Discovering Psychology : The Responsive Brain
Summary
TLDRThis script explores the dynamic nature of the brain and its responsiveness to behavior and environment. It discusses how touch, particularly in premature infants, can significantly impact growth and cognitive development. The brain's structure can alter due to environmental enrichment or social interactions, as seen in studies on rats and cichlid fish. The script also draws parallels between animal behavior, such as dominance in baboons, and human psychology, emphasizing the brain's adaptability to social stressors and experiences.
Takeaways
- 🧠 The brain is a dynamic organ that controls behavior and is influenced by it, adapting its structure and function through environmental interaction.
- 👶 Touch is crucial for early development; premature infants who receive regular massages gain more weight and show better cognitive and motor development.
- 🐀 Research on rats showed that maternal touch is essential for normal growth, with a specific enzyme, ODC, being significantly affected by touch deprivation.
- 🐟 The African cichlid fish can physically change its size and color based on its social status, demonstrating the brain's role in translating social cues into physiological changes.
- 🦍 Dominant male baboons are healthier due to lower stress levels, which is linked to their social status and behavior within the troop.
- 🔬 The responsive brain can be modified by behavior and environment, as seen in studies where rats raised in enriched environments had physical changes in their brains.
- 🌐 The brain's hypothalamus plays a key role in translating social cues into physiological responses, such as in the territorial behavior of cichlid fish.
- 🧪 Early experiences, like touch in infancy, can have lifelong effects on an individual's ability to cope with stress and their overall health.
- 📈 The concept of 'stress dwarfism' illustrates how extreme emotional deprivation can stunt growth, similar to the effects observed in deprived baby rats.
- 🧬 There is a genetic continuity across species that allows researchers to draw parallels between animal behavior and human conditions, such as stress responses.
Q & A
What is the role of touch in human and animal development?
-Touch is a fundamental aspect of human and animal development, providing a sense of security and emotional well-being, and even influencing physical health. The brain creates a need for touch, and the lack of it can lead to significant developmental issues.
What was the outcome of Tiffany Field's study on premature infants?
-In Tiffany Field's study, premature infants who received daily massages gained 47% more weight, were more active and alert, and showed better cognitive and motor development at 8 months compared to those who did not receive massages.
How does a mother's touch affect the growth and development of baby rats?
-A mother's touch is essential for the normal growth and development of baby rats. When separated from their mother, the levels of an enzyme crucial for growth, called ODC, significantly decrease. This can be reversed by the mother's licking or by a technician simulating the touch pattern with a brush.
What is psychosocial dwarfism and how does it relate to touch deprivation?
-Psychosocial dwarfism is a condition where emotional deprivation stunts the growth of children. It is related to touch deprivation as the lack of physical affection can affect the brain's hypothalamus, leading to reduced secretion of growth hormones.
How does an enriched environment impact the brain structure of rats?
-Rats raised in an enriched environment showed physical changes in their brains, including a larger brain size with a thicker cortex, especially in the occipital cortex responsible for vision, more neurotransmitters, and larger dendritic spines, which can have lifelong effects.
What is the relationship between early experiences and an animal's ability to cope with stress?
-Early experiences can change an animal's brain and behavior, particularly how it is affected by stress. Touching newborn rats not only stimulates growth but also helps them cope better with stress throughout their lives.
How do the physical changes in cichlid fish relate to their social status?
-Cichlid fish undergo physical changes such as color and size alterations based on their social status. A non-territorial male will change physically when it becomes dominant, with brighter colors and an increase in certain brain cells and gonads, preparing it for its role as a dominant territorial male.
What is the significance of the research on baboon social structures in understanding human behavior?
-The research on baboon social structures is significant because it provides insights into how social status and behavior can impact physiological health. Dominant baboons exhibit healthier physiological responses, which can help us understand the impact of social dynamics on human health.
How does the brain's response to social behavior in baboons compare to humans?
-The brain's response to social behavior in baboons is similar to humans in that both species experience stress due to social competition rather than environmental factors like famine or drought. The style of dominant behavior and social involvement in baboons can predict their stress levels and overall health.
What message does the research underscore about the brain's capacity to change?
