“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”, (Heraclitus, 535 B.C. – 475 B.C.)
Have you had the experience of waking from a night’s sleep feeling that you are somehow a different person? It is not so uncommon and may have a explanation based on the constant remodeling of the brain we call neuroplasticity. It is becoming clear that our mental state at any moment is influenced by numerous internal and external factors like the quality of last night’s sleep, last week’s physical activity, yesterday’s social interactions and innumerable other life events. Moreover, today’s experience influences how our brain will function tomorrow, next week and perhaps for much longer in ways that can have significant impact on mental health, attention, cognition and happiness. New research is looking into how this all works.
Ana Triana at Aalto Univ. in Finland reached this provocative conclusion, “The effects of your daily choices are reflected in changes in the physicaI connections between regions of your brain involved in cognition, attention and memory that have meaningful and lasting effects on consciousness”. She asserts that consistently making healthy choices in daily life can have long-lasting positive effects on your mental health and everything else. That is very cool.
Ana and her colleagues undertook a bold experiment. They used neuro imaging to examine changes in functional connections between brain regions in response to environmental, physiological, behavioral and psychological events. The results are extraordinary. There was just one subject in this study, Ana herself. Ana’s brain activity and behavior was tracked for 4 months using a combination of brain scans, wearable devices and smartphones. The concentration on one subject eliminates much of the uncertainty that arises when averaging results from different people.
Activity in well defined brain networks was monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) performed twice a week, sleep and physical activity were followed with a smart ring, heart rate and respiration were tracked using a smartwatch and Ana’s emotional state was assessed from answers to questionnaires prompted on her smartphone. All of this was done on a rigorous schedule while Ana continued to live the rest of her life as she pleased. Ana underwent 30 fMRI sessions to monitor activity in brain networks while performing different tasks, including attention tasks, resting-state, watching movies like The Grand Budapest Hotel, and tests to assess working memory. The results yielded a new appreciation of how daily experience shapes brain activity (PLOS Biology).
They focused on two questions. How do behavioral, physiological, and lifestyle factors modify the functional connectivity (FC) between brain networks? And, how long do the effects last? FC is a statistical method for determining how different regions of the brain interact. Applied to fMRI imaging data, it can determine in near real-time how networks cooperate in performing cognitive and affective tasks. Because FC is a dynamic measure it yields information about how patterns change over time, from seconds to years. For example, as you learn a new motor skill like wind-surfing, FC will provide a detailed picture of how the function of the sensorimotor cortex changes while acquaring the skill even though you are not conscience of the change. Functional changes can last for decades, which is really.
For an idea of what is involved in relating brain activity to behavior consider this example; Ana Triana’s group showed that a restless night’s sleep is correlated with changes in functional connectivity in these major networks, the frontoparietal network (FPN) that coordinates attention and goal-directed behavior, the default mode network (DMN) that becomes active when we are not engaged in any specific action or focused on external stimuli, the somatomotor network (SMN) that prepares the brain for motor behavors, and cingulo-opercular networks (CONs) involved in many cognitive, social, and emotional processes. Interestingly, not all of the changes in connections take place at the same time. If you want to dig deeper check out this TED talk by David Van Essen, a major contributor to The Human Connectome Project.
It is fascinating to think about how very fluid our mental life is even though we generally are not aware of the flow. The study provided a dynamic view of brain function, highlighting the lasting impact of everyday occurrences. It provides a nuanced picture of how brain connectivity fluctuates in response to internal and external factors, underscoring the complex nature of our remarkable adaptability to daily life.
What is the takeaway for you and me? I think one lesson is that it behooves us to pay attention of our daily routines. As Ana Triana said, healthy habits, particularly those related to sleep, physical activity, stress management and personal relationships are key. Their effects extend far beyond the immediate and, in fact, propel our personal evolution as individuals through time. Making a thoughtful change in life style, e.g. take up yoga, join a gym, change your diet, is likely to make lasting changes in how well your brain works and even your happiness. I take that as a call to action.
Triana, A. M., Salmi, J., Hayward, N. M. E. A., Saramäki, J., & Glerean, E. (2024). Longitudinal single-subject neuroimaging study reveals effects of daily environmental, physiological, and lifestyle factors on functional brain connectivity. PLOS Biology. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002797
– neuromavin
