nucleus nucleus a
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s c i e n c e
m a g a z i n e
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m a g a z i n e
November 2018
Dear Reader,
Editor In Chief
Alice M Koltchev
Managing Editors Alicja KrawczunRygmaczewska Robert Taylor Exec Assistant
Karolina Fratzcak
Photography
Kit Komarov
Illustration
Annie Adams
Authors
Charley Boyles Jada Coker Georgia Cook Ramana McConnon Isabella Munford Francesca Puletti Richard Rodrigo
Find Us Online! thenucleusmagazine.co.uk Instagram: @thenucleusmag facebook.com/thenucleusmag the.nucleus.magazine@gmail.com If you have a story idea, or would like to get involved, we will be happy to hear from you!
When I got to King’s in 2016, I was looking forward to joining a newspaper or magazine. Instead, I found myself a member of a handful of other fabulous societies without any time to join yet another. I had forgotten my desire to write until I had a series of articles sent to me in our family group chat detailing fascinating research that had been done at our university. What struck me wasn’t that KCL is a top research university - I already knew that - but rather that there wasn’t a media platform for students to easily learn about these things. I shared some of these thoughts with some friends and professors within King’s neuroscience department. Knowing my experience working as editor-in-chief at my school’s news magazine, they encouraged me to try and make this happen. And so, The Nucleus Magazine was born. A nucleus is many things - in physics, it is the center of an atom - in space, it is the head of a comet - in the body, it is the cell’s essential epicenter of information. Universally, a nucleus is a significant and central basis for the growth of everything around it. This magazine maintains this definition by becoming a center for science at our university. The Nucleus is a student-run method of updating our peers on the research happening here while delving into the stories of the professionals behind them. I want The Nucleus to be a source anyone in our community can go to for scientific news, articles, interviews, and more. This issue you’re holding wouldn’t be possible without the many dedicated hours the team has put in, all while juggling dozens of other responsibilities. I am boundlessly thankful to them and proud of what we have done — I hope you enjoy our magazine!
Sincerely, Alice Monica Koltchev Editor in Chief
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CONTENTS November 2018
Feature 08
Curating Science Gallery London by Alice Koltchev - photography by Kit Komarov
10
Seven Questions with Dr Ivo Lieberam by Alicja
22
Jada Coker
Krawczun-Rygmaczewska
14
who is Dr Clemens Kiecker by Alice Koltchev
Review 18
Neuroaesthetics
by
Francesca Puletti - illustrated by Annabel Adams
6 • The Nucleus • November 2018
You Probably Have Herpes but it’s OK by
24
Social Media: Rise or Downfall? by Charley Boyles
26
A debate on a vegan diet: The Bio-Accessibility of Food by Richard Rodrigo
30
Six Secrets of Meat Georgia Cook
by
CONTENTS
32
08
The Root of Allergies
10 38
by Isabella Munford
14
International Neurosurgical Conference and submissions by Sanchita Bhatia and Theo
News 34
GLAD: Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression by Ramana
Vasiloiu
Opinion 41
Deconstructing Patterns by Georgia Cook
by Isabella Munford-
illustrated by Karolina Fratzcak
McConnon
36
Ember
42
The Modern Reality of Human Salience and Reward by Robert Taylor thenucleusmagazine.co.uk • 7
“The Abyss” by Fabio Lattanzi Antinori, part of the Free Will section discussing everpresent advertisement
CURATING SCIENCE GALLERY LONDON Hannah Redler-Hawes and the HOOKED exhibit written by Alice Koltchev - photography by Kit Komarov “Sugar Rush” by Atelier 010, part of Natural Born Thrillers section, echoing society’s revolution around things that fail
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F EATURE
“Curtain of Broken Dreams” by Natasha Caruana exploring addiction’s effects on family life and divorce
“Once I started working in the world of science,” ref lects Hannah Redler-Hawes, curator of The Science Gallery London’s current exhibit, “I became completely absorbed and fascinated by it.” After graduating with an arts degree in the 1990s, Redler-Hawes teamed up with some friends to create a digital media company, swiftly connecting her with “artists working with software, which I didn’t know anything about in any of my arts education at the time.” “I found this fascinating,” remembers RedlerHawes, and her career quickly migrated to museums: specifically, the Science Museum, where she expanded her artistic scope to encompass climate change, biomedical sciences, energy, and digital arts. As someone coming from a “biased” arts education, Redler-Hawes has become dedicated to her “dream place, an interdisciplinary between arts and science.” Redler-Hawes, who is also Head of Arts Programme at the London Science Museum and has worked to create exhibits with the Open Data Institute, Tate Modern, Natural History Museum, and others, says the physical space inhabited by the Science Gallery London is a “beautiful mishmash of the building, reclaiming the space, that’s now a public area that people now come to gather; hundreds of people joining up here, which is a real gift.”
The gallery’s inaugural exhibit, entitled ‘HOOKED: When Want Becomes Need,” brings to light addictions experienced by the vast majority of the population: sugar, smartphones, advertising and social media, as well as the more ‘classical’ addictions like alcoholism, and the ultimate effects of addictions on daily life. The gallery has worked very closely with King’s College London: Redler-Hawes was referred to experts on addiction at King’s, who would then “introduce [her] to other colleagues, making it quite a big group effort.” “There’s no piece of art that deals directly with any specific addiction in the gallery,” Redler-Hawes explains. Each highly specific theme, such as food or sex addiction, is addressed in a series of events. In collecting and commissioning pieces for the exhibit, Redler-Hawes aimed to “tell stories, ask open-ended questions” rather than dictate a specific message. “Anything with addiction is not a result of deviating from society,” concludes Redler-Hawes. “It’s very much a part of being in society.”
About the Author Alice Koltchev is a 3rd year Neuroscience student with a particular interest in nervous system injury and degeneration.
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10 • The Nucleus • November 2018
optogenetics
INTERVIEW
Seven Questions with Dr Ivo Lieberam about
by Alicja Krawczun-Rygmaczewksa For the past few years we’ve been hearing more and more about new, state-of-the-art research technique called Optogenetics. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Ivo Lieberam who is a senior lecturer at King’s and runs his own lab at the Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine, where he works with optogenetic techniques almost every day. We had the opportunity to discuss optogenetics itself as well as his own projects. Q
First, could you please sum up what optogenetics is, in one sentence for the readers.
A Optogenetics is a new, biological technique that allows you, more or less for the first time, to exactly control the firing pattern of neurons you might be interested in with light. It is based on a gene, cloned from an algae species (called Chlamydomonas) which is essentially a light-gated ion channel you can express in any biological context you want – a mouse cell, a human cell or f ly cell. Then, when you expose the cell that carries this transgene to light of a certain wavelength, it will depolarize and as a result – if it’s a neuron – fire an action potential. Just like that, you can feed your own information into the neural circuit. That’s what optogenetics is about.
Q In the Nature’s review of optogenetic studies, they talk about three levels of optogenetic control: cell level, circuit level and whole brain level. Could you think of any examples for each of those levels?
A The cell level is pretty straight forward – if you want to explore electrical properties of individual neurons, you put channelrhodopsin into them, expose them to light and see how they respond by recording their activity, for example, by patch clamping - probably the easiest experimental system. You could look at a circuit level either in vitro or in vivo. In that case you’d probably have a whole population of neurons that would express channelrhodopsin. You record their activity, probably not by patch clamping since you can’t patch clamp a thousand neurons at the same time, but you could use optical methods to see how activity wave distributes in that circuit. If you start signal with optogenetics, you shine light on the spot, then you can see how that then leads to a chain reaction. On systems level, well you could - and that has been done, obviously — put channelrhodopsin into the cells of the motor cortex, shine light on a mouse or a rat that carries this transgene and elicit very specific behavior. Basically, you can remote-control that animal.
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Q That sounds very sci-fi even to a scientist,
A Yes, obviously! That is precisely why we are
doesn’t it? Now, I would like to focus on your projects. If I understand correctly, you are involved in restoring motor abilities to mice with spinal cord injury? Could you talk more about that?
developing these devices, certainly not to cure mice but to help cure the spinal cord injury or ALS. This is the idea. Some of the aspects of this technology already exist. For example with the spinal cord injury the complication pathway between the brain and the motor neurons directly controlling the muscle is broken and the motor neurons don’t receive any input from the motor cortex. You could circumvent the lesion in the spinal cord by reading intent with electrode array which would be implanted on the motor cortex. You could be reading the patient’s mind and that technology already exists! Then, you could feed the intent circumventing the lesioned spinal cord directly into the optogenetic device and, in principle, you could control many groups of muscles, not just one.
A Yes, in my group we have two interests in my lab. First, we want to develop a new type of neuroprosthesis, a neuroimplant if you like, which has some similarity I would say to a cardiac pacemaker - it would also be able to impose a contraction pattern on muscles. For our study we have chosen the diaphragm. In contrast to cardiac pacemaker, the neuroimplant would not interfere with muscles through the electrodes, but through biological tissues. Essentially the idea is to have small optoelectronic device that would produce light flashes and could be controlled remotely. It would communicate with the body not through an artificial structure but it would have stem cell-derived optogenetic neurons embedded in it, which becomes sort of a body-machine interface. The idea behind the new neuroprothesis is to have a machine that is partially biological. We have a proof of principle study with Professor Linda Greensmith’s group at UCL where we implant optogenetic motor neurons to ganglion nerve of a mouse and then control specifically the activity of muscle contraction. That wasn’t a fully implantable device, so light had to be extrinsic - we make a small incision above the nerve and then we have a light guide illuminating the nerve. Still, it was a proof of principle that this brain-machine interface we are aiming for can work.
