- [Announcer] "Your Fantastic Mind," brought to you in part by Sarah & Jim Kennedy.

(light electronic music) (light electronic music continues) - Welcome to "Your Fantastic Mind."

I'm Jaye Watson.

Our featured stories this week illuminate the profound impact of research, revealing how it enriches our understanding of ourselves, each other, and even our children.

Our first story tonight explores groundbreaking research examining the effects of racism on the human brain, but the researchers didn't stop there.

Their next step, more research to see what could be done about it.

- Today, what we're gonna be doing, putting something around you that measures your breathing.

Come on in.

- [Jaye] What has led these research participants to this room, to this booth- - We're gonna get started.

- Okay.

- [Negar] Today, we're going to be doing the breath focus meditation.

- [Jaye] Came after what neuropsychologist and trauma researcher Negar Fani discovered in a study of 116 Black women, who reported experiencing racial discrimination.

(light music) 55 of the participants underwent functional MRI, which looks at brain activation as people do a task.

In this case, the women focused on tasks that required attention while looking at stressful images similar to this.

(light music) - Areas of the brain that are involved with self-regulation, so regulating your emotions, and thoughts, and things like that, light up more in people who've experienced more racial discrimination.

(light music) - [Jaye] Those areas of the brain, the middle occipital cortex and the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, are regions associated with vigilance and watching out for threat.

- Switches right here.

And what our data is showing is that experiences of racial discrimination might be showing an encumbrance on the brain functionally that's translating to structural vulnerabilities.

So we see a structural degradation in the brain white matter and gray matter.

So these are two different types of brain matter that relate to connections between brain regions, or the number of neurons that are in the brain.

This is looking really interesting.

And we can see that people who've experienced more racial discrimination have proportionally more kind of weathering of brain structure.

The sensor that's picking up her breathing- - [Jaye] This first of its kind study showed the burden that racism places on people's brains.

Coping with racism requires a lot of energy, and it takes a toll on the brain, and can put people at greater risk for a host of health issues, including neurodegenerative diseases.

- We know that problems like Alzheimer's disease are twice as likely in Black individuals versus white people, and we don't really know what are the pathways that are creating that vulnerability.

Here you can see the vibration- - [Jaye] Fani decided to do something about what her study showed.

- If you hold out your hand- - [Jaye] To attempt to ease the burden on the brains of people impacted by racism.

- Some of the highest rates of PTSD are in Black women.

- [Jaye] Now, we wanted to bring you in.

Partnering with psychologist and neuroscience researcher Dr. Greg Siegle at the University of Pittsburgh, they launched a pilot meditation study with 65 African American women, and it showed promising results.

- We also see other areas- - [Jaye] What followed was $4 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to fund a larger study of 200 people at the University of Pittsburgh and Emory University.

- For a very long time, we have known that if you put a, if you want your kid to go to sleep, you can just pop them in the car, and drive them around the block.

- [Jaye] What made their meditation study unique was that Siegle and Fani's team used the idea of that soothing vibration from a car ride to convert a mini-speaker into a wearable device that vibrates and is synced with the breath.

- We noticed that people who were getting the vibration feedback were also showing improvements in heart rate variability, so their bodies were able to regulate more flexibly and smoothly to adapting circumstances.

Come on in.

So today we're going to be doing- - [Jaye] This is important, because the people in this study experience dissociation.

- [Assistant] All right, so if you could have a seat- - [Jaye] A natural response to trauma they cannot control, basically disconnecting from themselves.

- So when they're feeling stressed especially they tend to detach from their bodies, detach from their surroundings, so they feel a greater sense of disconnection.

It's a kind of mental escape.

So dissociation has a real adaptive value when you're experiencing extreme stress, and many times something that you can't escape, like a racial stressor.

- [Greg] Even if you can't pay attention to what's going on in your body, if we synchronize vibration to your breathing, then you're paying attention to something that's soothing, that we know is not threatening for exactly this population.

- As you breathe, you're gonna experience a vibration that's kind of proportionate to your breath.

- [Jaye] In the pilot study, brain imaging data showed increased connectivity in brain networks that involve awareness of the body and connecting with the body.

- I told them about some, just some stories about growing up, and how I just react to things now.

So I guess they deemed that those things could be connected.

- [Jaye] Kayla Whyte had never been told she dissociated.

- [Kayla] I never realized that's what it was until it was really described to me when they were doing the preliminary like kind of background.

- [Jaye] But Kayla recognized herself when she learned about it.

- There definitely are times when I feel like I'm just not here, and then it won't be until I come back that I realize something's happened.

Obviously, bad things happen to a lot of groups, a lot of populations, including Black men, but I think it's that combination of sexism and racism, the misogynoir that is just a awful combination that nobody else really experiences.

