Saturday Quotes: Praising dogs; the evolution of brown fat; how SSRIs relieve depression. Plus: Boeing’s Starliner

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about dogs, it’s that praise is super effective in training; a new Hungarian study confirms these anecdotal findings and reinforces the idea that praise is more effective as a pedagogical approach than, for example, scolding or criticism or deliberately placing one mammalian infraclass above another with a childish insult like this:

Placental mammals rule, marsupial mammals drool

Brown adipose tissue, unlike white adipose tissue, burns calories instead of storing them. It is essentially the body’s heating organ, which researchers believe evolved in mammals to allow them to survive and diversify into colder environments. The calorie-burning feature has also inspired YouTube influencers of the keto-stoic-deadlift variety to immerse themselves in ice water daily, a “Jackass”-like activity meant to shed excess body fat, leading to the discovery that metabolic effects of cold Immersion in water means, among other things, that you become hungry. Life will, uh, find a way.

Regardless, a new study from Stockholm University shows that brown fat evolved exclusively in modern placental mammals. The researchers found that marsupials have a form of brown fat that has not yet evolved as refined as placental mammals, such as humans and killer whales. After the divergence of placental and marsupial mammals, a heat-producing protein called UCP1 became active.

Opossum UCP1 transcription includes many, but not all, of the genes expressed in brown fat, indicating that marsupials have not evolved the fully developed form that warms placental mammals. Furthermore, the protoform of brown fat in marsupials is not thermogenic. The researchers hope that their findings can contribute to a better understanding of mammalian evolution and medical applications related to metabolic disorders.

Praise effectively

A study by researchers at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University found that dogs are more successful in a training scenario when they are rewarded with petting and praise in addition to food rewards. The researchers examined the relationship between learning, emotions and sleep, and the study results suggest that teaching style and sleep influence both behavior and learning success.

In two experimental sessions, conducted in the presence of the dogs’ owners, dog trainers taught the dogs new commands for tricks the dogs already knew. One was conducted in an ‘indulgent’ style, where trainers gave the dogs praise and petting in addition to a food reward; the dogs were never scolded. In the second session, the dogs received only a reward, without verbal praise, and were scolded for undesirable behavior. After these sessions, the dogs slept in a sleep laboratory while being monitored via EEG scans.

Training in the ‘controlling’ style caused more stress in dogs; they tended to sleep longer after control style training, reinforcing previous findings that sleep is important for emotional processing. Dr. Márta Gácsi, senior research fellow of the Comparative Ethology Research Group of HUN-REN-ELTE, said: “The most exciting result is that sleep improved the dogs’ learning performance only in one specific case, when the group receiving ‘control’ training for the first time, we expected them to get similar training the second time, but then we trained them in a ‘permissive’ style. We believe that the combined effect of positive surprise and sleep improved their learning success.’

A rare misstep for Boeing

Boeing’s new Starliner space capsule was delayed due to last-minute problems with its thrusters as it prepared to dock with the International Space Station on Thursday. The capsule was already leaking helium by the time it reached orbit, and two more leaks occurred hours after its flight. Then four of the Starliner’s 28 thrusters failed. After recovering three and orbiting one more time after missing the first docking window, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were able to dock the spacecraft with the space station.

Pills explained

How do antidepressants work? Is it a placebo effect? Do they really affect serotonin? Is it sorcery? Classic selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors increase serotonin levels in the brain, and for a while researchers thought antidepressants might be restoring a neurochemical imbalance. But later research showed no reduced levels of serotonin in people with major depressive disorder.

So SSRIs are basically magic, but researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have published a new framework for understanding how classic SSRIs work; it clarifies the benefits of antidepressants even if MDD is not characterized by low serotonin levels. The researchers explain that, according to current evidence, MDD is associated with areas of the brain that do not communicate properly.

Scott Thompson, Ph.D., professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and senior author, said, “When the parts of the brain responsible for reward, happiness, mood, self-esteem and even problem solving in some cases do not communicate well with each other, they cannot do their job properly. There is good evidence that antidepressants that increase serotonin levels, such as SSRIs, all work by restoring the strength of the connections between these brain areas.”