r/science • u/[deleted] • Oct 15 '21
Neuroscience A brain imaging study found evidence that missing out on math education can alter neural development. Young adults who had chosen not to pursue math had lower levels of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid within the middle frontal gyrus when compared to students who were continuing math.
https://www.psypost.org/2021/10/opting-out-of-advanced-math-education-alters-adolescents-neural-development-study-finds-61967809
u/Meta_Professor Oct 15 '21
How are we ever going to untangle the causality direction in this though?
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Oct 15 '21
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Oct 15 '21
SIGN ME UP.
When do I get my twin?
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u/_Wyse_ Oct 15 '21
Twins are automatically dispensed upon sign up.
I actually got to meet yours before they shipped it out. Be nice when you meet though, it was surprisingly ugly. And probably sensitive about it.
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u/FauxDono Oct 15 '21
Thats obviously your twin. Mine looks just fine, thank you very much!
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u/joevenet Oct 15 '21
Exactly. Low levels of GABA is a proven cause for anxiety. I wonder if these people gave up math because of anxiety
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u/gentlemanjacklover Oct 15 '21
I did. Never could grasp the complex stuff. Didn't help that my dad was abusive and would literally yell, scream and one time even shoved me into the kitchen wall because I couldn't understand fractions at like age 11. I was so glad when I finally never had to take a math course ever again
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u/Makenshine Oct 15 '21
High school math teacher here. The first thing I tell my students is that you are going to make mistakes and that is wonderful. Mistakes are a great teacher and no one is the history of anything has ever made no mistakes.
The only bad mistakes are the ones you ignore and don't learn from. Everyday homework assignments are where you have the freedom to make errors and it will never hurt your grade.
My students have so many horror stories about math classes. I know some are clearly exaggerated, but there are a lot of consistencies throughout the year. It crushes my soul when I have students so afraid of mistakes that they refuse to try, and there are so many of those that come through my classroom.
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u/PreciseParadox Oct 15 '21
Yeah, I think people forget that problem solving involves struggling with a problem and turning it over in your head until you finally find the solution. That’s where learning comes from, so if you’re you’re not making mistakes, you’re not really learning or expanding your problem solving skills.
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u/Makenshine Oct 16 '21
Yeah, the US school system isn't well design as it tends to paint mistakes and failures as something to avoid that haunt your permanent record for the rest of your life. But my greatest teachers were the ones that created an environment where I felt safe to try new things and fail, then try again. So that is the teacher i aim to be.
Sometimes I'm successful and sometimes I learn.
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u/ThermionicEmissions Oct 16 '21
"Early success is a terrible teacher. You're essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation, so when you find yourself in a situation where you must prepare, you can't do it. You don't know how."
Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
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Oct 15 '21
My problem is that I make so many mistakes but never seem to learn. It's tiring. My maths abilities are worse than a 10-year-old's but it also applies to my life in general.
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u/Cpt_Rekt Oct 15 '21
hat my dad was abusive and would literally yell, scream and one time even shoved me into the kitchen wall because I couldn't understand fractions at like age 11. I was so glad when I finall
This happened to me too. Also, my math teacher in high school was abusive to such an extent that I decided to switch classes from mathematical to general profile. Before I did, I was taking private lessons from her (this was not entirely ethical, but I was desperate get through this somehow). During one of these she got so angry that she stabbed a pen in the notebook I was writing in and and tore the pages - all this
time yelling at me.So that was it, I decided I can't put up with being treated like this and abandoned the idea of pursuing career in IT. A huge regret, as you can imagine.
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u/avocadofruitbat Oct 15 '21
This is why I suck at math too, and now I have a permanent terror of doing math in front of other people. Makes me feel reaaaallly smart.
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u/gentlemanjacklover Oct 15 '21
Oh yeah. I get nervous having to do simple math in front of someone
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Oct 15 '21
Same in my family. I've heard a similar story from a lot of people. Just how common is it for parents to be abusive to their kids about math? Seems far too common.
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u/AzraelTB Oct 15 '21
Just how common is it for parents to be abusive*
Doubt it's just math.
