Discussion Post - PSYC 325

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School

Simon Fraser University *

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Course

325

Subject

Psychology

Date

Oct 30, 2023

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docx

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Uploaded by ChancellorMusic12489

Group 7 For a study of this nature that is assessing differences amongst age-groups, in my opinion there needs to be more than two groups of just "young" and "old" participants, to allow for greater generalizability for the study to a wider cohort of people, as well as provide a deeper indication as to where the differences in individuals start to become more pronounced in aging. In this case of circadian-rhythms and cognitive functioning, it would be beneficial to have a larger sample size with more variation in the groups to pinpoint potential deficits temporally, thus leading to where therapeutic/prevention efforts can be pin-pointed at an appropriate time during life so that cognitive control can experience less of a decline over time, if possible. Group 3 Being that all participants completed the study in a hospital, particularly slept in the hospital, I'm curious as to whether the unfamiliar environment could affect their sleep in such a way that it would cause a lesser quality of sleep, resulting in decreased performance on the tests. Having participants sleep in a different environment than a hospital, such as a home or dedicated lab would be an ideal control to see whether results would fluctuate. In light of this issue, perhaps in tandem with these other conditions of sleeping location, there could also be a greater assessment in sleep quality to ensure that participants were attaining adequate sleep. Group 2 In light of the results being that high cortisol levels are a detriment to better hippocampal activity and functioning, a question can be raised towards the notion of situational stress, in that specifically, is cortisol a detriment to hippocampal functioning when the autonomic nervous system is engaged during a fight or flight situation? This would be an important aspect to have incorporated in the study, or perhaps noted as a future research avenue, because in high-stress situations with fear involved, the conventional wisdom is that the brain remembers these situations vividly to prevent it reoccurring, or to prepare our body for similar situations. Simply, are there situations where high levels of cortisol are secreted that the hippocampus is actually made to be more potent improving memory, that can be incorporated into this research? Group 17 Very importantly, I need to know the demographics of n. Are these healthy college students? Individuals who have been selected to be healthy and that have been screened for any anxiety/stress disorders? For any learning and memory deficits/disabilities? Are all participants female, male, or equivalent? This is pivotal to the internal and external validity of the study as it levels out potential confound variables, such as disorders and age effects, and also provides clarity as to what population the study can be generalizable to. Unfortunately at the moment, this is not possible. Another note of issue in terms of the lack of clarity around the sample size, is that it significantly hinders the ability of the studies findings to be employed to any specific group, or broadly in terms of clinical efforts that pursue ways to mitigate habit memory formation in the brain as a response to stress.

Group 13 Did the researchers select their subjects on the basis that they were genetically normal, and did not have any alleles or abnormalities that could potentially affect the attrition and maturation rate of the adult neurons in the rodents? How could the research be altered with rats born with cognitive abnormalities, improved or hindered genes for survival purposes, or even increased ability for neurogenesis? This could have been a vital control to have been used to compare with the healthy groups results as well assuming that the groups used were both healthy, as it would be important to see if different gene abnormalities would actually have a potent effect on the adult neuron maturation rate. In regards to the second group having an ad libitum diet, for this study to have the external validity required to generalize the results of CR having no adverse effect on the working memory of participants, there needs to be more than just the two groups of the treatment and the patient’s regular diet. Quite frankly, if patients are allowed to eat whatever they want, wouldn’t certain types of foods, particularly unhealthy foods (energy drinks, candy, fast food etc.) affect participants' working memory for the worse? And in contrast, wouldn’t those that eat a well rounded meal have an advantage in working memory? This confound needs to be addressed through the addition of multiple groups that eat fixed diets, but do not engage in CR to see if more specific diets have an affect on working memory, and most importantly, to see if the perceived increase in working memory due to the caloric restriction holds up against healthy, regular dieting that is controlled over the same period of time. The content of this study is very interesting, however I feel as though the relevance of the study is not established as well as where and what the objective can be extended to. Is this study meant to only assess intermittent fasting as a memory enhancer in rodents? If it is meant to be extended to humans, what are the implications of the results of both the EOD and IF16 conditions showing greater associative plasticity in the hippocampus on humans? Do we expect the same results in human beings, and as mentioned if this study is an effort to see how IF can prevent neurodegeneration, what are the links from rodents to humans that can be made from this study in terms of brain behavior and eating patterns? Has this been assessed in humans before, or a topic similar (this would round up the significance, context and relevance of the study), and finally how could and would this study be extended to humans, being that our diets are much different from that of rodents? The last note of issue to be made here is that we don’t get a sound description of particularly how intermittent fasting will prevent neurodegeneration in the temporal context for humans, that is, what would be the best time-frame to do this? In All of these issues, where they were not necessarily part of the study’s objective being that they were working with rodents, the fact that these questions were not answered or at least brought up/inferred upon makes it difficult to conceptualize how IF improving associative plasticity in the hippocampus of rats is going to provide treatment for human beings, which seems to be the

main implication of the results, “This is an effort to see how IF can protect against neurodegenerative diseases.” Being that VR is a very useful tool to simulate reality, that can be used very creatively as users have the creative freedom to develop specific programs for their topic of usage (research in this case) wouldn’t it be prudent to map locations that the smokers actually routinely smoke at, because these areas would be assumed to cause the most effective cravings for the smokers and thus would be very helpful for creating an environment where the craving would be strongly enhanced and then lost due to extinction training. That said, perhaps for the VR to be tangibly accurate, participants would need to indicate their favorite place to smoke? A last small comment would be how the researchers would expect VR to be employed to the population of smokers, being that a great amount would not be from a high Socio-economic status thus bringing into question the affordability of such treatments, as VR technology is still fairly new, improving and as a consequences is extremely expensive for accurate, effective, and versatile equipment that would be needed in such a specific therapeutic treatment such as this. I understand that enabling a series of eye movements acts to disrupt the reconsolidation of a reactivated fear memory, but HOW exactly is this done? Assuming that this process affects the amygdala, how does it cause the location and its corresponding pathways to inhibit the reconsolidation in a scientific sense? What is the systematic process that occurs in the brain? This is important to understand because without explanation on the process of how eye movements specifically affect the brain, it is hard to understand what is happening to the individual in the study, more specifically, how their brain is changing. Finally, is the eye movement something instilled on its own, or is it in response to a stimulus in the study? This was not specified. I feel that more clarity is needed in regards to the testing that took place here. Are there only two groups, one being paired with a forget tone and the other non forgetting tones? This would benefit to be specified more clearly in the methods section because as it stands, it leads to a confusion in the interpretation of results; that is are we comparing these two groups scores delineated by greater recall in the regular object-test, and worse recall with the forgetting tone, or is this one big group all together? This is important to understand what the study is looking for in its methods and how it is organized, as well as what the concrete objective is and also a benefit for increases in internal validity. Finally, this clears up the ambiguity surrounding the main objective of the study, which is a bit vague and not concretely stated, and because of the lack of clarity surrounding the methods of the tests individuals underwent, it was difficult to understand whether forgetting is the factor being assessed, or improved retention.

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