward signs of an underlying resilience in the brain and body.
The threshold used to define super movers is based on statistical averages rather than a strict biological cutoff. This means the specific walking speed required to be a super mover can vary depending on a population’s overall health and average physical fitness. Using relative statistical cutoffs makes it hard to create a universal clinical standard for what constitutes a super mover.
The autopsy sample also consisted mostly of highly educated, health-conscious volunteers. This demographic skew limits how well these specific autopsy findings apply to the general public. Future research will need to examine physical brain pathology in more diverse, globally representative populations.
Scientists hope to identify specific lifestyle factors, such as dietary habits and sleep quality, that support brain resilience. Understanding how environmental conditions and community infrastructure support exceptional aging could inform public health strategies. “We want to identify the biological, lifestyle, and environmental factors that make someone a super mover, with the goal of developing strategies to promote healthy brain aging for everyone,” Verghese said.
Identifying the behavioral and biological traits of super movers might eventually help health professionals preserve cognitive function in all older adults. “Faster walking in later life is a marker of healthy brain aging,” Verghese explained. “Staying active throughout life is one of the best things we know to support both physical and cognitive health.”
Looking forward, the researchers emphasize the importance of positive aging models. “Studying people who age exceptionally well can be just as informative as studying disease,” Verghese said. “They may reveal new pathways to maintaining cognitive health into very old age.”
The study, “Cognitive Aging and Brain Health: A Comparison of Super Movers vs Nonsuper Movers,” was authored by Oshadi Jayakody, Sofiya Milman, Nir Barzilai, Erica F. Weiss, Cuiling Wang, Ying Jin, Helena Blumen, and Joe Verghese.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SuperMovers #BrainHealth #CognitiveAging #MobilityAndMind #BrainResilience #HealthyAging #WalkingSpeed #Hippocampus #DementiaPrevention #AgingResearch
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DATE: August 4, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Severe COVID-19 linked to anxiety in offspring via altered sperm RNA
Male mice that recover from a severe COVID-19-like infection can pass anxiety-like traits to their offspring by altering the RNA molecules inside their sperm. These findings suggest that a paternal viral infection prior to conception might alter the developmental trajectory of the next generation. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Biologists once thought that parents only passed down genetic information through the fixed sequence of DNA in their sperm and egg cells. Researchers now recognize that environmental factors, such as stress or diet, can alter traits in offspring without changing the underlying DNA code. This process is known as epigenetic inheritance. One major pathway for epigenetic inheritance involves small noncoding RNAs, which are tiny molecular messengers that control how and when other genes turn on or off without building proteins themselves.
Past experiments have shown that exposing male mice to bacterial or parasitic infections alters the small noncoding RNAs in their sperm. This internal shift can alter the brain development and behavior of their future offspring. A team of scientists led by Elizabeth Kleeman and Anthony Hannan at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health wanted to know if a respiratory virus could produce similar intergenerational outcomes. They chose to study SARS-CoV-2 because hundreds of millions of people have contracted the virus globally since the start of the pandemic.
The researchers utilized a small study design relying on an established mouse model of SARS-CoV-2. They infected adult male mice with the virus and gave a control group a harmless mock infection. The infected animals experienced moderate to severe illness, marked by a temporary drop in body weight. Four weeks later, after the mice had fully cleared the virus, the researchers mated both groups with healthy female mice that had never encountered the pathogen.
When the offspring of these pairings reached adulthood, the researchers evaluated their behavior. They placed the mice in an enclosure featuring a brightly lit area and a concealed dark zone. Mice naturally prefer dark spaces, and spending less time in the light indicates higher levels of anxiety. The offspring of the fathers infected with SARS-CoV-2 spent much less time exploring the bright zone compared to the uninfected control group.
The male offspring in this group also hesitated much longer before entering the lit area at all. The researchers observed comparable results in an open field test, where the offspring of infected fathers avoided the exposed center of the testing arena. The researchers also subjected the mice to tests evaluating memory, sociability, and depression. The offspring of the infected fathers showed no differences in their ability to recognize novel objects or interact with unfamiliar mice, indicating that the primary behavioral shift centered on anxiety.
The scientists also examined the offspring’s brains, focusing on the hippocampus, a region involved in emotional regulation. They discovered altered gene expression profiles in the offspring of the infected mice. These alterations were particularly pronounced in the female offspring, who showed reduced activity in several genes linked to stress responses. Similar gene reductions frequently appear in rodent models of chronic stress.
To find out if these behavioral changes persisted across multiple generations, the team conducted a second breeding experiment. They took the male offspring from the first generation and mated them with a new group of healthy females. The resulting grand-offspring exhibited some early developmental differences, including slightly altered body weights. As these grand-offspring matured, they did not display the elevated anxiety traits seen in their parents, suggesting the behavioral effect faded after one generation.
The researchers then sought to uncover the biological mechanism driving the anxiety-like traits in the first generation. They collected sperm from the original groups of infected and healthy male mice four weeks after their initial exposure. An analysis of the sperm revealed modified levels of multiple small noncoding RNAs in the animals that had contracted SARS-CoV-2. Some clusters of these regulatory molecules were less abundant, while a few specific types were highly elevated.
