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What’s the matter with internet addiction?

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 In the past 20 years, life as we know it has been completely revolutionized. The internet started out as a tool for the military but has slowly wriggled its way into the life of every reader like you. From social media to Wikipedia, the way we communicate and navigate experiences is very different now compared to the dark ages pre-World Wide Web. But such rapid progress presents its own set of dangers for our species. Hand in hand with universal internet access, a new foe has risen from the shadows: internet addiction disorder. But such a questionable-sounding disorder couldn’t possibly be destructive for our brains… right?

Think again. Although internet addiction disorder may be underestimated as merely a behavioural issue, it harms the brain and interrupts cohesive function analogously to drug abuse.

It may not surprise you when I say that humans are a stubborn species. We can tolerate change that is gradual when we have hundreds of thousands of years to adjust—thus is the slow nature of evolution. But the internet has hit us like a bus (R.I.P. Regina George from Mean Girls). With the click of a mouse, we are bombarded by endless novel stimuli. These trigger the brain’s reward system, as does stimulation that defies expectations, which is commonplace in video games and pornography. While this reward system has done well in keeping us alive for millennia until now, the internet may be taking it too far.

Consider Nikolaas Tinbergen’s concept of supernormal stimuli. Supernormal stimuli are artificial stimuli capable of continually activating the reward system. In doing so, evolutionarily-honed responses become senseless and even detrimental — see the butterfly example below! The internet provides such stimuli. Many of us have gotten carried away on the web to the extent of skipping meals, neglecting exercise, and losing sleep. Internet addiction takes this a step further: a person becomes so preoccupied with their online endeavors that everything else—health, work, face-to-face socialization—takes a backseat. Real life falls to shambles before he would tear himself from the screen.  

 To test the validity of “supernormal stimuli”, scientists presented male butterflies with normal females, as well as fake females (non-living) that had been designed to be very colourful and attractive to the male butterfly. Surely enough, males opted to “mate” with the fakes, rather than with live females! Yep, they chose the dummies over a chance to successfully reproduce.

 If you’re skeptical about the validity of internet addiction disorder, don’t just take my word for it. Researchers have already put in the time to show that internet addiction disorder is more than a label; it is a mind-altering condition.

In one study, scientists gathered a group of 36 adolescents—the most susceptible demographic to internet addiction—18 of which had internet addiction disorder, while the other 18 did not. A non-invasive technique called diffusion tensor imaging was used to look at their brains. This technique works to construct a picture of a brain’s white matter by tracking the movement of water molecules therein. White matter is made up of myelinated axons of brain cells, which bundle up together and act as the messengers between different brain regions; this organization conveniently lends itself to a very predictable pathway for water motion.

This study focused on damage to white matter in the subjects, indicated by disruption of the structured axon bundles. This damage is detrimental to neural function because communication between regions becomes impaired, clogging up the gears of this well-oiled machine. The images showed shocking damage in subjects with internet addiction disorder that was absent in their healthy counterparts.

Damage seen with internet addiction disorder was uncomfortably reminiscent of the damage characteristic of substance abuse, such as alcohol and cocaine addictions. Substance abuse overrides the “mesolimbic dopamine pathway”—the brain’s reward system. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that activates feelings of pleasure in your brain, whether naturally as part of “runner’s high”, or artificially from taking hard drugs. The latter, in that case, would constitute supernormal stimuli that drive drug addicts to persist with their habit.    

However, drug use damages the white matter of the reward system such that more stimulation becomes necessary to achieve the same pleasure effect. A component of the mesolimbic dopamine pathway damaged by both drug and internet addiction was the frontal cortex. This region is crucial for determining the individuals’ behaviour—and possibly manipulating it in response to supernormal stimuli.

Reward system pathway activation in the case of natural stimulation (left) and supernormal stimulation (right), such as internet or drug use.

 Perhaps an even more influential factor in weakened impulse control was damage to the anterior cingulate cortex, also seen in both internet and substance addiction. While not a direct member of the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, it does control your focus, emotional processing, and cravings.

The final significantly affected region in internet-addicted adolescents was the corpus callosum—the biggest tract of white matter in the brain—, which acts as the bridge between left and right hemispheres. The specific impacts of this damage are unclear beyond impaired brain cross-talk, although this, too, is prevalent among drug-abusing individuals.

