6 ms·

Pleasure or pain? He maps the neural circuits that decide

66 points by chapulin 2y ago

whiplash451 2y ago
What a beautiful area of research. Kudos to Pr Abdus-Saboor and his team.
- zafka 2y ago
  I agree, I plan to keep an eye on what they are doing. Reading this article is triggering an impulse in me to begin some research on some tangent ideas. While the probability of following that urge is relatively low, the idea is going into my list.
- hackernewds 2y ago
  Is this an astroturf? the entire article seems SEOd too
  - whiplash451 2y ago
    Definitely not. This was genuine (I have zero connection to these people or to the field).
Euphorbium 2y ago
Is this seo? I dont care about the ENTIRE life story, just give me the recipe. Still dont know what he did.
- h0l0cube 2y ago
  It’s an interview which does cover what he’s worked on and what he’s working on now. I’d recommend actually reading TFA but here’s a sample of what he did: > In my final year as a postdoc, I genetically engineered mice to have gentle touch neurons that responded to blue light. My plan was to stimulate the neurons with blue light and see what the mice did. > When I started my own lab in 2018, we were ready to start those experiments. I still remember the day the students came into my office to show me what they had found. It was like this eureka moment. When we activated neurons through the skin on the mice’s backs, the animals behaved as if they were being stroked there. That launched the whole project. We did a lot more behavioral tests and traced the pathway for social touch from the skin to the spinal cord to the reward centers in the brain.
- saurik 2y ago
  It sounds like you just dislike magazines. The entire point of a magazine is to spend more time and make an enjoyable read with a longer form article. Just because you prefer newspapers doesn't mean it makes sense to shit on magazines: some of us like magazines.
  - hackernewds 2y ago
    Perhaps struck a string?
- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
  Did you stop after the first paragraph or something?
- vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  It's even worse that half the article is just massive, fullscreen pictures of this guy. I don't know how people "read" these rags.
  - klyrs 2y ago
    God forbid we gaze upon the visage of a scientist. It must be horribly jarring to read a textbook and see pictures of Einstein and Curie...
    - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
      If there was anything worth reading in magazines I'd also be mad if I had to scroll past 8 pages that were just pictures of Einstein standing in his field.
      - klyrs 2y ago
        Don't read magazines. They have pictures of humans. And stay away from IEEE journals, too.
        vsuperpower2020 2y ago
        You can still enjoy rags even if they're mostly fluff and photoshoots. You don't have to convince me it's okay.
        klyrs 2y ago
        I didn't realize that you being mad was a sign of enjoyment. Perhaps somebody should look into this curious apparent overlap of pleasure and pain!
  - throwaway0665 2y ago
    Your browser has a reader mode if you're offended by their design. You can also just delete the images in your console: document.querySelectorAll("img").forEach(x => x.remove())
- klyrs 2y ago
  This isn't a recipe. It's an article about a human. His story is the point. His science is cool too, if you're actually interested in the science, it's super easy to find his publications.
geopurcell 2y ago
[flagged]
sakshatshinde 2y ago
Amazing
h0l0cube 2y ago
There's a lot of interesting stuff in this article and I came back to the comments on this to see if the discourse had corrected itself. Instead people are still taking affront (why?) to the article being an interview of a researcher, even though they are the common thread to a bunch of really interesting research. Here's some interesting things I'd like people to chime in on: > We are also super excited about how the brain controls the transition from acute to chronic pain. We use our pain scale to measure the pain level in a mouse and then take a snapshot of the mouse’s brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We image the animals every day to find brain activity patterns that underlie the transition from acute to chronic pain. Once we find them, we can try to change them to alter the course of chronic pain. We’re interested in the emotional as well as sensory components of this pain. > When we activated neurons through the skin on the mice’s backs, the animals behaved as if they were being stroked there. That launched the whole project. We did a lot more behavioral tests and traced the pathway for social touch from the skin to the spinal cord to the reward centers in the brain. > What if we could turn on these neurons with a skin cream to improve mental health — say, to offset the harm caused by social isolation or to treat anxiety or depression? When I gave a talk about this in December, the psychiatrists and neuropharmacologists in the audience were very enthusiastic about the therapeutic potential. > We’re also interested in them because mole rats do not feel some forms of pain. For example, they show no pain response to the molecule capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers, which is quite painful to most mammals. They have receptors in their skin that respond to capsaicin, so I hypothesize that the animals have brain pathways that shut down the pain. If we can find and tap into those signals, we might find a new way to block pain. They are taking a multidisciplinary approach to researching an understudied field, and it's fascinating. Why is no-one else seeing that?
- somedude895 2y ago
  > a skin cream to improve mental health — say, to offset the harm caused by social isolation or to treat anxiety or depression? I know there are some serious mental health ailments that require pharmaceutical treatment, but using Soma-like chemicals to make humans simply feel okay with what's bothering them sounds to me like a surefire way to destroy a society. Things like antidepressants, weed, porn and social media have are already moved us in that direction, but seeing this sort of stuff as an achievement just sounds dystopian to me.
kwhitefoot 2y ago
> I had hundreds of crayfish everywhere. My parents are not scientists, but they were very supportive of my escapades and adventures in the scientific realm. Escapades and adventures. That's perfect I wish schools would encourage more of that.

