The summer weather was slow in arriving but is now in full blast.  In places like Sacramento and Reno, the temperature has been reaching triple digits.  How is all this heat affecting our behavior?

Many people would blindly say that tempers rise when hot summer days are prevalent.  Try to argue with someone on that matter and you might find yourself in a very heated debate.   But do hot temperatures cause people to temporarily go crazy?

What is the correlation between heat and violence?  Science purports that yes there is a correlation but it is not quite what one would expect.

Wired.com reported on one study that psychologists Ellen Cohn and James Rotton of Florida State University have conducted, which concluded that assaults rose with the temperature but only to a point.

An interesting fact from this study is that crime doesn’t rise when it is super hot like one might suspect.  The study purports that at around 80 degrees Fahrenheit crime rates for assault started to decrease.  Therefore, the findings suggest that at moderate levels of discomfort, people are disgruntled and lash out, while at high temperatures they just want to chill out indoors or relax and use less energy.

This makes sense since when it’s really hot people’s major concern tends to be to stay cool and conserve energy.  People get lazy in super hot weather.  Don’t they?

Interesting enough, psychologist Craig Anderson from Iowa State has conflicting data that suggests a linear relationship between heat and violence, with assault rates peaking at the highest temperature.

Arguments for Anderson’s theory state that body changes during hot weather such as increased heart rates, blood circulation, sweating (all associated with fight or flight) and increases in testosterone provide the perfect conditions for aggressive behavior.

What are our thoughts?  Does crime go hand in hand with soaring temperatures?

People with borderline personality disorders, better known as BPD, show a deficiency in emotion regulation skills.

That might not sound like news but imagine getting so frustrated you wanted to smash your computer or scream really loud.  If that did not suffice, would you hurt yourself or would you just let out a sigh of discontent and continue on with your day? People with BPD can’t always control their emotions and might cut themselves or cause harm to their bodies to deal with heavy emotional situations.

An important question to ask is why do they do this?

Biology News Net has the answer.  They report that people with BPD show high rates of self-injurious behavior, which helps them to reduce negative emotional states. This all comes from a 2003 study conducted by John Nietfeld.

Nietfeld and his research team studied the effects of emotional and thermal stimuli in people with and without borderline personality disorder.  They used picture stimuli to induce either a negative, positive or neutral affect and thermal stimuli to induce heat pain or warmth perception.

The study found that patients with BPD had heightened activation of limbic circuitry in response to evocative pictures.  Amygdala stimulation also correlated with self-reported deficits in emotion regulation.  However, the thermal stimulus inhibited the activation of the amygdala in these patients and also in healthy controls.

“These data are consistent with the hypothesis that physically painful stimuli provide some relief from emotional distress for some patients with borderline personality disorder because they paradoxically inhibit brain regions involved in emotion.  This process may help them to compensate for deficient emotional regulation mechanisms,” states Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry.

An interesting thought, why is it that humans can override one pain with another?

What are your thoughts on this study?

How do faces and more importantly, brains develop? 

Science Daily reported that researchers at Tuft University have released never before seen patterns of bioelectrical signals outlining where eyes, nose, mouth, and other features will appear in an embryonic tadpole.

When stained with dye, hyperpolarized (negatively charged) areas shine brightly and others remain darker.  The Tufts scientists discovered that in the pre-stages of face development bioelectrical signals (ion flux) cause groups of cells to form patterns marked by different membrane voltage and pH levels.

Dany S. Adams, senior author of the study, states, “We believe this is the first time such patterning has been reported for an entire structure, not just for a single organ.  I would never have predicted anything like it.  It’s a jaw dropper.”

Newswise has also commented on this but have the accompanying video that depicts this amazing process (se below).   Bioelectrical signaling appears to regulate a sequence of events, not just one,” Laura Vandenberg, a Tuft’s Post Doctorial Associate and first author of the study noted, “Developmental biologists are used to thinking of sequences in which a gene produces a protein product that in turn ultimately leads to development of an eye or mouth.  But our work suggests that something else – a bioelectrical signal is required before that can happen.”

The team also found that disrupting this bioelectrical signal correlated with cranial abnormalities such as two brains, a thickened optic nerve or abnormal nasal and jaw development.  Adams and Vandenberg note that more research is needed to discover if this phenomenon works the same in other animals, including humans.

For more information and to view the full study click here.

Click here to view the embedded video.