-The research underscores the dynamic and responsive quality of the brain, showing that it continually changes in response to environmental demands and new behavioral strategies essential for survival.
Outlines
🧠 The Responsive Brain
This paragraph introduces the concept of the responsive brain, emphasizing its dynamic nature and its ability to change both functionally and structurally based on behavior and environmental stimulation. The brain's role in controlling behavior is highlighted, as well as how behavior, in turn, influences the brain. The example of touch is used to illustrate this reciprocal relationship, showing how touch can affect emotional well-being, physical health, and even brain structure. The importance of touch, especially for premature infants, is underscored by a study that demonstrates the significant benefits of massage on their growth and development.
🐭 Maternal Touch and Growth
The second paragraph delves into the importance of maternal touch for growth and development, using both human and animal studies to support its claims. It discusses a study where premature infants who received regular massages gained more weight and showed better cognitive and motor development than those who did not. The narrative then shifts to a study on infant rats, which found that maternal touch is crucial for maintaining normal growth and development, with the absence of touch leading to a decrease in a key enzyme for growth. The study also demonstrates that touch deprivation can be reversed through specific touch patterns, emphasizing the biological value of a mother's touch.
🧪 Brain Plasticity and Enriched Environments
This section explores how the brain's structure can be altered by environmental factors, particularly through enriched experiences. It discusses a study where rats raised in stimulating environments showed physical changes in their brains, including a thicker cortex and more neurotransmitters, compared to those raised in ordinary environments. The implications of these findings for lifelong effects are considered, such as better stress coping and reduced aging effects. The research suggests that early experiences can have a profound impact on an animal's brain and behavior, influencing their ability to handle stress and maintain cognitive function.
🐠 Social Behavior and Brain Adaptation
The fourth paragraph examines the brain's ability to adapt in response to social situations, using the African cichlid fish as a model. It describes how these fish undergo physical changes, including color and size alterations, based on their social status. The research indicates that social information can be transformed into physiological changes, with the brain playing a central role in this process. The paragraph also draws parallels between fish and human behavior, suggesting that understanding the mechanisms in fish can provide insights into human conditions such as stress and its impact on physical development.
🦍 Social Hierarchy and Stress in Baboons
This section discusses the impact of social hierarchy on stress levels and overall health in baboon colonies, drawing parallels to human social dynamics. It explains how dominant baboons experience less stress and have better physiological functioning, particularly during times of stress. The research suggests that an individual's position within a social group can significantly influence their health and stress response, with implications for understanding stress-related diseases in humans. The paragraph highlights the complex interplay between social behavior, stress, and the brain's response to these factors.
👶 The Dynamic Human Infant
The final paragraph teases the next program's focus on the human infant, suggesting a continuation of the exploration of the brain's dynamic and responsive nature throughout the human life cycle. It sets the stage for examining how the brain develops and changes in response to early experiences, hinting at the importance of early life interactions for long-term brain function and behavior.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Responsive Brain
💡Touch Deprivation
💡Psychosocial Dwarfism
💡Enriched Environment
💡Glucocorticoids
💡Cognitive Development
💡Social Hierarchy
💡Stress
💡Hypothalamus
💡Pituitary Gland
💡Cichlid Fish
Highlights
The brain is a dynamic system that can change its own functioning and structure through learning and environmental stimulation.
Touch is a silent language that communicates feelings such as friendship, love, and control, with cultural variations in how it is perceived.
Gentle touch by a nurse before surgery can have positive physiological effects, such as lowering blood pressure and reducing anxiety in women.
Men may react negatively to gentle touch before surgery, experiencing increased blood pressure and anxiety.
People comfortable with touch tend to be more cheerful and less conforming, while those uncomfortable with it may have lower self-esteem and be more socially withdrawn.
The lack of touch can have significant consequences for emotional well-being, physical health, and brain function.
Premature infants who receive daily touch sessions gain more weight and show better cognitive and motor development than those who do not.
The act of touching or being touched influences brain function, which in turn affects growth and development.
Rat studies show that maternal touch is necessary for normal growth and development, with a specific enzyme, ODC, playing a crucial role.
