Baby’s Cells Can Manipulate Mom’s Body for Decades

An evolutionary approach may help scientists understand why mothers become genetic chimeras and how that affects their health

Mothers around the world say they feel like their children are still a part of them long after they've given birth. As it turns out, that is literally true. During pregnancy, cells from the fetus cross the placenta and enter the mother's body, where they can become part of her tissues.

This cellular invasion means that mothers carry unique genetic material from their children’s bodies, creating what biologists call a microchimera, named after the legendary beasts made of different animals. The phenomenon is widespread among mammals, and scientists have proposed a number of theories for how it affects the mother, from better wound healing to higher risk of cancer.

Now a team of biologists argues that to really understand what microchimerism does to moms, we need to figure out why it evolved in the first place.

“What we are hoping to do is not only provide an evolutionary framework for understanding how and why microchimerism came to be, but also to assess how this affects health,” says lead author Amy Boddy, a geneticist at Arizona State University.

Maternal-fetal conflict has its origins with the very first placental mammals millions of years ago. Over evolutionary time, the fetus has evolved to manipulate the mother's physiology and increase the transfer of resources like nutrition and heat to the developing child. The mother's body in turn has evolved countermeasures to prevent excessive resource flow.

Things get even more intriguing when fetal cells cross the placenta and enter the mother's bloodstream. Like stem cells, fetal cells are pluripotent, which means they can grow into many kinds of tissue. Once in the mother's blood, these cells circulate in the body and lodge themselves in tissue. They then use chemical cues from neighboring cells to grow into the same stuff as the surrounding tissue, Boddy says.

Although the mother's immune system typically removes unchanged fetal cells from the blood after pregnancy, the ones that have already integrated with maternal tissues escape detection and can remain in mom's body.

Microchimerism can get especially complex when a mother has multiple pregnancies. The mother's body accumulates cells from each baby—and potentially functions as a reservoir, transferring cells from the older sibling into the younger one and forming more elaborate microchimeras. The presence of fetal cells in the mother’s body could even regulate how soon she can get pregnant again.

“I think one promising area for further research concerns unexplained pregnancy losses, and whether older siblings, as genetic individuals, can play a role in delaying the birth of younger siblings,” says David Haig, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.

Given all this complexity, microchimeras have been difficult to study until recently, the authors note in their paper, which will be published in an upcoming issue of BioEssays. The phenomenon was discovered several decades ago, when male DNA was detected in the bloodstream of a woman. But the technologies of the time couldn't get a detailed enough picture of the genetics to tease apart the minute cellular situation.

Now, deep-sequencing technologies allow researchers to identify the origin of DNA in a mother’ tissues more comprehensively by sampling many areas in the genome, including genes implicated in immunity. These genes are unique to an individual and thus can help differentiate a mother’s DNA from that of her children with greater precision.

“If the cell populations can be isolated, then modern techniques should allow the genetic individual of origin to be unambiguously identified,” says Haig.

Still, understanding how the fetal cells are interacting with maternal cells is going to be difficult, says Boddy. Little is understood about the cellular signaling that causes fetal cells to regulate maternal physiology.

“It’s likely a negotiation between the maternal body and the fetal cells, where there is an expectation in the maternal body of a certain level of microchimerism that it needs to function properly,” said Boddy. For example, previous experiments showed that when mouse fetal cells are exposed to lactation hormones in the lab, they take on similar attributes to those of mammary cells, hinting that breast tissue may be one hot spot for microchimerism.

“Normal, healthy lactation may be the consequence of the fetal cells signaling to the mother’s body to make milk,” says co-author Melissa Wilson Sayres, also at Arizona State. But previous work has also suggested that the same features that allow fetal cells to integrate into the mother’s tissues—like evading her immune system—also makes them similar to cancer cells, which could lead to greater cancer vulnerability in the mother.

