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Cognitive science Science

Brain stimulation tests give hope for autism treatment

Research breakthrough highlights cerebellum’s role

By Heather Allen

Autism breakthrough: The cerebellum may be the key to a new treatment for autism

Pioneering new research on the role of the cerebellum could lead to an effective treatment for autism.

The research forms part of a study by Professor Frank Van Overwalle, from the Brain, Body, and Cognition research group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). The study highlights the cerebellum’s crucial role in both motor coordination and social-cognitive functions, expanding its known importance beyond just movement control. According to Professor Van Overwalle, this research offers a fresh perspective on the cerebellum’s role and paves the way for new treatments for psychiatric and neurological conditions, such as autism spectrum disorders.

The results of magnetic brain stimulation tests on autistic subjects were used in the study. The subjects showed measurable improvements when performing a sequence of cognitive tasks. More complex tasks are now being tested to see if further improvements can be made, with the goal of developing practical treatments for people with autism.

The aim of the research is to highlight the underappreciated role of the cerebellum in both motor functions and social-cognitive processes. The research supports a growing trend in neuroscience, which has historically concentrated more on the cerebrum, the larger, main part of the brain.

Although small compared to the rest of the brain, the cerebellum holds more than half of the neurons in the body. Often referred to as the back brain, the cerebellum is located at the back of the head, just above and behind where the spinal cord connects to the brain, at ear-level. The cerebellum forms a half-circle shape around the brain stem, which connects the brain to the spinal cord. It is easily identifiable by the series of horizontal grooves from top to bottom. The average adult cerebellum is about 11.5cm wide, between 3-4cm tall in the middle and 5-6cm on the sides, and weighs between 136-169 grams.

Although unusual, research on the cerebellum is nothing new. Over two hundred years ago, scientists started analysing the cerebellum by studying people with cerebellum damage. Subjects often had trouble keeping their balance or would have difficulty reaching for objects. Later, evidence was found that cerebellum damage could have other effects, including difficulty in learning new words or skills.

Crucially, the posterior cerebellum has a critical role in human social and emotional learning and decision making. Three systems and related neural networks support this cerebellar function: a biological action observation system; a mentalising system for understanding a person’s mental and emotional state; and a limbic network supporting core emotional pleasure/displeasure and arousal processes. The study describes how these systems and networks support social and emotional learning via connections initiating and terminating in the posterior cerebellum and cerebral neocortex.

Professor Van Overwalle’s research tests the hypothesis that a major function of the cerebellum is to identify and encode temporal sequences of events. Researchers believe that this function might help to fine-tune and automatise social and emotional learning. The study discusses tests conducted using neuroimaging and non-invasive stimulation that provide evidence for cerebellar sequencing, as well as accounts of the cerebellum’s role in these social and emotional processes.

For decades, the cerebellum was primarily associated with motor coordination, Professor Van Overwalle explains: “People with cerebellar abnormalities often experience motor issues. For example, they struggle to smoothly touch their nose with a finger. These difficulties highlight the cerebellum’s essential role in refining motor movements.”

The research extends beyond motor functions, exploring the cerebellum’s involvement in social and cognitive abilities. Professor Van Overwalle’s findings reveal that abnormalities in the cerebellum not only lead to motor deficits but are also linked to emotional and behavioral disorders. According to Professor Van Overwalle, research on individuals with autism demonstrates how non-invasive brain stimulation techniques like magnetic stimulation can improve social task performance.

Another breakthrough highlighted in the study is the use of transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), a cheaper and more accessible technique compared to magnetic stimulation. While the effects of tES are still limited, the research group is committed to further development, seeing its potential for wide-scale application in the future.

“Our hope is to refine these techniques further to improve social and cognitive functions in people with autism,” Professor Van Overwalle says.

Source: Social and emotional learning in the cerebellum by Frank Van Overwalle, 21 October 2024, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Categories
Real life

Blossoms of memory bloom in the borders

By Heather Allen

Blue beauty: Forget-me-not, or Myosotis, is a popular and common plant found in gardens, parks and in the wild throughout Britain and Europe. Image: Adobe Stock.

Forget-me-nots have colonised my garden. Every spring, they open their cheeky blue eyes in plant pots and along the borders, standing defiantly against the relentless march of bluebells across the garden.

These tiny, cheerful flowers have decorated the verges and borders of my life since I can remember. I cannot think of a spring garden without picturing a scattering of blue and yellow flowers filling a border, or poking through a crack, or taking up residence in another plant’s pot.

I loved gardening as a child, helping my mother at home and my grandfather in his allotment, but it was many years after leaving home that I took up my trowel again. Early one March, when I was feeling low, a friend suggested I do some gardening. “When you put your hands in the earth it grounds you,” she said, her bangles chiming as she mimed the action. I watched her hands, mesmerised by the bangles, then looked up into her eyes. She smiled. “Just give it a go.”

I thought about it. My mum had always seemed at her calmest when gardening. Trowel in hand, humming to herself, her blue eyes smiled at me as I grubbed in the ground next to her. I remember the deep peace I felt, kneeling next to her, watching her sun-browned hands working in the clay. Our garden in the spring: flowering currant blossoms dancing on their delicate stalks; primroses clustering, pale and fresh on the red-brown earth, and lilac blossoms filling the air with their sweet scent.

Then I thought about Saturdays, when we would visit my grandparents. In spring and summer, I would skip along next to grandad’s wheelbarrow as we trundled to the allotments at the end of the street. I loved to help him, chattering and laughing as he tended his marrows and beans, and marvelling at the towering canes of sweet peas. I remember the forget-me-nots then, those tiny blue flowers in spring, peeking out of the allotment verges, lining the borders of grandad’s bungalow garden. Always forget-me-nots, everywhere, beautiful and bright. I decided.

Soon after my friend’s speech, on a visit to Mom, I asked her, could I have a few seedlings? She beamed. “You’re welcome to them! They self-seed you know! And they’ll spread, so watch it!”

I took them home, planted them in pots, and watched as they bloomed, turning their tiny faces to the spring sun. I felt grounded, it was true. Let them spread. Bring it on.

From that point on, I began to spend more time in the garden of my rented property, transforming it over the next few years from a minimal-maintenance garden to a floral delight. When we moved, once again in spring, I took several forget-me-not seedlings with me in pots.

Now, over ten years since my mother passed on, the garden in the family home still contains many of the plants she loved and cared for. It gives me a strange feeling, now, to see forget-me-nots coming up every year, here at my home and in my mother’s former garden, the many-times-great grandchildren of the flowers she grew.

When I look at them now, they are tiny beacons guiding me into memories of spring days running bare-legged through the garden, gathering handfuls of the tiny blue blooms. My mother would smile as my father caught me, swept me up and hugged me, saying: “You’ll forget me not, will you, my girl?”

Categories
Cognitive science

You don’t have to get the picture to love the story

Lack of ability to visualise does not impair a reader’s enjoyment, research finds

By Heather Allen

Picture pleasure: Being able to visualise a story is not necessary for enjoyment of reading.
(Image: Radboud University)

When most of us read, we imagine the story in our heads. Being able to picture the scene helps us to experience the reality of the story, to engage with it and to make sense of it. But what if we do not have the capacity to visualise? A new study by researchers at Radboud University has found that staying engaged with a story is more challenging for people with aphantasia, a condition which makes it difficult or impossible to imagine what is described. However, the study found that aphantasia does not otherwise impair the enjoyment of reading.

Aphantasia was first discovered in 2015, and people with the condition find it difficult or impossible to create visual images of concepts, objects or scenes, or to recall memories in a visual way. It is estimated that five per cent of the world’s population has this condition. Researchers Laura Speed, Lynn Eekhof and Marloes Mak from Radboud University sought to discover the differences in reading experience between people with aphantasia and those without the condition. A total of 47 people with aphantasia were compared to 51 controls on their experience of reading a short story and their reading habits. An established visual imagery questionnaire was used to determine whether someone had aphantasia. Participants answered questions about their experience of the story, as well as their general reading preferences and habits.