Before swearing off the internet and its temptress ways forever, it is important to appreciate that these results are still preliminary. While more and more evidence is emerging to incriminate the internet as an addictive outlet, internet addiction disorder is not yet officially listed in the DSM-V, making it difficult for researchers to reliably diagnose it beyond employing questionnaires. Additionally, although it’s useful to include a healthy subject group to ensure differences seen in the addicted group are likely because of their addiction, a larger group of adolescents will need to be involved in future studies to give these results more credibility.  

All the same, the inherent risks of excessive internet use are catching the eye of the scientific community. We are a pleasure-driven species with unlimited stimulation literally at our fingertips. Who’s to say this multi-faceted resource, meant to improve our lives, will not ultimately be our downfall as we lose touch with reality? Only time will tell which way this war will go; internet access has changed the game, and we can’t help but play along.

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Legends never die

Despite what your parents told you growing up, video games do NOT rot your brain. In fact, they couldn’t have been further off the mark. Researchers worldwide have turned their focus to the brains of gamers, focusing particularly on those who play the popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), League of Legends.

In League, the player must process massive amounts of information at once, incorporating enemy positions, skill cooldowns, ally health, and more into their every move and strategy; the ability to do so separates the novices from the pros. With this degree of mental stimulation, it’s only natural to expect some long-term neuroplastic changes.

To reveal the nature of this change, magnetic resonance imaging has demonstrated that pro League players have increased grey matter volume in their insula, a region associated with attention and sensorimotor skills. This discovery falls in line with expectations, given the game’s mental demands on the player. Motivated by this instance of neuroplasticity, researchers sought to evaluate short-term changes incurred by playing League.

In this study published last month, scientists examined League players ranked in the top 7% (experts) and the bottom 11% (non-experts). They conducted tests of “visual selective attention”-- the ability of the gamer to selectively filter out and focus on key information— before and after an hour gaming session, using electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor brain activity both times.

In the tests of visual selective attention, the gamer would stare at a box in the center of a computer screen. Other boxes would appear around the screen and gamers had to indicate where each had come from, and his response time was measured. Experts performed best on the first test. Surprisingly, on the second test, both groups had improved and performed equally well, with response times around 575ms across the board.

The EEG data revealed that the hour gaming session was enough to raise activation of brain regions related to attentiveness in non-experts to level similar to that of the experts. Prior to gameplay, such regions were much more active in experts.

Although one hour of gameplay isn’t enough to make you an expert, it’s more than enough to give your brain a jolt of stimulation to improve how you process information. The next time you’re feeling bogged down and unfocused, try playing a round or two of League—it may be just what you brain needs to help it work more efficiently than ever before. How do you like those apples, Mom and Dad?

GLHF.

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Thinking about meditation: the beginner’s guide

Are you feeling overwhelmed, overburdened, and do you long for an escape? The sanctuary you seek may be within your reach. What I offer is simple: refuge into the hidden oasis of your own mind. As I mentioned in my previous post, meditation offers countless health boons that are backed by scientific studies. Familiarize yourself with the basics of meditation and you are sure to be rewarded handsomely as your body and mind reap the benefits.

Let me be your guide as we navigate the uncharted waters of meditation. I have compiled some basic techniques to start you on your journey to wellness. Keep in mind, these are simply suggestions; as you explore, do as many or as few of these exercises as you wish. You can modify the techniques and degree of time investment to find what works best for you and your schedule. There’s no right way to meditate—you have the freedom to pave your own path and personalize your experience as you get your bearings.

1. Sun salutation

(Source) 12-step sun salutation

“Healthy body, healthy mind”—just as the adage suggests, a good way to refresh and invigorate yourself is to start your day with some good old-fashioned exercise. In this video, the instructor first demonstrates a beginner-level sun salutation, then adds tips to increase the difficulty if you seek a greater challenge. To get the most out of this yoga series, aim to repeat the cycle at least twice. As you practice and become more accustomed to the poses, challenge yourself by increasing the number of repetitions.