Based on evolutionary reasoning, the authors predict that fetal cells should be found primarily in the tissues that play a role in transferring resources to the fetus. That includes the breast, where they may impact milk production; the thyroid, where they can affect metabolism and heat transfer to the baby; and the brain, where they may influence neural circuitry and maternal attachment to the child.

The next steps will be to use modern sequencing tools to go looking for fetal cells in these spots, and then begin studying how the cells are communicating in each region of mom's body.

“What is really interesting and novel about this work is putting the issue of microchimerism and maternal health into an evolutionary framework,” says Julienne Rutherford, a biological anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“If these fetal cells are interacting with maternal physiology, where in the maternal body would we expect the greatest effect on function? That’s been a big question mark. Putting this into an evolutionary context was incredibly clever and novel and very exciting. It’s a beautiful example of theory driving testable predictions."

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/babys-cells-can-manipulate-moms-body-decades-180956493/#W8497uuQ4lzRjs3d.99
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What Is A Muscle Cramp?

"A muscle cramp is a sudden and involuntary contraction of one or more of your muscles. If you've ever been awakened in the night or stopped in your tracks by a sudden charley horse, you know that muscle cramps can cause excruciating pain. Though generally harmless, muscle cramps can make it temporarily impossible to use the affected muscle.

Long periods of exercise or physical labor, particularly in hot weather, may lead to muscle cramps. Some medications and certain medical conditions also may cause muscle cramps. You can usually treat muscle cramps at home with self-care measures."

For more information:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/muscle-cramp/basics/definition/con-20014594

Are Trigger Points Affecting Your Athletic Performance?

Trigger points cause real problems for athletes.

Not only are trigger points exquisitely painful, but they also affect movement. Trigger points inhibit range of motion by keeping muscles short and stiff. They also weaken muscles, causing them to tire quickly and recover slowly. They produce excessive muscle contraction that can partially disarticulate joints or cause nerve entrapment.

That’s the bad news: Trigger points can seriously inhibit athletic performance. The good news? Acupuncture can help. So can self-care (see tips at the end of this article!).

How does a trigger point form?

A trigger point is a hyper-irritable muscle band with a predictable pattern of pain referral. It forms when the process of muscle contraction and release goes awry.

Muscle overload or trauma causes the muscle band to contract too strongly. Such excessive contracture increases metabolic demand and also squeezes shut the network of capillaries supplying the nutrition and oxygen to the region.

This results in a local energy crisis, perpetuating the cycle of contracture. The muscle band cannot release and a trigger point forms.

Can stretching relieve trigger points?

A muscle harboring a trigger point will be too painful to stretch fully. The pain (and subsequent inhibitory reflex) will prevent you from sufficiently lengthening the muscle band.

What’s more, forcing a stretch will often result in injury (muscle strain) and do nothing to resolve the trigger point.

Think of a trigger point like a knot in a rubber band. Stretching the band will cause it to snap, but it will not release the knot. To restore full stretch to that rubber band, you first need to unwind the knot.

Acupuncture is the most effective way to release trigger points

The acupuncture needle provides a mechanical disruption to the trigger point. It halts the vicious cycle of energy crisis in the muscle. Restored to its full length, the muscle recovers its normal blood supply and metabolism, and it can function fully.

You might be wondering, does having acupuncture on trigger points hurt?

Many release techniques require direct pressure to the trigger point, which is by definition painful. Often a trigger point is too irritable to tolerate much additional mechanical stimulation. But a needle can reach the depth of the trigger point without irritating the hyper-sensitive tissues above or around it. There is simply no other technique that can boast such precision.

And acupuncture achieves immediate results. A single well-placed needle into a trigger point will elicit a twitch followed by reduced muscular tension and increased range of motion. Such immediate feedback is immensely satisfying for someone who has been dealing with pain and dysfunction in that muscle for weeks, months, or even years.

3 self-care tips for preventing trigger points

Increase training loads slowly

Trigger points form due to persistent muscular contraction, strain, or overuse. To prevent their formation, don’t do too much too soon—and make sure you have adequate recovery between workouts. Get enough quality sleep to ensure your body can repair itself efficiently.