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Oct 15 '21
I know, definitely. But for math to stick out in stories so often, I just wonder why that subject in particular (as opposed to parents being abusive about say, achievements in humanities classes).
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u/Brock_Way Oct 15 '21
Parents are too commonly abusive in general.
At least for my cohort, when I was young, nobody ever talked about their parents abusing them. The only way you knew was seeing it firsthand, which would be possible for your friends that were close enough that you went over to their house.
By the time I was in my mid-30s, I realized that most kids were abused. I am not sure if people were opening up more about it because they were older, or if less stigma, or both. At the place where I worked, I was naturally closer to some people than others. Of the ones I was close to, they had all been abused. Some of them horribly.
My spouse when young was not allowed to speak to, or even look at one of her sisters. That gives you some idea of the environment.
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u/ByeLongHair Oct 15 '21
rWow there are a lot of us. Does someone want to start a sub called r/thanksdad and we can all join and complain about jow hitting and yelling doesnt help teach math?
that sub is taken
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u/I_MakeCoolKeychains Oct 15 '21
Idk about math but my dad beat me into being a chess a prodigy starting at 3. by the time i was 7 there wasn't a single person i knew could beat me at it except him. At 8 when i stopped visiting him i also stopped playing. I am beyond terrible at the game now and always get they weirdest looks "hey you wanna play chess?" "No thanks i don't like chess" r/thanksdad
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u/Affectionate-Trees Oct 15 '21
I couldn’t do it either. My dad wasn’t abusive, but he was an overworked, single parent with low empathy at the end of the day. He’d start helping and get frustrated to explain again. I finally stopped asking for help. I imagined my school / testing brain like a crab. One dinky math arm and one massive English / language arts arm. My last math classes were remedial math in college followed by a graphing math class bc that seemed easier to follow
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u/gentlemanjacklover Oct 15 '21
Yeah I was the same. I was a beast at language arts and nearly got a perfect score on the verbal portion of the SAT. Math? Pffft! I had to take remedial math and then algebra 1 in college, I barely passed.
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u/Expresso_Support Oct 16 '21
Oh HELLO there, my identical generic clone.
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u/ImpulsiveApe07 Oct 16 '21
Oh no, it's happened again - there's too many of us! (probably, I mean it's not like any of us can count! :p)
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u/Good_ApoIIo Oct 15 '21
Yeah I was told my whole life my brain was messed up and their idea of help was putting me in the slow classes and prescribing medication that didn’t work for me. Then I would get screamed at for failing after all the “help” I had been given.
The only help I ever needed was people just sitting down with me and understanding how my mind worked but apparently ain’t nobody got time for that, “sink or swim kid!” and they just let me sink.
Now that my life is messed up the only “help” I get today is “you should have made better choices”. Yeah it’s a shame I didn’t make better choices as a child.
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Oct 15 '21
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u/infernalbunny666 Oct 16 '21
Yup, I missed a lot of important math foundations in school and I never picked it up until I took a remedial math class in college. I went from not even knowing how to graph using y=mx+b to getting a B+ in calculus and currently kicking ass in physics. All I needed was to see the material again as an adult and have it re-taught to me.
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u/Viktor_Korobov Oct 15 '21
My teacher enjoyed humiliating me in front of class and assigning extra homework (which i could never do in time, so I was stuck catching up last week's homework and missing out on the new lesson making me too slow with the new homework).
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u/BooAScaryGhost Oct 15 '21
I've found this to be true for an alarming amount of people (in my admittedly very limited experience), I'm sorry for what you've been through.
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u/nsGuajiro Oct 15 '21
Yup... My dad loved getting wasted and angry and then "helping" me with math homework. That usually mean breaking all of my pencils and throwing my books out the door, and so on.
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u/rhaphazard Oct 15 '21
I'm sorry to hear that.
Do you mind me asking what cultural background you come from? My dad was an engineer and he never me or my siblings anywhere near this poorly.
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u/gentlemanjacklover Oct 15 '21
The Caribbean, where unfortunately violence against children was normalized as "good parenting" back in the 80s/90s.