2. Mindfulness meditation

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This mental exercise is what we typically envision when we consider meditation. It can be practised anytime, anywhere, although it is easiest to do in a place where you feel comfortable and there are few distractions. Limit your sessions to five minutes each as you get started— from my own experience, even so little time stretches to seem infinitely longer. Set an alarm or timer to keep track of time for you, but be careful to choose a sound that will be relatively quiet and peaceful to ease—rather than shock—you out of your reverie.

Here is a general workflow to get you started:

First, get into a comfortable position. I would recommend sitting cross-legged, although it is fine to lie down—so long as you don’t fall asleep! If you choose to sit, maintain proper posture by lengthening your spine upward, pulling your shoulders down and back, and holding your head tall.

Now, you may choose to close your eyes or to keep them open. Bear in mind, keeping them open will expose yourself to more external distractions.

As you are just beginning, you may find it helpful to listen to some relaxing music or nature sounds to calm your mind. Alternatively, if the weather is nice, you might consider heading straight to the source and meditating outside, amidst the soothing scents and calls of the natural world.

Begin your meditation by slowing and deepening your breaths. Count 1-2-3-4 as you inhale, and again as you exhale. Let yourself become aware of the rise and fall of your chest. Maintain this deep breathing technique throughout the session.

As you focus on your breaths, give your brain a rest. Try to avoid actively seeking out topics to contemplate. Instead, transcend such human compulsions as you liberate your mind to follow ebb and flow of the internal and external stimuli that come along.

At times, your focus may go to your breathing. Or it may gravitate to some birdsong. Other passing thoughts could be an itch in your foot, or some family drama may creep its way in. It is absolutely fine and normal to have these thoughts during your session; the goal of mindfulness meditation is to appreciate the thought as it crosses the threshold of your consciousness, to accept it, and to move on. Rather than dwelling on a particular signal, we make room for the next to make its own brief appearance.

If you have trouble letting go of a thought, use your deep breathing as an anchor and focus on it to find your way back and clear your mind.

Once your session has finished, slowly rise from your comfortable position and carry on with your day!

3. Guided meditation

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Much like mindfulness meditation, this is appropriate at any time of day. In this instance, you would listen to a speaker as he directs your meditation, helping you to maintain your focus by offering his voice as an anchor. This may help you get used to the process of meditation if you don’t yet feel comfortable enough with mindfulness meditation, or if you prefer a more structured approach. Many of the same guidelines apply here—you will always want to meditate in a comfortable position, taking deep, deliberate breaths. If you choose to pursue this route, I would suggest using The Meditation Podcast, which is a free resource you can listen to on your smartphone’s podcast app. These podcasts tend to run between 20 and 30 minutes long.

4. Body scan

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From paper cuts to muscle aches, your body bears its fair share of scars after a long day’s work. Unwind by reconnecting with your body at the day’s end. Lay down or sit, close your eyes, and breathe deeply. Starting from your toes and working slowly up to your head, register how each part of you feels. Acknowledge the sensations. Before moving to the next body part, release any tension in your area of focus. Once you have checked on every part of your body, you will be entirely relaxed. This can be useful as a bedtime ritual to help you loosen up and fall asleep readily thereafter. To help you get started, try this guided body scan, or this one with animations to help you.

As our journey together draws to a close, I hope you will take these tools and experiment to find what works best for you. Meditation is a unique, personalized experience, and you will only get the most out of it by practising and evaluating what you like most. Only commit as much time as you can comfortably; at the end of the day, quality will always trump quantity. What matters is that you are making the effort to be the healthiest you that you can be, learning transferable coping skills along the way that extend into the world beyond as you let your stress and worldly troubles wash away.

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Keep calm and meditate on

Feeling stressed? Breathe in, breathe out—your body will thank you for it. As stress manifests in the body and is left unchecked, it can throw your natural biological pathways out of balance. In the long term, excessive stress can have seriously harmful effects on your health. Such a simple act as deep breathing gives you the power to put stress back in its place. Individuals who meditate—henceforth referred to as “meditators”—are particularly familiar with incorporating deep breathing techniques into their daily lives, and unsurprisingly, they are relatively healthier than the stressed-out general populace. Not only are their health risks lower, but their brain structure has distinctive characteristics that correspond to their calm, thoughtful outlooks.

