Crows and ravens are a long evolutionary chain away from humans, but some of their behavior closely resembles that of humans. Viral videos of crows that talk and count frequently make the rounds on social media. Until recently, scientists were unsure how basic math skills evolved in crows, but a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers insights into why and how crows count.

Counting Crows Have Human-Like Neurons

Researchers have long puzzled over why crows seem able to count. The brain structures that enable humans and other primates to count evolved long after crows and humans shared a common ancestor. This suggests that counting may have independently evolved in crows.

To explore how crows’ brains enable them to count, Helen Ditz and Andreas Nieder, researchers from the University of Tübingen, trained carrion crows to play a numerical matching game. The crows saw between one and five dark dots inside a gray circle on a computer screen. Crows who tapped the same number of dots when it appeared again received a treat. The size of each dot, as well as their placement within the circle, randomly varied. This means that the crows weren’t just measuring shapes; they were counting the number of dots, or at least memorizing what particular quantities of dots looked like.

On average, the crows got the answer right about 75% of the time—a figure that can’t be explained by chance alone. In most cases, the mistakes occurred when the difference between images was only one dot.[fat_widget_left]

The crows wore surgically implanted neuron sensors as they played the game, enabling the team to observe the activity of about 500 neurons. Approximately 100 neurons behaved differently depending on the number of dots the crows saw. Some neurons showed activity only when there were three dots, while others showed activity only with one or five dots, suggesting that the crows’ neurons might behave differently depending on how many dots the crows counted.

Though the part of the primate brain that allows counting works differently, the neurons behave the same. Just as crows’ neurons light up according to the number of items they count, so too do primate neurons. The correlation between neuron activity wasn’t perfect. For example, “four” neurons still responded when there were three or five dots, though not as dramatically as they did when there were four dots.

The researchers say that their results could shed light on the evolution of counting in both humans and crows. Because similar neuronal processes enable both species to count, the common ancestor of crows and humans—who existed more than 300 million years ago—might also have been able to count.

References:

1. Ditz, H. M., & Nieder, A. (2015). Neurons selective to the number of visual items in the corvid songbird endbrain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi:10.1073/pnas.1504245112
2. Johnson, S. K. (2015, June 24). Counting crows’ neurons work just like yours. Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/06/counting-crows-neurons-work-just-like-yours/

Editor’s note: Mona Fishbane, PhD is a clinical psychologist and the author of Loving with the Brain in Mind: Neurobiology & Couple Therapy. Her continuing education presentation for GoodTherapy.org, titled Neurobiology and Couple Therapy, is scheduled for 9 a.m. PDT on December 12, 2014. This event is available at no additional cost to GoodTherapy.org members and is good for two CE credits. For details, or to register, please click here.

Falling in love is easy, and delicious. I remember the moment I fell in love with my husband—what I was wearing, how beautiful his eyes looked, the bright, cold February day. I saw the two of us in Technicolor and the rest of the world in black-and-white. It was a heady time; I was crazy in love.

Now I understand the science behind what was going on in my brain back then. Neuroscientists have studied madly-in-love folks, putting them in the fMRI machine while they look at a photo of their beloved. The parts of the brain that “light up” while looking at the lover are the same brain areas activated by cocaine—the reward centers. These researchers concluded that love is like a drug. I’ve never tried cocaine, but I’ve certainly tried love, and it is indeed a high.

We were awash in the chemicals of early love: testosterone (the hormone fueling the sex drive in both men and women), dopamine (focusing on “that special someone”), and oxytocin (the bonding hormone/neurotransmitter). I didn’t notice my lover’s flaws, nor he mine. It turns out that in early love, the critical part of the brain goes quiet. This is the science behind “love is blind;” we see our lovers through rose-colored glasses. Perhaps this is nature’s way of helping us bond with the beloved, oblivious to the problems that lie ahead.

Waking from the Spell

Crazy in love is a temporary state; the brain can’t stand the intensity forever. At some point the critical parts of the brain come back online, and we see our partners, warts and all. The jazzed-up chemicals settle down, and our drug high gives way to a calmer brain state. Romantic love, researchers find, yields to a tamer version, called companionate love. This happens somewhere between a year and three years into a relationship. Many couples are deeply disappointed when their romance fades into a more sedate version. They crave the high of early love, dopamine and all. Some have affairs, or divorce and remarry, seeking another hit of the drug. But eventually the new relationship will become old. The challenge: How to nurture love over the long haul? 

From Crazy in Love to Lazy in Love

When the newness and the magic fade, many of us become lazy in our relationship habits. Instead of dressing up for our beloved, we wear sweats to dinner. We become lazy in our interactions, blaming our partners when upset, not giving them the benefit of the doubt.  We become reactive to the negative, and overlook the positive in our relationships. We expect unconditional love, no matter what we dish out. But adult love is not unconditional; our partners may leave us if we behave badly.