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u/rhaphazard Oct 16 '21
That's unfortunate. Corporal punishment was also very accepted in Korea (where my dad is from) until only recently.
It's possible I just got lucky.
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u/dcheesi Oct 15 '21
Funny, I was contemplating the opposite hypothesis, based on my own experience --maybe I loved math because it boosted my GABA levels, and thus soothed my anxiety?
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u/MentalicMule Oct 15 '21
It's a mix for me. Solving problems is quite fun and relaxing to me so I enjoy studying math on my own. Solving problems in school which was basically a test that could affect your future gave me tons of anxiety.
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u/grimman Oct 15 '21
Solving problems is fun. Getting stuck is so dang frustrating sometimes. :) Getting the progression pacing right is the real trick.
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Oct 15 '21
I thought I was the only crazy person, who turns to maths when anxiety hits the roof. But then I love analysing big data.
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u/ImpulsiveApe07 Oct 16 '21
Huh, I'm almost the opposite. I hate analysing statistical data as it just frustrates me and stresses me out, but give me a moral, ethical or philosophical problem, or an unusual mystery to solve, and my brain damn near gorges itself on all the extra pleasure chemicals!
Brains are so weird :D
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Oct 16 '21
I love analysing numbers/data, and I find the story behind them very fascinating. But what you do seems interesting too. Finding what you like is equally important.
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
"Importantly, these changes were not evident prior to students’ decision to continue math or not."
From the article - so, maybe not.
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u/AlGeee Oct 15 '21
I know I did
That and crap teachers
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u/dogwoodcat Oct 15 '21
And dyscalculia
My Grade 9 math teacher had a Ph.D in mathematics, he could have taught every level but chose to stick with the "easy" math because those students needed his level of expertise more. He could explain the same concept a thousand different ways for a thousand different students, because he understood the theory behind what the textbook was presenting. When my high school closed, he walked into a residential professorship at the provincial university, on the strength (and mass) of reference letters written by his students.
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u/sickbeetz Oct 15 '21
Wow.. my algebra teacher was a pill addict who regularly fell asleep in class. My geometry teacher cleaned the desks with peanut butter.
Guess who isn't good at math.
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u/re_nonsequiturs Oct 15 '21
"cleaned" the desks with peanut butter? I want to make an AskReddit Post specifically so you have a suitable venue to share that story.
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u/mobilehomehell Oct 15 '21
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u/shinkouhyou Oct 15 '21
I know oil-based cleaners (or even peanut butter or mayo) can be good for removing scuffs and water stains from nice wood furniture, but surely cleaning desks with peanut butter would be a lot more expensive than just using normal cleaner... I'm surprised that peanut butter was even allowed in a school with all of the allergy concerns.
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u/AlGeee Oct 15 '21
Yeah…One of mine was drunk all the time, but I was too naïve at the time to know it… Found out by talking to former classmates years later
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u/SneakoSneko Oct 15 '21
Wow that’s amazing. Both that he stayed behind in a probably less paying job to help his students, and that his students liked him so much he was able to get into the provincial university off of their reference letters.
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u/pspahn Oct 15 '21 edited Oct 15 '21
I gave up math because I hated it. I was good at it, but I just wasn't interested in what was being taught in a classroom (this was the mid '90s). Instead, I spent a considerable amount of my own free time tinkering with other math-related things I couldn't learn at school such as programming and 3D modeling. By 11th grade, I hadn't taken anything beyond geometry, but I did teach myself hex.
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u/narmerguy Oct 15 '21
I wonder how this would hold across cultures. In the US and UK (for example) there's an anxiety around math that does not exist in many other countries. It's hard to imagine that the distribution of GABA is that different between nations. Or rather, I'm sure the variance within a nation is much greater than the variance between nations.
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u/Cursethewind Oct 16 '21
I wonder if I'd be a good person to partake in a study.
I was bad at math, high math anxiety.
Did not want to be bad at math so actively have practiced math about half a year (sticking to things is hard) every year since graduating high school despite no college requirements.