Before we can appreciate how deep breathing helps our bodies, we need a quick crash-course on the body’s typical stress response. Each time we are exposed to a stressful scenario, our bodies kick-start a “fight-or-flight” response. We have all felt this— it is the butterflies in your stomach before giving a presentation, and it is the heart-pounding feeling as your car slides onto the ice and out of your control. In these instances, your body cranks out the hormone “adrenaline” to stimulate muscles to get ready for what’s about to go down. Your heart rate picks up to ship out extra blood to the brain and muscles. Other systems are temporarily sidelined until the perceived threat has passed; you stop feeling tired, hungry, and thirsty.

This is not an inherently “bad” response. Millions of years of evolution have favoured those who respond to tough situations with this gut feeling—in many cases, it was the difference between life and death. Just imagine: if an ancient human had encountered a mother bear and her cub and decided to stroll on over to say “hello” instead of getting the heck out of there, they would be in for a bad day—and possibly their last.

However, the fight-or-flight response becomes problematic when stress keeps piling on, leaving you no time to relax and catch your breath. Rather, this response is meant to be balanced by the lesser-known “rest-and-digest” response. This is where the body finally has a chance to calm down and resume normal functions. Heart rate slows back down, your gut resumes leeching nutrients from the Big Mac you ate for lunch, and those pesky feelings of hunger and urinary urgency return. But none of this happens if you can’t catch a break in between stressful events. And like any vicious cycle, the more you skip over this restful period, the less inclined your body will be to try again in the future. Like a cancer, the stress grows.

Excessive stress is damaging in the long-term, causing widespread physical symptoms. Chronic stress seems to increase baseline inflammation in the body, and therefore your risk for inflammation-related illness increases accordingly. Headaches become more frequent, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is aggravated, arthritis is worsened, you are more likely to develop angina or coronary heart disease… the list goes on.

But if stress is so harmful, yet unavoidable in modern life, how can we stay healthy and prevent ourselves from falling victim to it?

This is precisely why many turn to meditation. Biologically, it is a mechanism to override stress and stimulate relaxation by activating the rest-and-digest response. Meditators have an easier time turning off feelings of stress and are less likely to be overwhelmed by stress to begin with. After just 8- to 9-week meditation interventions, even those who’d never meditated before reported decreased stress, improved sleep, and less pain.

The suggestion that meditation is beneficial to physical health is supported even from an economic standpoint. Studies exposed individuals of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds to meditation interventions, then compared their year’s medical costs post-intervention to their expenses from the previous year. Looking just at visits to the emergency room, participants saved an average of $2,360 USD in the year they began meditating. These numbers do seem to add up when you consider that nearly 80% of doctor appointments address stress-related health issues, and meditation is a free practice you can do at home to reduce your stress!

But why is meditation such a boon to your health—isn’t it essentially just sitting around and trying not to think too hard? Well, it isn’t quite THAT simple—any description that could just as easily describe a 35-year-old living in their parents’ basement is probably a little off-base. Recall that any behaviour you perform is going to have neurological impacts and will change your brain in one way or another. In the case of meditation, the practice emphasizes peace of mind and the ability to calm yourself down. So, we would expect that meditators should have a unique brain structure that would substantiate our anti-stress claims.

First, let’s take a look at the evidence for how deep breathing—an important component of meditation—is able to instill a sense a calm. A study in 2017 peeked inside the cranium to see how your breathing can transiently impact your brain. Using iEEG, or intracranial electroencephalography, electrodes were placed directly on exposed brain tissue to measure electrical activity and pinpoint which regions of the brain were being engaged. When participants were asked to increase their breathing rate to simulate stress, their amygdalae lit up—this structure is involved in the fight-or-flight response. On the other hand, slowing and deepening their breaths stimulated patients’ hippocampi, involved in emotion and memory. Deep breathing is defusing stress in the short-term by engaging different regions of the brain for stress-coping and managing unpleasant stressful emotions.

So how do meditation and deep breathing help us in the long term? In as little as 8 weeks of practice, repeated meditation and habits of regular deep breathing can remodel your brain.  Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to develop 3-dimensional pictures of their participants’ brains. There was a measurable increase in brain density of the hippocampus—a region involved in emotion and memory. To give you some perspective, hippocampal density is typically decreased in instances of mood and sleep disorders. So, with an increase in density, individuals are likely to have improved emotional control. There was also an increase in density of the anterior cingulate cortex, which plays a role in a person’s ability to direct their focus and attention. Additionally, researchers observed that the amygdala saw a decrease in density, which should correlate to lessened stress reactions.

