Researchers in China have found that children who have been left
without direct parental care for extended periods of time show larger
gray matter volumes in the brain, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America
(RSNA).
Throughout the world, due to political upheaval, economic necessity
or other reasons, parents sometimes are compelled to travel away from
home for months or years at a time, leaving their children behind.
In China, large numbers of workers are migrating away from their
children in pursuit of better jobs. Researchers wanted to study how this
migration has affected the millions of children who have been left in
the care of relatives for a period of more than six months without
direct parental care from their biological parents.
“We wanted to study the brain structure in these left-behind
children,” said study author Yuan Xiao, Ph.D. candidate at the Huaxi MR
Research Center and the Department of Radiology at West China Hospital
of Sichuan University in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. “Previous studies
support the hypothesis that parental care can directly affect brain
development in offspring. However, most prior work is with rather severe
social deprivation, such as orphans. We looked at children who were
left behind with relatives when the parents left to seek employment far
from home.”
For the study, which was led by Professor Su Lui and conducted at
the Second Affiliated Hospital & Yuying Children’s Hospital of
Wenzhou Medical University, MRI exams from 38 left-behind girls and boys
(ages 7 to 13) were compared to MRI exams from a control group of 30
girls and boys (ages 7 to 14) living with their parents. The researchers
then compared the gray matter volume between the two groups and
measured the intelligence quotient (IQ) of each participant to assess
cognitive function.
The researchers found larger gray matter volumes in multiple brain
regions, especially in emotional brain circuitry, in the left-behind
children compared to children living with their parents. The mean value
of IQ scores in left-behind children was not significantly different
from that of controls, but the gray matter volume in a brain region
associated with memory encoding and retrieval was negatively correlated
with IQ score.
Since larger gray matter volume may reflect insufficient pruning and
maturity of the brain, the negative correlation between the gray matter
volume and IQ scores suggests that growing without parental care may
delay brain development.
“Our study provides the first empirical evidence showing that the
lack of direct parental care alters the trajectory of brain development
in left-behind children,” Xiao said. “Public health efforts are needed
to provide additional intellectual and emotional support to children
left behind by parents.”
Do you often take chances and yet still land on your feet? Then you probably have a well-developed brain.
This surprising discovery has been made as part of a project studying
the brains of young male high and low risk-takers. The tests were
carried out at the University of Turku in Finland under the direction of
SINTEF, using both the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and
Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) techniques to measure activation-related
and structural correlates of risky behaviour, respectively.
The aim of the project was to investigate the decision-making
processes within the brains of 34 young men aged 18 or 19. Based on
psychological tests, they were divided into two groups of low and high
risk-takers, respectively.
“We expected to find that young men who spend time considering what
they are going to do in a given risk situation would have more highly
developed neural networks in their brains than those who make quick
decisions and take chances”, says SINTEF researcher and behavioural
analyst Dagfinn Moe. “This has been well documented in a series of
studies, but our project revealed the complete opposite”, he says. The
results have now been published in two (1, 2) articles:
More superhighways among risk-seekers In fact, images taken of the
brains of young men during the study reveal major differences in what
is called “white matter”. White matter constitutes the neural network,
about 160,000 kilometres in length, that transmits signals in the form
of nerve impulses and is crucial to the regulation of internal
communication between the different areas of the brain.
This network is designed to analyse and transmit information in a
consistent and efficient way. This is why white matter is described as
containing the brain’s own “superhighways”. Images from brain scans
revealed that those who made quick decisions and took chances during
driving simulations had significantly more white matter than those who
hesitated, evaluated the situation, and opted to drive safely.
“This finding is interesting and will be important to the way we
understand the brain’s development and our learning potential linked to
risk-willingness”, says Moe. “This will be useful information for
parents, schoolteachers, sports coaches and, not least, driving
instructors when it comes to assessing high risk behaviour among young
drivers”, he says.
More active, more learning
He believes that the explanation lies in the fact that these young
men are active and seek out challenges – both out of curiosity and a
hunger to experience learning and a sense of mastery over their
environment. This stimulates their brains and so their actions display a
fantastic combination of playfulness, seriousness and enjoyment.
“All the positive brain chemicals respond under such conditions,
promoting growth factors that contribute to the development of the
robust neural networks that form the basis of our physical and mental
skills”, says Moe. “The point here is that if you’re going to take
risks, you have to have the required skills. And these have to be
learned. Sadly, many fail during this learning process – with tragic
consequences. So this is why we’re wording our findings with a Darwinian
slant – it takes brains to take risks”, he says.
Driving games
The researchers employed a driving game in which participants were
awarded points according to the level of risk they were willing to take.