Specifically, the researchers identified drops in the expression of PIWI-interacting RNAs, which are specialized molecules that protect the genome from mutations during sperm development. They also found elevated levels of certain microRNAs, which are known to influence early embryonic growth. To confirm that these specific RNA molecules caused the behavioral changes, the team designed a microinjection experiment. They extracted the small RNA cargo from the sperm of both the infected and the uninfected control mice.
Using microscopic needles, the researchers injected this extracted RNA directly into healthy, fertilized mouse eggs. They implanted these embryos into surrogate female mice and allowed the resulting offspring to grow into adulthood. The adult mice that developed from the eggs injected with the infected sperm RNA exhibited traits mimicking the naturally conceived offspring. In the light and dark box test, the male mice from this group showed heightened hesitation before entering the brightly lit zone.
While not every behavioral difference transferred perfectly, the presence of anxiety-like symptoms confirmed that the sperm RNA played a direct role in shaping the offspring’s brain development. The isolated molecular cargo was enough to recreate portions of the intergenerational effect. A few important caveats accompany these results. The study relied entirely on animal models, and biological responses in mice do not perfectly mirror human health outcomes.
The viral infection caused notable weight loss in the adult male mice, which presents a confounding variable. Severe metabolic stress and sudden weight loss can independently trigger epigenetic changes in sperm. It is difficult to separate the effects of the virus itself from the physical toll of a severe illness. Additionally, studying a dangerous pathogen required the researchers to conduct their behavioral assessments inside a highly restricted biosafety facility. Space limitations in this environment prevented the use of larger behavioral testing arenas.
The researchers noted that tracking human outcomes takes decades, making animal models a necessary starting point. Future studies will need to determine whether milder infections, antiviral treatments, or prior vaccinations modify the RNA content in sperm. Resolving these questions will help clarify if the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 might subtly influence the mental health of children conceived in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The study, “Paternal SARS-CoV-2 infection impacts sperm small noncoding RNAs and increases anxiety in offspring in a sex-dependent manner,” was authored by Elizabeth A. Kleeman, Carolina Gubert, Sonali N. Reisinger, Kathryn C. Davidson, Da Lu, Merle Dayton, Liana Mackiewicz, Bethany A. Masson, Pranav Adithya, Alexandra L. Garnham, Gemma Stathatos, Moira K. O’Bryan, Rikeish R. Muralitharan, Francine Z. Marques, Shanshan Li, Huan Liao, Shae McLaughlin, Emmet T. Keough, Michelle Y. Wheeler, Pamudika Kiridena, Marcel Doerflinger, Marc Pellegrini, and Anthony J. Hannan.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PaternalSARSCoV2 #SpermRNA #EpigeneticInheritance #AnxietyInOffspring #NoncodingRNA #SARSCoV2Research #IntergenerationalEffects #MouseModel #Hippocampus #NatureCommunications
-
DATE: August 4, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Severe COVID-19 linked to anxiety in offspring via altered sperm RNA
Male mice that recover from a severe COVID-19-like infection can pass anxiety-like traits to their offspring by altering the RNA molecules inside their sperm. These findings suggest that a paternal viral infection prior to conception might alter the developmental trajectory of the next generation. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Biologists once thought that parents only passed down genetic information through the fixed sequence of DNA in their sperm and egg cells. Researchers now recognize that environmental factors, such as stress or diet, can alter traits in offspring without changing the underlying DNA code. This process is known as epigenetic inheritance. One major pathway for epigenetic inheritance involves small noncoding RNAs, which are tiny molecular messengers that control how and when other genes turn on or off without building proteins themselves.
Past experiments have shown that exposing male mice to bacterial or parasitic infections alters the small noncoding RNAs in their sperm. This internal shift can alter the brain development and behavior of their future offspring. A team of scientists led by Elizabeth Kleeman and Anthony Hannan at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health wanted to know if a respiratory virus could produce similar intergenerational outcomes. They chose to study SARS-CoV-2 because hundreds of millions of people have contracted the virus globally since the start of the pandemic.
The researchers utilized a small study design relying on an established mouse model of SARS-CoV-2. They infected adult male mice with the virus and gave a control group a harmless mock infection. The infected animals experienced moderate to severe illness, marked by a temporary drop in body weight. Four weeks later, after the mice had fully cleared the virus, the researchers mated both groups with healthy female mice that had never encountered the pathogen.
When the offspring of these pairings reached adulthood, the researchers evaluated their behavior. They placed the mice in an enclosure featuring a brightly lit area and a concealed dark zone. Mice naturally prefer dark spaces, and spending less time in the light indicates higher levels of anxiety. The offspring of the fathers infected with SARS-CoV-2 spent much less time exploring the bright zone compared to the uninfected control group.
The male offspring in this group also hesitated much longer before entering the lit area at all. The researchers observed comparable results in an open field test, where the offspring of infected fathers avoided the exposed center of the testing arena. The researchers also subjected the mice to tests evaluating memory, sociability, and depression. The offspring of the infected fathers showed no differences in their ability to recognize novel objects or interact with unfamiliar mice, indicating that the primary behavioral shift centered on anxiety.