66 points by chapulin 2y ago

whiplash451 2y ago

What a beautiful area of research. Kudos to Pr Abdus-Saboor and his team.

zafka 2y ago
I agree, I plan to keep an eye on what they are doing. Reading this article is triggering an impulse in me to begin some research on some tangent ideas. While the probability of following that urge is relatively low, the idea is going into my list.
hackernewds 2y ago
Is this an astroturf? the entire article seems SEOd too
- whiplash451 2y ago
  Definitely not. This was genuine (I have zero connection to these people or to the field).

Euphorbium 2y ago

Is this seo? I dont care about the ENTIRE life story, just give me the recipe. Still dont know what he did.

h0l0cube 2y ago
It’s an interview which does cover what he’s worked on and what he’s working on now. I’d recommend actually reading TFA but here’s a sample of what he did: > In my final year as a postdoc, I genetically engineered mice to have gentle touch neurons that responded to blue light. My plan was to stimulate the neurons with blue light and see what the mice did. > When I started my own lab in 2018, we were ready to start those experiments. I still remember the day the students came into my office to show me what they had found. It was like this eureka moment. When we activated neurons through the skin on the mice’s backs, the animals behaved as if they were being stroked there. That launched the whole project. We did a lot more behavioral tests and traced the pathway for social touch from the skin to the spinal cord to the reward centers in the brain.
saurik 2y ago
It sounds like you just dislike magazines. The entire point of a magazine is to spend more time and make an enjoyable read with a longer form article. Just because you prefer newspapers doesn't mean it makes sense to shit on magazines: some of us like magazines.
- hackernewds 2y ago
  Perhaps struck a string?
knowaveragejoe 2y ago
Did you stop after the first paragraph or something?
vsuperpower2020 2y ago
It's even worse that half the article is just massive, fullscreen pictures of this guy. I don't know how people "read" these rags.
- klyrs 2y ago
  God forbid we gaze upon the visage of a scientist. It must be horribly jarring to read a textbook and see pictures of Einstein and Curie...
  - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
    If there was anything worth reading in magazines I'd also be mad if I had to scroll past 8 pages that were just pictures of Einstein standing in his field.
    - klyrs 2y ago
      Don't read magazines. They have pictures of humans. And stay away from IEEE journals, too.
      - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
        You can still enjoy rags even if they're mostly fluff and photoshoots. You don't have to convince me it's okay.
        klyrs 2y ago
        I didn't realize that you being mad was a sign of enjoyment. Perhaps somebody should look into this curious apparent overlap of pleasure and pain!
- throwaway0665 2y ago
  Your browser has a reader mode if you're offended by their design. You can also just delete the images in your console: document.querySelectorAll("img").forEach(x => x.remove())
klyrs 2y ago
This isn't a recipe. It's an article about a human. His story is the point. His science is cool too, if you're actually interested in the science, it's super easy to find his publications.

geopurcell 2y ago

[flagged]

sakshatshinde 2y ago

Amazing

h0l0cube 2y ago

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this article and I came back to the comments on this to see if the discourse had corrected itself. Instead people are still taking affront (why?) to the article being an interview of a researcher, even though they are the common thread to a bunch of really interesting research. Here's some interesting things I'd like people to chime in on: > We are also super excited about how the brain controls the transition from acute to chronic pain. We use our pain scale to measure the pain level in a mouse and then take a snapshot of the mouse’s brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We image the animals every day to find brain activity patterns that underlie the transition from acute to chronic pain. Once we find them, we can try to change them to alter the course of chronic pain. We’re interested in the emotional as well as sensory components of this pain. > When we activated neurons through the skin on the mice’s backs, the animals behaved as if they were being stroked there. That launched the whole project. We did a lot more behavioral tests and traced the pathway for social touch from the skin to the spinal cord to the reward centers in the brain. > What if we could turn on these neurons with a skin cream to improve mental health — say, to offset the harm caused by social isolation or to treat anxiety or depression? When I gave a talk about this in December, the psychiatrists and neuropharmacologists in the audience were very enthusiastic about the therapeutic potential. > We’re also interested in them because mole rats do not feel some forms of pain. For example, they show no pain response to the molecule capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers, which is quite painful to most mammals. They have receptors in their skin that respond to capsaicin, so I hypothesize that the animals have brain pathways that shut down the pain. If we can find and tap into those signals, we might find a new way to block pain. They are taking a multidisciplinary approach to researching an understudied field, and it's fascinating. Why is no-one else seeing that?

somedude895 2y ago
> a skin cream to improve mental health — say, to offset the harm caused by social isolation or to treat anxiety or depression? I know there are some serious mental health ailments that require pharmaceutical treatment, but using Soma-like chemicals to make humans simply feel okay with what's bothering them sounds to me like a surefire way to destroy a society. Things like antidepressants, weed, porn and social media have are already moved us in that direction, but seeing this sort of stuff as an achievement just sounds dystopian to me.

kwhitefoot 2y ago

> I had hundreds of crayfish everywhere. My parents are not scientists, but they were very supportive of my escapades and adventures in the scientific realm. Escapades and adventures. That's perfect I wish schools would encourage more of that.