Proactive Loving vs. Passive Loving

“I still love my wife, but I’ve fallen out of love with her,” a man said to me recently. He’s missing the hit of the drug, and is thinking of looking elsewhere for that love high again. To my mind, “falling out of love” sounds so passive—like falling into a pothole! I propose a more proactive view of long-term love, in which both partners work to create a great relationship. Once the initial glow wears off, the real work of loving begins. The stakes are high; while happy relationships are associated with health and longevity, the stress of an unhappy marriage can result in illness and earlier death. [fat_widget_relationships_left]

Researchers such as John Gottman have identified the secrets to successful relationships. In longitudinal studies, he compared happy couples (he calls them the “masters”) and unhappy couples (the “disasters”). Happy long-term lovers are emotionally and socially intelligent. They nurture positivity and don’t get lost in negative reactivity with each other. They are generous, fair, and kind, practicing what I call “relational virtues.” When they hurt each other, these successful partners apologize. It turns out that love means having to say you’re sorry—a lot!

Nurturing the Positive in Your Relationship

So how can couples develop these skills of emotional and social intelligence? One of the most important skills is the ability to regulate your own emotions when you get upset. It’s so easy to “let it rip” and have a temper tantrum when your partner does something you don’t like. But staying calm in the face of stress is vital if you want to be a good lover. You also need to take responsibility for your own reaction rather than blaming your partner. As the wise Roman stoic philosopher, Seneca, said long ago, “Most powerful is the person who has himself in his own power.” Rather than getting into power struggles, each person can try to be his or her best self in interactions with one another. And partners can make room for mutual empowerment; research shows that happy relationships are more equal and respectful.

Happy couples do a lot to cultivate a positive tone in their relationship. This can be challenging, though, because our brains are biased toward the negative—better safe than sorry, so we notice an attack or danger more readily than we see the lovely things our partners may offer us. To counteract this negativity bias, many psychologists now encourage actively focusing on, noticing, and savoring the positive. One couple I know has a “Blessings Jar;” each time they notice something positive the other one does, they jot a note and put it in the jar.

For couples caught up in cycles of negativity, unable to notice the positive and having difficulty regulating their own emotions, couple therapy can be enormously helpful. Most people don’t act in nasty ways intentionally; they get triggered in interactions with their partners, and have a meltdown. And then they may blame their partners for the whole mess. Therapy can help partners take responsibility for their behavior, learn skills of emotional and social intelligence, and cultivate positivity. This is empowering, as they share the responsibility for building a relationship in which they can flourish. Rather than feeling like victims who blame each other, these couples become co-authors of their relationship.

The bottom line: To be a good long-term lover, there’s no free lunch, and there’s no free love. Love that lasts takes work. Happy couples do this work gladly, reaping the benefits in body and mind.

Most everyone has at least one traumatic memory embedded in their brains. One that still resonates for me was the time my mother left me alone when I was six years old to take the babysitter home. When I looked apprehensive, she told me not to worry. “I’ll be right back,” she said, smiling brightly, and drove off. As it got dark, I became more and more frightened that something had happened to her and she wasn’t coming back.

By the time she returned I was totally terrified. She found me standing outside wailing. She scolded me and took me inside. Years later, whenever my wife was late coming home I would become worried and anxious. My heart would begin to pound, and more than once when she was particularly late, I had a full-blown panic attack.

I know I’m not alone. Some have memories from a car accident, a rape, a natural disaster, a violent parent, a drunk husband, a hospital stay, an assault, the horrors of war. Experiences like these are more common than you might think, with an estimated 60% or more of Americans who have experienced at least one of these at some point in life. Not all of these memories cause people to experience trauma later in life, but they can cause problems for many, and for some they can be debilitating. People with posttraumatic stress (PTSD) can become hypersensitive, with nerves on a permanent state of high alert. Fear and anxiety recur without warning, and nightmares can ruin sleep.

Memories and Trauma

But now there are simple, yet effective, ways to actually erase the traumatic emotions that often accompany these memories so that they can finally be put to rest. Many people can do this work on their own. For more difficult traumatic memories, working with a therapist who specializes in healing trauma can be helpful.

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In his book Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence, neuropsychologist Rick Hanson says, “Your brain was wired in such a way when it evolved, it was primed to learn quickly from bad experiences but not so much from the good ones.” It’s why traumatic memories so often stick in our brains, while positive memories seem to slip away. “It’s an ancient survival mechanism that turned the brain into Velcro for the negative, but Teflon for the positive,” Hanson concludes.

