Autotune the Abstract: Singing in the Brain

Autotuned sensation Rebecca Black is very excited about this new concept...

As a science communication student I find myself constantly coming across new and different ways people try and get across scientific data and knowledge. It can range from typical things such as news articles and blog posts to knitted representations of science. Whilst some of the crazy ways people try and get out their research may seem misguided, I think this blatant eccentricity should be applauded and encouraged.

It is with this sentiment in mind that I decided for this post to create my own oddball way of presenting research. After much deliberation I decided to autotune the abstract of a science paper. The first step in my attempt to revolutionise science publishing was to pick a lucky research paper to become the launch song. After much scouring of Google Scholar I found the following:

“Singing in the brain: Professional singers, occasional singers, and out-of-tune singers: Gottfried Schlaug; Acoustical Society of America (2009)”

Which, given its subject matter, felt like the perfect research to autotune. Now, unfortunately not every research scientist is a professional sound technician. However, this is something that can be overcome as there are plenty of apps for Iphone and Android that will do all the complicated technical stuff for you! For this first attempt I selected one called “Songify” which is an app produced by the Gregory Brothers, the band who produce the popular online series ‘Autotune the News’.

So without further ado here is the first Autotune the Abstract:

I hope that this practice will become as established in scientific publishing as peer review. I also expect to see the awesomeness of the produced songs incorporated into the impact factors of journals.

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And the Oscar goes to…Science!?

"I'd just like to thank my project supervisor..."

Hollywood has never had a particularly good reputation for scientific accuracy. However, recently its science acumen has received a boost. It is currently the first time that the ‘reigning’ best actor and actress have been both been scientifically published.

Colin Firth, has taken time out from swimming in country lakes and stuttering to co-author a paper in Current Biology. The research looked into whether there are any structural differences in the brains of young adults with different political affiliations.

His co-Oscar winner Natalie Portman has been published twice. Credited as Natalie Hershlag, her family name, she published a paper on sugar chemistry whilst in high school and another entitled “Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy” whilst completing her psychology degree at Harvard.

Figure 1. Individual Differences in Political Attitudes and Brain Structure

Both also seem to have made valuable contributions to scientific knowledge with their research. Firth’s paper showed that “Liberalism was associated with the gray matter volume of anterior cingulate cortex” and that “Conservatism was associated with increased right amygdala size” as can been seen in Figure 1.

The question of whether or not it is psychological or environmental factors that influence political stance has been debated for many years. The findings of the paper side with recent studies in twins which claims that “a substantial amount” of political opinion is influenced by genetics.

The neuroscience paper published by Natalie Portman looked into the progress of ‘object permanence’ in child development. Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Her research used near-infrared spectroscopy to monitor the levels of oxy and deoxyhaemoglobin. The research revealed that the rise in object permanence occurs simultaneously to a rise in the levels of haemoglobin concentration in the frontal cortex.

Whilst, these two members of the Hollywood A-list have dabbled in a bit of science it seems that they aren’t going to give up on their day jobs. Portman most recently graced our screens in the decidedly unscientific Thor, whilst Colin Firth was most recently seen in the tense spy film “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”.

Neuroscience Cases: The Man Who Put His Head in a Particle Accelerator

Images of his injury

“Have you been injured at work in an accident that wasn’t your fault?” The terrible adverts, for companies like ‘lawyers4u’,  characterise work injuries as falling off laders or slipping on a wet floor. Well for one man, his work related accident was a great deal more spectacular. Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski accidentally put his head in a particle accelerator.

He remains to this day the only person to have done so and, perhaps most shockingly, survived and is still around today. But, how does one go about accidentally putting your head in a particle accelerator? Well, on July 13, 1978, Bugorski was working on the U-70 synchrotron at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino. A small piece of equipment was malfunctioning and in the process of fixing it he leaned in too far and came into contact with the proton beam. When later asked to describe what it was like, he said he saw a flash of light that was “brighter than a thousand suns”. But, amazingly felt no pain.

Very quickly after the incident occurred the left side of his face swelled beyond all recognition. The beam entered his skull at the back of his head, with the exit wound close to his nose. After a few days the skin at the entry and exit points peeled away showing the path the beam took through the skin, skull and brain. His prognosis was extremely poor and was taken to a clinic in Moscow where they expected to observe him die over a period of two to three weeks.

The proton beam was about 200,000 rads. Previous data indicated that 1000 rads would be enough to kill a human (even the famously radioactively robust cockroach will die after 20,000). However, the specific effects of a proton beam travelling at the speed of light were not known.