Q It is def initely a revolutionary idea. One might say it sounds like taken out of one of the TV shows like Netf lix’s Maniac where participants of the drug study are taking pills and then the special light is f lashed at them to activate the drug. Which leads me to the question you might have already answered. Do you think it’s possible, or rather how long do you think it would take, for us to start using those optogenetic devices in humans, perhaps in the same way we are now using Deep Brain Stimulators?
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The reason why we aimed for breathing in this study is because diaphragm has a relatively simple mechanism; it basically contracts and then passively re-bounces which is enough to drive breathing. Whereas if you wanted to make somebody walk, you’d probably have to control around 40 different muscles in a very specific sequence. I think this is also possible at some point, but it is definitely not the point where you want to start.
Q How long do you think then it could take to start using this technology to help people with spinal cord injury or ALS?
A I think it is not going to go into clinical practice within the next five years. More realistically we could talk about the next 15-20 years. And it’s not just the modulation of motor function. It is an obvious application because you have very defined targets, namely the muscles. But you could also control or tune other bodily functions. We have an interest now in epilepsy and that is a new project we are collaborating on. We could devise optogenetic or maybe chemogenetic neurons and then control the activity to dampen the excitation in the brain ,which is essentially what is driving the epileptic activity. And we’re doing another project where we are basically building a bridge into the glial scars in
INTERVIEW
A look inside Dr Ivo Lieberam’s lab: his PhD students (left) and some tissue colonies (right).
spinal cord injury. All these are based on genetically modified stem cell derived neurons that are either chemogenetic or optogenetic.
Q That sounds very exciting. Makes you think about all the future research possibilities.
A : We also have another interest in my lab. That is in fact what most of my funding goes towards. It turned out to be quite difficult to fund these in vivo projects because they’re quite eccentric so funders or editors either love it or hate it. We’ve had this experience when we published this in vivo study with Linda. Nature rejected it in hours and Science editors loved it. So it just shows how much depends on the editors and the reviewers. Even at the same level it can be really unpredictable how they react. It is quite an interesting experience. So we are also interested in in vitro modeling, this is what most of my research focuses on. We are basically building labs on chips, so compartmentalized devices that carry stem cell derived neurons and glia in one compartment and they would have microchannells, and in the next compartment you’d have the target. We think that these types of devices are the future for drug screening. A lot of the drugs
are screened on cellular systems, only remotely related to what target you would have in a patient eventually. If you can have a mini-circuit that is a much better and realistic approximation to what the drug is supposed to act on and you probably have a better chance on getting a realistic response. That is the new, main interest of my lab.
Q Much more resembling a real-life type of the situations right?
A : Yes, and these projects are less long-term and less eccentric. They involve collaborating with physicians or material scientists – which is a completely different world for me which also introduces new challenges in finding a common language. It is also interesting experience because it forces you to work with people who are far out of your comfort zone. And that do things that are very different from what you are doing.
About the Author Alicja Krawczun-Rygmaczewska is a third year Neuroscience student with a special interest in memory and the origins of consciousness.
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14 • The Nucleus • November 2018
F EATURE
Dr Clemens Kiecker A glance into the life of a developmental neurobiologist by Alice Koltchev “I was quite a geeky teenager,” laughs Dr Clemens Kiecker, a senior lecturer, group leader at King’s College London’s Department for Developmental Neurobiology, and winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2014.
magazines and realized that “the nineties were a very good time for Developmental Biology:” the scientific community was boasting discoveries of organizers and regulatory factors allowing the formation of an organism based on its genetic instructions.
“As a teenager I loved chemistry, but when I decided what I want to study, Chemistry seemed a bit too limiting at the time.” Clemens instead completed a Biochemistry degree at Freie Universitat Berlin: a welcome, forward-looking, and interesting challenge.
In 1997, the Niehrs group had recently published a paper detailing the discovery of a new gene called dickkopf1, or dkk1, “which I know sounds rather rude,” Clemens interjects, “but in German it just means stubborn or big-headed.”
Now, Clemens jokes that he has become “practically part of the furniture [at King’s,]” teaching anatomy, neuroscience, and embryology while waiting for a journal to hear about a recently submitted paper.
At the start of his PhD, the new dkk1 gene was relatively poorly understood beyond its classification as a wnt inhibitor. Knowing that he wanted to pursue a career in academia and research, Clemens sees his choice to do his PhD in the Niehrs lab as “a mix of opportunity and genuine interest.”
Before moving to London in 2001, Clemens grew up in Berlin, where he completed his undergraduate diploma before pursuing a PhD in biology at Heidelberg University. “I just saw a poster, an advertisement, for a PhD position in Heidelberg,” Clemens remembers, “and it turned out that the guy who advertised it had studied Biochemistry in Berlin, done a PhD in Heidelberg and a postdoc in the US and came back and has started his own lab.” This was Professor Christof Niehrs, who has since become a Founding, Scientific, and Executive director of the Institute of Molecular Biology in Mainz, Germany. Clemens had f lipped through scientific
The first part of Clemens’ PhD, trying to identify potential effectors of the dkk1 gene, didn’t yield many results, prompting him to get “a little sidetracked” and venture into the realm of biochemistry. “To make a long story short,” Clemens says, “in the first year of my PhD nothing really worked, and I think that’s very typical... Very often you have long periods of drought, it’s very rare in science that a project works all the time, and often you need to try and try again.” As he was doing work with dkk1, though, he “stumbled across another gene,” also recently published and with very little knowledge on the mechanisms involved. Clemens switched gears and began
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injecting embryos with this new gene, which was naturally very exciting until, half a year later, a group announced that they had found exactly what he’d been working on. “I was really distressed and unhappy about it, and frustrated,” Clemens reflects, “so then the question was basically ‘What now?’” In the Niehrs lab, it appeared as though everyone was working on the dkk1 gene, leading Clemens to find something “that would be [his] own project.” Thus, instead of pursuing dkk1 and its role in promoting anterior (and head) development in a growing embryo, “which there is this underlying idea that anterior development happens by default,” Clemens endeavoured to understand the promotion of posterior (trunk/tail) development. The hypothesis was that the relationship between the posterior signals and the anterior signals is an antagonizing one, allowing the body axis, head to tail, to develop. “We took this one further,” Clemens explains, building upon a 1950s study establishing a posterior-to-anterior signalling gradient and focusing on the central nervous system (which encompasses the brain and spinal cord), largely due to the ease with which the prospective forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain, and spinal cord could be visualised using genetic markers. “At that point things started to work really well,” Clemens says. “There’s no guarantee, of course, that things will start to work, but you need to be tenacious to some extent to get there.” He published his PhD thesis in early 2001, followed by a couple of review articles and book chapters, which was “really fun.” This experience prompted his ultimate interest in central nervous system development and he found a post-doctoral position at King’s College London with Professor Andrew Lumsden, founder of the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King’s. He had lunch with Andrew Lumsden to talk about the job, and had moved to London by December 2001. This was “daunting and exciting at the same time,” he explains. He was able to move into an
16 • The Nucleus • November 2018
accommodation with friends and “basically fell into a made nest, so to say.” The only true difficulty, Clemens explains, was setting up phone numbers and bank accounts. “I thought, I’m German, normally Germans have, like, this reputation for being really bureaucratic,” he laughs, “but I found that the British can be really quite bureaucratic.” Regardless, Clemens found himself in an extremely welcoming environment; colleagues took him to lunch and parties and helped smooth his transition into the workplace at King’s, “and there was this international capacity of developmental biology showing me how to dissect chicken embryos.” By 2010, Clemens was offered a lectureship at King’s, which he felt was the natural next step for him in his career while also allowing him to stay in London, “which by that point felt like it was essential.” “I felt like since I’d moved,” Clemens reflects, “not that I’d had a horrible time before, but since I’d moved to london that was kind of the best time of my life.” By that point, London had grown to represent “a network of friends, I’ve got a house here now, my partner is English… at some point you want to put your roots down somewhere.” Clemens now “enjoys the luxury” of being able to be involved both in education and in conducting research. As someone who enjoys teaching, he finds that that part of his work somewhat eases the pressures of having to constantly secure research funding. Just like the rest of society, the major funding bodies have been affected by the global financial crisis in 2008, making the research funding situation more competitive. However, Clemens is reassuring that pursuing a passion in the basic sciences is entirely possible, as nearly half of Research Council funding is dedicated to Medical, Biological, and Biotechnological Sciences. Beyond a career in research, Clemens enjoys making his impact on society by helping to educate the “scientists and doctors of tomorrow:… obviously science is very important - but you work on a very, very specific, minute piece of the puzzle,” he explains. By leaning into education, “I’m also capitalizing on
by the need to develop a cure for a disease... It was much more like… the same reason as to why astrophysicists use strong telescopes to look into space. It’s more about there being a phenomenon, and I want to understand it.”