- [Negar] You can stop at any time whenever you need to- - [Jaye] Calyn Dubose is a psychology major at Georgia State.

- We don't get the same perks as other people get.

We have to work 3,000 times harder in even the smallest of task to even get the smallest bit of recognition.

(light music) - [Jaye] Over a few weeks, participants come for eight 20-minute sessions.

- You're going to take these leads, and you're going to clip them on.

- [Jaye] Sensors measure heart rate, respiration, and sweat response.

(light music) - [Negar] So you can see her respiration down here, and this same respiration in red is synced with the peaks of what the respiration belt is picking up in the vibration signal that's kind of synced to the breath.

- [Jaye] In just a few weeks, Kayla and Calyn noticed a difference.

- It helped me also deal with the world.

It helped me realize that you need to only worry and care about the things that are in your specific control.

(Negar laughing) I come because I need to, 'cause it's the only thing right now that is actually helping me get through this because of what I've been through this year.

I don't think I could do it if I wasn't.

- [Negar] And you are unhooked.

- I realized not even just when I'm in the booth, but in my regular life, how often I am not super present in moments.

So it had me thinking a lot about, "Oh, okay, this is when my mind starts to wander," and it's not intentional, but I am now a lot more aware of it.

- [Negar] It shouldn't be constrictive.

- Giving them a safe entree back into their body, where they can sit in it, and maybe even when they're reminded of some difficult things sit in their body and feel is huge.

People are getting better.

They're losing their PTSD diagnoses.

They are dissociating less.

They are telling us stories of how much more comfortable they feel living their lives.

- [Jaye] Plans are underway to create an inexpensive product that would be widely available.

- Who can't benefit from something that helps people focus their attention and feel more calm and relaxed, you know?

This isn't just for people who've experienced trauma.

(light music) - Dr. Siegle says 60% of people have been exposed to some level of trauma.

Development of an inexpensive vibrational device for the general public will continue while the study goes on for a few more years.

So let's dive now into a story about inflammation, you know, a word that pops up just about everywhere these days, but this is about inflammation in our bodies and its impact on our brains, specifically concerning depression.

This is important research that could change the way people are assessed and treated in the future.

- And we're trying to dig in a little deeper to find out what's going on immunologically.

(light music) - [Jaye] Even before he finished his residency, psychiatrist Andrew Miller got his first government grant to study the immune system and its relationship to depression.

More than a dozen clinical trials, a multitude of studies, and over 350 papers later, Miller is a global expert on inflammation in the body and its relationship to depression, and he's determined to change how people are assessed and treated.

- This is not limited to any one disorder.

This is truly one of those phenomena, what we call trans-diagnostic, across the board.

- [Jaye] Miller's work focuses on the innate immune system, the part of the immune system that regulates inflammation.

Inflammation is the body's natural response to wounding, or infection.

- In the immune system, when fighting an infection, or healing a wound takes up a tremendous amount of energy.

And so, the immune system's saying, "Hey, guys, shut it down.

"We wanna shut all the behavioral activity down."

That's why you see the loss of motivation.

Not motivated to do anything.

I don't feel.

I don't have the energy to do anything, and my brain's not working so great anyway.

So people shut down.

(light music) - [Jaye] Think about how you feel when you get a cold.

You may feel sluggish, not motivated, maybe even down.

This response usually goes away after you heal, but in some instances, the inflammation necessary to fight infection can persist and become chronic.

Miller says inflammation can be a factor in all psychiatric disorders, but also in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune and cancer patients, and he shares a story from 30 years ago.

- The oncologists were giving inflammatory molecules called inflammatory cytokines to cancer patients as one of the early immunotherapies, and what they noticed is that the patients were becoming depressed.

(light music) - [Jaye] What those cancer patients experienced was what was discovered in animal studies that showed when exposed to stress and a bit of inflammation there are breaches in the blood-brain barrier, where inflammatory molecules called cytokines enter the brain.

- And have direct access to neurons in those areas, and one of the neuronal systems that's sitting in these subcortical nuclei, which is where it's deep within the brain, where these cytokines are getting access, they're accessing the neurochemical dopamine, and if you wanna shut somebody down, take away their dopamine.

Parkinson's disease is a disease of no dopamine.

(light music) - [Jaye] These inflammatory molecules drive down dopamine, a neurochemical that gives us feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation.

Dopamine plays roles in controlling memory, mood, sleep, learning, concentration, and movement.

- Generally, what we believe is that about 30% of people who are depressed have increased inflammation as part of their issue.

(light music) - [Jaye] Miller says if you block the inflammation, you reverse the effects.