The study, recruited and conducted online, found that aphantasics were less likely to be engaged with, interested in, and absorbed in the story, and experienced reduced emotional engagement with and sympathy for the story characters, compared to controls. However, aphantasics and controls did not differ in how much they liked or appreciated the story, and the reading habits of the two groups also did not differ significantly. The results have implications for embodied theories of language, suggesting visual imagery may influence how a story is experienced, but it is not the only route to story enjoyment.

According to language scientist Laura Speed, the study’s lead author, visual imagery is thought to be involved in various cognitive processes, including short term memory, autobiographical memory and future thinking, as well as language processing. Brain imaging studies indicate that visual parts of the brain are activated during language comprehension. A growing area of research has drawn attention to people with aphantasia, raising questions about how cognition may function without imagery.

Previous studies have noted that individuals often experience disappointment when an actor does not resemble the mental image they had of a character in the film adaptation of a book they have read. Visual imagery has been associated with how transported by or absorbed in a story readers are, and subsequently how much readers enjoyed stories. Aphantasics have rated short verbal descriptions of people in distress as less emotionally moving than controls, but the same difference was not observed with photographs of people in distress.

The Radboud University study is the first to examine and compare the experience of reading a story and general reading habits between individuals with aphantasia and control participants without the condition. Participants were given the fast-fiction short story My Dead by Peter Orner to read online. The story depicts two strangers who meet and drive to a séance together, ending in a near-death experience on their way home. Their experience was assessed using three established reading experience scales: the Story Appreciation Scale, the Story World Absorption Scale, and the Transformative Reading Scale.

The Story Appreciation Scale is used to assess how much participants like and enjoy a story, and what their aesthetic experience of a story is. Story World Absorption describes the feelings people may have when reading a good story or book where they go beyond comprehending the meaning of the words on a page, to a captivating experience that helps them become completely involved in the stories they read. The Transformative Reading Scale assesses the transformative aspect of reading (how literature can change concepts of the self and others) by focusing on sympathy for story characters, resonance with the reader and their past, and experience of the story through visual and bodily experience.

“Interestingly, people with aphantasia do not report impairments in their language skills,” Dr Speed said. “It is not the case that someone who can’t visually imagine ‘red’ can’t understand the word. But visual imagery is associated with how someone experiences a story. It appears that people with aphantasia are less absorbed in the story world and feel less emotional involvement with characters.”

In addition, descriptions of scenery and actions were less appreciated by people with aphantasia than by the control group, Dr Speed said, but the groups did not differ in how much they enjoyed the story. In addition, both groups reported a similar number of books read per year, and did not differ in how frequently they read fiction or non-fiction, nor how frequently they listen to audiobooks. Both groups appear to like similar genres of fiction, with equal numbers favouring Science fiction (19), adventure (4), and crime/mystery (11).  A number of aphantasics even reported writing fiction themselves. Aphantasics reported more frequently consuming fiction and non-fiction another way, such as films or TV shows, which could reflect a preference for added visual stimulation to compensate for their reduced visual imagery.

“It seems that visual imagery is not the only way to enjoy a story,” Dr Speed said. “The plot or style of language, for example, unlike descriptions of scenery, doesn’t require strong visual imagery. Aphantasic participants in our study reported appreciating these aspects, but not descriptions of scenery. So there are, besides visual imagery, other routes to story enjoyment and language comprehension. What works for some does not necessarily work for others. It is important to explore and understand this diversity in reading approaches.”

Source: The role of visual imagery in story reading: Evidence from aphantasia, by Laura J Speed, Lynn S Eekhof and Marloes Mak, Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Netherlands.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810024000126

Categories
Psychology

Help inspires help, but family comes first

by Heather Allen

Neighbour in need: But we are more likely to help a family member that the person who lives next door.
Image: Adobe Stock

In our society, there are certain people who will always help others. You know the type: always there to open a door, carry shopping up the hill, maybe even get the shopping in for a sick friend, neighbour or family member. However, there are other factors at play in any given situation, which directly influence the nature of the assistance given. According to new research, the helper’s relationship to the recipient is key.

In her recent thesis, social scientist Dr Marlou Ramaekers of Radboud University researched the was in which social factors influence the help that is given to others. She discovered that, while providing help inspires others to do the same, we are more inclined to help family members than neighbours.