The scientists also examined the offspring’s brains, focusing on the hippocampus, a region involved in emotional regulation. They discovered altered gene expression profiles in the offspring of the infected mice. These alterations were particularly pronounced in the female offspring, who showed reduced activity in several genes linked to stress responses. Similar gene reductions frequently appear in rodent models of chronic stress.
To find out if these behavioral changes persisted across multiple generations, the team conducted a second breeding experiment. They took the male offspring from the first generation and mated them with a new group of healthy females. The resulting grand-offspring exhibited some early developmental differences, including slightly altered body weights. As these grand-offspring matured, they did not display the elevated anxiety traits seen in their parents, suggesting the behavioral effect faded after one generation.
The researchers then sought to uncover the biological mechanism driving the anxiety-like traits in the first generation. They collected sperm from the original groups of infected and healthy male mice four weeks after their initial exposure. An analysis of the sperm revealed modified levels of multiple small noncoding RNAs in the animals that had contracted SARS-CoV-2. Some clusters of these regulatory molecules were less abundant, while a few specific types were highly elevated.
Specifically, the researchers identified drops in the expression of PIWI-interacting RNAs, which are specialized molecules that protect the genome from mutations during sperm development. They also found elevated levels of certain microRNAs, which are known to influence early embryonic growth. To confirm that these specific RNA molecules caused the behavioral changes, the team designed a microinjection experiment. They extracted the small RNA cargo from the sperm of both the infected and the uninfected control mice.
Using microscopic needles, the researchers injected this extracted RNA directly into healthy, fertilized mouse eggs. They implanted these embryos into surrogate female mice and allowed the resulting offspring to grow into adulthood. The adult mice that developed from the eggs injected with the infected sperm RNA exhibited traits mimicking the naturally conceived offspring. In the light and dark box test, the male mice from this group showed heightened hesitation before entering the brightly lit zone.
While not every behavioral difference transferred perfectly, the presence of anxiety-like symptoms confirmed that the sperm RNA played a direct role in shaping the offspring’s brain development. The isolated molecular cargo was enough to recreate portions of the intergenerational effect. A few important caveats accompany these results. The study relied entirely on animal models, and biological responses in mice do not perfectly mirror human health outcomes.
The viral infection caused notable weight loss in the adult male mice, which presents a confounding variable. Severe metabolic stress and sudden weight loss can independently trigger epigenetic changes in sperm. It is difficult to separate the effects of the virus itself from the physical toll of a severe illness. Additionally, studying a dangerous pathogen required the researchers to conduct their behavioral assessments inside a highly restricted biosafety facility. Space limitations in this environment prevented the use of larger behavioral testing arenas.
The researchers noted that tracking human outcomes takes decades, making animal models a necessary starting point. Future studies will need to determine whether milder infections, antiviral treatments, or prior vaccinations modify the RNA content in sperm. Resolving these questions will help clarify if the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 might subtly influence the mental health of children conceived in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The study, “Paternal SARS-CoV-2 infection impacts sperm small noncoding RNAs and increases anxiety in offspring in a sex-dependent manner,” was authored by Elizabeth A. Kleeman, Carolina Gubert, Sonali N. Reisinger, Kathryn C. Davidson, Da Lu, Merle Dayton, Liana Mackiewicz, Bethany A. Masson, Pranav Adithya, Alexandra L. Garnham, Gemma Stathatos, Moira K. O’Bryan, Rikeish R. Muralitharan, Francine Z. Marques, Shanshan Li, Huan Liao, Shae McLaughlin, Emmet T. Keough, Michelle Y. Wheeler, Pamudika Kiridena, Marcel Doerflinger, Marc Pellegrini, and Anthony J. Hannan.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PaternalSARSCoV2 #SpermRNA #EpigeneticInheritance #AnxietyInOffspring #NoncodingRNA #SARSCoV2Research #IntergenerationalEffects #MouseModel #Hippocampus #NatureCommunications
-
DATE: August 4, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Severe COVID-19 linked to anxiety in offspring via altered sperm RNA
Male mice that recover from a severe COVID-19-like infection can pass anxiety-like traits to their offspring by altering the RNA molecules inside their sperm. These findings suggest that a paternal viral infection prior to conception might alter the developmental trajectory of the next generation. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Biologists once thought that parents only passed down genetic information through the fixed sequence of DNA in their sperm and egg cells. Researchers now recognize that environmental factors, such as stress or diet, can alter traits in offspring without changing the underlying DNA code. This process is known as epigenetic inheritance. One major pathway for epigenetic inheritance involves small noncoding RNAs, which are tiny molecular messengers that control how and when other genes turn on or off without building proteins themselves.
Past experiments have shown that exposing male mice to bacterial or parasitic infections alters the small noncoding RNAs in their sperm. This internal shift can alter the brain development and behavior of their future offspring. A team of scientists led by Elizabeth Kleeman and Anthony Hannan at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health wanted to know if a respiratory virus could produce similar intergenerational outcomes. They chose to study SARS-CoV-2 because hundreds of millions of people have contracted the virus globally since the start of the pandemic.
The researchers utilized a small study design relying on an established mouse model of SARS-CoV-2. They infected adult male mice with the virus and gave a control group a harmless mock infection. The infected animals experienced moderate to severe illness, marked by a temporary drop in body weight. Four weeks later, after the mice had fully cleared the virus, the researchers mated both groups with healthy female mice that had never encountered the pathogen.