Emotional deprivation in children can stunt growth, a phenomenon known as psychosocial dwarfism.
Children who are emotionally deprived can catch up in growth and development when placed in a loving family environment.
Rats raised in an enriched environment show physical changes in their brains, including a thicker cortex and more neurotransmitters.
Early experiences, such as touch, can have a lifelong effect on an animal's ability to cope with stress and reduce the effects of aging.
Stress can lead to the release of hormones that can kill brain cells, particularly affecting learning and memory.
The African cichlid fish changes its size and color based on its social status, demonstrating the brain's role in physical transformation.
The brain's hypothalamus plays a key role in the physical changes that occur when a cichlid fish becomes dominant or loses territory.
Baboon studies show that social status and behavior can impact an individual's stress levels and overall health.
Baboon research indicates that individual differences in social behavior can predict stress-related diseases and overall health.
Transcripts
what makes a premature infant who is
massaged regularly develop faster than
one who is rarely touched up to 1470 G
good today so she's really how can this
tropical fish actually change its size
and color when it wins or loses
territory and what makes this dominant
baboon healthier than its lower ranking
cousins the responsive brain this time
on discovering psychology
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[Applause]
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the brain is the organ of Life the inner
Universe of intelligence passion pain
and creativity and by understanding how
it functions we can better understand
the basic mechanisms that underly human
and animal
behavior but the relationship between
brain and behavior is
reciprocal the brain controls Behavior
but Behavior also feeds back information
to influence the brain
in this sense we can talk about the
responsive brain as well as the behaving
brain because it's designed to be
modified by the behaviors that has
caused and by environmental stimulation
the brain is constantly open to change
it can alter its own functioning and
even its structure as it learns more as
it becomes more knowledgeable and
sophisticated about the world around it
this capacity for internal modification
makes the brain one of the most dynamic
systems on the
planet to understand how this two-way
process of brain and behavior really
works let's use touch as an
example touch is the silent language by
which people communicate everything from
friendship and love to the need to
control others this personal contact is
governed by unspoken cultural rules and
regulations great in our culture men and
women respond to being touched in
different
ways for instance women are more likely
to touch Embrace and kiss friends and
family while men typically limit touch
to a
handshake according to one study when
women were gently touched by a nurse
before an operation they reacted
positively with lower blood pressure and
reduced
anxiety the men on the other hand got
upset by the same kind of touch their
blood pressure went up and their anxiety
increased researchers have also found
that regardless of gender those who are
quite comfortable with touching others
are more cheerful less conforming and
less suspicious of other people's
motives while those uncomfortable with
touching others tend to have lower
self-esteem and are generally more
socially withdrawn
the consequences of being touch deprived
are extremely significant not only for
our sense of security and emotional
well-being but also for our physical
health and this is where the brain comes
in for in between the act of touching or
being touched and its positive
consequences is the brain which
apparently creates a need for touch and
the most critical need begins at the
beginning at Birth the need for a
mother's touch is such that both humans
and animals Thrive when they get it and
suffer badly when they
don't when premature infants are placed
in intensive care units which provide
every possible life support system they
still lack one thing human
touch what difference would it make if
some of the infants were given daily
touch sessions while they remained
inside their incubators the question was
asked by psychologist Tiffany field of
Miami University 20 premature infants
were randomly selected to receive
periodic massages while 20 others got
the usual hospital treatment without
massages in all other respects the care
they received was
identical the premature babies who were
massaged for 45 minutes a day uh for 10
days before they were discharged gained
weight 47% more weight than the babies
who did not get massage they were more
active they were more
alert these babies when we see them at 8
months are still showing a weight
advantage and at that time they're
showing better cognitive development and
better motor
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development not only do the babies Fair
better but so does society sending
premature infant's home early could save
millions of dollars in hospital costs
each year 1470 G oh good today so she's
really she's really gaining a lot of
weight I think the temperature and
humidity feel about at the same time
Saul shanberg of Duke University Fields
collaborator LED another research team
working with infant rats shanberg showed
how a mother's touch comes to have real
biological value to her offspring