“Previous research primarily focused on the individual who was providing the help: the kind of personality that this person had, and the amount of time and money that they were able to devote to the task,” Dr Ramaekers said. “I think that looking at the subject from this angle is too limited. It’s actually our social environment that matters, as well as the person who is receiving the help.” 

There are plenty of people who occasionally help a friend, relative or neighbour with small, practical matters, Dr Ramaekers points out. Although this kind of help is not always necessary, it is still welcome. In scientific literature, this is also referred to as ‘informal help’, because it has not been formally organised.

Dr Ramaekers used large-scale questionnaire research to analyse the relationship between the giver and the recipient, the family and society as a whole. “Because informal help has no formal rules or procedures, the most relevant things when it comes to this form of help are actually the person who is being helped, what other people are doing and how they view this help and the people with whom they are in contact.”

For example, the study showed that there are different things that can motivate people to help, such as being surrounded by other people who are providing informal help, Dr Ramaekers said: “When someone provides informal help, it motivates others to do the same. And this can cause a chain reaction.”

At the same time, the study showed that people are more likely to help family members than friends or neighbours. “When it comes to neighbours, it turns out that it’s not only who the neighbour is that matters, but that their reputation within the neighbourhood also plays a role,” Dr Ramaekers said. “If people know that the neighbour is always willing to help others, they’ll be more inclined to help him than if he was someone who was known for never helping other people.”

Although it might seem self-evident that people are more likely to help a family member than a neighbour, it is an important finding, Dr Ramaekers pointed out: “When it comes to helping each other with small chores, neighbours are actually able to help each other more easily. People are generally positive about helping their neighbours, but by the same token they seem to feel less obliged to help them, even though government policies are increasingly based on civic participation.

“I feel that governments need to be more discerning in this regard and that they need to carefully consider those people who might be left out of the equation. If people are already less inclined to help their neighbours out with such small chores, governments should not simply assume that people will actually offer their neighbours more structured help.”

Source: https://www.ru.nl/en/research/research-news/seeing-other-people-help-out-makes-us-want-to-help-too-but-people-would-rather-help-a-family-member-than-a-neighbour

Categories
Health Science

Vibrating capsule could treat obesity

Technology could trick the brain into thinking it’s time to stop eating

by Heather Allen

Could the VIBES pill be the weight loss technology we have been waiting for? Image: Adobe Stock

We are almost at the end of January, and by now many of our New Year’s Resolutions for 2024 have gone by the wayside. That gym card hides at the back of the wallet, the tracksuit gathers dust in the wardrobe, and the new trainers nestle undisturbed in their box. Meanwhile, telling ourselves it’s too cold to diet, we are too stressed, upset, or ‘the diet starts next week,’ we pile the sweet treats and fat-laden snacks onto our plates and into our mouths. We know that, if we seriously want to lose weight, we will have to put down the cake and pull on the trainers. Whatever diet and exercise combo we decide on, action needs to be taken, and we don’t expect it to be easy.

Indeed, as obesity rises through the western world, scientists have stepped up the search for ways to make weight loss easier. One possible solution has been developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Engineers at MIT have designed the VIBES pill, an ingestible capsule that vibrates inside the stomach and creates a sense of fullness. The technology relies on the signals sent by the stomach to the brain when a large meal has been eaten. Researchers say that swallowing the capsule before a meal could trick the brain into thinking it’s time to stop eating, offering a minimally invasive, cost-effective way to treat obesity.

Dr Shriya Srinivasan, a former MIT graduate student and now assistant professor of bioengineering at Harvard University, is the lead author of the new study. Dr Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is the senior author of the paper. “For somebody who wants to lose weight or control their appetite, it could be taken before each meal,” Dr Srinivasan said. “This could be really interesting in that it would provide an option that could minimise the side effects that we see with the other pharmacological treatments out there.”

The pill’s mechanism works with the body’s response to satiety. When the stomach becomes distended, specialised cells called mechanoreceptors detect the stretching and send signals to the brain via the vagus nerve. When the signals are received, the brain stimulates production of insulin, as well as hormones such as C-peptide, Pyy, and GLP-1. All of these hormones work together to help people digest their food, feel full, and stop eating. At the same time, levels of ghrelin, a hunger-promoting hormone, go down.