But which drugs are best for depression are not yet clear.

There are a number of studies looking at several anti-inflammatory drugs to treat depression.

There are also drugs to boost dopamine levels.

- With the dopamine, we can replace dopamine.

We can either, we can also give drugs that stimulate the release of dopamine.

So if you are a patient with depression with increased inflammation, you'd be better off with a drug that's targeting dopamine than one that is targeting serotonin.

(light music) - [Jaye] One of the biggest contributors to inflammation in the body is obesity.

- Probably the most important source of inflammation in modern humans is excess weight.

Fat cells grow really quickly, they outstrip their oxygen supply, and they die, and the immune system sees that cell death as a wound.

So if you go into fat tissue, and you did a biopsy, and you pulled it out, and you looked at it in a culture dish, you would see the fat tissue is loaded with inflammatory cells, and those inflammatory cells produce a boatload of inflammatory mediators that get into your brain, and then can change the neurochemicals, the neuro-circuits in the brain, and ultimately, your behavior.

- [Jaye] Stress is another player in the inflammation mix.

- Turns out that people exposed to early life stress, childhood trauma, abuse, neglect, have persisting inflammation into adulthood based in part on changes that occur in the genes as a function of that early exposure to trauma.

(light music) - [Jaye] These changes in the genes called epigenetic changes, changes caused by behaviors, or environment, predispose people to inflammation the rest of their lives.

Cancer treatment can do the same thing.

- Dopamine's terminals are in the brain stem.

That's where the machinery for making dopamine is.

- [Jaye] Researcher and associate professor Jennifer Felger studies the impact of inflammation on dopamine in the brain, and if replacing dopamine reverses the devastating effects of inflammation on motivation.

- We're currently running clinical trials and mechanistic studies to try to better understand what inflammation's doing in the brain in patients with depression that have high levels of inflammation, like cytokines and CRP, and seeing if we can either reverse the effects of inflammation on the neurotransmitters, so actually giving neurotransmitter-based therapies, things that would increase dopamine, or dopamine signaling.

- [Zhexing] So here are the mini-brain.

- [Jaye] And then there are the mini-brains.

- [Zhexing] Mini-brain means that they're a smaller size of the human brain.

So we are going to show you- - [Jaye] Researcher and Assistant Professor Zhexing Wen and his team grow these mini-brains.

- So we are looking at- - Creating stem cells from urine, or blood, then generating a 3D organoid of the human brain.

- It's tiny.

It's about five to six millimeters in the diameter.

- [Jaye] These mini-brains have the same genetic information as the person they came from.

- [Zhexing] They are living, and they have activities.

- [Jaye] It takes nine months to grow the brains.

- Yeah, it's an incubator.

- [Jaye] Wen and his team are focused on dopaminergic neurons.

What happens when they expose the mini-brains to cytokines, those inflammatory agents?

- After the cytokine exposure, we measure the dopamine releasing, and we see that the releasing from the treatment definitely was reduced.

- It goes down, right?

- Yes.

- They are in a dish.

- [Jaye] When Wen exposes the mini-brains to anti-inflammatory agents, there is a robust reversal.

- Yeah- - The answers to future treatments- - So this one's- - [Jaye] Will likely come from these minuscule marvels.

As for the here and now- - Oh, you haven't looked at it?

- [Jaye] We are not powerless when it comes to inflammation.

- People can do something about their inflammation right this minute.

They can, number one, find out what their inflammation level is, get a CRP blood test, and number two, they can start looking at their lifestyles, and see what in my, what about me is contributing to that inflammation- - And we're going to measure levels of inflammation in your body.

All right, excellent.

- [Jaye] This simple finger prick test for C-Reactive Protein measures inflammation in the body.

- Now, I'm going to add the sample to the testing kit.

- [Jaye] My co-executive producer and I had the CRP test, and our levels were normal.

- That means you are at the lowest risk category for developing cardiovascular disease.

- Yes!

(bright music) There are many factors that can drive inflammation, stress, sleep, aging, disease, obesity.

So how do we combat inflammation?

With an anti-inflammatory diet, such as the Mediterranean diet, by losing weight, by managing stress with exercise and mindfulness.

This helps to manage the body's autonomic nervous system, which has two parts, the fight-or-flight part known as the sympathetic nervous system.

- It is the sympathetic nervous system that drives inflammatory responses in the context of chronic stress.

(light music) - [Jaye] The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for the opposite of fight-or-flight, when we are relaxed, resting, or eating.

- When the sympathetic nervous system comes on, the parasympathetic nervous system comes on as a sort of a brake.

