Research published Wednesday in the journal Nature unveiled a stunning new map of the brain containing 180 areas, 97 of which were previously unknown. With data gathered by the latest technological advancements used in the Human Connectome Project by the National Institutes of Health, the team of researchers focused on the entirety of the brain versus one part of the cerebral cortex, including all four biological properties — architecture, connectively, function, topography — to develop the colorful map.
Made possible by the 210 healthy, young adults who participated in the Human Connectome Project, brain images allowed the team to pay close attention to finer details of the human brain than in previous maps.
The 97 newly identified territories of the brain have their own unique architecture, as well as connectivity and associated activity with other areas of the brain. According to senior author of the study David Van Essen as told to CNN, “Most of the new areas are in regions we associate with higher cognitive function.”
A number of the previously unidentified areas are located within the “dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,” according to Van Essen, which controls a host of functions including working memory and planning. Matthew Glasser, first author and a doctoral student in neuroscience, told CNN, “Think of each brain area as having a unique fingerprint to it.”
In addition to the map, Glasser detailed the development of a “classifier,” more easily understood as computer programming of sorts, which is able to recognize the unique biological properties of each region and subsequently connect the region with areas of the same “fingerprint.”
According to Glasser and the team’s experiments, the classifier was able to identify up to 97 percent of the areas in new subjects, even those with unusual brain structures.
Though the new map provides a deeper look into the higher cognitive functions of the human brain, Van Essen said, “We have started, but by no means finished, our characterization about what is different about these new areas.” Ultimately, the team of researchers is hopeful the new map and technologies will be used in practical application by neurosurgeons, going so far as to diagnose brain disorders from addiction to autism.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.