While a graduate student at MIT, Dr Srinivasan became interested in the idea of controlling this process, using vibration to artificially stretch the mechanoreceptors that line the stomach. Previous research had shown that vibration applied to a muscle can induce a sense that the muscle has stretched farther than it actually has. For this study, Dr Srinivasan, Dr Traverso, and a team of researchers designed a capsule about the size of a multivitamin, that includes a vibrating element. The pill was designed to be orally ingested, to activate upon submersion in gastric fluid, to vibrate with sufficient amplitude to stimulate the gastric nerves, and to pass safely through the gastrointestinal tract. When the pill, powered by a small silver oxide battery, reaches the stomach, gastric fluids dissolve a gelatinous membrane that covers the capsule, completing the electronic circuit that activates the vibrating motor. After a set time period, the pill is safely excreted.

The VIBES pill could offer an affordable solution to obesity. Image courtesy of the researchers, MIT news

The VIBES pill was tested on a group of ten Yorkshire pigs, as a pig’s gastric anatomy is similar to humans. The pill’s effects were evaluated across a total of 108 meals. The researchers found that, as expected, once the pill begins vibrating, it activates mechanoreceptors in the stomach, which send signals to the brain through stimulation of the vagus nerve. The researchers tracked hormone levels during the periods when the device was vibrating and found that they mirrored the hormone release patterns seen following a meal, even when the animals had fasted.

The researchers then tested the effects of this stimulation on the animals’ appetite. They found that when the pill was activated for 20 minutes before the animals were offered food, they consumed 40 per cent less, on average, than when the pill was not activated. The animals also gained weight more slowly during periods when they were treated with the vibrating pill.

The VIBES pill is designed to vibrate for 30 minutes after being swallowed, but the researchers are hoping to develop a version which remains in the stomach for longer periods of time, where it could be turned on and off wirelessly. In the animal studies, the pills passed through the digestive tract within four or five days. The study also found that the animals did not show any signs of obstruction, perforation, or other negative impacts while the pill was in their digestive tract.

Dr Srinivasan believes that the capsules could offer an affordable solution to the obesity crisis, as they could be manufactured at a cost that would make them available to people who do not have access to more expensive treatment options. “At scale, our device could be manufactured at a pretty cost-effective price point,” she said. “I’d love to see how this would transform care and therapy for people in global health settings who may not have access to some of the more sophisticated or expensive options that are available today.”

The researchers now plan to explore ways to scale up the manufacturing of the capsules, which could enable clinical trials in humans. Such studies would be important to learn more about the devices’ safety, as well as determine the best time to swallow the capsule before a meal and how often it would need to be administered.

Other authors of the paper include Amro Alshareef, Alexandria Hwang, Ceara Byrne, Johannes Kuosmann, Keiko Ishida, Joshua Jenkins, Sabrina Liu, Wiam Abdalla Mohammed Madani, Alison Hayward, and Niora Fabian. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, Novo Nordisk, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, a Schmidt Science Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation in the US.

The paper, ‘A vibrating ingestible bioelectronic stimulator modulates gastric stretch receptors for illusory satiety’ can be accessed at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj3003

Categories
Science

One step closer to the Big Bang

Successful first test for inflatable telescope

By Heather Allen

Floating free: the inflatable antenna at an altitude of 20 kilometres. (Image: Sent into Space)

The secrets of the universe’s origin came one step closer earlier this month with the successful first test of a new inflatable radio antenna.

Niels Vertegaal, a PhD candidate from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is developing the antenna to help him realise his goal of examining the origins of the universe. The telescope will operate from the far side of the moon, free from earthly interference, which will enable it to detect these signals. The Big Bang theory sets the origins of the universe at around 13.8 billion years ago, within the scope of the antenna, which can capture faint, 14 billion-year-old signals in space.