When the offspring of these pairings reached adulthood, the researchers evaluated their behavior. They placed the mice in an enclosure featuring a brightly lit area and a concealed dark zone. Mice naturally prefer dark spaces, and spending less time in the light indicates higher levels of anxiety. The offspring of the fathers infected with SARS-CoV-2 spent much less time exploring the bright zone compared to the uninfected control group.
The male offspring in this group also hesitated much longer before entering the lit area at all. The researchers observed comparable results in an open field test, where the offspring of infected fathers avoided the exposed center of the testing arena. The researchers also subjected the mice to tests evaluating memory, sociability, and depression. The offspring of the infected fathers showed no differences in their ability to recognize novel objects or interact with unfamiliar mice, indicating that the primary behavioral shift centered on anxiety.
The scientists also examined the offspring’s brains, focusing on the hippocampus, a region involved in emotional regulation. They discovered altered gene expression profiles in the offspring of the infected mice. These alterations were particularly pronounced in the female offspring, who showed reduced activity in several genes linked to stress responses. Similar gene reductions frequently appear in rodent models of chronic stress.
To find out if these behavioral changes persisted across multiple generations, the team conducted a second breeding experiment. They took the male offspring from the first generation and mated them with a new group of healthy females. The resulting grand-offspring exhibited some early developmental differences, including slightly altered body weights. As these grand-offspring matured, they did not display the elevated anxiety traits seen in their parents, suggesting the behavioral effect faded after one generation.
The researchers then sought to uncover the biological mechanism driving the anxiety-like traits in the first generation. They collected sperm from the original groups of infected and healthy male mice four weeks after their initial exposure. An analysis of the sperm revealed modified levels of multiple small noncoding RNAs in the animals that had contracted SARS-CoV-2. Some clusters of these regulatory molecules were less abundant, while a few specific types were highly elevated.
Specifically, the researchers identified drops in the expression of PIWI-interacting RNAs, which are specialized molecules that protect the genome from mutations during sperm development. They also found elevated levels of certain microRNAs, which are known to influence early embryonic growth. To confirm that these specific RNA molecules caused the behavioral changes, the team designed a microinjection experiment. They extracted the small RNA cargo from the sperm of both the infected and the uninfected control mice.
Using microscopic needles, the researchers injected this extracted RNA directly into healthy, fertilized mouse eggs. They implanted these embryos into surrogate female mice and allowed the resulting offspring to grow into adulthood. The adult mice that developed from the eggs injected with the infected sperm RNA exhibited traits mimicking the naturally conceived offspring. In the light and dark box test, the male mice from this group showed heightened hesitation before entering the brightly lit zone.
While not every behavioral difference transferred perfectly, the presence of anxiety-like symptoms confirmed that the sperm RNA played a direct role in shaping the offspring’s brain development. The isolated molecular cargo was enough to recreate portions of the intergenerational effect. A few important caveats accompany these results. The study relied entirely on animal models, and biological responses in mice do not perfectly mirror human health outcomes.
The viral infection caused notable weight loss in the adult male mice, which presents a confounding variable. Severe metabolic stress and sudden weight loss can independently trigger epigenetic changes in sperm. It is difficult to separate the effects of the virus itself from the physical toll of a severe illness. Additionally, studying a dangerous pathogen required the researchers to conduct their behavioral assessments inside a highly restricted biosafety facility. Space limitations in this environment prevented the use of larger behavioral testing arenas.
The researchers noted that tracking human outcomes takes decades, making animal models a necessary starting point. Future studies will need to determine whether milder infections, antiviral treatments, or prior vaccinations modify the RNA content in sperm. Resolving these questions will help clarify if the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 might subtly influence the mental health of children conceived in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The study, “Paternal SARS-CoV-2 infection impacts sperm small noncoding RNAs and increases anxiety in offspring in a sex-dependent manner,” was authored by Elizabeth A. Kleeman, Carolina Gubert, Sonali N. Reisinger, Kathryn C. Davidson, Da Lu, Merle Dayton, Liana Mackiewicz, Bethany A. Masson, Pranav Adithya, Alexandra L. Garnham, Gemma Stathatos, Moira K. O’Bryan, Rikeish R. Muralitharan, Francine Z. Marques, Shanshan Li, Huan Liao, Shae McLaughlin, Emmet T. Keough, Michelle Y. Wheeler, Pamudika Kiridena, Marcel Doerflinger, Marc Pellegrini, and Anthony J. Hannan.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PaternalSARSCoV2 #SpermRNA #EpigeneticInheritance #AnxietyInOffspring #NoncodingRNA #SARSCoV2Research #IntergenerationalEffects #MouseModel #Hippocampus #NatureCommunications
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The hippocampus, a hybrid creature with horse and fish traits, symbolizes maritime divinity and speed. Often linked with Poseidon, it appears in art across cultures. #hippocampus #greekmythology https://connectparanormal.net/2026/08/04/the-mythical-hippocampus-horse-fish-of-ancient-lore/
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The hippocampus, a hybrid creature with horse and fish traits, symbolizes maritime divinity and speed. Often linked with Poseidon, it appears in art across cultures. #hippocampus #greekmythology https://connectparanormal.net/2026/08/04/the-mythical-hippocampus-horse-fish-of-ancient-lore/
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https://www.europesays.com/at/310570/ Fibromyalgie: Studie findet 26 Genomregionen und stärkt Nervensystem-Hypothese #AI #ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #AT #Austria #Celf4 #Fibromyalgie #genetik #Genomregionen #Gesundheit #Gpr52 #Health #Hippocampus #HttGen #KI #Kortex #KünstlicheIntelligenz #Nervensystem #Neuronen #Österreich #ReproduktiveStudie #Risiko
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@adredish thanks for the input and for reading our paper!!