Fortunately, new findings from the field of affective neuroscience can help people heal traumatic memories that can contribute to PTSD, depression, bipolar, and even Alzheimer’s. One of the things we are learning about memories is critically important: Though the brain is particularly good at recording bad memories, they are not permanently locked into the brain’s memory banks, as we once thought. Whenever we actively recall a memory, it transforms and becomes vulnerable to modification.

When we recall a memory it becomes a little unstable and for a window of perhaps two or three hours, it’s possible to modify it before it settles down again, or “reconsolidates,” in the brain. That’s why, paradoxically, recalling bad memories can help us heal from old wounds. Reliving traumatic moments again in a condition of safety can help a person disconnect the memory from the painful “alarm” mechanisms that are the source of so much discomfort.

In the book The Archeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions, Jaak Panksepp and Lucy Biven say, “Emotional memories remain forever malleable, subject to influence by future events—through a phenomenon called reconsolidation.” This is the basis of various treatment approaches for healing trauma including prolonged exposure therapy, supportive psychotherapy, emotional freedom techniques (tapping), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), trauma-based cognitive behavior therapy, and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

How to HEAL

Based on the latest in neuroscience finds Rick Hanson offers a simple, yet effective, method for rewiring the brain from the negative emotions associated with trauma to the positive emotions associated with health and wellness. In his book, he describes a four step process using the acronym HEAL.

1. Have a positive experience.

Step 1 activates a positive mental state, and steps 2, 3, and 4 install it in your brain. In step 1 we notice a positive experience that’s already present in the foreground or background of your awareness. In the example I offered at the beginning, I tuned into an experience where I felt safe and supported, and brought to mind experiences of safety and security.

2. Enrich it.

Too often we spend minutes, and sometimes hours and days, ruminating over a negative experience, but we gloss over the positive. Here we take time to deepen the positive experience. I would open myself to the feelings of support I have in my life. I would picture and my wife and friends and the many supports I have, filling my inner conscious with at least 10 to 20 seconds of positive memory.

3. Absorb it.

Here we imagine ourselves drinking in the experience. I imagine all my cells being infused with the experience. I feel it sinking into me and becoming part of my brain and all the parts of my being.

4. Link positive and negative material.

Hanson describes this as an optional step. We don’t want to become overwhelmed by the negative, but to hold the negative in consciousness while it is infused with the positive. Hanson uses the image of a garden. We imagine the beauty of beautiful flowers we are planting. We become aware of the weeds and gently pull them out so there’s room for growth. He concludes by saying, “Whenever you want, let go of all negative material and rest only in the positive. Then, to continue uprooting the negative material, a few times over the next hour be aware of only neutral or positive things that may have been associated with the negative.

I bought back the memories of being left by my mother and some of the associated experiences of getting anxious whenever someone I cared about was late. Focusing on the negative while activating positive experiences can actually “erase” the fearful feelings from the past. I still remember my mother leaving me alone and being angry with me when she returned, but it doesn’t grab me and shake me up like it used to do and I’m much less anxious when my wife is late coming home.

I describe other techniques for healing old pain in my book, Stress Relief for Men: How to Use the Revolutionary Tools of Energy Healing to Live Well. I often use them along with the ones that Dr. Hanson teaches. In this engaging TED talk Dr. Hanson describes how we can rewire the brain for joy and happiness and heal from trauma. In another show he describes how our mind can change the brain from being Velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive.

Even when traumatic memories don’t reach a level of discomfort associated with PTSD, they can still be destructive. Hanson notes that unresolved trauma “increases inflammation, weakens your immune system, and wears on your cardiovascular system. No one has to live with traumatic memories from the past. They can truly be healed now and forever.

Last week was officially Brain Awareness Week. Yes, the brain—the organ that basically governs all of our body processes—is officially honored for one week in March every year by The Dana Foundation, a New York City-based organization dedicated to advancing brain research and public education.

This only adds to the timeliness of GoodTherapy.org’s recent chat with one of our upcoming continuing education presenters, Dr. John B. Arden. Arden is the director of Kaiser Permanente’s mental health training programs in Northern California and author of a number of books on neuroscience, psychotherapy, mindfulness, and how they work together in our everyday lives. His latest title, The Brain Bible: How to Stay Vital, Productive, and Happy for a Lifetime, offers a scientifically backed examination of simple steps we can all take to nurture optimum cognitive functioning and maintain overall brain health.

Dr. Arden will be presenting on “Neuropsychology: A Brain-Based Therapy” in a GoodTherapy.org web conference in May 2014.

GoodTherapy.org (GT): Can you explain to me what you mean by “brain-based therapy” and where the idea for it originated?