The experiment was conducted in Sheffield, England, where Mr Vertegaal enlisted the help of the company Sent into Space, who specialise in executing and supervising this type of experiment. On 6th December, the weather conditions were favourable to allow the prototype inflatable radio telescope and weather balloon to climb into the stratosphere to an altitude of 30 kilometres.  Once the weather balloon reached 20 kilometres, the antenna started to unfold. At 30 kilometers, with the air getting thinner and thinner, the balloon started to bloat, due to the pressure difference. Eventually, according to plan, the balloon tore, and a parachute then brought the equipment safely back to the ground.

During the experiment, the antenna did unfold completely, but later than Mr Vertegaal had expected. However, the antenna was operational for long enough for him to run enough measurements to determine whether the antenna was functioning properly.

Following the test, Mr Vertegaal said: “I still need to analyse the data, but I already saw that the antenna does work. Either way, I’m happy with how everything went.”

So why an inflatable antenna? It’s all down to cost, Mr Vertegaal explains: “Because every gram that goes into space is very costly. So the question is how you can make an antenna that’s large in space, but very small and light when it’s launched. In a vacuum you only need a tiny bit of air to inflate something.”

When launched, the antenna is contained in a small (ten centimetre) cube. Inside is a paper-thin film, which measures one metre square when unfolded. The film is covered by a two-micrometre thick conductive layer of copper, which functions as a radio receiver. The process of unfolding the antenna is conducted by blowing compressed air into its arms, followed by a small dose of CO₂. Prior to the experiment, Mr Vertegaal released a video of laboratory tests, where the antenna resembles a balloon being inflated, slowly revealing its final shape.

A consortium, which includes Radboud University Nijmegen and TU/e, is working on submitting a proposal to the European Space Agency. The goal is to use an inflatable antenna as a radio telescope on the far side of the moon.

“I really hope that space exploration missions to the moon will end up embracing this idea,” Mr Vertegaal said. “With an antenna that can capture ultralow frequencies behind the moon, free from interference from earth, we expect to gather information on the origins of the universe.”

Source https://www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/08-12-2023-research-into-the-big-bang-an-inflatable-antenna-in-space

Categories
Psychology

Trust me, you’re on your own

by Heather Allen

Group think: the company we are in is an important driver of ethical behaviour. (Image: Adobe Stock)

The urge to deceive others is a natural human trait, albeit not a desirable one. It is widely believed that a person’s trustworthiness, or lack of it, is down to their individual character rather than the situation they are in. Indeed, research on unethical behaviour has tended to focus on the person exhibiting the behaviour, rather than the target of that behaviour. However, new research from the University of British Columbia (UBC) Sauder School of Business has turned that view on its head. According to the research, people are more likely to act deceptively towards a group rather than an individual – the situation itself directly affects behaviour.

Researchers cite the example of a job interview, where, it was discovered, a candidate is more likely to exaggerate their qualifications and experience when facing a panel than they would in a one-to-one interview.

“We found that individuals act more unethically toward groups than individual targets – and how closely connected they are to the group comes into play,” Dr Daniel Skarlicki, a professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business, said. “It’s almost as though my responsibility to the other side is diluted, because there are four of them. You don’t get the same sense of a personal connection that you get with one person. And when that connection goes away, deception is more likely.”

Groups tend to be perceived as competitive, aggressive and negative, and less like a ‘real’ entity, Dr Skarlicki said. This means that people tend to see groups as less personal, and therefore not as deserving of moral treatment.

Researchers coined the term ‘The Plurality Effect’ to describe the phenomenon, which was observed across several experiments in the study.  In one scenario, participants acting as advisors behaved dishonestly when interacting with a group compared to an individual. Another experiment, which focused on mock job interviews, revealed an increased likelihood of deceptive behaviour when facing a panel rather than an individual interviewer.  

A person’s connection to the group can also make a difference. People show greater moral concern toward individuals in their close circles (the in-group), which can include friends, family members, colleagues, and people whose stories they relate to.

“There is strong evidence that you will be more deceptive to the out-group versus the in-group, because you feel relatively more responsibility toward the in-group and you like them more,” Dr Skarlicki said. “If we go back in time, the out-group is whoever you’re competing with for food. It’s evolutionary.”

The findings could have a wide application, from job interviews and customer interactions to international negotiations, Dr Skarlicki said. Instead of group interviews, employers might choose to have a series of one-on-one meetings, which could also be a winning strategy in political negotiations. In addition, people can reduce the risk of deception by trying to boost their moral concern about the other party.