I definitely agree that it's better to size the figs so they fit together with their legend, on a single page, and to have the methods in the main text. In this case we did the minimal effort option and uploaded in the same format as for the journal we submitted to... and it's bad.
Still, journals have a lot more resources than individual researchers and it should be very easy and fast for them to format a manuscript properly before sending it for peer-reviews!
As for your scientific comments, thank you so much for all these! I'll answer some of them once I found some time to re-read Jackson et al. and Gupta et al., but for the rest:
place cells over days: we did not try to track individual neurons across days, so we can't say anything about that. One thing though is that between the 3 daily tracks, some of the neurons would sometimes activate in the same local position (e.g. end of a track) even though the tracks were not physically in the same place. I'd say these are the mostly BVC-driven place cells that help generalise a map 'matrix' between environments!
did the rats treat the tracks as novel? I did not run the experiment myself, but I would say, not completely, since the rats were pre-trained (in other geometries) in that room and with the same task, and from their behaviour you can see that they are doing the task quite efficiently, while if it was a completely novel experience, they would act a lot more hesitantly.
place fields stabilisation: you can see it in figure 4B (pasted below), place cells take a few laps to stabilize a lot, although their stability keeps increasing throughout. I think it mostly matches Wilson & Mc Naughton 1993 (this one, right?).
One other related and cool (I think!) finding is that local replay appears to significantly contribute to that stabilisation, in the sense that neurons that are not recruited in a local replay event on a given trial do not increase their stability as much as those who do - see 4I&J (we have a slightly better version of this figure that we'll update the preprint with soon).
More complex task: my prediction is that we'll get similar results in a more complex task, particularly since our 2019 paper did not find any effect of value changes on 'goal-related activity' (which may have been replay) when the behaviour was also properly controlled. But I'll tell you more in my next paper :)
effects of increased experience: well, the rats did experience each task for many days - only the tracks were new, but the task was the same. But you probably meant tracks. I'd say that we would probably observe the same effect (of influence of degree of quiescence, but not reward) for tracks experienced more than once; we can kind of see it in the plots of (Ambrose et al., 2016](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(16)30463-9) who did not have novel tracks; the replay rates across conditions just seem to depend on duration spent at the site more than actual reward value. But it would be great to do the same analysis that we did, on their dataset, to be sure!
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions for now and thanks again for reading and engaging!
-
@adredish thanks for the input and for reading our paper!!
I definitely agree that it's better to size the figs so they fit together with their legend, on a single page, and to have the methods in the main text. In this case we did the minimal effort option and uploaded in the same format as for the journal we submitted to... and it's bad.
Still, journals have a lot more resources than individual researchers and it should be very easy and fast for them to format a manuscript properly before sending it for peer-reviews!
As for your scientific comments, thank you so much for all these! I'll answer some of them once I found some time to re-read Jackson et al. and Gupta et al., but for the rest:
place cells over days: we did not try to track individual neurons across days, so we can't say anything about that. One thing though is that between the 3 daily tracks, some of the neurons would sometimes activate in the same local position (e.g. end of a track) even though the tracks were not physically in the same place. I'd say these are the mostly BVC-driven place cells that help generalise a map 'matrix' between environments!
did the rats treat the tracks as novel? I did not run the experiment myself, but I would say, not completely, since the rats were pre-trained (in other geometries) in that room and with the same task, and from their behaviour you can see that they are doing the task quite efficiently, while if it was a completely novel experience, they would act a lot more hesitantly.
place fields stabilisation: you can see it in figure 4B (pasted below), place cells take a few laps to stabilize a lot, although their stability keeps increasing throughout. I think it mostly matches Wilson & Mc Naughton 1993 (this one, right?).
One other related and cool (I think!) finding is that local replay appears to significantly contribute to that stabilisation, in the sense that neurons that are not recruited in a local replay event on a given trial do not increase their stability as much as those who do - see 4I&J (we have a slightly better version of this figure that we'll update the preprint with soon).
More complex task: my prediction is that we'll get similar results in a more complex task, particularly since our 2019 paper did not find any effect of value changes on 'goal-related activity' (which may have been replay) when the behaviour was also properly controlled. But I'll tell you more in my next paper :)
effects of increased experience: well, the rats did experience each task for many days - only the tracks were new, but the task was the same. But you probably meant tracks. I'd say that we would probably observe the same effect (of influence of degree of quiescence, but not reward) for tracks experienced more than once; we can kind of see it in the plots of (Ambrose et al., 2016](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(16)30463-9) who did not have novel tracks; the replay rates across conditions just seem to depend on duration spent at the site more than actual reward value. But it would be great to do the same analysis that we did, on their dataset, to be sure!