A Mother's Touch who we know now is
absolutely necessary to maintain normal
growth and development of the baby
rats and uh what we found was that when
rat babies were removed from the mother
for even a short period of time this
enzyme very important for for growth and
development called orine decabox alas or
ODC as we call it uh went way down so
all of a sudden we were faced with a
situation trying to understand how it
was that a shortterm separation from the
mother could have such dramatic effects
throughout the body on uh the actual
process of growth
we have found
that the
deprivation effects that we
see to be reversed by only two ways one
returning it to the mother who then uh
licks the pups and goes through the
process or by a technician using a
little paintbrush and stroking the pups
with a certain frequency and strength
that is the pattern touch that uh we
have
discovered researcher Cindy cun
demonstrates how the infant rats are
treated okay what we have here is normal
active maternal Behavior she's
retrieving the pups as you see she we'
disturbed her nest so she's going to
gather them back into a ball lick and
stimulate each one in turn and rather
actively and rotate among them
sporadically for a short period of time
eventually in 5 or 10 minutes she'll
settle back over them and simply Crouch
over them so that they can
suckle what we have here are pups who
have been away from the mom for about
two hours they've had a temporary
deprivation of maternal touch when I
stimulate them with this brush with this
very robust pattern it stimulates we
think how she behaves when she licks
them and stimulates them and retrieves
them um the longer really they're
separated from the mom we have found the
less responsive they are which is again
another sign probably of of the
deprivation but we don't do it at all
gently because she doesn't do it at all
gently and this it takes stimulation
this active to return their enzymes to
normal it's an interesting thought but
one can say here that the need for a
mother's touch is really brain based it
isn't just nice to have it it's a
requirement for the normal development
and growth of the
baby with all this research in mind you
might wonder if lack of affection can
actually stunt the growth of human
children unfortunately the answer is
yes John Balby and Renee Spitz conducted
a study of institutionalized youngsters
who were emotionally
deprived although the children were well
fed and received good medical care their
rate of growth was significantly below
the normal range for their age
groups because physical growth is
clearly affected by psychological
experience this phenomenon is known as
psychosocial
dwarfism the mechanism by which this
emotional deprivation stunted the
children's growth seems to be the
failure of the brain's hypothalamus
which normally stimulates the pituitary
gland to secrete growth hormones
so the lack of touching may have had the
same effect as it did with the baby rats
reducing the production of biochemical
substances essential for
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growth but whenever children are placed
with a loving family they begin to
return to normal
size in one study these children who had
been emotionally deprived caught up with
their peers by growing an average of
nearly 8 in in a year the normal growth
of that period is only 2 and2 in so it's
clear that the functioning of the brain
can be altered by behavior and by the
social environment but what about its
very
structure one of the first attempts to
demonstrate permanent alterations in the
structure of the brain came in a series
of studies at the University of
California at Berkeley a research team
led by Mark Rosen swag studied the
effects of raising rats in an enriched
stimulating environment as compared to
ordinary or impoverished environments
not only were the enriched environment
rats Superior Learners in adulthood
their brains were physically Changed by
their
experience the brains of the stimulated
rats grew larger with a thicker cortex
especially the occipital cortex the
region responsible for
vision also there was a greater number
of certain
neurotransmitters and there were more
and larger spines on the dendrites the
branch fibers of neurons which receive
signals from other
neurons these sorts of physical changes
in the brain can have a lifelong
effect Studies have shown for instance
that touching newborn rats not only
stimulates growth as we've seen but also
helps them to cope better with stress
throughout their
lives and this in turn serves to reduce
the normal effects of Aging such as
learning difficulties and diseases of
senility Michael Mei is a developmental
psychologist at McGill
University he's investigating how early
experiences can change an animals brain
and
behavior in particular how the animal is
affected by stress and the release of
hormones called
glucocorticoids when you expose any
Mamon species animal human to a
stressful situation there is an enormous
increase in the secretion of
glucocorticoids these hormones increase
the heart
rate they decrease digestion and in
general allow the organism to better be
able to cope with the challenge
presented by the stressor the problem
with extensive exposure to these
glucocorticoids is that they can
actually literally kill brain cells
specifically the glucocorticoid
sensitive neurons within the hippocampus
the hippocampus is a structure that is
absolutely critical for learning and
memory and the problem that you face is
that with the degeneration of
