Brainthrough Lazy Sunday #33

Hello everyone!

Today, I am writing from the middle of the time zone world - well almost.

As usual, we spend September in Europe, for some work and family related visits.

Therefore, I might end up with slightly less time, and hence slightly shorter newsletters for the next couple of weeks.

But, learning never stops and hence I will continue to share interesting research and articles I found in the realm of neuroscience, management, and technology.

What you will learn today:

• the potential role of rTMS in health, military, and trading

• the role of neuroscience, BCI / EEG and neurobiology in Industry 5.0

• the silent rise of Parkinson’s under Australian farmers

Let’s go.

Find my research: neuroscience

Brain stimulation can impact reward choice options

Researcher of the MIT studied the reward delay under repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Magnetic currents create impacts neurons, which can then be excited, triggered, more easily by the person or e.g. electric fields.

In healthcare, rTMS is used for e.g. stroke recovery. During a stroke, parts of the brain are under limited or no blood supply and the impacted cells can die, resulting in reduced mental or physical functioning. rTMS can help to speed up recovery, as neurons become more “excitable” which helps to build more connections and new neural pathways. Back to the study looking at reward delay:

The team found that using rTMS can decrease the ability of a person to delay rewards, either for themselves or others.

Why is this interesting?

Example 1: Military

Soldiers wear helmets. Such rTMS stimulation of specific brain regions could be used to decrease impulsivity, and critically impact war missions, where stress combat increases impulsivity, and risks outcomes of such missions.

Example 2: Trading

Delay discounting is a well-researched topic in economics, specifically financial trading. The adrenaline rush of moving around millions of dollars in large transactions, can impact the ability to make objective and risk-appropriate decisions. This falls under the larger theme of behavioural psychology, which looks into understanding how humans make decisions.

Using rTMS during trading can delay reward seeking behaviour, hence reducing risky transactions under obvious, unfavorable conditions.

(MIT)

What music can help learning and can music alter memories?

Yiren Ren from the George Tech’s School of Psychology, studied exactly that.

It turns out, music we know and music with more regular patterns can indeed help to bring our brain is a more focused stayed. To us, unknown music, or music like free jazz have the opposite effect as it distracts us as the brain tries to make sense of irregular patterns.

Music can also change the way we remember past events. Listening to a positive song while e.g. talking about a past difficult event alters memories. Participants of the study were less negative about the difficult event when they talked about it at a later point.

This could well be used for treating PTSD or other trauma-related cases.

(GATech)

Parkinson’s: how farmers suffer in Australia

Imagine, for decades you work on your farm. You work there because it feeds your family because you like being outdoors. It is a hard job, as the cattle and crop require your constant attention year round.

You retire, just to figure out that the tremble in your hands wasn’t just stress, but the onset of Parkinson’s. And that the use of pesticides, which made sure your crop survived, was most likely the reason for the onset of the disease.

The Australian Broadcast Corporation, a big media company, wrote about a well-researched article about increasing cases of Parkinson’s under Australian farmers.

Most likely, Parkinson’s was caused by a chemical called paraquat, which is found in pesticides used on farms.

Companies producing paraquat-based pesticides deny any research which shows the immediate effect on the brain of paraquat in mice. And these companies are spending big money to remove, avoid, and disclaim any research that might link pesticides to Parkinson’s.

(ABC)

Find my research: office

Industry 4.0 move aside - make space for 5.0: 🤖 and 💑 and humanoids?

The term 4.0 was coined in 2011. Now, we are already talking about Industry 5.0.

For an industrial model, the implementation of which has typically taken humanity between 50-100 years, the switch from has been happening a bit too swiftly. A criticism that has also been publicly stated by the German Research Council 4.0 (yes, such a thing exists).

In any case, it also shows the rapid development of technology and new approaches in the industry, the speed of which we have discussed multiple times in this newsletter. Especially, the last three years were 🚀.

One study argues that the integration of technology and neurobiology requires a further shift in education, especially in engineering and development.

Another part of Industry 5.0 is centered around humans, instead of technology. Technology has to help humanity, not the other way around. I am sure there will be new discussions about what is human, as we are entering a time when robots and humans getting mixed with technologies like brain-computer-interfaces.

With all the above, neuroscience will play a significant role, understanding human cognition, and technological implementation.

(Human Neuroscience)

Temporal reframing of cost - does it actually work?

Firstly, what is temporal reframing of cost? Let me explain:

The subscription price for Netflix is €14 per month. Or €168 per year. Or €3.5 per week. This is temporal reframing of cost. Depending on the time frame chosen, the perception of price varies, although the price remains the same.

Does that actually work?