Figure 1. Schematic indicating the relative positions of three brain structures whose sizes are influenced by meditation. Anterior cingulate cortex (yellow) and hippocampus (green) increase in size; amygdala (blue) decreases in size.

Another interesting observation is that white matter seemed to have generally increased in meditators. This tissue is composed of the axons of neurons, which are the long extensions that neurons use to communicate with their neighbours—you could think of them as telephone wires. By having more of this tissue, meditators’ neurons are more “plugged in” to their neighbourhood’s neural network and can share messages more quickly. This may explain why meditators are quicker to change their thinking caps than non-meditating counterparts from negative to positive frames of mind.  

Considering that deep breathing goes hand-in-hand with meditation, we can visualize meditation as an exercise for the brain; it is to the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex as the bicep curl is to the bicep. This is why these regions would grow with repeated meditation. Similarly, as the individual caves in less to stress, regions responsible for fight-or-flight responses atrophy, as in the case of the amygdala.

In a world where it’s always one deadline after another, it seems that the average person is bombarded by stress. Sure, stressful situations are unavoidable to an extent. However, how we handle this adversity is entirely within our control. We have the resources at our disposal to reshape our brains and make ourselves as resilient as possible—to decrease stress now and avoid feeling an excess of it later. As it turns out, Ingrid Michaelson had it right all the way back in 2006—sometimes, all we can do is keep breathing. But sometimes, taking a few deep breaths is the very best thing you can do for yourself.

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Gastronomic guests and emotional distress

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You share your body with countless life forms—they may be too small to see, but they certainly have a bigger impact than meets the eye. Billions of bacteria live in our warm, protective bodies, where we provide them with a constant influx of tasty nutrients. Recent studies have shown that these tiny roommates of ours may be a driving force behind certain behaviours, brain functions, and mood disorders. Depending on the food that we eat, we may be unknowingly encouraging the growth of bacteria that put us at risk for depression; by the same token, it is possible to cultivate anti-depressant bacteria within the fertile land of our intestines.

Gut bacteria are able to interact with our cells to modify what molecules circulate in our bloodstream. Some bacteria in the Bacteroides family can increase the number of inflammation-causing molecules in our bodies. These molecules are known to contribute to depression, a veritable illness that shrinks brain regions for memory and emotion, although it is unclear how exactly they do so. These particular “bad” bacteria are very prevalent in people from Western cultures consuming high-fat, low-fibre diets. Bacteria of the Bifidobacterium family can elicit an opposite effect, suppressing inflammation by encouraging our cells to release alternative molecules to counteract such inflammation. In fact, these bacteria work in the same way as antidepressant drugs to achieve their therapeutic effect.

(Image source - What a sad rodent! Get him some Bifidobacterium, STAT!)

To test the anti-depressant potential of Bifidobacterium, researchers simulated depression in young rats by separating them from their mothers. The depression of the baby rats was evaluated with a very scientific “swimming test”, where rats are placed in an inescapable pool of water and their mobility is recorded. A “happy” rat will be frantically mobile in its struggle to stay afloat, whereas smaller and fewer swimming motions characterize a “depressed” rat. Initially, the rats displayed the latter depressed behavior. However, scientists were able to turn their frowns upside-down by adding either citalopram—an anti-depressant drug—or Bifidobacterium to the rats’ drinking water. Both treatments made for happier mice, and the bacteria were just as effective as the drug!

Swimming rats are just the beginning as studies progress to evaluate Bifidobacterium probiotics on human psychology. If they are able to relieve symptoms of depression in people, what are the possibilities with long-term treatment? Could these colon colonizers restore healthy brain function and proportions to sufferers of depression?

For now, all we know for certain is this: they may operate on a microscopic scale, but these microorganisms can have a “g-astronomic” impact!

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(Image source - While some rats work hard in their swimming tests, this little guy can be found slacking off by the pool. Must be a millennial.)

Interested to find out more? Check out these great review articles to get yourself started!

