[HN Gopher] Your brain changes based on what you did two weeks ago
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Your brain changes based on what you did two weeks ago
Author : thunderbong
Score : 75 points
Date : 2024-10-09 15:51 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newsweek.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newsweek.com)
| haswell wrote:
| The underlying study:
| https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002797
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| I'm sure the study is interesting and informing, but the
| article's attempt at wrapping it in a popsci take is just too
| funny. Imagine if your brain _didn't_ change based on what you
| did two weeks ago.
| stvltvs wrote:
| Yeah, the brain changing is another way of saying learning and
| remembering stuff. I trust the study is more than that.
| marsknight wrote:
| Interesting study, but it's n=1. Not really enough to make that
| bold statement in the title.
|
| It's misleading.
| twothreeone wrote:
| The study's abstract says: "To this end, for a single subject"
| [...]
|
| So.. we can stop reading here?
| amelius wrote:
| Researcher: hey, that's odd ...
|
| HN: N=1. Move along, nothing to see here!
| SirLordBoss wrote:
| To be fair, they're not exactly wrong. Worth repeating with
| N=10,100,... until we get a robust conclusion, but as it is,
| there's not much to go on in this one
| bgirard wrote:
| Exactly. We're not researchers and many of us will
| internalize the finding without the proper confidence
| weighting. I wish reporting and HN had a higher standard
| for studies linked on the site with higher N and ideally
| some independent replications.
|
| If the results is really interesting and novel then why
| aren't others racing to replicate it? Because it is not.
| Yet we're reporting it here with N=1.
| macqm wrote:
| Now another group of researchers have the opportunity to apply
| for a grant and propose new research on N=10
| sshine wrote:
| Why bother when N=1 is sufficient to solve P=NP?
| vpribish wrote:
| if you prefer a more specialized publication than newsweek ...
|
| https://neurosciencenews.com/daily-habit-brain-activty-27811...
| csallen wrote:
| I've never been a fan of this "your brain changes" terminology
| that news outlets are so fond of, as if a mere change in your
| brain is somehow meaningful.
|
| Obviously, _everything_ you think or experience changes your
| brain in some way.
|
| It's like saying that opening a new browser window changes your
| screen. Duh! That's the point of a monitor. Its pixels have to
| change in order for it to work. Change is a necessary part of how
| _any_ machine works. The only brain that doesn 't change in
| response to stimuli is a dead brain.
|
| (This isn't to say that all changes in the brain are equally
| mundane. Many changes are interesting and meaningful! But the
| simple presence of change is a low enough bar as to be
| meaningless.)
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| I agree. The study seems keen to point out that there are
| various cycles of the brain with various lengths. They claim to
| have identified a 2-week cycle. It seems likely the brain has
| all kinds of cycles at geometric-sequence varying frequencies.
| A ~100hz cycle for updating your vision. A ~20khz cycle for
| detecting sound pressure changes. A 90 minute sleep cycle. And
| now apparently, a weeklong cycle and a 15-day cycle. A bad
| sleep on Sunday night might dampen my whole week if I don't get
| a chance to make up. A paycheck only comes once every 2 weeks.
| My brain is a bit different a few days before receiving a check
| than a few days after. The rest of the article seems to be
| advice about "maintain healthy habits so they stick" which is
| nothing new.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| Seems like basic "you expected that, didn't you?" sort of
| findings, although they did verify the absence of a lot of
| correlations. But it's kind of cool that they can directly
| measure how much impairment a bad night's sleep causes.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| fMRIs can show you, at best, when more or less blood is flowing
| to a certain part of the brain.
|
| Is that sufficient to make any claims about what the brain is
| actually doing?
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| As much as people are harping on the fact that the study is N=1,
| the reality is that these researchers have 133 scans over 133
| consecutive days, which is impressive.
|
| I think naysayers are missing the point that increasing
| statistical power through repeated measures over long periods of
| time rather than just increasing N is totally valid. This is
| honestly probably a better approach than running more
| participants across fewer scans for an initial longitudinal fMRI
| study (e.g. I think this is more compelling than if a study were
| to run 10 people with only weekly scans).
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