Chronically Caffeinated

Changes in the brain’s structure that could be the result of depression have been identified in a major scanning study.

White matter

Alterations were found in parts of the brain known as white matter, which contains fibre tracts that enable brain cells to communicate with one another by electrical signals.

White matter is a key component of the brain’s wiring and its disruption has been linked to problems with emotion processing and thinking skills.

Brain Imaging

The study of more than 3000 people – the largest of its type to date – sheds light on the biology of depression and could help in the search for better diagnosis and treatment.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh’s Division of Psychiatry used a cutting-edge technique known as diffusion tensor imaging to map the structure of white matter.

A quality of the matter – known as white matter integrity – was reduced in people who reported symptoms indicative of depression. The same changes were not seen in people who were unaffected.

Leading cause of disability

Depression is the world’s leading cause of disability, affecting around a fifth of UK adults over a lifetime. Symptoms include low mood, exhaustion and feelings of emptiness.

Experts say the large number of people included in the sample – 3461 – means that the study findings are very robust.

This study uses data from the largest single sample published to date and shows that people with depression have changes in the white matter wiring of their brain. There is an urgent need to provide treatment for depression and an improved understanding of its mechanisms will give us a better chance of developing new and more effective methods of treatment.” -Dr Heather Whalley Senior Research Fellow, Division of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh

Participants were drawn from UK Biobank, a national research resource with health data available from 500,000 volunteers.

Wider research

The study forms part of a Wellcome Trust initiative called Stratifying Resilience and Depression Longitudinally (STRADL), which aims to classify subtypes of depression and identify risk factors.

The work – published in Scientific Reports – was carried out in collaboration with the University of Glasgow.

Emma Studies Etsy Shop Voucher Giveaway

As a massive thank you for the incredible support I’ve had over the past year with my blog and printable shop, I wanted to give something back! I have decided to host a giveaway where three winners can win vouchers to spend on printables from my Etsy shop! 

To enter:

follow my Tumblr (@emmastudies)

follow my Instagram (@emmastudiess) and Youtube (@emmastudies) [optional for additional entries - please tag your usernames!]

reblog this post!

Rules:

can be any type of account [please not a giveaway account though]

can reblog as many times as you like

likes will not be counted, but can be as bookmarks

open to all/international 

closes on the 13th of January at midnight - winners will be contacted with 48 hours [if they do not respond in another 48, another winner be chosen]

Winners will receive:

all winners will receive a $30 voucher to cover printables of their choice

option to have customisation done to the printables or a creation of their choice!

Good luck and thank you for entering!! :-) If you have any questions, please send them in here. Feel free to check out any printables that I currently sell here xx

If I weren’t waiting on IV bags, I don’t think I wouldn’t even know about this issue.

motivational iphone lockscreens!

thank you everyone for helping me reach another thousand! 🙌🏻✨ since i haven’t posted in a while, i made these to remind you to stay positive and motivated that you can do anything! i believe in you gal pals!!!

i hope you enjoy using these! please like/reblog if you are using them, i’d really appreciate it!!! 💞

Helloo! Happy holidays as well :-) Here are a few links that might help:

how to improve your handwriting

balancing study and work

whats in my bag

my favourite stationery

back to school basic supplies

how I stay motivated

tips on maintaining motivation

how to start a studyblr

how to take effective class or lecture notes

how to take notes from a textbook

how to memorise information effectively

my note-taking method

my notebook system

how to write faster

how I organise my binders

good habits to implement

how to study (my method)

how to get ahead in school

dealing with stress

productivity and time management applications

how to remove distractions

Here are some printables that might help you get organised:

2018 monthly planner printables

2018 student printables (2018 overview + calendar, daily + weekly + monthly planner, 30 habit tracker, class overview and timed worklog)

weekly study schedule

note-taking printables (dotted, grid, lined, cornell method)

exam revision printable pack (revision checklist, formulas + definitions sheet, essay + project planner, weekly schedule)

studying printable pack

ultimate student organiser pack

study and revision pack

pomodoro tracker

2018 student planner

2018 weekly planner

grade and assessment planner pack

essay guide and planner pack

student finance planner

note-taking printables (cornell, lecture, dotted, grid, etc)

goal and habit planner

{ 25-4-17} 73/100 days of productivity

Even learning to read in your thirties profoundly transforms brain networks

Reading is such a new ability in human evolutionary history that the existence of a ‘reading area’ could not be specified in our genes. A kind of recycling process has to take place in the brain while learning to read: Areas evolved for the recognition of complex objects, such as faces, become engaged in translating letters into language. Some regions of our visual system thereby turn into interfaces between the visual and language systems.

“Until now it was assumed that these changes are limited to the outer layer of the brain, the cortex, which is known to adapt quickly to new challenges”, says project leader Falk Huettig from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. The Max Planck researchers together with Indian scientists from the Centre of Bio-Medical Research (CBMR) Lucknow and the University of Hyderabad have now discovered what changes occur in the adult brain when completely illiterate people learn to read and write. In contrast to previous assumptions, the learning process leads to a reorganisation that extends to deep brain structures in the thalamus and the brainstem. The relatively young phenomenon of human writing, therefore, changes brain regions that are very old in evolutionary terms and already core parts of mice and other mammalian brains.