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions for now and thanks again for reading and engaging!
-
@adredish thanks for the input and for reading our paper!!
I definitely agree that it's better to size the figs so they fit together with their legend, on a single page, and to have the methods in the main text. In this case we did the minimal effort option and uploaded in the same format as for the journal we submitted to... and it's bad.
Still, journals have a lot more resources than individual researchers and it should be very easy and fast for them to format a manuscript properly before sending it for peer-reviews!
As for your scientific comments, thank you so much for all these! I'll answer some of them once I found some time to re-read Jackson et al. and Gupta et al., but for the rest:
place cells over days: we did not try to track individual neurons across days, so we can't say anything about that. One thing though is that between the 3 daily tracks, some of the neurons would sometimes activate in the same local position (e.g. end of a track) even though the tracks were not physically in the same place. I'd say these are the mostly BVC-driven place cells that help generalise a map 'matrix' between environments!
did the rats treat the tracks as novel? I did not run the experiment myself, but I would say, not completely, since the rats were pre-trained (in other geometries) in that room and with the same task, and from their behaviour you can see that they are doing the task quite efficiently, while if it was a completely novel experience, they would act a lot more hesitantly.
place fields stabilisation: you can see it in figure 4B (pasted below), place cells take a few laps to stabilize a lot, although their stability keeps increasing throughout. I think it mostly matches Wilson & Mc Naughton 1993 (this one, right?).
One other related and cool (I think!) finding is that local replay appears to significantly contribute to that stabilisation, in the sense that neurons that are not recruited in a local replay event on a given trial do not increase their stability as much as those who do - see 4I&J (we have a slightly better version of this figure that we'll update the preprint with soon).
More complex task: my prediction is that we'll get similar results in a more complex task, particularly since our 2019 paper did not find any effect of value changes on 'goal-related activity' (which may have been replay) when the behaviour was also properly controlled. But I'll tell you more in my next paper :)
effects of increased experience: well, the rats did experience each task for many days - only the tracks were new, but the task was the same. But you probably meant tracks. I'd say that we would probably observe the same effect (of influence of degree of quiescence, but not reward) for tracks experienced more than once; we can kind of see it in the plots of (Ambrose et al., 2016](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(16)30463-9) who did not have novel tracks; the replay rates across conditions just seem to depend on duration spent at the site more than actual reward value. But it would be great to do the same analysis that we did, on their dataset, to be sure!
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions for now and thanks again for reading and engaging!
-
@adredish thanks for the input and for reading our paper!!
I definitely agree that it's better to size the figs so they fit together with their legend, on a single page, and to have the methods in the main text. In this case we did the minimal effort option and uploaded in the same format as for the journal we submitted to... and it's bad.
Still, journals have a lot more resources than individual researchers and it should be very easy and fast for them to format a manuscript properly before sending it for peer-reviews!
As for your scientific comments, thank you so much for all these! I'll answer some of them once I found some time to re-read Jackson et al. and Gupta et al., but for the rest:
place cells over days: we did not try to track individual neurons across days, so we can't say anything about that. One thing though is that between the 3 daily tracks, some of the neurons would sometimes activate in the same local position (e.g. end of a track) even though the tracks were not physically in the same place. I'd say these are the mostly BVC-driven place cells that help generalise a map 'matrix' between environments!
did the rats treat the tracks as novel? I did not run the experiment myself, but I would say, not completely, since the rats were pre-trained (in other geometries) in that room and with the same task, and from their behaviour you can see that they are doing the task quite efficiently, while if it was a completely novel experience, they would act a lot more hesitantly.
place fields stabilisation: you can see it in figure 4B (pasted below), place cells take a few laps to stabilize a lot, although their stability keeps increasing throughout. I think it mostly matches Wilson & Mc Naughton 1993 (this one, right?).
One other related and cool (I think!) finding is that local replay appears to significantly contribute to that stabilisation, in the sense that neurons that are not recruited in a local replay event on a given trial do not increase their stability as much as those who do - see 4I&J (we have a slightly better version of this figure that we'll update the preprint with soon).
More complex task: my prediction is that we'll get similar results in a more complex task, particularly since our 2019 paper did not find any effect of value changes on 'goal-related activity' (which may have been replay) when the behaviour was also properly controlled. But I'll tell you more in my next paper :)
effects of increased experience: well, the rats did experience each task for many days - only the tracks were new, but the task was the same. But you probably meant tracks. I'd say that we would probably observe the same effect (of influence of degree of quiescence, but not reward) for tracks experienced more than once; we can kind of see it in the plots of (Ambrose et al., 2016](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(16)30463-9) who did not have novel tracks; the replay rates across conditions just seem to depend on duration spent at the site more than actual reward value. But it would be great to do the same analysis that we did, on their dataset, to be sure!
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions for now and thanks again for reading and engaging!
-
@adredish thanks for the input and for reading our paper!!
I definitely agree that it's better to size the figs so they fit together with their legend, on a single page, and to have the methods in the main text. In this case we did the minimal effort option and uploaded in the same format as for the journal we submitted to... and it's bad.