-          The Gut-Brain Axis: The Missing Link in Depression

-          The gut microbiome and diet in psychiatry: focus on depression

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Practice makes perfect

Your brain is a remarkably fluid structure. It may not be literally sloshing around in your cranium—as Hermione would say, “Even in the wizarding world, that’s never a good sign,”—, but it is just as dynamic as the great blue sea. The special cells found in your brain are called “neurons”, and these little cells are in constant communication with each other; this chitchat is responsible for the constant flux of your brain. As you can imagine, the dialogue between neuronal neighbours will be different whether you are folding laundry on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or sweating out of every bodily pore to the “DRENCH” program of your new PiYo DVD.  Your different habits and behaviours drive which dialogues are reinforced and which dialogues are lost.

In her TEDx talk, neuroscientist Dr. Lara Boyd explains how our brains learn and respond to our behaviours. With repetition and consistency, our behaviour can direct long- term neural changes. But here’s the catch: just as with children, you need to be cognizant of what sort of example you are setting. If you let yourself sink into a bad habit, you’ll have a tough time digging yourself back out. To get a better idea of what I’m talking about and how brains learn, check out her talk—it really sets the stage for the direction of this blog.

The bottom line is that you’ve got to use your brain-changing powers for good; all it takes is some honest hard work, and the world will be your oyster.

-       JQ

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Where’s Jay-quellin at?

Hello all! Welcome to my domain. Why don’t we get to know each other?

My name is Jaclyn and I am in the fourth and final year of my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of New Brunswick. Now, I know what you’re thinking—and YES, I’ve seen the substitute teacher sketch. Worry nay, for I’ve already been trained by friends and acquaintances alike to respond whenever “Jay-quellin” is called out. Beside watching Youtube videos, I love to spend my time playing with cats, watching K-dramas, eating sweets, and curling up in a soft blanket by a crackling fire. You know it’s a going to be a good day if all of the above are ever satisfied simultaneously.

While my lifestyle admittedly leans toward sedentary, I do enjoy skating and alpine skiing in the wintertime. I’ve been skiing for as long as I can remember, and I speed skated competitively as a child. I’ve only had brief flings with other sports. I played soccer when I was young… until I realized that the reason my team always lost was because my teammates (allegedly human children) would literally stop to eat grass off the field in the middle of a match. I also joined the badminton team when I was in middle school, definitely because I loved the sport and not at all because I just wanted the team T-shirt. In time, I came to terms with the fact that I was more of a musical production and glee choir kind of girl, and I devoted my time to such things that I actually enjoyed in later years.

*This was me in grade 4 during a family ski vacation, shamelessly eating Doritos in my most stylish of ensembles. I broke my arm the next day and looked much sadder in the photos that followed.

Now for something completely different—what the heck is this blog about?

In a word: neuroplasticity. But as I am now realizing how that word feels jam-packed with meaning beyond my own plebeian comprehension, allow me to explain again using words that feel less alien. I want to use this blog as a tool to explore how our brains can change over our lifetime. When I say “change”, I mean real, measurable change, not just the ominous gobbledygook we hear about “changing our brain pathways forever” at every anti-drug lecture we receive in grade school.

Our experiences have the capacity to affect our brains. Their parts—or “lobes”—can grow and shrink, and this revamping of the brain has real impact on our behaviours and how our brains function. These “brain-ovations” happen in all walks of life and can have good or bad implications. To throw out a couple of examples I may delve into more deeply in future posts, did you know that meditation practices actually change your brain proportions in ways that logically correspond to the marketed benefits of the exercise—that is, improved focus, problem-solving, calmness, and thoughtfulness? How about that victims of child abuse are at greater risk for coronary heart disease because of heightened brain inflammation?

My own interest in this topic stems from the meditation side of things. As a university-age female, I fall into a demographic that is likely to have had some experience with mental illness, whether personally or otherwise. Certainly from my environments both at home with two doctor parents and on campus, I hear a lot about these sorts of struggles. I’ve naturally also heard about meditation and the wonders it can do for your mental health, but I was shocked when I stumbled upon scientific literature that may well back up those claims. It seemed a very fascinating avenue to explore, and it became all the more intriguing as I broadened my search to see how else the infallible human mind could be altered.

So I extend the invitation to you, my valued guest, to come along for the ride as we uncover together just how pliable the human mind can be.

Until next time,

Jay-quellin