If you’re interested in more about the science, read the box below!
About the Author
Clemens continues to search for further understanding in the field of embryology and neuroanatomy, reflecting that he has “never been driven much
Alice Koltchev is a 3rd year Neuroscience student with a particular interest in nervous system injury and degeneration.
Prof Niehrs & dkk1 dkk1, dickkhopf-1, is a Wnt-signalling inhibitor crucial for the regulation of anterior-posterior patterning, eye formation, limb development, and other processes fundamental to a vertebrate’s development. Wnt is essential for embryonic patterning: forebrain formation requires Wnt inhibition, while conversely, Wnt must be present to form the spinal cord. Thus, injecting dkk1 into Xenopus embryos inhibits Wnt signalling and yeilds frogs with bigger heads and shorter trunks and tails. dkk1 antagonizes the Wnt/β-catenin pathway by reducing β-catenin, a protein essential for embryonic patterning and stem cell renewal, as well as a morphogen in epithelial cells. Dr Clemens Kiecker’s question was the following: do Wnt signals function as morphogens to regulate the head-to-tail axis in a dose-dependent fashion? In other words, he was looking to understand whether progressively more Wnt present posteriorly in the embryo will result in the formation of progressively posterior central nervous system structures (forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain, and spinal cord). It was ultimately found that, indeed, a gradient of Wnt/β-catenin signalling is responsible and essential for the patterning the frog’s central nervous system.
Prof Lumsden and ZLI signaling During embryonic development, neurulation, the process of transforming the neural plate into the neural tube, is known to feature two main organizing
F EATURE
what my strengths are.” Now, in collaboration with a group of researchers at King’s, Clemens has discovered a new placode, a specialised structure of the embryo that contributes to components of the sensory nervous and neuroendocrine system.
centers, dictating the boundaries between the brain regions. The Midbrain-Hindbrain Boundary (MHB) or isthmic organizer functions as its name implies, and the anterior neural boundary/ridge (ANR) is essential for the formation of the forebrain. The MHB relies on FGF8 and Wnt1 to induce formation of the midbrain, cerebellum, and hindbrain, while the ANR expresses Emx1 and dlx to establish forebrain positional identity. The Zona Limitans Intrathalamica (ZLI), a wedge of cells in the diencephalon, was shown by Lumsden and Kiecker to rely on Shh (Sonic hedgehog, a morphogenic protein) signalling for both the growth and regional identity of the diencephalon. In fact, the thalamus and prethalamus, located on either side of the ZLI, demonstrate differential responses to Shh signaling, and that thalamic differentiation is a sequential process, where Wnt signaling pre-patterns the diencephalon before ZLI Shh expression induces its development.
Dr Kiecker and the pineal placode Previously, the pineal gland, involved in circadian rhythms, was thought to be derived from the neural plate, a central nervous system predecessor. Current work at KCL has found evidence that the pineal gland is also arising from the adjacent non-neural ectoderm which typically develops into placodes. It follows that the group have uncovered a new, pineal placode.
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NEURO-
Why the conception of beauty is different for each of us and how our brain is involved in the perception of it. written by Francesca Puletti illustrated by Annabel Adams 18 • The Nucleus • November 2018
RE VIEW
-AESTHETICS “Beauty is not a quality of things themselves: it exists only in the mind who contemplates it”. David Hume What is “beauty?” Is it defined by the symmetry of your face, is it your age, colour, body shape? Or is it defined by what you see through the media or popular culture. Is it defined by the “feeling of the heart”?
Zeki likes to explain the real sense of “beauty” using the definition of Edmund Burke: “Beauty is property of objects, acting mechanically upon human mind to the intervention of the senses.”
Let us think about a picture, a beautiful painting that we love or a beautiful face. How do you feel? Why are some images more attractive than others? Is beauty objective? What stimulates our emotional systems in front of an image considered beautiful and what actually happens in our brain?
“I think that people make a great mistake when they talk about beauty either belonging to the brain or belonging to the word outside the brain,” Zeki explains. “Beauty belongs to both”.
The appreciation of beauty evoked when someone is faced with a painting of Velazquez, the colours of Van Gogh, the classic representations of Botticelli, the harmonious force in the music of Beethoven, or the grandiose architecture of Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia, requires a high degree of visual and auditory consciousness, and a refined education in sensory perception. Beauty can also be evoked beyond the sensory world in ideas: a physicist could speak of the beauty of the general theory of relativity and a mathematician could speak of beauty while admiring a formula. Beauty is all around us. It graces the cover of magazines, inf luences the shape of almost everything from your shirt to your car to the chair you are probably sitting in right now. Indeed, all these ref lexes and emotions that we tend to attribute to beauty are nothing more than a response of particular areas in our brain. The investigation of the neuronal structures involved in the fruition of art and beauty is the object of the new branch of neuroscience called “neuroaesthetics”, a term coined by the neurobiologist Semir Zeki.
It follows that our knowledge of the external world is dependent on what our brain makes us believe: we can never know the world as it is, but only as it seems to us. Beauty is a very personal experience that can differ depending on time, culture, traditions, etc. It is in the eye of the beholder: the intensity with which it is perceived is determined by the observing brain. The research on neuro-aesthetic mechanisms of the brain is focused on this specific activation of the viewer’s brain structures. In front of a work of art, the perception of beauty and ugliness is a personal choice based on subjective emotions: the right amygdala is activated in front of what one considers beautiful (the medial frontal orbit bark reacts more to beautiful stimuli than to ugly or neutral ones); if, on the other hand, our judgment is negative, the left motor cortex is activated. There is a neuronal basis for the perception of artistic beauty, which happens to be the same for the beauty of the faces. When someone looks at a painting, mirror neurons are activated, which allow us to perceive, experience, and replicate actions or emotions belonging to others. It has been ascertained that portraits activate the facial-recognition area of the fusiform gyrus while landscapes stimulate the area
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for recognition of places in the para-hippocampal site. Art also activates the reward circuit of the brain. A visual aesthetic experience can also affect the areas of the ventral visual cortex, where opioid µ receptors, typically involved in pleasant sensations, allow us to make a judgment of appreciation. The increased neuronal activity of the ventral tegmental area causes the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the ventral striatum and in the caudate nucleus (a component of the reward system.) This provokes the pleasure we experience from the artistic works. Faced with beautiful images, the orbitofrontal cortex, the cingulate cortex, and the insula are also activated. Activation is seen in the orbitofrontal cortex when falling in love, too. The cingulate and the frontal cortices also react to other sources of pleasure such as music and architecture. Beauty does not really exist in the artistic work; beauty is genuine and personal, created by those who contemplate the artwork. In other words, the beholder would actively create in his brain his own conception of beauty which would involve knowledge, an abstraction or idea, emotion and pleasure. If beauty could be seen as an objective property, everyone would perceive it in the same way. The reality is the opposite: there is no universal agreement on what is considered excellence in beauty. The aesthetic experience is accompanied by emotions related to the perception of something that the subject evaluates as beautiful. This is why we distinguish between a careful, cognitive, and affective moment within the aesthetic experience. The careful moment is established when we are attracted by the aesthetic experience and this involvement create in us the interest and curiosity of understand it. The affective moment is the precise instant when we are able to completely comprehend the experience, thanks to the mirror neurons and the empathy they produce in us; is this moment the aesthetic experience provokes a response in our brain. The cognitive component is the most problematic part in describing an aesthetic experience. Cognition, as defined by the philosophy Immanuel
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Kant in his “Critique of Pure Reason,” has two sources: the receptiveness of impressions and the spontaneity of concepts that is attributed to the faculty of understanding. Following Kant’ reasoning, the aesthetic experience provokes joy in the subjects, regardless of what we know about it. We cannot explain exactly why we like a particular object. This is why he states that “beauty is what, without a concept, is universally loved”. The universality of judgment on beauty among human beings is, according to Kant, guaranteed by the fact that the sensation of pleasure from the perception of beauty is common to all human beings. It affects us all in the same way, it activates the same part of our brain in all humans beings. Semir Zeki refers directly to Kant’s thoughts and suggests that what Kant means by “mind” (as a disposition to know reality) can be understood as a brain. According to Zeki, “all knowledge is knowledge of the brain.” The main difference between him and Kant is that while Kant assumes that the idea of beauty is independent of all previous experiences, Zeki believes that “our concept of what is beautiful changes when we see more and more objects or situations, or how we find in different cultural environments.” “I think we have an inclination to beauty,” Zeki explains, “and this propensity is almost genetically determined.” For Zeki we are animal with an innate
RE VIEW
Abstract photo of paint resembling neuronal connections, courtesy of Lurm on Unsplash
pretension to what is beautiful. From Plato and his math theory, to Monet and his abstract painting, to Galvani and his scientific work: we all are in search of beauty in our lives.
and biological instinct, as the choice of the partner makes no difference. Contrarily, we are pushed to “fall in love” and reproduce with whom we consider attractive or “beautiful”.
