James' World 2

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Neuroscientists have observed for the first time how structures deep in the brain are activated when the brain becomes aware of its own thoughts, known as conscious perception.

The brain is constantly bombarded with sights, sounds, and other stimuli, but people are only ever aware of a sliver of the world around them—the taste of a piece of chocolate or the sound of someone’s voice, for example. Researchers have long known that the outer layer of the brain, called the cerebral cortex, plays a part in this experience of being aware of specific thoughts.

The involvement of deeper brain structures has been much harder to elucidate, because they can be accessed only with invasive surgery. Designing experiments to test the concept in animals is also tricky. But studying these regions would allow researchers to broaden their theories of consciousness beyond the brain’s outer wrapping, say researchers.

“The field of consciousness studies has evoked a lot of criticism and scepticism because this is a phenomenon that is so hard to study,” says Liad Mudrik, a neuroscientist at Tel Aviv University in Israel. But scientists have increasingly been using systematic and rigorous methods to investigate consciousness, she says.

Aware or not

In a study published in Science today, Mingsha Zhang, a neuroscientist at Beijing Normal University, focused on the thalamus. This region at the centre of the brain is involved in processing sensory information and working memory, and is thought to have a role in conscious perception.

Participants were already undergoing therapy for severe and persistent headaches, for which they had thin electrodes injected deep into their brains. This allowed Zhang and his colleagues to study their brain signals and measure conscious awareness.

The participants were asked to move their eyes in a particular way depending on whether they noticed an icon flash onto a screen in front of them. The icon was designed so that the participants would be aware of its appearance only about half of the time.

During the tasks, the researchers recorded neural activity in multiple regions of the brain, including the thalamus and the cortex. This is the first time that such simultaneous recordings have been made in people doing a task that is relevant to consciousness science, says Christopher Whyte, a systems neuroscientist at the University of Sydney in Australia. The work “is really pretty remarkable,” he says, because it allowed the team to look at how the timing of neural activity in different regions varied.

Gatekeeper

The activity in the participants’ thalamus and prefrontal cortex when they were aware of the icon’s appearance was markedly different from the activity when they were not. The activity when they were aware of the icon appeared earlier and was stronger in sections of the thalamus than in sections of the cortex, and seemed to be coordinated across the two areas. This suggests that the thalamus acts as a filter and controls which thoughts get through to awareness and which don’t, says Mac Shine, a systems neuroscientist at the University of Sydney.

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A sunken ‘pyramid’ located near Taiwan has researchers rethinking everything they know about ancient civilizations. Discovered near the Ryukyu Islands of Japan in 1986, the Yonaguni monument is a striking structure with sharp-angled steps and a pyramid shape. Sitting just 82 feet below sea level, it stands roughly 90 feet tall and is made entirely of stone, which has led many to believe it might be a man-made structure.

However, tests of the stone reveal it to be over 10,000 years old, meaning that if this pyramid was built by humans, it would have been constructed before the region sank underwater—more than 12,000 years ago. This would place it several thousand years older than known ancient monuments such as the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge. The discovery challenges existing theories about the timeline of human civilization, suggesting the possibility of an advanced society predating known ancient cultures.

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As an internist and pediatrician, he ran a University of Illinois Health clinic providing primary care and resources for at-risk mothers and their children. When interviewing new moms about their needs, many responded with: “This extra support is really great, but could you see my husband? … Could you see my baby’s father?”

Wainwright realized that to truly help moms at the clinic, they needed to treat postnatal depression in dads, too. So he piloted an innovative study on screening fathers.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics tells us that we should be screening moms, our moms are telling us that we should be talking to dads, so what would it look like to start … integrating fathers into the care we provide?” Wainwright said.

Christine Kowaleski, a psychiatric nurse practitioner at Crouse Health and co-chair of the New York chapter of Postpartum Support International (PSI), receives similar requests. She has found that some men choose not to speak up because they are so focused on providing for their family.

“[Postpartum] is all about mom and baby for dads,” she said. “There’s only so much emotional space in a room, and if mom is taking up that space … dad is kind of left out of that room.”

New dad depression tends to be triggered by difficult situations like trouble conceiving, traumatic births, NICU stays, or supporting mom’s mental health. Research shows at least 10% of fathers are affected, but both Kowaleski and Wainwright say that the real number might be higher. To understand why it gets overlooked, we talked to two dads who lived with it, and we asked the experts to explain the subtle warning signs.

Symptom #1: Acting Withdrawn, Separated Or Distant

When a mom and newborn get attention, dad can feel pushed aside. With no positive reinforcement, he might become insecure in his new role.

“Moms bond very quickly with the baby, but it takes dads about two months, so for those two months they are kind of outside looking in,” said Kowaleski.

One father we spoke to, who wants to remain anonymous, started feeling distant on the day his twins were born. Twin Dad was at the hospital waiting to be brought in for his wife’s routine C-section. When the medical staff came, they said an emergency C-section was performed and the twin boy and girl had already been delivered.

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