hippocampal neurons in the Aged animal
is that you begin to see the brain less
capable of processing information and
you see profound deficits in learning
and
memory what we're trying to do in these
experiments is to examine the ability of
the animal to learn and
remember events particularly spatial
events
now rats are proficient but reluctant
swimmers and if you put them in a pool
of water they'll use the first
opportunity they can to get out of the
water when you compare the handled and
non-handled animals the older handled
animals look very much like the younger
animals within a very few number of
Trials the animals are quickly able to
learn where the platform is located and
it takes them very little time to swim
to the platform and get out of the water
when you look at the older non-handled
animals these are the animals that show
you major hippocamp cell loss these
animals are take an awful long time to
learn where the platform is located and
show you very very poor memory for where
the platform's
located what you're looking at presented
here on the monitor is a digitized
version of the position of the Rat and
the position of the platform what this
equipment does is to give us two pieces
of information first of all the amount
of of time that it takes for the animal
to actually find the platform
and the distance swam by the animal
prior to finding the platform both of
these are our measures of exactly how
well the act the animal knows the
location of the platform with respect to
the cues in the
room the question that we're trying to
pose is that could an individual's
ability to cope with
stress be a factor that predicts whether
or not we see intellectual impairment in
individuals and how early it shows up
it's very possible that the individual
differences in intellectual functioning
among elderly people are really related
to their ability to cope with stress and
so that in the individuals who are
showing you intellectual impairments 55
60 years of age that these people might
be like the non-handled rats less
capable of dealing with a stressor more
likely to show you increased
glucocorticoid exposure more likely to
show you loss of hippocampal cells more
likely than to show you the cognitive
impairments that derive from these
hippocampal damage
but perhaps the clearest and most
startling example of the brain altering
its structure and functioning in
response to social situations can be
seen when the brain works together with
Evolution to ensure the survival of the
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fittest with his theory of evolution
Charles Darwin made us aware of what
survival of the fittest really
means that those animals who are best
able to adapt to the challenges of their
environment pass on their genes to their
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offspring Russell fold of Stanford
University is a new breed of
psychological scientists A neuro
ethologist who applies the methodologies
of brain science to the study of animal
behavior in their natural habitats his
work TR atically illustrates the
interaction of brain behavior and
environment when you think about
Behavior the thing that occurs to you
primarily is that it's controlled by the
brain and yet what an animal does in
fact what we do can also change brain
structures and I've chosen to work on a
Model system the African cichlid fish
because we have now discovered that in
their social system the way in which
they interact regulates many aspects of
of their brain structure and even their
body structures fenold has found that
cichlid fish undergo physical change
based on changes in their social
environment this phenomenon offers rare
insight into the mechanics involved in
transforming social information into
physiological
change so when a non-territorial male
recognizes there's a chance for him to
become dominant this male will turn on
his eye bar first slowly the brighter
colors will appear on his body he'll
begin attacking and chasing another male
and occupy a territory through vigorous
defense inside what's happening is a
very interesting set of signals go from
the recognition of this social
opportunity to a region of the brain
called the hypothalamus this
hypothalamic region is conserved across
all vertebrates we have one as the fish
do in the brain region the hypothalamus
cells containing a particular signaling
peptide in this fish get eight times
larger they send out eight times as much
signal that signal goes to the pituitary
gland which then signals the gonads and
the gonads enlarge also by several
orders of magnitude in these dominant
males so this is physiologically getting
ready for their role as a dominant
territorial male who will in fact become
able to spawn with the
females this can happen in a very short
time as short as 5 or 6 days all of
these physiological changes occur the
opposite of course happens when you lose
a territory the first thing you lose are
the bright colorations but then the
cells shrink and the gonads shrink and
many fish who lose their territories
will often go into a shelter turn on all
these signals pretend they're still
dominant it's the nearest thing to
denial we've seen in fish and if they're
successful in pretending they're still
territorial they can hang on to the
gonads for up to 2 or 3 weeks
pho's work with model species such as
cichlid fish has a surprisingly direct
relationship to human
behavior what we've learned is that all
of us share a large amount of genomic
information so for example when this