Zeki’s example is mathematics which, for him, is the higher form of beauty used to understand the universe and the nature. However, math is beautiful only for us. Math makes sense, but only to our logical system, to our brain. An animal would never be able to understand a mathematical equation.
Beauty, something so central to our lives, depends on activations of particular brain areas. Beauty is essential to our lives. Beauty is not inside of what is considered beautiful, but is only in the eye of the beholder: in the different brain areas belonging to each one of us.
This originates from the fact that we are evolved creatures capable of understanding beauty and, more importantly, attracted to it. This depends from a more developed brain that is capable of comprehending, appreciating and creating what is beautiful. An example is sexual reproduction: animals are not lead by attraction or beauty when they sexually reproduce, they are only guided by their natural
Thus, the developing field of neuro-aesthetics is striving to understand what structures in the brain correlate to our individualized perception of beauty.
About the Author Francesca Puletti is a first year Neuroscience student with a special interest in the field of neuroaesthetics.
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YOU PROBABLY HAVE HERPES, BUT IT’S OK by Jada Coker One of the most interesting facts about Herpes, and perhaps also one of the least well publicised, is that it affects two out of every three people on the planet. At least 67% of adults worldwide suffer from Herpes according to a study released by the World Health Organisation in 2012, and many individuals don’t actually know that they suffer from it. For such a ubiquitous disease, the word ‘Herpes’ is still loaded with a magnitude of negative social connotations – despite the fact that each of us are more likely to have it than not. Perhaps it’s because ‘Herpes’ is a word we associate with sexually transmitted disease; it’s a social taboo, often conjuring up an image of licentious, sexually promiscuous individuals. This profile, however, isn’t always accurate - there are some forms of Herpes that actually aren’t sexually transmitted, and even practicing ‘safe sex’ or sticking to one sexual partner doesn’t always prevent Herpes transmission – so why does Herpes have this reputation? How has the social stigma become so bad that sufferers of it have been known to commit suicide after diagnosis? Why do these people feel ashamed despite being one of 3.7 billion people to suffer from the disease? To understand the stigma surrounding Herpes, it’s important to understand the nature of the Herpes virus – or Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) – itself. HSV belongs to a family of DNA viruses known as ‘Herpesviridae’, a family to which diseases such as chicken pox, shingles, and Mono also belong. HSV is a ‘virus for life’, meaning that after initial infection the virus takes up residence in the soma, or cell bodies, of your sensory nerve cells, where it remains for life. Most individuals with HSV won’t suffer any symptoms at all, while others will experience small, virus-filled blisters that typically occur in clusters around the mouth, tongue or genitalia.
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HSV comes in two variations – HSV-1, typically affecting the mouth and tongue, and HSV-2, common to the genitalia – although there is a great deal of crossover with HSV-1 causing up to 40% of genital herpes. HSV-1 is most frequently acquired during childhood, often from contact with a relative who has an oral lesion or ‘cold sore’. Transmission typically occurs through skin-to-skin contact, which is why condoms (which protect against fluid-borne viruses) are often ineffective unless covering the affected area. Although the risk of transmission is highest when active sores are present, HSV can still be transmitted when skin appears normal (due to viral shedding). Symptoms of HSV are most likely to be present during childhood; along with the characteristic sores around the vermillion border (tongue and mouth) children may also experience fever and enlarged lymph nodes. In adults the symptoms, if they do occur, can be accompanied by cold-like symptoms and pharyngitis. Being a latent disease, reactivation of the herpes virus is common and typically triggered by factors such as stress or illness. There are often no symptoms upon reactivation, and when there are, the blisters tend to be smaller, less painful and heal more rapidly. Physiologically speaking, a Herpes outbreak does very little damage to the body in comparison to other incurable STDs such as HIV and HPV. Despite this, Herpes has still been vilified by popular culture, referred to as “The New Scarlett Letter” in a Time magazine article featuring the disease from 1982, and has continued to be seen as a hallmark of moral decline and sexual liberation ever since. But the scientific data just doesn’t fit this profile – so where is the stigma coming from? Ella Dawson, a social media manager diagnosed
Doctors don’t encourage Herpes testing, Dawson explains. There are various reasons for this: Dr Sunil Goyal, MD, suggests to Broadly magazine that “[up to] 90 percent of the US adult population has been exposed to herpes or carries herpes, so getting tested is basically a moot point.” This view is common to healthcare professionals, who believe diagnosing an asymptomatic patient with HSV would cause unwarranted psychological distress. Dawson believes that because of this, however, most people aren’t aware that they might have HSV and could be transmitting it to others. Popular culture also contributes to Herpes stigma, by often portraying it as some sort of insult or joke. The majority of characters that catch STDs typically fit in with the ‘sexually promiscuous’ stereotype, and often learn a lesson about responsibility at the end of their disease. Dawson argues this portrayal harms those living with incurable disease like HIV and Herpes who don’t fit this stereotype at all. Lastly, whilst sex education is generally effective in promoting the use of condoms, regular STD testing and methods to avoid pregnancy, Ella argues that most students aren’t taught what to do in the case that they actually catch an STD – an eventuality which Dawson believes is practically inevitable. “An STI, especially Herpes, is not a reflection of your character or a bad decision; it is an inevitability of being a human being on this planet that comes into skin contact with other human beings,” she summarises to her audience.
that really worries you then you can take suppressive therapies – where you take a tablet every day to reduce the chances of getting an outbreak – but actually, most people don’t need that.” Dr. Baraitser introduced the SH:24 website, where individuals can ask sexual health-related questions online or via text at any time of day, and have these concerns answered by clinicians. The platform is also currently developing a ‘photo diagnosis’ service, which would allow patients to get diagnosed and treated without ever having to go into clinic, by sending in a photo the affected area.
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with HSV-1 during her third year of college, elucidates her view on where the stigma is coming from: during her TED talk entitled ‘STIs aren’t a consequence they’re inevitable’, Dawson proposes three sources of Herpes stigma: sex education, popular culture and doctors themselves.
Ultimately, having Herpes really isn’t all that bad. The New England Journal of Medicine documents that, “for the majority of suffers, the psychological effects are far more severe than the physical consequences of the disease,” highlighting how benign a disease it really is. Dr. Baraitser reflects, “all of these [STDs] are either easily treatable or manageable and there’s so much anxiety and unhappiness about that when there really shouldn’t be.” When asked where this unhappiness might be coming from, she simply replies that “people aren’t talking about it enough.”
About the Author Jada Coker is a first year medical student with a special interest in immunity and infection research.
So what if do you get Herpes? This is a question I asked Dr. Paula Baraitser, a sexual health consultant at King’s College Hospital and the director of an online sexual health platform, SH:24. Dr. Baraitser suggests that if you get Herpes, the best thing to do is not to worry. “You might never have an attack again,” she explains, “or you may have attacks when you’re run down, in the sun, or have a cold. If it’s something
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SOCIAL MEDIA: OUR RISE OR DOWNFALL? by Charley Boyles From the minute we wake up till the minute we go to sleep, social media plays a constant and unrelenting role in our lives. Whether it’s refreshing your Instagram feed, watching videos on Facebook or checking Twitter for live updates; it is undeniable that social media has revolutionised the way in which we consume content. The benefits to social media are clear, with its ability to keep people in touch from miles away or its capability of spreading messages with a vast reach no other platform has. However, at what cost? Yougov reported in 2016 that one in four students suffer from mental health with over 70% of those suffering with depression and anxiety. According to research done by Jean M. Twenge and colleagues in 2010, during the rise of the mobile phone there was a correlation between mobile phone overuse, depression and even suicides in adolescents. With this huge surge in anxiety and depression amongst young people its relationship with the evolution of mobile phones cannot be ignored.
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So why are we so obsessed with Instagram? Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a common psychological state wherein one worry others are living much higher quality and desirable lives. In a 2017 study of Facebook users, Buglass et al found that FOMO mediates the relationship between increased social media usage and decreased self-esteem with users. Studies showing low self-esteem may motivate a FOMO-induced increased rate of social media network usage and an increase in online self-promotion. Essentially, we’re worried others are living better and more fulfilled lives leading us to get online and promote ourselves to give the impression ours are of equal quality. We’re often finding ourselves repeatedly checking our phones throughout the day in search of a new message or notification. This is explained by a phenomenon known as the dopamine loop. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain important in the regulation of reward-motivated
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“Sisyphus” by Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos, photograph courtesy of Science Gallery London
behaviour. It is thought of as the main chemical of pleasure, however, current research shows dopamine to be responsible for signalling the value of an outcome and therefore motiving you to do whatever you need to achieve that outcome. This desire to seek can be instantly gratified with the accessibility of interaction at the touch of a button. Want to speak to someone? Watch a video? You can instantly satisfy all this dopamine-induced seeking behaviour with the likes of social media and the internet. The instant reward our phones offer us, induces more seeking action. The cycle of behaviour is why we often find it so hard to put our phones down. Robert Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinologist who discusses the role of anticipation in the release of dopamine in the brain, with dopamine being released in anticipation of the pleasure. The dopamine system is sensitive to cues, such as a notification alert or message, the acknowledgement that something is about to happen is what increases our dopamine. The anticipation of pleasure is what keeps the loop going, the more unpredictable the result cue, the more dopamine released. This explains why notifications on your phone are so inviting, the anticipation of the reward paired with the unpredictability of the result. In a book written by Leslie Perlow, she reveals that 70% of people check their phones within an
hour of waking up and 48% would feel irritable and very anxious if they couldn’t have contact with theirphones for a week. These staggering statistics show just how attached we are to these devices, with mobile phone addiction being a recognised dependency syndrome with similarities in some cases to substance use disorders. One theory for the psychological effects of mobile phone overuse dictates that the more people are on their phone, the less human interaction they are having, therefore this is what could be contributing to their higher reported levels of depression. So how do we beat our enslavement to the dopamine loop? Its no mean feat, our phones are constantly with us and have boundless amounts of information on them. However, making a conscious effort to reduce our phone usage and social media intake could be beneficial for our health. Minimising or turning off push notifications on your phone seems to be the first logical step. Secondly, when you catch yourself engrossed in a dopamine cycle, exit the app, put your phone down and try to do something a little more productive.