[fat_widget_right]Dr. John B. Arden: Everybody thinks they have the best type of therapy. So my job has been to sift through a lot of theory and try to get to the science, so that my training programs can operate at the cutting edge of what’s going on… and integrate all these seemingly disconnected theories and scientific domains into one robust vision of providing humanized services for people who want to see us [therapists].

The words “brain-based” need not be thought of at all as another one of these clubs; … but rather, okay, … since we all have a brain, every one of these psychotherapies and theories ought to relate in some way to the brain .… In the long run, brain-based therapy is the common denominator vision of the future, and it’s not just my idea.

GT: Your most recent book, The Brain Bible, discusses “how to stay vital, productive, and happy for a lifetime.” What is the brain’s role in nurturing vitality, productivity, and happiness?

Dr. Arden: We know now that if you want to be healthier—not pick up the latest virus that’s floating around, not suffer from dementia later in life, not suffer from anxiety and depression—and in general, be happier, there are a number of characteristics that have been identified by many scientists over the past 30 or 40 years.

What I try to do in The Brain Bible is take the most important five that have consistently come up as a focus of inquiry and have a robust body of scientific literature backing them as the healthy behaviors for living with greater pleasure, less depression, less anxiety, and less chance of getting dementia later in life. …

And these five factors are incorporated in the mnemonic SEEDS; if you’re planting SEEDS now, and you cultivate them throughout your lifetime, chances are you’re going to feel a whole lot better about yourself and about everybody around you; people are going to want to be around you, you’re going to be ill less often, and you’re going to get dementia symptoms much later than other people.

GT: So, what are these SEEDS factors?

Dr. Arden:

• S—social connectivity: We have these social brain networks that need to be fostered and kindled and cultivated through a lifetime, and those people who don’t [do this] tend to be more depressed, more anxious, get ill more often, and get dementia symptoms much earlier than others. [For example], we know that the telomeres, which are the caps on the ends of our chromosomes, actually shrink with loneliness. So social connectivity—as in, good quality social relationships—has multiple benefits to our immune system and to our mental health, even down to the chromosomal level.
• E—exercise: From an evolutionary vantage point, we as a species were hunter gatherers until roughly 11,000 years ago. That meant we moved about 10 miles a day, and we have the same biology today as we had then … The bottom line is our bodies evolved to move a lot, and very, very few of us move 10 miles a day. And if we don’t get regular exercise, … we don’t have these body-enhancing, brain-enhancing biochemical processes occurring, so our brains get bogged down. On the other hand, when we do get that aerobic boost on a regular basis—let’s say for 30 minutes a day—all sorts of wonderful brain-enhancing biochemical processes occur, including the birth of new neurons in the brain. It is the best antidepressant and the best anti-anxiety agent that we have; it’s better than any antidepressant medication, better than psychotherapy, and better than psychotherapy and medication combined. It is a must—an evolutionary imperative.
• E—education: If we’re not learning something new on a regular basis, we’re not building an infrastructure of brain connectivity. The more connectivity you have, the richer your thoughts—and we call that cognitive reserve later in life. … Learning a lot throughout your life does a lot to build your brain and without doing that, you’re looking in the rearview mirror worrying about the past or the future. So learning something new every day is a way to keep your life vital and exciting.
• D—diet: We are what we eat, and the cornucopia of chemicals that we operate our brain with don’t come out of nowhere; they’re not immaculately conceived. Our body makes these brain chemicals based on the foods that we eat or do not eat. Every one of these neurotransmitters has a precursor amino acid, and if you want to starve your brain of these chemicals, you can have a bad diet, or skip breakfast, or eat simple carbohydrates, or fried foods, or whatever—but you’re going to end up rendering your brain incapable of learning and incapable of having positive thought. So diet is absolutely fundamental.
• S—sleep: Many people think of sleep as just one thing, and as long as they can stay not conscious and not awake, everything’s fine, but there is a sleep architecture that has be adhered to. And there are many things we can do to screw up that sleep architecture, like take various substances, including some pharmacological agents that doctors prescribe for sleep. So getting good hygiene and having good sleep practices is critical for mental health and for not developing dementia later on, but most importantly for not having too much anxiety the next day, or too much depression.

GT: What are some of the brain degrading habits we should all be avoiding?

Dr. Arden: All the SEEDS factors, if not adhered to, are brain degrading. But what else? Substances … Alcohol on a regular basis—and I’m not talking about alcoholism, just regular drinking—is not brain healthy. And another real common one is medical marijuana, which is really out there right now [being touted] as this panacea, but it is not brain healthy. … Do I think it’s the worst thing in the world if you smoke a joint? No. But if you do that on a regular basis, just like if you drink alcohol on a regular basis, not so good for your brain.

Reference:

BrainFacts.org. What is neuroscience? Retrieved from http://www.brainfacts.org/about-neuroscience/what-is-neuroscience/