Maintain range of motion and muscle balance

This requires some work. Regularly take your body through the opposite range of motion you use in your sport. A good rule of thumb is to lengthen the agonist, and strengthen the antagonist.

For cyclists who spend hours in the saddle with forward shoulder posture, this means increasing range of motion in your pectorals, and strengthening the rhomboids and other muscles of the upper back. Runners typically benefit from lengthening the hip flexors (psoas and quadriceps) and strengthening the hip extensors (glutes and hamstrings).

Break up adhesions

You need to be doing something on a regular basis to normalize tight, overworked muscle tissue.

Supple, flexible muscles don’t get injured. Using a lacrosse ball, a foam roller, or even your fingers, apply direct pressure to a tight muscle band for 8-12 seconds. Taking the muscle through its range of motion while compressing it will break up adhesions before a trigger point forms.

This article originally appeared on Acutake and was written by Ginna Ellis.

4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy, According to Neuroscience

Ask a question, label emotions, make decisions and give hugs.

You get all kinds of happiness advice on the Internet from people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Don’t trust them.

Actually, don’t trust me either. Trust neuroscientists. They study that gray blob in your head all day and have learned a lot about what truly will make you happy.

UCLA neuroscience researcher Alex Korb has some insights that can create an upward spiral of happiness in your life. Here’s what you and I can learn from the people who really have answers:

1) The Most Important Question To Ask When You Feel Down

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like your brain wants you to be happy. You may feel guilty or shameful. Why?

Believe it or not, guilt and shame activate the brain’s reward center.

Via The Upward Spiral:

Despite their differences, pride, shame, and guilt all activate similar neural circuits, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and the nucleus accumbens. Interestingly, pride is the most powerful of these emotions at triggering activity in these regions — except in the nucleus accumbens, where guilt and shame win out. This explains why it can be so appealing to heap guilt and shame on ourselves — they’re activating the brain’s reward center.

And you worry a lot too. Why? In the short term, worrying makes your brain feel a little better — at least you’re doing something about your problems.

Via The Upward Spiral:

In fact, worrying can help calm the limbic system by increasing activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and decreasing activity in the amygdala. That might seem counterintuitive, but it just goes to show that if you’re feeling anxiety, doing something about it — even worrying — is better than doing nothing.

But guilt, shame and worry are horrible long-term solutions. So what do neuroscientists say you should do? Ask yourself this question:

What am I grateful for?

Yeah, gratitude is awesome… but does it really affect your brain at the biological level? Yup.

You know what the antidepressant Wellbutrin does? Boosts the neurotransmitter dopamine. So does gratitude.

Via The Upward Spiral:

The benefits of gratitude start with the dopamine system, because feeling grateful activates the brain stem region that produces dopamine. Additionally, gratitude toward others increases activity in social dopamine circuits, which makes social interactions more enjoyable…

Know what Prozac does? Boosts the neurotransmitter serotonin. So does gratitude.

Via The Upward Spiral:

One powerful effect of gratitude is that it can boost serotonin. Trying to think of things you are grateful for forces you to focus on the positive aspects of your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex.

I know, sometimes life lands a really mean punch in the gut and it feels like there’s nothing to be grateful for. Guess what?

Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to find anything. It’s the searching that counts.

Via The Upward Spiral:

It’s not finding gratitude that matters most; it’s remembering to look in the first place. Remembering to be grateful is a form of emotional intelligence. One study found that it actually affected neuron density in both the ventromedial and lateral prefrontal cortex. These density changes suggest that as emotional intelligence increases, the neurons in these areas become more efficient. With higher emotional intelligence, it simply takes less effort to be grateful.

And gratitude doesn’t just make your brain happy — it can also create a positive feedback loop in your relationships. So express that gratitude to the people you care about.

(For more on how gratitude can make you happier and more successful, click here.)

This article originally appeared on:
http://time.com/4042834/neuroscience-happy-rituals/