Discover how our brains physically reflect how social we are, a new proposal for Mars exploration vehicles, and patterns in our brain that reveal how we process pain!
Discover how our brains physically reflect how social we are, a new proposal for Mars exploration vehicles, and patterns in our brain that reveal how we process pain!
Social brains.
Mars Cars
Pain patterns.
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/big-brain-bestfriends-mars-exploration-fleet-brain-unpain
[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today, you’ll learn about how our brains physically reflect how social we are, a new proposal for Mars exploration vehicles, and patterns in our brain that reveal how we process pain!
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Nate, did you know your brain structure might affect how social you are?
NATE: Huh, I guess I hadn’t thought that that might be a possibility. Can you tell me more?
CALLI: A recent study of rhesus macaque monkeys found that the brain regions associated with social decision making were physically larger in the social butterflies than their more isolated peers. This study, along with some human-focused studies, are helping us understand the importance of social interaction, not just for our daily lives, but for our survival as a species.
NATE: How did these researchers study and quantify how social a monkey was?
CALLI: The researchers studied 103 rhesus macaques aged 1 month to 25 years old as they socialized normally. Other than being given food and water, they were left to their own devices. Researchers then observed how many others they groomed, or were groomed by, in a three month period. This gave researchers a sense of the monkeys’ number of social partners.
NATE: Interesting. Did some have a ton of friends?
CALLI: Some of these monkeys had dozens of social partners, and some had none at all. When the monkeys died, researchers removed their brains and scanned them with an MRI to measure brain volume in different regions. They found that the more social monkeys had two brain sections that were larger than those in the more isolated monkeys: the area associated with social structure, and the area associated with empathy and bonding.
NATE: So our success in social situations is reflected in the physical make-up of our brains.
CALLI: It's what the research suggests yes, but the results sort of make sense. These monkeys, like humans, live in complex social networks. Living in, and navigating these structures takes a lot of brain power. We’ve long thought that this socializing is part of the reason for primates’ large brains, but we still don’t know much about the inner workings of them.
NATE: How can this help us learn about our brains?
CALLI: Researchers have been doing similar studies with humans. A 2011 study found that the size of one's online social network is closely linked to the brain structures related to social cognition. And they can also have an effect on one’s physical well being
NATE: I can understand how social interactions, or a lack of them, could be linked to anxiety or depression but you're telling me it can affect our bodies physically too?
CALLI: Yes! Isolation in adolescence can carry the same risk of inflammation as inactivity. And in older folks, social isolation can have a bigger impact on developing hypertension than even more traditional risks like diabetes! We are social creatures, and social interactions keep us healthy, regardless of our age.
NATE: I wonder what kind of affect these social structures had on our early ancestors.
CALLI: Some researchers argue that our social success may have helped us outcompete the physically superior Neanderthals. While some researchers point to other impacts like climate, disease, or other natural factors, many believe it was our ability to form complex social structures and work together that let us win out in the end. Some research has even showed that it might have been our ability to communicate and form relationships with the help of our more expressive facial features that helped us win out against Neanderthals!
NATE: So if you’re going to do one thing only, keep connecting with others! It's a winning strategy.
CALLI: Absolutely! Social interactions touch just about all parts of our existence and make us smarter!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Calli, I know you love all things space, especially the Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance, but some researchers recently suggested changing how we explore the red planet.
CALLI: Really? Moving away from our big rovers? Why is that?
NATE: A group of researchers from Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, or Skoltech… is suggesting that we’d be better off exploring Mars with a fleet of two wheeled robots rather than a single, more traditional, six-wheeled rover. These researchers argue that a fleet of smaller explorers could more quickly, effectively, and dependably explore the red planet, and other celestial bodies.
CALLI: So a swarm of exploratory robots?
NATE: This idea is just the latest in a long string of efforts to explore Mars…These efforts started with NASA’s Viking 1 that did a fly-by of Mars in 1976, sending pictures back to Earth…Then in 1997 the Pathfinder six-wheeled exploratory rover started zipping around the planet, and we’ve been exploring ever since…. Six rovers have operated on Mars, and three of them - the two American I mentioned earlier and one Chinese are still active
CALLI: If these rovers work, what's the argument for changing the system? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
NATE: Well the scientists from Skoltech argue that using a modular system could give us the power of cooperative robotics… In their proposed system, four two-wheeled robots could explore independently, and increase the speed of exploration by 2.3 times… Each robot could perform a different task, and for bigger tasks, like picking heavy things up… they could team up and work together. They also argue that the system, with smaller robots, would be more cost effective.
CALLI: I mean that idea sounds great, but what if one of the robots fails?
NATE: The scientists say this is actually one of the strengths of their system. In our current system, if the rover fails... well, the mission is over. In a swarm system though, the mission could continue sending information back to Earth even if one, two, or even three of the robots failed. It could keep the mission going if there was an incident or damage either on Mars or on the way to Mars. Plus, the redundancies could increase the potential lifespan of the mission.
CALLI: Even still, assuming we split up the roles and tools, it has to be hard to manage so many rovers, especially if we want them to work together.