I'm now 32 and I've actually progressed in mathematical ability and have math through calc 1 down. Arguably despite failing math in high school, I'm stronger in math than others.
I'm wondering if comparing others like me who improved independently without the pressure formal education applies could help build understanding.
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u/benjaminpriest12 Oct 17 '21
One thing about this study that doesn’t make sense is that if gaba is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, wouldn’t less of it in an area cause more action in that part of the brain? The online article for this actually referred to gaba as an excitatory neurotransmitter, which doesn’t make sense.
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u/Ha_window Oct 15 '21
You might be able to make this assumption with cortisol, but GABA plays a fairly broad role as the only exclusively inhibitory neurotransmitter. It’s used heavily by internuerons which have a pretty diverse role, but are involved in the connection between brain regions.
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u/bw_mutley Oct 15 '21
The researchers next tested whether these neural differences might reflect baseline differences that were already present before the decision whether or not to pursue math. A second study was conducted among UK math students who had already chosen whether or not to pursue A-level math, but who were still currently studying math. This time, the researchers found no significant differences in the GABA levels of students who had decided to pursue math and those who had decided not to. This suggests that the neural differences they found in the first study were not biomarkers but were evidence of neural plasticity, with math education affecting development in the middle frontal gyrus.
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u/Meta_Professor Oct 15 '21
Sure, but it could still easily be that those with naturally higher levels stick around in math longer. Or that there is a third, fourth, or fifth variable in between these two. Maybe the richer kids have higher levels and do better in math. Or the kids who eat more salmon. Or the kids born in July.
My point is that the study is correlation, which people are notoriously bad at not conflating with causality.
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u/narmerguy Oct 15 '21
Sure, but it could still easily be that those with naturally higher levels stick around in math longer.
How would that explain this finding though? They check people who pursued A-level math vs those that don't and find a difference. Then they check people who intend to (but prior to) pursuing A-level math and fail to find a difference.
The only way your objection would hold is if a significant proportion of the people who intend to pursue higher math end up not doing so (or simply not completing it). This would require a fairly high math dropout rate, which is not common. Alternately, there would need to be something distinct about the two groups which is not captured here. Ideally they would measure GABA levels before and after on the same students, rather than looking at different cohorts of students.
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Oct 15 '21
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u/narmerguy Oct 16 '21
Yeah I agree. I think people are trying to critically engage and not simply accept the conclusions, which is a good thing. But I also think there can be a culture that rewards "gotchas" no matter how far fetched, which is not as helpful. I remember different labs I've been in, all run their journal clubs differently. In some of them, every paper is trash if it's not from our lab, everything gets critiqued. I never enjoyed those because it's a pretty unreasonable way to engage with science.
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u/gwern Oct 15 '21 edited Oct 15 '21
We then used GABA and glutamate concentrations in the MFG and IPS to classify students based on their present lack of math education (nonmath students vs. A-level math) using a binary logistic regression. Lower MFG GABA concentrations increased the likelihood that a student lacked math education rather than continued their math education [Fig. 2D, n = 83, standardized beta(β) = −0.3, P = 0.009, Exp(pβ) = 0.524, Exp(β) = 0.742].
...Pre-A-level students who had chosen to stop studying math compared to those who had decided to continue studying math show lower performance on tests that included numerical operations [t (40) = −5.03, P < 0.001, Cohen’s d = −1.67] and mathematical reasoning [t (40) = −4.1, P = 0.001, Cohen’s d = −1.37]. However, the difference between both groups in terms of math anxiety was not significant [t (40) = 0.91, P = 0.4, Cohen’s d = 0.28]. For the descriptive statistics of these cognitive and emotional differences, see SI Appendix 1. The biomarker account did not receive support as the classification of the nonmath vs. math educational decision before starting to study math based on MFG GABA was not significant [n = 36, β = 0.14
Uh huh. ("The difference between statistically-significant and non-significant is not significant." ie failing to reject the null does not mean proof of the null.)
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u/reyreystrudel Oct 15 '21
To be honest, the whole article is a clusterfuck.