About the Author Charley Boyles is a third year Neuroscience student with a special interest in cellular neuroscience and the effect of drugs within the central nervous system.
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THE BIO-ACCESSIBILITY OF FOOD Is a vegan diet nutritionally sustainable? by Richard Rodrigo Most of us, if considering a vegan diet, will have done some research on what to eat to make sure you don’t die of a nutrition deficiency. This research is often met with surprise and relief, as fruits and vegetables contain a wide array of almost all the minerals and vitamins found in animal products. However, just because a food contains certain minerals or vitamins does not mean that you are necessarily able to digest them, and this can be even more so true for fruits and vegetables. A food’s ‘bio-accessibility’ is the proportion of a nutrient that can be released from the physicochemical matrix it is contained within, and then be absorbed by the body. The best way to work around
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the difficulties of bio-accessibility is to eat a wide range of foods, health professionals usually recommend people to eat more plant-foods to do this; but wouldn’t completely cutting out any other food group make gathering a full spectrum of essential nutrients more difficult? Plant foods do not all have the same bio-accessibility purely because they are all unique, and it is dependent on several factors. These include the state of the physicochemical matrix that the nutrient is contained within, as if it is not easily ruptured then very little of the nutrient will be released, as well as, the age, life stage, and chemical state of the nutrient, which determines whether and how much is going to be used, stored or excreted.
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Plant cell walls are made up of ‘dietar y f iber’, a carbohydrate-based material that is non-digestible by the body’s enzymes. A 2016 review from the British Journal of Nutrition regarding the mechanisms of dietar y f iber provided an analysis of how the encapsulation of nutrients it provides often led to digestion taking place at a slower rate and to a lesser extent. Most of the macronutrients are usually absorbed (≥90%), but the bio-accessibility of micro-nutrients dif fers depending on the permeability of the cell walls: some only requiring mastication, or chewing, to be released while others are excreted from the body still intact. The bio-accessibility of plant foods can often be increased by cooking them, which breaks down the cell walls so that they can be easily ruptured.
However, some methods of cooking, such as boiling, causes the nutrients to leach out. For example, by boiling carrots and spinach you can increase the bio-accessibility of the beta-carotenes inside, but the carotenes along with the other nutrients are lost into the water. Some food particles are so small that it is incredibly hard to increase the bio-accessibility of the nutrients they contain to a sufficient extent. In the British Journal of Nutrition review, it was explained that once particles in the stomach reach a size smaller than 2 millimeters, they are released into the small intestine to be absorbed. However, many common plant tissues are composed of cells with dimensions several times smaller than this, so a large majority of the plant cells will still be intact. For example, 2mm of almond tissue contain 327,000
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lipid-rich cells, of which only 19,000 would be ruptured; this is about five percent. A 2008 study from the Journal of agriculture and food chemistry which looked at the release of nutrients from almond seeds, found that even when they are finely ground, only 39, 45, and 44% of lipid, vitamin E, and protein are available. Many nutrients exist in a different chemical state in plant foods, which tends to lower their bio-accessibility. For example, iron exists in two dietary forms: haem and non-haem iron. Haem iron only exists in meat and fish, and nonheam iron only exists in plant foods. This is because the haem iron stems from haemoglobin that animals need to transport oxygen in their blood.
be a good option for those following a vegan diet.” Non-haem iron also poses a problem in cereals: a 2012 study found that ion mass spectrometry has found that the iron is stored in aleurone cells, which predominantly store the iron as phytate-complexes inside phytingloboids. Any cereal products containing white flour are worse, as the milling process removes the aleurone cells. Elemental iron powder is added back into the flour, but this also has a very poor bio-accessibility.
The haem molecule separates the iron from other food molecules and keeps it in a soluble state. Non-haem iron is poorly soluble, and its bio-accessibility is decreased even further by the action of anti-nutrients, such as phytates, which inhibit its absorption. Plants create these anti-nutrients as a defense mechanism against predators and to prevent premature seed germination. Professor Paul Sharp, the current Head of the KCL Department of Nutrition & Dietetics, explains that someone following a vegan diet will have a hard time supplying their body with vital minerals largely “due to the presence in plants of ‘anti-nutrients’, such as phytic acid, which can inhibit the absorption of minerals.” “Selecting plant foods that are rich in minerals and low in anti-nutrient factors,” Sharp says, “would
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Although plant foods have their limitations, a nutritious diet that meets your micronutrient requirements can be met by knowledgeably eating a wide variety of plant types that encompasses the full spectrum of essential nutrients.
Professor Tom Sanders, the former Head of department of Nutrition & Dietetics at KCL, explained that “The issues around transition metals such as iron and zinc are concerned with speciation of the metals (i.e. number of electrons in the compounds eg Fe++ is more available than Fe +++) as well as compounds such as phytate and polyphenols that reduce their absorption.” Sanders concludes that “the only vitamin of concern is vitamin B12 which is generally absent from plant foods unless contaminated by faeces. Rabbits get their B12 by eating their own faeces and ruminants get the vitamin from rumen fermentation. Humans are monogastrics and so the B12 produced in faeces is not available unless you eat them.”
plant foods are less absorbable than those in animal-based foods.” Both Sanders and Sharp believe that it is possible to gather all the nutrients a person requires on a plantbased diet, and express that the main concern is doing enough research into what the best sources are.
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Vitamin C is able to increase the absorption of non-haem iron in the intestines, and soaking, fermenting, and cooking plant foods reduces there anti-nutrient levels. So, what should be the main concern or difficulty for those on a plant-based diet?
It is also worth keeping in mind that each body has different nutritional requirements: not everyone can expect to eat the same diet. It is also important to consider that those don’t have what would generally be considered normal health or normal living conditions could find it nearly impossible to remain
“Some food particles are so small that it is incredibly hard to increase the bio-accessibility of the nutrients they contain to a sufficient extent.”
The problem with B12 is quite well known and most vegans take a supplement for this. Vitamin B12 is also added to many plant-based milks. However, some nutritionists do not completely agree that vitamin B12 is the only nutrient to be concerned about, as the bio-availability of minerals has been seen to be quite low (between seven and 35 percent for non-haem iron).
Professor Sharp explained that “[Sanders] is correct that B12 is the major concern for vegans as it is not produced by plants — it is made by yeast and bacteria.” However, Sharp says that “there are others nutrients to be aware of – particularly calcium (main dietary source in the UK population is dairy), zinc (main source in UK population is meat) and nonhaem iron.” Sharp goes on to explain that “the problem isn’t that you can’t get enough of these minerals from a vegan diet – you certainly can – but the minerals in
vegan while maintaining a proper nutrient intake: frequent travellers might struggle, as a vegan diet is still considered a niche market in many places. More importantly, people suffering from anemia and specific food allergies, for example, will find veganism especially challenging. In conclusion, research shows that a full spectrum of essential nutrients can be consumed on a plant based diet, and this will massively decrease calorie intake while increasing the intake of fibre, which is known to be beneficial for your body. This certainly makes things more difficult, though, purely because you are cutting out some of the most soluble forms of the essential nutrients.
About The Author Richard Rodrigo is a first year Nutrition student, interested in moving on to research in the field.
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SIX SECRETS OF MEAT Why switch to a vegan diet? by Georgia Cook
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It is often debated whether humans should be meat eaters or not – from our teeth (with a lack of true canines as found in carnivores) to our gut (which is similar to that of apes, who survive on a diet of fruit, leaves, nuts, insects and the occasional scrap of meat as opposed to that of bears, who are true omnivores) all the signs point towards a diet without meat. However, evolutionists have suggested that without meat and animal products we may not have evolved as successfully and speedily as we did. But the important question for us to consider now is whether it is really necessary for us to continue to incorporate meat into our diets?
Secret Number 1 In the world that we live in today everything is much more accessible — and this includes plantbased food sources that are high in protein such as nuts, seeds, quorn and soy-based meat replacements. Iron can be sourced from legumes, grains, nuts and a range of vegetables instead of from meat. Even Vitamin B12 can be sourced from non-meat products such as cheese, eggs, milk and artificially fortified products. This seemingly renders meat an unnecessary part of the diet as the nutrients that meat is claimed to provide could be sources elsewhere. But does this mean that we would be better off without meat? Or that it is simply possible to meet nutritional needs without it?
Secret Number 2 When meat is cooked, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PACs) are formed, and these are known
to form carcinogens when metabolised in the body. Carcinogens are molecules that cause cancer. Cancer is a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body – these abnormal cells are often the result of DNA damage following checkpoint failures that are supposed to prevent cell division progression if DNA is replicated incorrectly.
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One of the hottest topics worldwide right now is the human diet, but the problem is that there are so many opinions on what the ideal human diet should be, that it’s almost impossible to know which one to follow. What we do know is that diet has a direct effect on both mental and physical health. Inappropriate diets have been shown to lead to undesirable diseases such as type 2 diabetes or even cancer. Recent research has lead many people to believe that a plant-based diet may be the answer to the worlds growing diet dilemma.
Secret Number 3 Meat is a high source of N-nitroso compounds (NOC) and a form of iron (haem) that is not present elsewhere, which increases the formation of endogenous NOC production. NOC are carcinogenic; this has been confirmed in over 40 animal studies wherein NOC has been found to produce tumours, as well as in case-control studies where higher risk subjects were observed to have a greater exposure to endogenous NOC.
Secret Number 4 Increased non-haem iron from consumption of meat has been found to increase reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS increase the chances of DNA mutations through a high rate of oxidation of the DNA bases. This may lead to increasing cell proliferation in the large intestine if checkpoints fail to detect this DNA damage. This is a possible mechanism explaining case-control studies with findings that there is an increased risk of colorectal cancer with high intakes of red and processed meat.
Secret Number 5 There are many health pros to the removal of meat from the diet. Studies such as Tai Le “beyond meatless” have shown evidence that a plant-based diet has many health benefits such as protection against cardiovascular disease, some cancers and total mortality. Vegan diets have been shown to further protect against obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular mortality. Research, conducted by Dr. Kahleova and published in the Nutrients journal, has shown that in overweight people who adopted a vegan diet for 16 weeks there was an improvement in insulin sensitivity and beta cell function compared
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to that of a control group. A large-scale meta-analysis reported that there was a significant protective effect of a vegetarian diet against heart disease and all cancers. In most cases a plant-based diet has been shown to have preventative effects; however, there are also incidences of those already diagnosed with diseases wherein the removal of meat from the diet was shown to greatly aid in their treatment and recovery. In fact, people who were chronically ill were found to reap even more benefits from plantbased diets than those that were healthy. According to the NHS, in those with asthma it has been found that eating cured or red meat over four times a week increased the risk of having worsened asthma by 76%. Eating red and processed meats was also found to increase the risk of depression by over 25% in a meta-analysis conducted by Li Y et al’ published on PudMed, whilst fruit and vegetables were found to have the opposite relationship. Animal products are not innocent either – it is said that there is a 40% increased risk of death in breast cancer patients who drank cows milk. Recently, some doctors have begun prescribing plant-based diets to patients to overcome many diseases, or at least reduce their symptoms. An example of this is with rheumatoid arthritis. The symptoms are believed to be relieved by reducing the patients exposure to an inflammatory compound (Neu5GC) that is found in meat and animal products, with evidence showing that the removal of meat in the diet has left sufferers feeling better within weeks. Evidence supporting this arises from “The China Study”, Campbell (2004), wherein it was shown that in countries with a lower consumption of animal products there was also a lower incidence of rheumatoid arthritis.
Secret Number 6 Meals incorporating meat have a tendency to lean towards unhealthiness. Steak and chips. Burger and chips. Cured meat platters. These are not wellrounded meals as in many cases they unfortunately do not contain any vegetables. Therefore it may be possible that the health benefits observed from
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switching to a plant-based diet may simply be the result of removing meat from the diet. It could follow that the benefits seen are the result of vegetarians (and especially vegans) needing to monitor what they eat to ensure that they are meeting all of their nutritional needs. Many case-control studies have shown that there is a decreased risk of colorectal cancer with an increased consumption of fruit and vegetables. It is thought that this is because of the dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals obtained from their consumption. Vitamin C and E, beta-carotene and selenium show antioxidant activity, acting to neutralise the reactive oxygen species that can damage DNA, resulting in mutations, which may lead to cancer development. Folate (also gained from fruit and vegetable consumption) is essential for DNA synthesis and methylation. It therefore seems that vegetarianism leading to an increased awareness of dietary consumption is equally as important as the decreased consumption of meat products in prevention of diseases such as cancer. However, it seems that red and processed meat must play a role in development of these diseases due to the presence of NOC and ROS following their metabolism and so it is not enough to simply increase fruit and vegetable consumption. I know what you’re all thinking – how can I give up steak, burgers and lasagne?! Dr. William Kormos from Harvard Mens Health Watch has stated that there is a rise in the risk of disease with consumption of 50-100g of meat. But there is evidence that if you reduce your meat consumption by 50g per day, you will reap many of the health benefits of a plant-based diet. However, as the average UK citizen only consumes 17g of meat per day, this seems to show that most people would simply be better off without it. Just remember – just because the shops sell it, doesn’t mean we should eat it. Think about what you eat, whether it is meat or plant, diet is important!
About the Author Georgia Cook is a third year Biomedical Sciences student with a special interest in human anatomy and disease
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THE ROOT OF ALLERGIES by Isabella Munford What do dry skin, diet, dogs, dribble and Vitamin D all have in common? This is a question that has been deliberated by immunologists for many years now. The so-called ‘5 Ds’ have all been posited to play a part in the formation of allergies. Dry skin and diet fall under the ‘dual-allergen exposure hypothesis’, dogs and dribble the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ and Vitamin D, yes, you guessed it, the ‘Vitamin D hypothesis’. An allergy is essentially that scenario at the family Christmas lunch where your antiquated uncle makes an unwanted comment to cause a hugely over exaggerated response from your cousin, who just ‘found themselves’ in Thailand. In scientific terms, that scenario is labelled ‘an inappropriate immune response to otherwise harmless antigens’. An antigen is any foreign molecule that elicits an immune response, whilst an immune response can range from disturbances to the skin ( hives, for example) to life-threatening hypovolemic shock and respiratory compromise. The real question to ask, then, is why do certain antigens cause allergies in some people but not in others? The ‘dual-allergen exposure hypothesis’ suggests that allergen sensitisation occurs in children with dry skin, often in the form of childhood eczema. It is thought that a disrupted skin barrier allows environmental exposure to the allergen via the skin to result resulting in allergen sensitisation, the process of antibody production behind the allergic response we see. This hypothesis thus explains the high association of children with eczema that go on to develop food allergies later on in their life. However, this school of thought is applicable only to a small group of children with infant eczema. When thinking in broader terms, the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ has been a popular notion used to
elucidate the development of allergies. This idea posits that the environment in which children grow up in goes a long way to determine if they will develop allergies later on in life. Numerous different factors fall under this umbrella hypothesis: vaginal delivery versus caesarian delivery, rural farm live versus urban life, pet dogs, childcare attendance and presence of older siblings to name a few. Fundamentally, this hypothesis addresses the different types of microorganisms you would have been in contact with as a child. The larger this number is, the lower your chances of developing an allergy. In order to develop tolerance to antigens as a child, it is important to be exposed to diverse microorganisms. The last major hypothesis is the ‘Vitamin D hypothesis’, an interesting concept that has grown from numerous observations. Firstly, there are higher rates of food allergy and hospital admissions for food-related anaphylaxis in children that live further from the equator than those that live nearer the equator. Secondly, children born in autumn or winter are more likely to develop allergies compared to those who were born in spring or summer. Following these observations, studies have shown that vitamin D has an important role in regulating several different immune functions. Rather unsatisfyingly, it seems that allergies develop due to a number of different factors. It is hoped that in the future through further genetic testing and observational studies that there will be a clearer idea of what causes allergies.
About the Author Isabella Munford is a first year medical student with a particular interest in neurodegenerative diseases and immunology.
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GLAD:
The Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression study at King’s College London by Ramana McConnon The world’s largest ever scientific study into anxiety and depression is currently being undertaken at KCL. To find out more about this exciting research, The Nucleus interviewed the two lead researchers, Dr Gerome Breen and Professor Thalia Eley about the Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression (GLAD) study.
What sets this study apart? The scale of this study is unprecedented in the field of anxiety and depression, both in terms of the number of respondents and breadth of information obtained from each one. The GLAD team hope for 40,000 people to sign up for the study, and each one will provide a saliva sample and complete a questionnaire regarding a wide range of topics, including: • Their symptoms • Their treatment history (both what treatments they have undergone and how successful each type of treatment was for them) • Environmental factors, such as lifestyle. The data obtained by these procedures will hopefully allow a wide range of questions to be answered. For example, should a future research team want to investigate how a specific panic disorder responds to a certain treatment type, the GLAD research data will be a ready-made source of information for them to draw from. The hope is that a large portion of the respondents will consent to taking part in future data-gathering activities up to four times per year, thus creating a large, stable research community to facilitate and accelerate future research in the field.