After the initial incident the path of the beam began to burn through his brain. This continued for 2 years until the left-hand side of his face was completely paralysed. Apparently, this has had an almost botox like effect on his face. The left side of his face has been described as not having aged and being “frozen in time”, whilst the right side of his face has aged normally. Other than this, Anatoli has had surprisingly few neurological symptoms. Over the initial 12 years after the incident he had occasional petit mal seizures. More recently he has had an increased number grand mal seizures.

Anatoli continued his life after it became apparent he was not at risk of immediate death. He completed his PhD and worked as a researcher for many years  (Google Scholar lists some of his research). Not long ago he decided to make himself available to Western researchers, but he did not have the money to relocate from Protvino. He thinks he would make a brilliant research subject: “This is, in effect, an unintended test of proton warfare,” he claims. More to the point, he believes, “I am being tested. The human capacity for survival is being tested.”

Previous posts in this series:

The Man Who Could Not Forget

Musical Brain Surgery

Leborgne & Lelong

The Sound of Science: Results & Explanation

First of all a big thank you to everyone who took part in this little experiment. Secondly, sorry this post is a little later than I originally said it would be.

I was inspired to try this after listening to the sound and reading about what its effects should be. I was surprised to find that it’s effects worked on me, but I was curious as to whether that was the placebo effect because I knew what was supposed to happen. So that was the motivation for the experiment. The results were very interesting, 21 votes were recorded and were as follows:

What Effect Did the Sound Have On You?

None – 6 – 29%

Made me feel energised – 8 – 38%

Made me feel strange – 6 – 29%

Made me feel sleepy – 1 – 5%

But, what was the sound? Well, this experiment looked at the effects of binaural beats. An EEG detects different frequency waves in the brain during different mental states. The theory of binaural beats is that by listening to a particular frequency the brain enters the state of mind corresponding tp the EEG , as below:

> 40 Hz	Gamma waves	Higher mental activity, including perception, problem solving, fear, and consciousness
13–39 Hz	Beta waves	Active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration, arousal, cognition, and or paranoia
7–13 Hz	Alpha waves	Relaxation (while awake), pre-sleep and pre-wake drowsiness, REM sleep, Dreams
4–7 Hz	Theta waves	deep meditation/relaxation, NREM sleep
< 4 Hz	Delta waves	Deep dreamless sleep, loss of body awareness

The sound in the experiment was a Theta wave. Therefore, should have created feelings of being tired  and sleepiness. The poll on my original post found very different results with feeling “energised” the most popular feeling due to the sound and feeling “sleepy” the least popular.

This is obviously not a 100% accurate study. I have no idea how long the people who voted listened for, what they listened with (supposedly headphones makes the effect much more pronounced) or what environment they were in. As a result, with a small sample size and these big unknowns the inverse of the expected results is, ironically, not unexpected!

There have been lots of suggested (and unproven) uses and effects of binaural beats including improving memory, sporting performance, stopping smoking, dieting help and tackling erectile dysfunction. Some have even referred to it as an “auditory alternative medicine”! Even more bizarrely some people are claiming that this technology can be used to create drug like effects known as “i-dosing”. The effects of these sounds are still being studied and their actual effects is hotly debated with some maintaining that it is all placebo.

To me, without being able to find sufficient research on the effects of the sounds, I find it hard to draw a conclusion about the effects. I am willing to accept that binaural sounds may have a real effect on alertness. However, the more outlandish claims are really just ridiculous, and should be ignored.

To see an alarmist US news report on “i-doping” watch this video (sorry about the poor syncing of the audio):

Neuroscience Cases: The Man Who Could Not Forget

How many times have you been sat revising for an exam wishing that you had the power of a perfect instantaneous memory? Well, for a tiny number of people that isn’t just a pipe dream. Known as mnemonists these individuals have unfathomable memories and data recall. This is the story of one of the first properly studied, and most interesting cases, Solomon Shereshevskii.

Born in Russia in 1886 to a Jewish family Shereshevskii, or simply ‘S’ as he is sometimes referred in literature externally appeared to lead a normal life. As an adult, after failing as a musician he embarked on a career as a journalist. It wasn’t till a chance meeting with the Neuropsychologist Alexander Luria (one of the founding fathers of the discipline) that his gift became apparent.

Alexander Luria

Shereshesvkii was reporting on a talk given by Luria. At one point Luria looked around the room and noticed that, unlike all the rest of the journalists, there was an individual not taking any notes. Luria confronted Shereshesvkii asking why he was not taking notes, at this point Shereshesvkii recited his entire talk back to word for word. Luria was stunned, as was Shereshesvkii who at this point had never realised that no one else had his perfect recall. This began a friendship and research partnership that lasted many years, with Luria conducting many studies into what might be the cause of his incredible abilities.