Still, journals have a lot more resources than individual researchers and it should be very easy and fast for them to format a manuscript properly before sending it for peer-reviews!
As for your scientific comments, thank you so much for all these! I'll answer some of them once I found some time to re-read Jackson et al. and Gupta et al., but for the rest:
place cells over days: we did not try to track individual neurons across days, so we can't say anything about that. One thing though is that between the 3 daily tracks, some of the neurons would sometimes activate in the same local position (e.g. end of a track) even though the tracks were not physically in the same place. I'd say these are the mostly BVC-driven place cells that help generalise a map 'matrix' between environments!
did the rats treat the tracks as novel? I did not run the experiment myself, but I would say, not completely, since the rats were pre-trained (in other geometries) in that room and with the same task, and from their behaviour you can see that they are doing the task quite efficiently, while if it was a completely novel experience, they would act a lot more hesitantly.
place fields stabilisation: you can see it in figure 4B (pasted below), place cells take a few laps to stabilize a lot, although their stability keeps increasing throughout. I think it mostly matches Wilson & Mc Naughton 1993 (this one, right?).
One other related and cool (I think!) finding is that local replay appears to significantly contribute to that stabilisation, in the sense that neurons that are not recruited in a local replay event on a given trial do not increase their stability as much as those who do - see 4I&J (we have a slightly better version of this figure that we'll update the preprint with soon).
More complex task: my prediction is that we'll get similar results in a more complex task, particularly since our 2019 paper did not find any effect of value changes on 'goal-related activity' (which may have been replay) when the behaviour was also properly controlled. But I'll tell you more in my next paper :)
effects of increased experience: well, the rats did experience each task for many days - only the tracks were new, but the task was the same. But you probably meant tracks. I'd say that we would probably observe the same effect (of influence of degree of quiescence, but not reward) for tracks experienced more than once; we can kind of see it in the plots of (Ambrose et al., 2016](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(16)30463-9) who did not have novel tracks; the replay rates across conditions just seem to depend on duration spent at the site more than actual reward value. But it would be great to do the same analysis that we did, on their dataset, to be sure!
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions for now and thanks again for reading and engaging!
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DATE: July 24, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Learning a new skill triggers both temporary cell swelling and lasting structural growth in the human brain
A new study published in PLoS Biology has found that learning a new motor skill sets off two different types of cellular changes in the human brain. The findings suggest that the brain experiences a temporary swelling of cell bodies followed by a long-lasting growth of cellular extensions in specific regions. This dual response offers a deeper understanding of how the human brain physically adapts when we learn something new.
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to remodel its physical structure in response to new experiences. This biological process supports learning and memory, and it also influences a person’s vulnerability to neurological conditions.
Valeria Della-Maggiore, an associate professor at the National University of San Martin and the University of Buenos Aires, led the research. She also serves as an adjunct professor at McGill University and directs the Physiology of Action Lab.
“Structural plasticity, the brain’s ability to remodel its connections in response to experience, is fundamental to learning and memory and shapes development and degenerative disorders,” she told PsyPost. She explained that most human studies over the past two decades have used standard MRI protocols to detect changes in brain microstructure, assuming these changes were always plastic in nature.
“Yet animal studies show that cells may undergo structural changes that do not always reflect synapse remodeling,” Della-Maggiore said. “To disambiguate plastic from non-plastic processes, we combined ultra-high-gradient diffusion MRI with SANDI, a biophysical model that allows making inferences at the level of cellular compartments, that is, cell bodies and cell processes.”
To measure structural changes in humans, scientists have typically relied on a brain scanning technique called diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI. This method measures how water molecules move and diffuse through brain tissue. By tracking this water movement, scientists can infer changes in the brain’s microscopic structure.
DTI blends the signals from various parts of the brain tissue together. “DTI captures a single, global signal: it can tell you that a change in one region lasts longer than in another, but not what underlies it,” Della-Maggiore said. Because of this blending, the technique cannot easily distinguish between a permanent structural change and a temporary biological reaction.
To address this limitation, the authors utilized highly sensitive magnetic resonance imaging paired with the specialized mathematical model called Soma and Neurite Density Imaging, or SANDI. Rather than grouping all tissue signals together, SANDI separates the scanning signals into three distinct categories. These categories include the cell bodies, the cellular extensions called neurites, and the extracellular fluid surrounding the cells.
“This study was only possible through a genuinely multidisciplinary effort, in which neuroscientists, experts in diffusion MRI, mathematicians and modeling specialists, and engineers worked together around a single scientific question,” Della-Maggiore said.
The collaboration included her lab along with the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre. “Bringing these different forms of expertise into alignment is what made it possible to extract biological insight from a non-invasive measurement, something no single discipline could have achieved on its own,” she added.
The study included 29 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 36, consisting of 16 females and 13 males. All participants were right-handed and reported no history of neurological or psychiatric conditions. They completed a motor sequence learning task involving typing a specific five-number sequence on a keyboard using the four fingers of their left, non-dominant hand. The exact sequence was 4-1-3-2-4, with the number 4 representing the index finger and the number 1 representing the pinky finger.
Participants were instructed to type the sequence as quickly and accurately as possible. They completed 15 practice blocks of this finger-tapping sequence. Each block consisted of 12 sequences and was separated by 25 seconds of rest. The entire training session took about 15 to 20 minutes.
