BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Tag: anxiety

Anxiety vs Sleep, A Battle of the Sexes

By

On January 16, 2023

In Student Post

Overview

A new discovery has been made which may help explain the higher prevalence of sleep disruption and anxiety in women, not only leading to better treatments for anxiety and sleep but also strengthening our understanding of how the brain varies between the two sexes.

What We Know vs What We Don’t

Insufficient sleep is already known to be a cause of anxiety. However, this might not be the case for everyone, or at least to the same extent. When considering sex, “women are proven to experience a greater anxiogenic impact in response to sleep loss than men”. Yet it is unknown which regions of the brain govern sleep-loss-induced anxiety and how these regions’ reactions differ between men and women. A team of scientists led by Andrea N. Goldstein-Piekarski is attempting to find answers by using structural brain morphology. This method will allow them to link anxiety caused by sleep deprivation to the volume and shape of “emotional” regions of the brain between the two sexes.

ANXIETY

Statistical Analysis

Using an ANOVA approximation with the equation below, the scientists were able to decipher whether the amount of anxiety reported via the PSG test for each of the sleep conditions is related to sex and the grey matter volume of the individual’s brain.  

(sleep-deprived[morning-evening]  – sleep-rested[morning-evening]anxiety ~ sex × grey matter volume)

Women demonstrated a significant Time × Condition interaction, expressing a nearly fourfold increase in anxiety on the sleep deprivation night relative to the full night of sleep in morning-evening anxiety. There was no Time × Condition interaction for men in morning-evening anxiety, however, some individuals did experience an anxiogenic response, indicating that this specific consequence of sleep loss is not completely sex-based.  

Women demonstrated a significant negative association between anxiety and gray matter volume in the emotion generation and integration region of the insula/

Gray743 insular cortex

IFG and a marginally significant negative association in the lOFC, which means that gray matter volume did not influence the women’s anxiogenic responses. This incredibly opposes men who, on average, demonstrated significant positiveassociations in the insula/IFG and lOFC. Therefore, although men as a whole did not demonstrate a significant increase in anxiety due to sleep deprivation, the variance of anxiogenic response in men was indeed related to variation in gray matter volume of these regions. 

 

Conclusion

These findings show that women do indeed experience more significant anxiogenic responses to sleep deprivation than men. They also show that the morphology of emotion-relevant regions can explain the variance and vulnerability of men to anxiogenic reactions to sleep deprivation. 

What Now?

Such findings suggest that for women especially, targeted sleep restoration may offer a novel, non-pharmacological therapeutic pathway for ameliorating anxiety. This research can also improve public health awareness about the importance of sleep, especially for those who are at a greater risk of anxiety disorders. 

Connection to AP Bio

Research from Johns Hopkins has shown that the anxiety and stress response can often lead to mitochondrial damage. Since anxiety and stress can cause the physical symptoms of increased heart rate and breathing, the mitochondria are pushed to provide more energy through cellular respiration. This can be detrimental to an individual who is in a constant state of stress and anxiety as the mitochondria have very little repair mechanisms, which would then harm the body’s overall production of energy. In relation to the study, this information conveys that sleep deprivation not only affects mood and physical performance but also organelles and basic cellular functions.

Dictionary

  • Structural Brain Morphology – the study of the structural measures of the brain, e.g., volume and shape 
  • Vulnerability Biomarker – any substance, structure, or process that can be measured in the body or its products and influence or predict the incidence of outcome or disease (WHO)
  • Anxiogenic – producing anxiety 
  • ANOVA – an analysis of variance between more than two groups
  • Polysomnography (PSG) – a test conducted to diagnose sleep disorders

Your Gut Microbiota Could be Influencing Mental Health Disorders: Could Psychiatric Medications Change This?