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What are the similarities and differences in causes and treatments for anxiety and depression? About 60% of people who have one of the conditions, have both – and this percentage only increases as the severity of the disorder increases. The genetic causes of the two disorders overlap by about 80%, but the environmental ‘triggers’ for both are quite different from each other. One of the goals for this study is to understand that relationship in more detail. The two disorders generally require different modes of treatment, with anxiety usually responding better to treatment than depression.
What is the extent to which one’s genes, as opposed to one’s environment, contribute to anxiety and depression? Despite the name, the Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression study is focused on both genetic and environmental factors. It is thought that genetic factors play a 30-50% role in causing anxiety and depression, though genes and the environment can and do interact: environmental triggers can ‘switch on’ certain genes. Most previous studies have focused on either genes or the environment, but it is hoped that the GLAD study’s holistic approach can lead to increased understanding of the interrelationship between these varied factors. A side benefit of studies such as these, that recognise that mental illnesses often have a heritable component, is that they may help destroy the lingering stigma surrounding mental illness. Too often it is assumed that a mental illness sufferer should simply be able to ‘snap out of it’, or that their condition arose as a result of some
As it becomes more widely appreciated that there are ‘hard’, biological underpinnings to mental illness, we can surely hope to knock down some of the barriers between how society views those suffering from a mental illness, when compared to someone with a ‘physical’ injury or illness. Research programmes like KCL’s GLAD study, which take seriously the biological causes of anxiety and depression, will move us closer to this goal.
What are the goals of this study? The currently available treatments for anxiety and depression come in several forms, but only about half of people with these disorders respond well to existing options. Pharmacological and psychological routes are available, and the latter can be delivered in many different ways: one-to-one, in group sessions or remotely via Skype. The relationship between specific conditions and appropriate modes of treatment is an area that this study hopes to make significant progress in. By analysing the data gathered on symptoms, genetic profile, environmental factors, treatments tried and their success for that individual, the GLAD team hope to glean key information about what treatments are best matched to each narrowly defined set of factors. One angle of investigation is the “cause informing cure” hypothesis: the idea that perhaps disorders that are genetically caused respond well to pharmacological treatment, while environmentally caused disorders are better treated psychologically. It is not currently known whether this hypothesis is true, but the data obtained in this study will help us make progress. Similarly, whether someone is recommended for one-to-one, group or remote psychological sessions currently largely depends simply on the severity of their symptoms. However, other factors, such as chronicity or whether the disorder is genetically or environmentally caused, may be just as important in determining what the most effective course of action would be. At the moment, even people who eventually respond well to treatment have had to try, on average, two to three different treatment types before finding
what works for them. The ability to better tailor the treatment to the disorder, and thus cut down on the number of treatments needing to be tried, would be of special benefit to young people. Suffering from these disorders while young can lead to extensive time off school and other disruption to one’s life, which can have a long-lasting impact.
NEWS
behavioural failing on the part of the sufferer or their parents.
If, on the other hand, one was able to simply go to one’s GP, provide a saliva sample, and then receive a treatment program that has been personally tailored to match one’s condition, much of this distress could be avoided. Such a system could be ten to fifteen years away, but studies such as this one can be of great use in reaching that goal.
You can help! The GLAD researchers would like to encourage anyone with a history of anxiety or depression to sign up for the study, but they are keen to emphasise that LGBT+ and BAME people are hugely underrepresented in psychiatric and genetic research. The KCL community is incredibly diverse so, if you fall into any of those groups, it would be even more impactful if you sign up!
About the Author Ramana McConnon is a Philosophy MA student with a particular interest in philosophy of the mind
The lead researchers behind the GLAD study, courtesy of GLAD
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NEWS
DECONSTRUCTING PATTERNS The Unity of Science and Art at the Francis Crick Institute writing and photography by Georgia Cook The deconstructing patterns exhibition is located at the Francis Crick Institute and has successfully intertwined science and art. The pieces on display in this exhibition are the product of many discussions between researchers and artists aiming to explore patterns in the research being conducted at the Institute. The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical research center in London, opened in 2016. Since then they have strived to answer research questions such as “How does a living organism acquire form and function?”, “How does cancer start, spread and respond to therapy?” and “How does the nervous system detect, store and respond to information and retain that information throughout life?” This exhibition shows artists attempts to visually display the patterns that have been found in answer to these questions. Humans have a natural tendency to seek patterns in things in order to understand them – for example,
to begin to comprehend neurons in the brain we have learned to picture them as “trees”. Fluorescent labeling and computer simulation are used throughout research at the Francis Crick Institute; both create images that show an abundance of patterns, of which many examples can be viewed at the Deconstructing Patterns exhibition. By deconstructing the patterns found in research, such as that exploring the genome, both scientist and artist have been able to discover and understand more about how the human body comes to be. Each piece at the exhibition is accompanied by a brief overview of the scientific question, tools and techniques used in the scientists investigations. The exhibition itself is an exciting opportunity to learn more about the research being conducted at the Francis Crick Institute, as well as providing an interesting insight into science through an artists eyes.
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The KCL International Neurosurgical Conference by Alice Koltchev On the 10th and 11th of November, the King’s College London Neurosurgery Society is hosting their second Annual International Neurosurgical Conference: an event featuring Lectures, Teaching Sessions, and Workshops packed into two full days.
at a novice and advanced level utilising basic microsurgical instruments. Two workshops will explore different aspects of burr hole formation, at intermediate and advanced levels, as well as craniotomy and cranial flap formation.
Day One will feature ten keynote lectures discussing the present and, more importantly, the future of Neurosurgery.
There will also be workshops covering topics such as skull fixation, endoscopy, spinal navigation, and neurosurgical positioning with a focus on Mayfield systems, Lazic Aneurysm Clip System, and Neurovent-PTO.
Ms Eleni Maratos from King’s will talk about advances in spinal surgery, Columbia University’s Professor Sean D Lavine will discuss the evolution of aneurysm treatments, and Professor Antonio Bernardo from Weill Cornell Medical School will detail technological innovations for neurosurgery, among many others. The first day will be closed by lectures by the KCL Neurosurgery Society patron: Mr. Bassel Zebian. Day One will also include three consecutive teaching sections detailing advancements in Global Neurosurgery Education as well as the implications of Artificial Intelligence in neurosurgery. Day Two will comprise of ten diverse workshops. The first will provide tuition on microsurgical suturing,
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These workshops were made possible by a variety of sponsors and experts in the field, all striving to provide a memorable and educational experience for all attendees at all levels of practice in neurosurgery. With professionals stemming from universities around the world, the weekend-long Neurosurgical Conference will be an unparalleled event. The Society ran two competition, one Widening Participation contest and one scholarship in coordination with the Association for Medical Education in Europe. The short pieces spanning the next two pages are the winning entries from these contests.
Neurosurgery encompasses the diagnosis and surgical treatment of neurological disease with moderncentury technological advances to preserve and restore the health of patients. The specialty was initially developed by neurosurgeons who treated patients with cranial trauma and intracranial mass lesions. The specialty has existed for thousands of years with some evidence dating it back to 3000 B.C Africa. The profession is known as being one
Within England, there are 25 neurosurgical units which work around-the-clock to treat a vast variety of disorders, some rare and complex, with specialist expertise. The most common conditions presented within emergency neurosurgery settings are:
A Look Into Sepsis Known as the hidden killer, sepsis is responsible for more deaths in the United Kingdom than prostate, bowel and breast cancer combined. It kills 44,000 people in Britain alone, each year. Blood poisoning is the body’s immune system overreaction to an injury or an infection. It believes it is fighting the infection by attacking its own organs and tissues. Bacterial infections are the most common cause of sepsis and one common site that can lead to sepsis/septic shock is the Central Nervous System. Neurosurgeons have to monitor inflammation or infections of the brain or spinal cord in surgical settings to preserve the life of the patient. Sepsis is considered a medical emergency and can be fatal. Although, if spotted early enough, the condition can be treated with a course of antibiotics. To spot sepsis in adults, remember the following:
NEWS
of the most tedious and complex as well as competitive. Today, surgeons are required to operate on the brain, spinal cord and vast network of nerves which conjoin to form the Central and Peripheral Nervous System. There is a direct link between neurosurgery and emergency; the majority of neurosurgical consultants are involved in the delivery of emergency services. Adding to this, neurosurgical activity within the NHS has been on the increase with annual growth rates of 2-5%, meaning that there is a large focus on efficiently treating emergency patients with critical neurological conditions.
• Raised intracranial pressure • Cranio-spinal trauma • Compression of the cranio-spinal axis • Intracranial haemorrhage • Sepsis
A Look Into Intracranial Pressure Caused by various conditions, raised ICP can be due to a rise in the pressure of the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain or due to a rise in pressure within the brain structure itself, possibly due to a tumour, bleeding or swelling. A neurologist may spot symptoms of increased ICP which include headache, seizures, weakness and decreased alertness. In order to decide on a course of action, neurologists have to use MRI or CT scanning to determine the cause of the increased pressure and decide on how to proceed with treatment. Advances in technology, intensive care and revolutionary non-invasive procedures means that conditions such as raised ICP can be treated more efficiently. A head injury is still one of the leading causes of death and disability in children and young adults. If a neurological condition is diagnosed and a course of treatment is decided promptly, there are substantially better outcomes and lower mortality rates, according to current research.