To assess how well the participants retained the skill overnight, they were asked to complete eight additional practice blocks 24 hours later. To track brain activity and physical changes, the scientists used an ultra-high-gradient MRI scanner, which offers exceptional sensitivity for capturing microscopic tissue details. They collected functional MRI scans to measure active brain regions during the task. They also collected advanced diffusion MRI scans at three specific points: before the practice session began, 30 minutes after the practice ended, and 24 hours later.
The behavioral data showed that participants improved their typing speed and accuracy primarily during the short rest periods between practice blocks. The functional brain scans aligned with this observation, revealing increased activity in the brain’s memory and motor regions during these brief breaks. However, the most specific discoveries emerged from the SANDI model used to track cellular changes.
“When you learn a new skill, two processes of different spatial and temporal dynamics take place in your brain at the cellular level,” Della-Maggiore said. “One is transient and occurs at the level of cell bodies, which increase in size across all brain regions engaged by the task. The other is persistent, confined to the regions specifically involved in learning, and occurs at the level of cell processes, compatible with structural plasticity.”
The researchers found that DTI scans alone missed a layer of detail. “Our approach revealed something DTI cannot see, that the regions showing lasting changes also carry a transient response,” Della-Maggiore explained. “In other words, beneath what DTI reads as a single persistent effect, there are in fact two distinct processes unfolding on different timescales.”
Specifically, the researchers found a temporary increase in the apparent density of cell bodies across all the brain areas engaged by the task. These areas included the hippocampus, the primary motor cortex, the posterior parietal cortex, and the precuneus. This physical change was observed 30 minutes after the practice session. By the 24-hour mark, the cell bodies in these regions had returned to their normal baseline size.
“The second [surprise] was the spatial pattern: a transient change at the level of the cell body appeared uniformly across all regions engaged by learning, whereas the sustained change in cellular processes was confined to those regions specific to the learned skill,” Della-Maggiore said. “It was this dissociation, in both space and time, that let us infer different biological processes underlying these responses: a homeostatic process such as swelling of cell bodies induced by increased neuronal activity, and cell-process remodeling mediating genuine structural plasticity.”
The authors propose that this short-lived cell expansion is a temporary biological reaction to balance out intense cellular activity. When brain cells are highly active, they experience an imbalance of ions. To correct this imbalance, water flows into the cells, causing them to temporarily swell.
In addition to the temporary swelling, the SANDI model revealed a second, longer-lasting change in specific areas of the brain. The researchers observed a sustained increase in the density of cellular extensions in the precuneus and the posterior parietal cortex. These cellular extensions include structures like dendrites and axons, which connect different brain cells to one another.
This increase in cellular extensions persisted a full day after the learning task. The researchers noticed a direct link to task performance. “Notably, the more a person improved, the stronger this second change was,” Della-Maggiore said.
Interestingly, this long-lasting structural remodeling did not occur in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a brain region known for helping encode new memories early in the learning process. The findings suggest that while the hippocampus is engaged initially, the long-term structural changes required to retain a motor skill happen in the outer layers of the brain, known as the cortex.
“The broader message is that a change in brain structure is not, in itself, evidence of learning-related plasticity,” Della-Maggiore said. “Being able to separate these processes in a living brain, non-invasively, provides something that did not exist before in human neuroscience: a mechanistic window onto brain plasticity, allowing us to begin inferring biological mechanisms directly in humans rather than relying on animal models.”
Interpreting these findings requires acknowledging a few limitations related to the scanning technology. The SANDI model estimates relative signal fractions of cell components rather than providing a direct physical measurement of cellular volume. The technique relies on specific mathematical assumptions about how water moves in the brain.
“Our approach does not quantify cells or cell processes directly,” Della-Maggiore explained. “It infers how much different cellular components contribute to the MRI signal, based on a biophysical model whose interpretation is grounded in animal and histological evidence.”
She added that referring to changes in cell bodies or cell processes involves principled inferences, not microscopic observations. “The strength of the method lies in tracking how these signals evolve over time, compared against the person’s own baseline,” she said.
The study focused on a specific finger-tapping task in a small group of healthy young adults. Different types of learning, such as studying a new language or solving complex math problems, might engage different cellular mechanisms. “Our broader aim is to keep refining this approach to probe the biological mechanisms of plasticity in ever greater detail, directly in humans,” Della-Maggiore said.
The researchers hope to apply this multi-compartment imaging approach to other areas of neuroscience. “Beyond learning, distinguishing genuine, adaptive remodeling from other processes could prove valuable in contexts such as development, aging, and disease, including conditions like neurodegeneration or neuroinflammation, where telling apart healthy from harmful structural change is both difficult and clinically important,” she said.
“The results move the field beyond descriptive diffusion changes toward mechanistic inference, which is particularly valuable for studies of learning, development, and disease,” Della-Maggiore concluded.
The study, “Learning engages transient and sustained cellular mechanisms in the human brain,” was authored by Guillermina Griffa, Marco Palombo, Abraham Yeffal, Hong-Hsi Lee, Agustin Solano, Susie Y. Huang, and Valeria Della-Maggiore.
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