The study, entitled ‘The Plurality Effect: People behave more unethically toward group than individual targets’, builds on research about moral decision-making and social identity theory, and was co-authored with Hsuan-Che Huang from UBC Sauder, Dr Ruodan Shao from York University, Dr Kristina Diekmann from University of Utah, and Dr Ann Tenbrunsel from the University of Notre Dame.

Source: University of British Columbia. https://news.ubc.ca/2023/12/07/people-more-likely-to-behave-unethically-toward-groups-than-individuals/

Research abstract available at: https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/AMPROC.2023.349bp

 

 

Categories
Poetry

Breathing the World

by Heather Allen

Breathe out your pain and keep breathing out

Breathe in to the echo of the dawn of the world

One breath, then another, and on to another

With the whole world breathing along with you

As the world has breathed since the dawn of time

And your time a million moments in a single breath

It comes to this – air in, air out

Air charging blood and life the flood

That flows, that glows with a vital heat

With each heartbeat, and beating ever on

And when the breath stops, still the world goes on

But every breath goes on forever

Every moment capturing an age

As a bright drop of rain that sparkles in the sun

Arrests you with a flash that slashes the veil of time

Now there’s just you here, standing, breathing

Riding the rim of the world as the stars turn with you

These treasures from times past sparkle at your feet

And the earth moves on regardless as you keep breathing out

Categories
Poetry

Her beautiful glass house

by Heather Allen

 

She dusts the china and looks through the window of

her beautiful glass house, bathed in morning sunlight

Her mind is misted but her eyes are dancing

as she stands tall and upright, white-haired and limber,

feet firmly planted on the scrubbed stone floor

where the sunshine sparkles through the polished panes

 

She strokes the leaves and smiles as bees

awakened, seek the precious nectar

These scented blooms help her remember

the hands that held the spade that dug the earth

 

She stares through the glass and the glass mists,

so she pulls out her old lace handkerchief,

absently wipes the pane, and once again

she thinks of his strong brown arms about her

 

She closes her eyes and breathes in, smiling,

feels the spring sun warming her cool pale face

Now her heart quickens, she knows he’s behind her,

his big body solid, still present, still breathing!

She’s sure he’s there, she feels him for certain,

so she turns with arms wide and opens her eyes:

but there’s nothing but empty air to greet her.

 

Yet as she sees it, he’s always with her;

among the pelargoniums and the china dolls,

surveying the garden from their beautiful glass house:

they’re together at breakfast, the sun streaming in,

at ease in the wicker chairs, toast and hot coffee,

and The Times left open on the letters page

Talking of everything, talking of nothing,

while their time ticks on, and on, and on…

 

Now she is one; drinking coffee alone.

His chair, untouched and undisturbed

still angled to the sun. He’s waiting there,

while she sniffs the blooms and plucks dead leaves,

then wipes the table that’s already clean

and asks him: “What shall we do today?”

The dust in the air shifts ever so slightly:

she smiles, content, and turns to face the glass.

Crosstides

by Heather Allen

Negotiating the stormy seas of a wild and passionate love. Image: Adobe Stock

Breaking away from you

scudding away

like the tiny flecks of foam

upon the shore

I feel a pain

like no other felt before

Your dark softness

the dead of night

black water moving

in the depths of your eyes

You are the night

cold wind of the North

I shiver

you are the cold I feel

Like the icy chill

flashed through nerve and marrow

in that instant

when I know

the heat has come

And then, soothing,

it burns me kindly

rocks me in its arms

until I sleep

But as I sleep

I dream

of midnight beaches

inky waters

foaming white

Yet still

my skin is aching,

aching with the memory of water

craving for cold

to wash away the sweat

And the heavy scent still hangs.

Still I sleep

warm and drowsy

half smiling softly…

But I’m dreaming again:

I’m swaying on the water

to, fro,

to, fro,

the breakers crashing


I can hear my breathing

and the unshed tears

are fighting their way out

For you, for us,

for our long lives lonely

Still falling

to swell the tide

of unspent passion.