By

On November 17, 2019

In Student Post

Mental Health and Gut Bacteria 

Newly published research in rodents and continuing research in humans explores the effects of psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants, on the composition of gut bacteria. They have examined how the effects on gut microbiota, typically caused by naturally occurring metabolic changes in the gut, may influence connection with the nervous system rendering some negative effects on mental health. The most common mental health conditions connected to changing composition of the gut microbiome are anxiety and depression. 

This comes from a recent study that Medical News Today has released, reporting on different bacteria that play a part in synthesizing neuroactive compounds in the gut. These neuroactive substances interact with the nervous system, influencing the likelihood of developing depression or anxiety. This research has been proved more extensively and directly in rodents, but the research in humans provides similar conclusions, allowing scientists to partially conclude the effects in humans–research on this topic in humans is likely to expand greatly in the near future. 

How can gut microbiota be affected by different psychotropics? 

The Study and Results:  

Provided this link between changing gut bacteria and mental health, researchers from University College Cork, in Ireland, set out to investigate this in rodents. First, the team “investigated the antimicrobial activity of psychotropics against two bacterial strain residents in the human gut, Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Escherichia coli.“The psychotropics that the researchers conducted this study with included fluoxetine, escitalopram, venlafaxine, lithium, valproate, and aripiprazole.

Then, the scientists studied “the impact of chronic treatment with these drugs” on the rats’ microbiota. The scientists gave the rodents psychiatric drugs for a period of 4 weeks, ending the study by inspecting the effects of the drugs on the rodents gut bacteria. They found that lithium and valproate, mood stabilizers that can treat conditions including bipolar disorder, raised the numbers of certain types of bacteria. These included Clostridium, Peptoclostridium. On the other hand, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), fluoxetine and escitalopram (both antidepressants), ceased the growth of bacterial strains such as Escherichia coli.

“We found that certain drugs, including the mood stabilizer lithium and the antidepressant fluoxetine, influenced the composition and richness of the gut microbiota,” says head researcher Sofia Cussotto. 

Conclusions from the Study, and what the Future Holds 

Dr. Serguei Fetissov, a professor of physiology at Rouen University, in France commented on the study, saying: “At the moment, it would be premature to ascribe a direct role of gut bacteria in the action of antidepressant drugs until this work can be reproduced in humans, which is what the authors now hope to do.”

However, the implications and further goals and hopes of this research is to directly prove that “psychotropic drugs might work on intestinal microbes as part of their mechanisms of action,” says Cussotto

Do you think it is too early to assume a direct connection between gut bacteria and mental health in humans? Comment about this below.

Further Research

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/amp/326299 

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319117.php#1 

 

 

 

Math Sucks!

By

On November 7, 2012

In Student Post

Many people, including myself, hate, or have a strong disliking for math. Math, as I see it, is the study of just a bunch of random numbers and symbols, thrown together, that mean virtually nothing. It is intangible. How much worse can it get? Often times, when I “do” math, I ask myself: how is this going to benefit me in the future? The answer is: it won’t! According to a recent study, all math has in store for me, and other math haters out there, is pain. So all of those long, seemingly endless hours of doing math, have just caused suffering. This is just wonderful.

At The University of Chicago, a team of researchers, including Ian Lyons, discovered that worrying about math can activate regions of the brain, associated with physical pain. People who experience high levels of anxiety, or anxiety at all, when expecting something math related task, sustain increased activity in regions of the brain connected with physical pain. The higher the individuals’ anxiety is, the greater the brain activity is.

The research was done on 14 individuals, who experience math anxiety, according to a survey that was completed. The questions, on the survey, asked about their feelings when encountering anything math related, and measured their anxiety based on their answers. Additional testing concluded that the individual chosen, were not generally anxious people. Their elevated levels of anxiety were a product of math.

After completing the survey, the test subjects were tested in an fMRI machine, while faced with math related tasks. Some of the tasks included: solving equations, in addition to completing word problems.The fMRI scans showed that the anxiety of anticipating math, activated a reaction, in the brain, similar to physical pain. The worse the anxiety is, the more active the brain becomes. The region of the brain that is responsible for this is the posterior insula.

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