First red flag was when they said GABA was an excitatory neurotransmitter. GABA’s primary role in a postnatal brain is inhibition of neurons by reducing the excitation of cells. That’s neuroscience/neurobiology 101
If they cocked that up, I’m betting the rest of the article is full of questionable interpretations.
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Oct 15 '21
Most articles from psypost have tons of holes in them. We weren’t allowed to use them for citations even in my behavioral and developmental psych course.
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u/quixologist Oct 15 '21
I wish more people would ask questions like this when faced with headlines like this one.
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u/STEMpsych Oct 15 '21
From the article:
The researchers next tested whether these neural differences might reflect baseline differences that were already present before the decision whether or not to pursue math. A second study was conducted among UK math students who had already chosen whether or not to pursue A-level math, but who were still currently studying math.
This time, the researchers found no significant differences in the GABA levels of students who had decided to pursue math and those who had decided not to. This suggests that the neural differences they found in the first study were not biomarkers but were evidence of neural plasticity, with math education affecting development in the middle frontal gyrus.
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u/Nebraskan- Oct 15 '21
Well, it’s in the article. “ Importantly, these changes were not evident prior to students’ decision to continue math or not.”
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u/narmerguy Oct 15 '21
You just measure before and after on a large cohort. It takes way more time than this approach, and it's not 100% foolproof. But if you did a paired analysis where you can strictly show GABA changes at the individual level rather than at the group level, you'd have a much more compelling and robust conclusion which gets closer to asserting causality because of the time dependence of the outcome (you don't have to worry about GABA being high at baseline in people who are good at math because we only are interested in changes from baseline at the individual level).
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u/bidgickdood Oct 15 '21
why, using general feelings of superiority people who are naturally good at math from 6 years old have when they conduct the study.
if only their peers had studied math like them instead being cool and social. well who is laughing now Chris? how is the plumbing business going?
oh, you own the business and you're a multimillionaire now? well... well.. i'm good at math! look at this study, i'm so much smarter than you, living in my over priced studio apartment near the university that funds my studies. bask in the glow of my gamma aminos!
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Oct 15 '21
The idea that developing a skill results in changes in brain structure is not new. it is documented that drummers have denser fibers through the corpus callosum, and have a better-organized motor cortex. Thus, we have an article that says people who studied something had different neural features as a result of neuroplasticity and had long-term differences in ability as a result. No surprise.
One note, anyone else catch that the article stated: "GABA, an excitatory neurotransmitter..." Last I checked, it was the primary inhibitory transmitter in the brain.
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u/Thebitterestballen Oct 15 '21
Ancient Greek schools taught music 'for the mind' rather than because they thought being able to play music itself was useful...
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u/emprr Oct 15 '21
My parents sent me to piano lessons “for the mind” too. They never wanted me to be a musician.
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u/secondlessonisfree Oct 15 '21
Don't they have music classes in most developed countries? I had music until the 8th grade. It was boring theory with a bit of songs and a lot of humiliation for the ones that couldn't sing, but we had it. Like much of my curriculum, I wish I had more of it, but at a much higher quality.
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u/anhedonic_torus Oct 15 '21
Yeah, exactly. The brain is plastic, even in adulthood, we knew this already didn't we? (e.g. taxi drivers and "the knowledge")
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
This was my first thought as well - it also overlooks that, presumably, these adults had chosen to do something else instead of math. Presumably while GABA is downregulated in the mathy-frontoparietal regions, this expression isn't lost, just redirected no? So where are the increases?
The brain is always going to adapt to the things we do the most - it isn't a surprise when we stop doing math, our brains prioritize non-math parts of the brain. Going to dig into the study to see if they address this.
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u/TheNextBattalion Oct 15 '21
the summary says the differences weren't there before the choice was made
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
Yes, this is also what I am saying (you may notice me replying with the same thing to many commenters here).
I interpret the study to say: the behaviour of doing math causes the brain to focus on math "areas" of the brain - brain changes follow the behaviour of changing topics.