The 34 young men, aged 18 or 19, were recruited and selected from
upper secondary schools in Turku in Finland. The test was laid out in
the form of a simulated car journey through 20 sets of traffic lights.
Prior
to the tests, the subjects were divided into two groups – high
risk-takers (HRT) and low risk-takers (LRT) – on the basis of the
psychological sensation-seeking scale developed by Zuckerman, and actual
risk-willingness displayed by the participants during initial tests.
The game behaviour was the best predictor of risk-taking.
The task assigned to the young men was, on encountering an amber
light, to decide whether a) to stop, or b) to take a chance, run the
light and complete the journey through all 20 traffic lights as quickly
as possible. A decision to stop added three seconds to the time taken,
and a collision six seconds. In other words, the best times would be
achieved by those successfully running amber lights and avoiding
collisions – but you wouldn’t know if you were going to encounter
another car on the crossings.
All the participants tried out the game before they started the
formal tests, when they were subject to an MR scan of their brains.
Prior to the tests they were all assessed for and cleared of any
anatomical deficiencies or mental health problems or conditions that
might have influenced the cognitive functions that were going to be
measured. They were all right-handed.
Two analyses The first measurement, performed with fMRI, analysed
local activation differences in the gray matter of the brain between
experimental conditions. FMRI registers changes in blood oxygenation and
flow occurring as a result of changes in neuronal activity. The second
measurement involved a Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) analysis to
estimate between-group difference in white matter integrity depending
particularly on the quality of the myelin sheath enclosing the nerve
fibres. Myelination of neural fibers is an indicator of brain maturation
related to increasing efficiency of impulse transmission. The results
thus provide a picture of local neural activity at the moments when
decisions are taken by individuals in the two groups, as well as
between-group structural difference in the quality of the brain’s signal
transmission system.
How do risk takers think? Measurements of the moment that
decision-making actually takes place are taken when the subject chooses
to press either “stop” or “go”.
Results showed that high
risk-seekers didn’t hesitate for long before they made their decisions.
Their optimism, willingness to take a chance, and belief that they would
win determined their decision. Low risk-seekers, on the other hand,
found themselves in a dilemma. Should they take a chance? What would
happen if they crashed? This resulted in them hesitating before they
made a decision to run the amber light by pressing the “go” button.
Choosing the “stop” button is the safe decision that resulted in no
dilemma.
White matter Analysis of the white matter in the two groups also revealed major differences.
Local
differences in white matter are evident between high and low
risk-takers as illustrated by the coloured areas adjacent to the
prefrontal cortex, within interhemispheric tracts, and in the rear of
the brain that controls vision.
“Daring and risk-willingness activate and challenge the brain’s
capacity and contribute towards learning, coping strategies and
development”, says Moe. “They can stimulate behaviour in the direction
of higher levels of risk-taking in people already predisposed to adapt
to cope optimally in such situations. “We must stop regarding daring and
risk-willingness simply as undesirable and uncontrolled behaviour
patterns”, he says.
Together with the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University
of Turku, Moe is currently planning a new study to investigate
educational approaches directed towards both high and low risk-seekers.
“This project will be incorporated within the ‘Mind, Brain and
Education (MBE)’ concept, in which knowledge about the brain is more
closely integrated into our understanding of educational methods and
teaching outcomes”, he says.
“We believe that this result is a very important contribution towards
our understanding of how important factors such as curiosity, daring
and play are for the development of the brain, as well as our physical
and mental skills”, he says, referring to Fridtjof Nansen’s
characterisation of the phenomenon:
‘A spirit of daring is deeply ingrained in our nature – in each and
every one of us. But accidents will befall those who are unprepared’.
Before the computing era, ILM was the master of oil matte painting, making audiences believe that some of the sets in the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy were real when they weren’t. They were the work of geniuses like Chris Evans,Michael Pangrazio,Frank Ordaz, Harrison Ellenshaw and Ralph McQuarrie! Forever thank you, to their handmade art and the work of their colleagues, that made us dream of impossible worlds and fantastic places across Earth and the Universe.
There are more background paintings on this article, featuring comments by the masters/artists themselves !
Some of the following pieces were made by other artists:
Seeing the first actual great image of Pluto reminded me how Carl Sagan said “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.“ All we could see before was a blurry speck and by sending the New Horizons spacecraft out there we discovered a new world. credits: NASA/APL/SwRI
LARGE MARGE POP UP at Son of a Gun was awesome. My boo killed it. I helped with wine and cocktails and menu notes. Follow @largemargecooks to find out about the next one.