Slurred speech or confusion E xtreme shivering or muscle pain Passing no urine (in a day) S evere breathlessness It feels like you’re going to die Skin mottled or discoloured Dating back to the origins of Neurosurgery, the ‘greats’ were simply skilled general surgeons who had an interest in the brain. Now, the specialty has evolved and still is rapidly evolving with fresh minds bringing new ideas and techniques to the operating table. We are in times where A&E visits are at their highest, with population numbers increasing exponentially. The NHS is home to many highly skilled neurosurgeons who have to consistently accommodate emergency procedures. The procedures are tiresome, complex and tedious most of the time. However, the art of correcting abnormalities of the nervous system, in my eyes, is simply magical
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A WORLD OF CHANGE Global Trends and the Future of Surgery by Sanchita Bhatia Strides have been made since the first incision made to open a living person’s body and provide a radical cure. Lord Thurlow once claimed ‘there is no more science in surgery than in butchering.’ Surgery is today a quest for precision, with increasingly minimally invasive techniques improving safety and outcomes. Since the advent of robotic surgery 20 years ago, popularised by Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci system, further developments in the field of robotic surgery have been made. From technologies allowing for long-distance telesurgery, such as MiroSure developed by German Aerospace Centre to autonomic surgical systems, like VerbSurgical with aspects of machine learning, are emerging into the market. Despite its popularity, the evidence supporting the use of current robotic surgical systems is variable. While major meta-analyses demonstrate a convincing reduction in postoperative complications, reduced blood loss, improved recovery rates and better cosmesis in comparison with open surgery, it is mainly equivalent to laparoscopic surgery. Disparities in its efficacy exist between not only specialities but also specific type of interventions. Further limitations to the use of such systems are the incredibly high cost, and the steep ‘learning curve’ for its optimum use. The most novel and rapidly developing aspect of robotic surgery is nanorobotics. Potentially within our lifetime, without making a single incision, ‘nanorobots might be able to enter our bloodstream, target a particular site either autonomously or surgeon-guided, manipulate pathological tissue, feedback information to the surgeon and biodegrade’.
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Currently, research is being carried out to perfect each step of this ideal. For the first aspect, the movement within our bloodstream, various strategies have been developed such as use of magnetic, thermal and ultrasound energy. Ghosh et al. suggest magnetically-directed nanopropellers, whereas Martel et al. provide an amalgamation of microorganisms and nanorobots for intra-vascular propulsion and navigation. Multiple groups have described ‘untethered microgrippers’ to attain biopsy from inaccessible regions in animal studies with magnetic actuation systems. Li et al. demonstrate autonomous embolisation by a nanorobot in response to a tumour vessel marker, leading to reduction in tumour size and increased survival in mice melanoma models. Nanorobotics presents a promising future, however, evidently many of these studies have been conducted in vitro and in animal models, with no current level 1 clinical evidence. Despite the existence of such technologies that can transform the nature of surgery itself, the global surgical landscape is one of an inequitable nature. Today, only 6% of the 313 million surgical procedures performed worldwide annually occur in the world’s poorest countries, where over a third of the global population resides. The future of surgery cannot be transformed with simply improved surgical outcomes for a handful of the global population, but only with united vision for a universal access to improved surgical care. The future robotic surgical systems may not only change the practice of surgery as we know it, they have the potential of shifting the current paradigm to produce a more competitive and flattened global market, to decrease costs and increase availability of (robotic) surgery for all.
OP INION
ember by Isabella Munford illustrated by Karolina Fratczak This poem is dedicated to my grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. How it all started, no-one really knows. The fire just spread from one room to another, charring the pearls and burning the clothes. Perfume bottles smashed as smoke arose but the flames you could not smother. Family photos of figures and faces now incinerated lay in the soot of what your home had become. Why did this happen to you? You were not hated. A crime or perhaps a cruel disaster has now dictated a future to which you must succumb. A world in which you have no place to call home, or a person in whom to confide. Around empty corridors you now roam seeking a reminder of the house you used to own. A memory of the life you used to pride. It must be scary to have lost that safe place. Where you could go and remember the thing that put a smile on your face, or the call about the advertising space. But here you are, surviving in the darkness, an ember.
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THE MODERN REALITY OF HUMAN SALIENCE & REWARD by Robert Taylor I recently had the pleasure of enjoying a talk by Dr Derek Tracey, a research psychiatrist, medical practitioner and member of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs. His topic - the evolution of human consciousness - illuminating for both laypeople and experts alike, managed to reduce a very complex philosophical and practical question into a discrete series of categories. This reductionist view on the human psyche stunned me. How have I, a third year neuroscience student, managed to go through my university career without having a senior lecturer talk down at me for an hour regarding how each system of the human brain falls into place. What is the bigger picture of the electrical homeostatic environment that we all identify as our conscious world? The brainstem controls breathing and the heartbeat, the mesolimbic area controls our reward and salience, and the cortex then came along and explained away these incredible physical properties as an act of god; our first modest organ. “What’s deep is ancient, whats ancient is important,” said Dr Tracey, alluding to the fact that it is irrelevant what the cortex thinks of itself or of its neighbouring brain regions. However, the fact remains that an organ attempting to rationalise its existence might no longer have its biological best interests at heart, as the path of least resistance might not be the most rational and vice versa. The philosophy of mind-body dualism has hindered psychiatry a great deal, and its effects, unlike other scientific fallacies that have been perpetuated throughout our history, remain today. How would one study the movement of the planets of our solar system if the central tenant of astronomy was that the earth was flat, situated on the shell of a tortoise balancing
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on two elephants? Yet, despite our very clear understanding that who we are is contained within the neurones of our brain, psychiatric conditions are still often explained through the metaphysical domains of unpleasant feelings and bad thoughts. Break your leg and no one is going to tell you to just go and walk on it, pretend it’s not there. Psychiatry in its modern form was probably revolutionised by William Battie in 1758, who, for the first time, acknowledged that mental illness did not have to be locked up in a jail cell and could be cured. The first steps towards acceptance that mental illness was not some bereavement caused by an act of the Almighty who was displeased about some inconsequential action, were indeed important. Prior to this, people who were suffering would find themselves locked up, tortured like animals to flush their bodies of the devil, branded as witches or subjected to all kinds of inhumane tortures to ‘cure.’ This is a historical reality for all scientific inquiry. Throughout our history, its easy to look back on the less knowledgeable and laugh, as it is a common theme for philosophy to precede science in an attempt to explain phenomena that we have no way of quantifying with current technology. This was the case with astrology, alchemy, medicine and, indeed, psychiatry. Today, philosophy struggles with questions of AI alignment, ethics and human behaviour as these are all things we cannot quantify yet. However, the trouble with modern psychiatry is that it is still influenced by the historical dualism that kickstarted the scientific disciplines of neuroscience and psychiatry. Social mental health support is expensive, cumbersome and, at times, aimless. The NHS target
evolved to deal with threats to our health, and rewards of our modern to our carnal needs. The threats and rewards of our modern world have become so much more nuanced that our mesolimbic system struggles to efficiently drive our higher executive functions. If we do not understand the specifics of our own mental health, and become self-aware to our own needs and realities, it won’t be the political climate, the environment, or some crazy engineered virus that will be the downfall of humanity - it will be our own minds.
OP INION
of successfully treating 50% of people is failed by one in seven areas in England, and a Royal College of Psychiatrists survey revealed that 25% of 500 patients surveyed, who were drawn from across the UK, waited longer than three months to see an NHS mental health specialist and 6% had waited over a year. Issues do not simply stem from the underfunding of the NHS - the fact is that money is disproportionately allocated towards other areas of the national health service. This shows how insincere efforts to conquer this growing issue have been, and this, coupled with the lack of strategy to tackle mental health at a grassroots level, unveils the dismissal by many of the issue. Too often people who are in crisis condition would find themselves hospitalised on a general ward, sedated and unable to make a decision for themselves. The new £2bn spend in the budget brings more than much needed finding to the area- it also provides a direction and structure to the treatment on offer. Crisis teams, specialist mental health ambulances, community and young people support, all show that the government is finally moving away from the old, dualistic manner of treating mental health, and embracing an informed and proactive approach to treatment.
About the Author Robert Taylor is a 3rd year Neuroscience student with a particular interest in nueroimaging.
I’m not here to tell you about the governments new budget, or explain to you the necessity of certain treatment methods - there are people at our university that can do that far better than myself. I am, however, here to underline the importance of moving away from prodding at the perceived unknown, from mechanistically following old rituals, and to embrace clarity of explanation. Dr Tracey showed me how vital it is to take a complex topic and break it down to its constituent parts to illuminate it not only for your audience but for yourself. We do not need condescending PR jargon like ‘mental health literacy’ to understand that people suffering from pathologies of the mind do not need to be talked down to, but instead need to be treated as any patient would be. Our emotional brains
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“Look on me and be renewed” by Matt King with Professor John Marsden and Changing 7 at Science Gallery London PHOTOGRAPH BY KIT KOMAROV
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Sponsored by: KCL Entrepeneurship Institute Department of Neuroscience Education KCLSU