So if you strengthen your parasympathetic nervous system through exercise, yoga, tai chi, meditation, deep breathing exercises, all of these can abrogate, or eliminate, or reduce this effect of the sympathetic nervous system on driving inflammatory responses in the context of stress.

- [Jaye] Miller is working towards the day when treatments and prescribing will be based on one's inflammatory status.

Almost 40 years after that fourth-year resident got his first grant, he's not slowing down.

He can't stop now.

- I wanna see this all the way to the point where we're actually able to make changes that will impact patients in a way that when they go to the clinic that inflammation measures are gotten, and treatments are given based on their level of inflammation, and wanna see that through all the way to the end, and until that happens, it don't mean a thing.

(light music) - And wrapping up this week, we've got a story on parenting and what we do when we have a child with behavior issues.

Maybe we try to deal with it ourselves, or we go to our pediatrician, or a mental health professional.

But this story flips the script, showing how we parents can learn strategies that actually strengthen bonds and dial down behavior issues.

Welcome to The Incredible Years parenting class.

- You can do it!

- Nine-year-old Harper has gotten really good at bike riding.

- Great job, great job!

Slow down a little bit.

Don't go too fast now.

- I'm not!

- [Jaye] Melvin Howard and his wife Kelly knew they needed extra help parenting.

(gentle music) - But she used to tell me, "You always talk about the bad things I do.

"Why you don't never say anything about the good?"

And I never even listened to it.

- Yeah- - Until this turned a light bulb on.

- Are there any other- - They signed up for The Incredible Years parenting class with psychologist Dr. Noriel Lim.

- It's tough to balance that, right?

- [Jaye] The head of the parenting program at Emory Brain Health- - [Noriel] 'Cause we're talking about all of these different traps.

- [Jaye] The Incredible Years is for children up to 12 years old.

- [Narrator] The Incredible Years parent programs- - [Jaye] Created by researcher Carolyn Webster-Stratton in 1997 at the University of Washington.

- Whenever you're using the ignore, there's a whole lot of positive for the other behavior that you want instead.

- [Jaye] The course focuses on strengthening the relationship between the parents and the child.

- Some kids require specific strategies, because they have special needs, or maybe because they have different personalities than other kids in the family.

Excited to see everyone.

- [Jaye] From learning to play with their kids- - So we talked about that- - To effective praise- - Which is important.

- [Jaye] To strategies to manage misbehavior.

- There's a lot to take into account.

- Yeah.

- To teaching children to problem solve.

- You yourself put it back in the garage.

- [Jaye] Lim leads the parents through the program.

- As parents, you guys have long days- - [Jaye] Which has been shown in multiple clinical trials to significantly reduce children's behavior problems.

- I think that's awesome.

Being able to work with the parents is just as important, and sometimes, for younger kids, even more important than working with kids alone.

- I know when my day will be over, I can crash, and that's when I have my special time.

It's hard for me.

I mean, but I'm often a solo parent, so it's just- - Yeah.

- I have to power through I feel like sometimes.

- [Noriel] What do you think is the most important thing that you learned from this group?

- [Jaye] In 90-minute classes over 10 weeks, Dr. Lim uses a parenting pyramid labeled with topics teaching the parents new strategies.

- When your child pushes your limits, or your boundaries, it's part of child development.

That's how they learn, and it's your responsibility as a parent to let them know this is the boundary.

- If I just walk in the door, and I see things on the floor, and I say, "Why are your shoes here?"

- Right- - Why are your, you know, if I try not to do those things, and just go inside, like ignore everything- - Right.

- Just to the side, just go, just sit down on the couch with them- - I think I like Mexican food.

- [Jaye] The parents use the strategies at home.

- For me, it's probably being more patient.

- [Jaye] And report back in class.

- I need to take a second before I respond.

I don't have to respond immediately, 'cause that's what you want, you know?

It's not gonna be good, but let me take a second.

You know, it helps a lot.

- Praising the good behavior and ignoring the bad, that has really helped.

- I mean, ready.

- Yup.

- [Jaye] Kelly Howard says special time was a game-changer.

- She started liking me after the special time.

- [Jaye] In special time, Harper gets to choose what they do one-on-one.

- It's great, like she kisses me throughout the day.

(Kelly laughing) She never used to do that.

- One-on-one time with your child is super important.

- You're doing great, girl.

- [Noriel] That's how you develop good relationship.

That's how you improve your attachment with them.

- Yes!

- Timeouts, once the rule, are now the exception.

- [Melvin] It helped us see things that, you know, little simple things that we could do to help with her.

(gentle music) - And that's gonna do it for us this week.

See you next time on "Your Fantastic Mind."

(light electronic music) (light electronic music continues) - [Announcer] "Your Fantastic Mind," brought to you in part by Sarah & Jim Kennedy.