Luria’s studies revealed many interesting things about the workings of Shereshesvkii mind. His descriptions indicate that Sherevskii had “at least six different types of synaesthesia” triggered by at least four different sensations (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The synysthetic links outlined by Luria in his book "The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory" (The page numbers indicate the pages of evidence for each link)

Sherevskii synaesthesia was very vivid describing the reaction he got when thinking about numbers as:

“Take the number 1. This is a proud, well-built man; 2 is a high-spirited woman; 3 a gloomy person; 6 a man with a swollen foot; 7 a man with a moustache; 8 a very stout woman—a sack within a sack. As for the number 87, what I see is a fat woman and a man twirling his moustache”

Shereshevskii’s ability to recall numbers was a particular area of study for Luria. The tests began with Luria giving him 30 numbers to memorise and testing him soon after, unsurprisingly given his previously demonstrated abilities this was no problem. He was then given longer and longer sequences (peaking at 70) and was able to recall them all. Curious about Shereshevskii’s long term memory Luria then asked him 15-16 years later for the original sequence of numbers, and he was able to remember the sequence.

However, having such vivid and accurate memory did have its problems. Due to the connection between his senses he sometimes had unpleasant reactions to stimuli, saying:

“One time I went to buy some ice cream … I walked over to the vendor and asked her what kind of ice cream she had. ‘Fruit ice cream,’ she said. But she answered in such a tone that a whole pile of coals, of black cinders, came bursting out of her mouth, and I couldn’t bring myself to buy any ice cream after she had answered in that way”

He also had a difficulty recognising faces, which he saw as “interchangeable”, occasionally had problems reading (due to the distracting sensations the words could cause) and grew frustrated with his inability to forget.

Luria said of Sherevskii that he “had no distinct limits . . . there was no limit either to the capacity of S.’s memory or the durability of the traces retained”.

Towards the ends of his life Sherevskii claimed to have discovered a way of selectively forgetting memories, although this was never scientifically tested.  

Sources:

Yaro C, & Ward J (2007). Searching for Shereshevskii: what is superior about the memory of synaesthetes? Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006), 60 (5), 681-95 PMID: 17455076

Alexander Luria (1988). The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book About a Vast Memory (reprint). PsycCRITIQUES, 33 (3) DOI: 10.1037/025559

Neuroscience Cases: The Musical Brain Surgery

Eddie before the surgery

Many people have musical skills, whether it be primary school recorder or grade 8 harp. However, few can say they have played an instrument while surgeons are operating on their brain. Once such man is Eddie Adcock. Eddie was a famous blue grass banjo player who had been on the circuit for years. However, in 2008 he started to have hand tremours which threatened his career. Not one to give up on his music Eddie elected to undergo surgery to fix the problem. However there was one catch, he would have to be awake and playing the banjo whilst under the knife.

Due to the lack of sensory neurons in the brain the action of the surgeons would not be felt by Eddie during the surgery. However, he did require local anaesthetic so the surgeons could cut through his skull and gain access to his brain. The surgery, carried out at the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville involved stimulating different parts of his brain with an electrode whilst Eddie was playing to identify which region of the brain caused the tremours. Whilst the process was done an amazing video was taken of the surgery:

Thankfully the surgery was a success and Eddie is still touring, playing the music he loves.

Neuroscience Cases: Leborgne and Lelong

The brain remains the most complex and unknown organ in the human body. The way that it malfunctions causes some of the most interesting phenomena science. In this feature each week I will attempt to look at a particular neurophysiological condition or case study.

Leborgne and Lelong

As with any story it is best to start at the beginning. Which is why for this first post, on Neuroscience cases, I will take a look at two of the oldest neuropsychology case studies.

Leborgne and Lelong were both patients of Paul Broca (1824-1880) a noted French physician and anatomist. Broca and his discovery shaped the

Paul Broca

knowledge of the science at a time when the consensus was divided. At the start of the 19th century the research of Jean Pierre Flourens in animals had stated that localisation of brain function did not exist and this was accepted by most researchers. However, there were those that challenged this idea. One in particular was Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud, who asserted that aphasias (language disorders) could only occur after lesions to the frontal lobes. His son-in-law and researcher Ernest Aubertin supported his views and challenged Broca to find an aphasic patient without a lesion in the frontal cortex. If he did, Aubertin vowed to renounce his views.