“We observed that the so-called colliculi superiores, a part of the brainstem, and the pulvinar, located in the thalamus, adapt the timing of their activity patterns to those of the visual cortex”, says Michael Skeide, scientific researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig and first author of the study, which has just been published in the renowned magazine Science Advances. “These deep structures in the thalamus and brainstem help our visual cortex to filter important information from the flood of visual input even before we consciously perceive it.” Interestingly, it seems that the more the signal timings between the two brain regions are aligned, the better the reading capabilities. “We, therefore, believe that these brain systems increasingly fine-tune their communication as learners become more and more proficient in reading”, the neuroscientist explains further. “This could explain why experienced readers navigate more efficiently through a text.”

Large-scale study with illiterates in India

The interdisciplinary research team obtained these findings in India, a country with an illiteracy rate of about 39 percent. Poverty still limits access to education in some parts of India, especially for women. Therefore, in this study, nearly all participants were women in their thirties. At the beginning of the training, the majority of them could not decipher a single written word of their mother tongue Hindi. Hindi, one of the official languages of India, is based on Devanagari, a scripture with complex characters describing whole syllables or words rather than single letters.

Participants reached a level comparable to a first-grader after only six months of reading training. “This growth of knowledge is remarkable”, says project leader Huettig. “While it is quite difficult for us to learn a new language, it appears to be much easier for us to learn to read. The adult brain proves to be astonishingly flexible.” In principle, this study could also have taken place in Europe. Yet illiteracy is regarded as such a taboo in the West that it would have been immensely difficult to find volunteers to take part. Nevertheless, even in India where the ability to read and write is strongly connected to social class, the project was a tremendous challenge. The scientists recruited volunteers from the same social class in two villages in Northern India to make sure that social factors could not influence the findings. Brain scans were performed in the city of Lucknow, a three hours taxi ride away from participants’ homes.

A new view on dyslexia

Weather-forecast tool adapted to evaluate brain health of oxygen-deprived newborns

UT Southwestern Medical Center pediatric researchers have harnessed an analytical tool used to predict the weather to evaluate the effectiveness of therapies to reduce brain injury in newborns who suffer oxygen deprivation during birth.

The analytical tool, called wavelet analysis technology, is best known for predicting long-term weather patterns, such as El Nino. UT Southwestern researchers say this same analytical tool can help improve assessment and treatment of newborns with asphyxia, which is when the baby’s brain is deprived of oxygen due to complications during birth. The non-invasive method produces real-time heat maps of the infant’s brain that doctors can use to determine whether therapies to prevent brain damage are effective.

“These are babies to whom something catastrophic happened at birth. What this technology does is measure physiologic parameters of the brain – blood flow and nerve cell activity – to produce a real-time image of what we are calling ‘neurovascular coupling.’ If there is high coherence between these two variables, you know that things are going well,” said Dr. Lina Chalak, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern and lead author of the study.

The wavelet analysis correlates information from two non-invasive technologies that are currently used on a day-to-day basis in neonatal intensive care: amplitude EEG and near infrared spectroscopy. The approach combines the results from these commonly done tests in a sophisticated way and creates a new proxy measure of brain health called neurovascular coupling. When neuronal activity and brain perfusion are synchronized – as indicated by large areas of red on heat maps created by this method – treatment is working well.

About 12,000 newborns experience oxygen deprivation (asphyxia) during birth in the U.S. each year, according to a 2010 article in Lancet. This can occur for a number of reasons, such as the cord being wrapped around the baby’s neck, a difficult breech birth, or the separation of the placenta from the uterus too soon, Dr. Chalak explained. These infants are at high risk of developing serious consequences such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and cognitive deficits.

No treatments were available until about 10 years ago when a national study in which UT Southwestern participated, showed that reducing the baby’s core temperature could counteract the impact of birth asphyxia for some infants. The cooling blankets are now standard treatment, but only about half of babies treated with a cooling blanket benefit.

Until the adaptation of the wavelet technology, doctors couldn’t determine which infants were benefiting from cooling treatment and which babies may need additional therapies, which are being developed.

Wavelet analysis information also can help in evaluation of new therapies. Dr. Chalak plans to use wavelet analysis as part of the HEAL study, a large clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of erythropoietin, a hormone that promotes the formation of red blood cells, to treat newborns with asphyxia. Wavelet analysis will be used to evaluate infants who are part of the HEAL study at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, Parkland Hospital, and Children’s Medical Center.

Wavelet technology also may help determine which children should be treated.

“Of the babies who are oxygen-deprived, some don’t qualify for cooling because their brain damage or encephalopathy is judged to be mild. Yet some of these children have adverse outcomes. This technology may help us identify who needs cooling,” said Dr. Rashmin Savani, Chief of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and of Integrative Biology, who holds The William Buchanan Chair in Pediatrics.

It could also lead to other discoveries.

“Understanding of brain blood flow regulation and its impact on brain function in newborns with asphyxia using this novel technology has great potential for developing new sensitive biomarkers for clinical diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis for these sick babies, which is desperately needed in the field,” said co-author Dr. Rong Zhang, Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurotherapeutics, and of Internal Medicine, and a member of the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern.

The research appears in Nature’s Scientific Reports.