animal becomes territorially dominant
and turns on a set of genes in the
hypothalamus one of those genes is
regulating a peptide which in this fish
is 90% identical to the the peptide in
humans that's turned on at puberty so we
can look at The Human Condition and find
parallels and in fact interesting ones
uh perhaps the best described now is
something called stress
dwarfism stress dwarfism was thought to
have Afflicted James Barry the famed
author of Peter Pan Barry suffered an
early childhood trauma over the tragic
death of his only brother his mother's
favored son
the mother went to bed in a Victorian
Swoon and spent essentially two years in
bed each time she saw James who would
come in to talk to her she'd say oh dear
it's you James I was hoping Douglas had
returned James ultimately grew up but
was very short and he spent his life
writing books the best known of which is
Peter Pan all of them have the same
theme a very small person comes into a
situation that actually saves the day
and when James Barry died they
discovered that he had immature testes
that is his testicles had never
descended and his small size was
undoubtedly caused by this social stress
now this stress orphism and concomitant
lack of sexual function has to occur
only in extreme conditions so we have in
fact a kind of continuity across many
species that allow us to imagine we can
draw conclusions from these animals that
will help us understand uh different
kinds of conditions in humans both
Normal and abnormal
ongoing research like this typically
begins with observation of the ordinary
behavior of animals in their own natural
habitats there researchers explore how
and why behavioral strategies are
developed to better the odds of survival
then it's into the laboratory to answer
some questions about the relationship
between these changes in Behavior
essential for the survival of the group
and the corresponding changes in the
brain and visual system in this way
research es can discover if the brain is
responsive to social behavior and how
it's Modified by
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experience our final example of the
responsive brain driven by Behavior
comes from another combination of field
study and laboratory research this time
with baboon colonies in East Africa
Robert saoli a Stanford University
neurobiologist is conducting this
ongoing
research probably the most interesting
thing about the social structure of
baboons is just how social they are
basically a baboon makes no sense at all
out of the context of its large social
troop 100 150 animals all living
together years for decades on end and
the critical thing about them is who you
are in the troop who you are in the
dominance hierarchy has everything to do
with your quality of life
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it looks as if you get your high rank
first and then your body starts working
better it looks as if the behavior the
dominant status here among these animals
is what drives the physiological
changes what you wind up wondering then
is what is it about suddenly achieving
high rank that makes your body function
differently that makes especially during
stress every aspect of your body work
differently as far as we can tell on
what people know about stress has a lot
to do with control and predictability
and for a dominant animal they have a
lot more control over what's going on in
their life than a subordinate
animal but sapolsky also found that the
style of dominant Behavior among baboons
not just their rank had a lot to do with
their stress level baboons like humans
will sometimes compete with each other
even when they don't have
to it turns out if you're a high ranking
baboon there's a lot of different ways
of doing it having lots of Cooperative
Partners having none at all having lots
of close affiliative friendships if you
want having none at all and the styles
that involve the most social involvement
seem to have the best
physiology what's pretty clear is if you
study a close relative ours who has a
lot in common with our Behavior you get
a lot in common with the physiology the
Striking thing about the baboons is they
have a pretty stressful life but much
like ours it's not stressed because
they're starving or there famines or
droughts or whatever it's stressful for
them because they're pretty pretty tough
with each other it's a very socially
competitive World much like our own in a
lot of ways very few of us are having
our stress responses because of Axe
fights or crop failures or whatever most
of us because of social reasons what's
pretty clear from the baboons in terms
of getting at the whole issue of why do
some of us get sick why do some of us
get stress related diseases what the
baboons tell us is there's an awful lot
of individual differences there who you
are in a baboon Society has everything
to do with how your body's working
throughout this program we've seen how
research from many disciplines has
highlighted the unique capacity of the
brain to change itself and its
functioning the brain responds
continually to demands from the
environment which force new behavioral
strategies essential for
survival This research has underscored
the basic message of the dynamic IC
responsive quality of the
brain in our next program however we're
going to go back to the beginning to the
start of the human life cycle there
we'll explore another Dynamic responsive
entity the human infant until then I'm
Philip zardo
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