Headline, January23, 2014

''' GREAT EXPECTATIO​NS : Oh'..... O!'' 

STUDENTS OF THE WORLD !'''

THE WORLD IS HOLDING ITS BREATH  watching the enhanced activity in two critical regions of the students' brain:

The amygdala, a small structure deep in the brain that is central to the processing of emotion, and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) -an area of the frontal cortex that modulates emotions & motivation for

!WOW! !WOW! !WOW!

The rACC acts like a traffic conductor, enhancing the flow of positive emotions and associations. 

The more optimistic a student was, the higher the activity in these regions was while imagining positive future  -relative to negative ones- and the stronger the connectivity between the two structures.

My imagination, nay, hallucinations,  aside, such findings are particularly fascinating because these precise regions  -the amygdala and the rACC -show abnormal activity in depressed individuals.

While healthy people expect the future to be slightly better than it ends up being, people with severe depression tend to be pessimistically biased: they expect things to be worse than they end up being.

People with mild depressions are relatively accurate when predicting future events. They see the world as it is. In other words, in the absence of neural mechanism that generates unrealistic optimism, it is possible all humans would be mildly depressed.

However, it is an honour to mention seven  students who delightfully impressed me with their optimism, and formidable  neural mechanism : Rabo, Dee, Hussain Ali, Ali Aizaz, Vishnu,  Ehsan Khalil, and Zeba. All very gifted. All super Talent.

All of the above : '' Hardwired For Hope'' .  The Good Lord gets the last laugh on me, for sure. Let me join him then : Hahaha!

But Can Optimism Change Reality? : the problem with pessimistic expectations, such as those of the clinically depressed, is that they have the power alter the future; negative expectations shape outcomes in a negative way. 

How do expectations change reality?

To answer this question, cognitive neuroscientist Sara Bengtsson, devised an experiment in which she manipulated positive and negative expectations of students while their brains were scanned and tested their performance on cognitive tasks.

To induce expectations of success, she primed college students with words such as smart, intelligent and clever just before asking them to perform a test. 

To induce expectations of failure, she primed them with words like stupid and ignorant. the students performed better after being primed with an affirmative message.

Examining the brain-imaging data, Bengtsson found that the students' brains responded differently to the mistakes they made depending on whether they were primed with the word clever or the word stupid.

When the mistakes followed positive words, she observed enhanced activity in the anterior medial part of the prefrontal cortex  -a region that is involved in self reflection and recollection- 

However, when the participants were primed with the word stupid, there was no heightened activity after a wrong answer.   

It appears that after being primed with the word stupid, the brain expected to do poorly and did not show signs of surprise or conflict when it made an error.

A brain that doesn't expect good results lacks a signal telling it, ''Take notice............wrong answer!'' These brains will fail to learn from their mistakes and are less likely to improve over time.

Expectations become self-fulfilling by altering our performance and actions, which ultimately affects what happens in the future. Often, however, expectations simply transform the way we perceive the world without altering reality itself.

The very human nature is such, that when confronted with a tragedy, even when the events and incidents that befall us are the type of horrific events we never expected to encounter, we automatically seek evidence confirming that our misfortune is a blessing in disguise.

No, you did not anticipate failing, losing your job, being ill -but when these incidents occur, we search for the upside. These experiences mature us, we think. They may lead to more fulfilling jobs and stable relationships in the future.

Interpreting a misfortune in this way allows us to conclude that our sunny expectations were correct after all  -things did work for the best.

!WOW! : The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless, belongs to every student in the world : !!! One share-peace-piece !!!.

Get off your backs, stop moaning, and ''Don't Crack Under Pressure'''

With respectful dedication to : Oh, Oh,  O' world students! See ya all on !WOW! the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Your One True Silver Lining '''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless