Your Brain Changes Based on What You Did Two Weeks Ago | A workout or restless night from two weeks ago could still be affecting you—positively or negatively—today.

[u/chrisdh79]

https://www.newsweek.com/brain-changes-neuroscience-exercise-sleep-health-two-weeks-1965107

[u/chrisdh79]

From the article: our behavior today could affect your brain activity in two weeks' time, new research suggests. These findings have significant implications for our mental health as well as our attention, cognition and memory.

"The effect of your daily choices is not only reflected in today's brain connectivity," Ana Triana, a researcher at Aalto University in Finland and the study's lead author, told Newsweek. "Consistently making healthy choices in their daily lives can have a long-lasting positive effect on their mental health. These habits directly influence brain connectivity in regions associated with attention, memory, and cognitive function."

Our behavior and our brains are intimately linked. And yet, the majority of studies only take a snapshot of our lived experience. "We know little about the response of brain functional connectivity to environmental, physiological, and behavioral changes on different timescales, from days to months," Triana said.

[u/JaroslavKomkov → u/chrisdh79]

One person was the subject of the study, and the devices used were iPhones and watches.

[u/tomtomtomo → u/JaroslavKomkov]

and brain scans

[u/ForThe90 → u/tomtomtomo]

Yes, many!

"Triana's brain was scanned twice a week, followed by qualitative data from mood surveys."

[u/ARWYK → u/chrisdh79]

I was always fascinated by neuroscience, but lately I’ve realized that it’s a science that describes instead of explaining psychological phenomena.

Positive or negative events always have lasting impacts on our mood, it’s inevitable. Because of the embodied mind theory, of course there’s a neurological correlate to what a person is consciously or subconsciously experiencing.

I feel like we give too much importance to such research when all it’s actually doing is saying the same thing we already know, just with different wording.

Not to say that’s a bad thing. Having multiple perspectives on a single topic is extremely useful, but still

[u/Visual-Emu-7532 → u/ARWYK]

How do you create a framework for a thing to describe itself dispassionately without bias? The science can only ever describe the cause of rudimentary observations given the subjective qualia and inability to fully relate mind to matter.

I imagine we’d essentially need to have 24/7 biochemical and image analysis of brain activity and in a study of large groups while they self narrate their thoughts to bridge the gap.

[u/VoluminousCheeto → u/ARWYK]

The reason why we have more 'descriptions' than 'explanations' in neuroscience is simply because it's extremely difficult to research the brain and rigorously identify causal connections. So for now, establishing strong correlations is the best and closest method we have. Developments in neuromodulation technology are beginning to change this landscape, as we can start manipulating the brain in targeted ways, enabling us to observe clear cause and effect relationships.

[u/SoloAceMouse → u/VoluminousCheeto]

Yeah, we're barely in the infancy of our understanding of the brain.

The amount of time we've actually been able to "see" into the brain's inner workings has been quite brief. Much of our modern medical imaging technology simply didn't exist a few decades ago.

It will take many years and entire careers of brilliant researchers before our understanding of neural tissues matures. Fortunately, even the relatively rudimentary knowledge we've acquired is helping people live longer, healthier, and happier lives. I'm hopeful this trend continues.

[u/Fermi_Amarti → u/ARWYK]

It's a process. We can explain on a very fundamental level how memory works now! I never thought we could figure out anything.

[u/Competitive_Success5 → u/ARWYK]

Studies have shown that people are much more likely to believe something if the information comes from a study.

[u/GoneMirifica → u/ARWYK]

Considering the very limited amount of actual evidences about the so called "mind theory", neuroscience and actual studies into why these phenomenon exist and why the brain behave that way and can have that kind of influence are very much needed.

Trying to approach things scientifically and not spiritually (with unfalsifiable concepts like the "mind") can definitely help our understanding of the brain and our overall understanding of our bodies. Instead of considering that everything we currently don't know how to explain is caused by the "mind".

[u/ARWYK → u/GoneMirifica]

The embodied mind is not a metaphysical concept but a very real psychological theory.

It’s based on the assumption that mind and body are not two separate entities but a single inseparable monolith. So understanding the mind is understanding the body.

Some proof of this is found in the seminal studies of James and Lange on human emotions and their arousal theory. Their idea is that emotions are the cognitive product of physiological arousal. In simpler terms an increased heart rate is interpreted by us as fear or joy based on our analysis of the situation.

If the embodied mind theory were not true, this phenomenon couldn’t be possible.

[u/Ok-Cook-7542 → u/chrisdh79]

i dont really get it... my entire past combined effects every moment of my present and future. its not like every neuropathway expires after 2 weeks, in fact a large portion of them literally never expire over your entire lifetime

[u/Montaigne314 → u/chrisdh79]

I'm still recovering from the time I heard birds chirping in my backyard as a kid and it woke me up.

[u/Simple_Little_Boy → u/chrisdh79]

This study is kind of ridiculous and reasons why I hate articles like this. It was just 1 person they analyzed for 133 days. There was no traditional control in this study no comparison.

While it’s great to do the research, to make conclusions off such a ridiculously low sample, low tenure study is insane. You all need to read the studies these articles talk about and see how they came up with these conclusions before taking it to heart.