NATE: No doubt about it, and the swarm really depends on these robots communicating effectively… If that was disrupted, a small amount of damage could derail the success of the mission.
CALLI: I still really like the idea though, think of how much more ground we could cover.
NATE: It's a really compelling proposal, and the scientists say developing the tech could have huge benefits closer to home as well… The system could be implemented on the Moon, and we could even deploy similar robotic systems here on Earth in dangerous areas for search and rescue missions.
CALLI: That sounds like a great idea, and those kind of capabilities are much needed on Earth. When would we start seeing that happen here?
NATE: Well, unfortunately Skoltech is based in Russia… and recent sanctions of Russian tech and business in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has left the future of projects like this up in the air.
CALLI: That’s too bad. Hopefully we can start solving our problems on Earth so we can start following our dreams up in space.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: I’ve got some hopeful news about our understanding of pain, trauma, and helping those who suffer from things like post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers studying the brain found signatures in brain connectivity that may help us understand an individual's response to pain and trauma. Identifying these patterns could help us treat these issues and could be a huge help to groups like veterans, where chronic pain is considered a major public health concern.
NATE: I imagine being able to name these things could help us treat them. What did the study look like?
CALLI: In the past, a lot of studies on pain and trauma have relied on subjective measurements like questionnaires. But for this study, researchers used MRIs to scan the brains of 57 veterans who exhibited chronic pain and symptoms consistent with experiencing trauma, post traumatic stress, depression, and similar mental conditions. They used these brain scans to look at the strength of the connection between regions in the brain involved in pain and trauma. With these scans they were able to separate the participants into three distinct groups based on patterns in these connections. They did this before asking the participants to self-report their level of pain and trauma, but when they did, the three groups aligned supremely well with those who reported low, medium, and high symptom levels.
NATE: Oh fascinating, the patterns they found showed a link between the structure in our brain, and how we experience pain and trauma. Do researchers know why?
CALLI: Well the researchers aren’t sure, but they think some of these brain patterns might make individuals more sensitive to pain and trauma, while other patterns might help individuals handle these negative effects better.
NATE: So what did those connectivity patterns look like in these three groups?
CALLI: Well those in the low symptom group had brain connections that allowed the group to avoid some of the negative aspects of pain, they more actively pursued pleasant things, rather than just avoiding unpleasant things, and were better at anticipating pain relief rather than anticipating more pain. In the high symptom group, the brains had connectivity patterns that suggested that when they experienced pain or trauma they were far more likely to get an increase in anxiety, and catastrophizing, which is that feeling you have when you’re convinced the worst will always happen.
NATE: That sounds terrible, Calli. What did they find in the medium symptom group?
CALLI: So that’s an interesting find: the researchers found similarities to the high symptom group, but they also found patterns that suggested these patients were more able to distract themselves while experiencing pain and let their brain wander. This decreased focus on the pain could actually help dull it.
NATE: So did these patterns in the brain line up with any demographic factors? Like age, gender, or education?
CALLI: Not at all, genders were spread fairly equally across all groups, and those with similar demographics were found to have different patterns within their brain.
NATE: Could these things be coming from other mental difficulties? Like did the study consider how these patients used alcohol?
CALLI: The study excluded participants with a current or lifetime history of bipolar disorder, alcohol and drug dependency, psychosis, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder or showed signs of a neurological disorder that could be associated with something like head trauma.
NATE: Oh that’s a long list, so they really honed in on pain, trauma, and PTSD. If looking at these things specifically showed us that some people are more susceptible to pain and trauma than others, where do we go from here? Will that change what we expect from people?
CALLI: Well researchers are quick to say we don’t know if these connections represent a vulnerability to pain and trauma, or come as a consequence of it. So it's not like we can predict how vulnerable someone is.
NATE: Well if we can’t use it to predict issues, can we use the knowledge of these different types of brain connections to help treat these issues?
CALLI: Researchers are hopeful this information could help us understand how brains in each group might respond to stimulation, or different types of drugs to treat the symptoms of pain and trauma.
NATE: It's pretty incredible how much we learned by finding a way to quantitatively study these symptoms.
CALLI: Oh absolutely. In fact, purely subjective analysis likely would have completely missed the differentiation between the similar symptoms of low and medium symptom groups. Objective analysis let us spot the difference.
NATE: Well let’s hope this knowledge helps us get to even more effective treatment for these heroes.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. New research has found that the areas of the brain linked to social interaction are physically larger in monkeys with more robust social networks. This, along with earlier human studies, is helping us understand how important social structures are to our well-being and survival as a species.
CALLI: Some scientists are arguing that a team of two-wheeled robots, rather than a single six-wheeled rover is the best way to explore Mars. They believe a swarm of robots would not only be more cost effective at exploring the red planet, but they could cover more ground, more efficiently, and be more resilient to the difficulties of getting to, and around, Mars.
NATE: A recent study has found patterns in our brains related to how resilient we are to things like pain and trauma. While these patterns can’t predict vulnerabilities before a traumatic event, it could be a huge step in treating patients with persistent chronic pain and symptoms from trauma.