Broca was intrigued by this challenge. It was not long after this that he encountered a man named Leborgne. Leborgne appeared perfectly healthy, but unable to speak, except for one syllable, “Tan” (which became his nick name). He had been hospitalised due to this condition at the age of 21. However, after ten years paralysis had spread through his body leaving him bed ridden. 6 days after Broca met him he died. Following this Broca inspected his brain and found he found a lesion “capable of holding a chicken egg, and filled with serous fluid” in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere. Broca’s presentation of this data was the first categorical proof of localisation of function in the brain, supporting Aubertin’s assertion.

After this Broca studied another individual with aphasia, Lelong. Lelong was an 84 year old man who had suffered a stroke and could only say 5 words, ‘oui’, ‘non’, ‘toi’, ‘toujours’ and ‘Lelo’ (meaning, ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘always’, a mispronunciation of ‘trois’ or three used to represent any number, and a mispronunciation of his own name). After his death Broca found a region in the same region of the brain as Leborgne. Broca went on to become one of the main supporters of the localisation theory and the region where lesions were discovered in the brains of Leborgne and Lelong became Broca’s Area.

Whilst these studies may have occurred about 150 years ago the brains of Leborgne and Lelong  were preserved and studies with modern technology have given an intersting insight into what caused the plight of these two individuals. The following MRI images were taken of their brains in 2007:

High-resolution MRI of the preserved brain of Leborgne with representative slices throughout the brain. The first row shows photographs of the lateral and superior surfaces of the brain, with lines indicating the slices shown below. Row A shows axial slices, Row C coronal slices, and Row S sagittal slices through the left and intact right hemisphere for comparison with each other. In the axial and coronal planes, the left hemisphere appears on the left side of the images. The following structures are delineated: interhemispheric/longitudinal fissure (orange), central sulcus/Rolandic fissure (dark blue), sylvian/lateral fissure (aqua), inferior frontal sulcus (red), superior frontal sulcus (yellow), frontomarginal sulcus (pink), superior temporal sulcus (light green) and inferior temporal sulcus (brown). Sagittal slices S3 and S4 show the superior portion of the right hemisphere crossing over the midline due to extensive damage in the left hemisphere.

High-resolution magnetic resonance images of the preserved left hemisphere of the brain of Lelong with representative slices throughout the brain. The first row shows computerized 3D reconstructions of the lateral and superior surfaces of the brain with lines indicating the locations of the slices below. The widened sulci are easily visible and indicate severe atrophy. Row A depicts axial slices, Row C coronal slices and Row S sagittal slices through the left hemisphere. In these images, the colours have been reversed to enhance the contrast; cortex appears white and white matter appears dark. They have been flipped horizontally so that the lateral cortex of the left hemisphere is on the left side of the slice. Coloured lines again show the major sulci of the brain (see previous image for color codes)

Sources

Pierre Paul Broca (1861). Loss of Speech, Chronic Softening and Partial Destruction of the Anterior Left Lobe of the Brain. Bulletin de la Société Anthropologique, 2, 235-238

Dronkers et al (2007). Paul Broca’s historic cases: high resolution MR imaging of the brains of Leborgne and Lelong. Brain. 130 (5): 1432-1441

Teen Rebellion Mapped in the Brain

A new study carried out at the University of Pittsburgh has indicated what might be the cause of teenagers risky behaviour.

The research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, involved observing the brains of adolescent and mature rats during a reward activity. The team led by Bita Moghaddam used electrodes to show brain cell activity. They found that the brains of the adolescent mice reacted with a great deal more excitement that the mature adult brains (as seen below in Figure 1). This increased stimulation was observed along with a loss of organisation of brain cell function.

 

Figure 1: A graph showing the increase or decrease of neuronal firing during the reward activity (each line represents a neuron)

It is believed that this could be the reason why teenagers show an increased level of  rash behavior, addiction, and mental diseases. This was enforced y the results seen when the researchers investigated the orbitofrontal cortex, a region thought to weigh up payoffs and punishments in decision making.

“The disorganized and excess excitatory activity we saw in this part of the brain means that reward and other stimuli are processed differently by adolescents,” Moghaddam said. “This could intensify the effect of reward on decision-making and answer several questions regarding adolescent behaviour, from their greater susceptibility to substance abuse to their more extreme reactions to pleasurable and upsetting experiences.”

Whilst this study may give potential a chemical reason why teenagers are prone to poor judgement, it is unlikely that blaming the orbitofrontal cortex is likely to work as an excuse!

Source:

Moghaddam et al (2011). Reduced Neuronal Inhibition and Coordination of Adolescent Prefrontal Cortex during Motivated Behavior. J Neuro. 31(4):1471-1478