To an extent, yes. As our brain needs to adjust pricing to a comparable level. When you see a subscription being advertised for a weekly price, others advertise monthly prices, the initial reaction is to prefer the lower price - until we understand that the different time framing turns out to hide a more expensive price. Then we feel tricked and cheated, and dislike the brand.

A study in 2017 indicated that we actively process prices the higher they are.

Temporal reframing therefore works well with smaller prices, but:

(Journal of Consumer Behavior)

Engineering strategies for the field of neuroscience

Resource development and strategy is always challenging, irrespective of the size of company. Though, within a company on a growth trajectory, rapid development becomes even more challenging.

How do you share knowledge? Who reports into whom? What are the responsibilities of the engineering teams vs. the product managers?

Seemingly, the same applies to academia and the field of neuroscience.

This article highlights issues for resource development. In academia, data collection keeps growing with new data tracking abilities via high-resolution image sensors or neural probes used in brain computer interfaces. Data per research project could go into terabytes.

That requires software engineers with extensive knowledge of academia, data pipeline architecture and data infrastructure. The financing of salaries and infrastructure required comes from research grants. Unfortunately, universities typically do not have an extensive understanding of how to best build and sustain engineering teams, neither organizationally nor financially.

(The Transmitter)

The “jazz” approach to solving problems at work

Often, when engage in meetings to solve a problem, fronts harden. Employees, especially in enterprises, focus more on saving their a****. Problems are only half-heartedly solved, the customer experience suffers.

SEB, a Swedish bank, reviewed their decision-making process within the investment banking division. To come up with more creative and better ways to solve issues, the leadership took some learning from jazz and neuroscience, resulting in an approach called “generative conversations”.

Instead of focusing on finding solutions immediately, the employees were advised to listen and be creative with the problem statement. Unhinging from the solution allowed being more explorative and open to other ideas.

In past newsletters, we have come across the so-called “default mode network”. The DMN contributes to divergent thinking and creative ideation away from problem-solving and task execution. It activates during more monotone tasks, like walking, running, taking a shower or similar activities.

(Wharton)

On top of tech

Can robots feel touch?

I have never thought about this question, but it does somewhat make sense.

Humans feel through their skin. Nerve cells get activated when something touches them in a specific spot. These signals travel to the brain where they get analyzed, and we can make sense of them.

Robots don’t have skin (yet). Even providing them with some sort of skin-like material would make them pricier, as material and sensors would be required across the whole surface.

Smart researchers came up with a different idea: as touch equals applied force, which can be measured at the spot of impact but also, e.g. at the joints.

A team created sensors and mathematical models which can calculate the exact point of contact, and force applied. Because the robots’ algorithms know the initial trajectory of e.g. a moving arm vs. a sudden change as somebody or something touched it, it can ultimately calculate the position, force and direction. This solution is way cheaper.

It could not, however, understand the object, material and temperature it contacted unless it uses image recognition via cameras and temperature sensors. There might be use cases for all of them.

(MIT)

The MITReview take on what EEG could look like in 100 years

EEG (or electroencephalography, if you fancy that word), celebrates its 100th birthday this year. The first EEG looked like a big Australian barbecue. Something like this:

Nowadays, the technology measuring the electric currents in the brain is much smaller.

By measuring electrical signals, we can find out more about the state, activity, and health of the brain. It can be used to treat e.g. epilepsy, by stimulating the brain with specific electric currents.

Where do we go from here?

AI has become very powerful in analysing the data to understand thoughts, words, sentences from it. We could track dreams, use it for sleep improvement therapies, therapies for depression, and anxiety because occasionally, what you say is not what you actually think.

Indeed, the University of Leeds asked recently how close we are to correctly “read” dreams through EEG? Imagine you had a database of your dreams, just like you have your folder of pictures on your phone!

I believe EEG sensors will be in headphones, measuring our activities and telling us to take a break for mental work and take some more steps (hello, Apple Watch + Apple AirPods).

But then where are the boundaries?

More and more I come across the statement that with neurotechnology we are removing the last resort of privacy - that is our brain. This article is just the most recent one.

(MITReview)

Misc but not least…

We are back in Berlin. Have I missed it? No!

It is so funny to hear so many people in Australia telling me how much they loved Berlin and would want to go back.

But they experienced the city as tourists. And for that, the city is indeed amazing, considering the strong cultural variances developed through hundreds of years of strong and eventful past.

Don’t get me wrong, it has good restaurants, eclectic museums, a very unique nightlife. When you are young, no kids, for sure a place one can live once - before you have kids.

Let alone, the airport is a disaster.

This video beautifully reflects Berlin. Somewhat dark and moody, architecturally distinctive.

Thank you for reading.

Please share the link on social media or by forwarding this episode of the Brainthrough newsletter with your friends and colleagues.

Have a great rest of the weekend.

Alex