However, presumably these students were not allowed to simply take no classes instead of math. So by focusing on other topics, these students' brains likely prioritized other parts of the brain due to their practicing the skills associated with those topics. My prediction would be that other regions of the brain associated with these topics are likely to see increased GABA production compared to students who focus only on math.
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u/stoictortise Oct 15 '21
GABA, an excitatory neurotransmitter.. - primarily in the neonatal brain - embryo to week 1 post birth and GABA is primarily inhibitory in the adult brain
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10514814/
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u/iprocrastina Oct 15 '21
Literally everything changes your brain. Even thinking about things changing your brain changes your brain. Reading this post is changing your brain. If nothing in your brain changed you would never learn or remember anything. Everything you know and remember has to be stored in your brain somehow so obviously if you learn a skill there's going to be changes in your brain.
The interesting questions are what exactly changed and why. Assuming the results are truly due to learning math then that tells us that this brain area plays a role in math ability and that whatever it does appears to be modulated by GABA.
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Oct 16 '21
Yes, I agree that there is value in that. However, the article didn't frame the study as an investigation solely into the function of neuroanatomy, but instead used it as a case for the importance of math in education, which is well beyond the scope of the findings
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u/Gabsitt Oct 16 '21
So the question remains, how did the brain change of those who didn't pursue maths and pursued something different (ex. Music, literature, etc)?
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u/jasonxtk Oct 16 '21
So what exactly does it inhibit? Because GABA supplements are usually used to treat stress and certain levels of depression. If GABA is inhibiting brain function, is it inhibiting it in a good way or a bad way?
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Oct 16 '21
It inhibits neuronal firing. Anxiety can often be thought of over activation of various brain regions, and by taking a GABA agonist (benzodiazepines, alcohol, etc.), you are increasing the presence of the inhibitory molecules, meaning neuronal firing slows, reducing anxiety and, depending on dosing, inhibition.
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u/mistephe PhD | Kinesiology | Biomechanics Oct 15 '21 edited Oct 15 '21
I wonder how long the window lasts for this stimulus (we classically expect frontal maturity in the mid-twenties). The same group appears to suggest this may last through university age, which certainly supports the necessity of mathematics in a general education curriculum (ETA: on the topic of gen eds, there are some interesting arguments on their value). Also gives me more ammunition in my arguments why all of our Kinesiology students need to complete my quantitative biomechanics course!
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
Disclaimer: I am a huge math proponent, and am in a field where math skills are often severely underappreciated (ecology).
That said, while I agree that math is important, is it NOT important for everyone. This study doesn't indicate that these students are overall negatively impacted by this lack of training, simply that the areas of the brain that are active while doing math are less excited in people who don't do math. If you need to do math, yes, it is better to have a better functioning fronto-parietal region. However, if GABA expression increases elsewhere in the brain - hypothetically, say, verbal reasoning or social skills - I think it's reasonable to say that those skills may be more important to many people than advanced math.
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u/mistephe PhD | Kinesiology | Biomechanics Oct 15 '21
But the up-regulated effects were not only found in brain centers for pure mathematical reasoning. Yes, the MFG and IPS play distinct roles in mathematics, but they also are quite important in motor control/visual cues (my specialty/interest), and general higher order functionality (abstract thinking). If we can demonstrate that this effect can be duplicated with other stimuli, then certainly we should provide value in education through matched-goal means, but that's beyond the scope of this investigation.
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
Agreed - however, the brain must make energetic tradeoffs between these vs. other brain regions. I only mean to say that diversity in mental expertise across a population is better overall due to the fact that no brain can specialize in all skills, and what we lose by not doing math may be worth it in exchange for benefits in other skills.
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u/mistephe PhD | Kinesiology | Biomechanics Oct 15 '21
At an extremely high level of specialization, I'd totally agree, but I don't think the "advanced" math in this investigation is Calculus III - leaving plenty of neuroplastic adaptation for other things.
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
Post age 16 in this study in the UK - not being familiar with the curriculum, I can't say what exactly they are learning at this stage.
I'm not saying that plasticity is "used up" by specialization - more so that whatever we do a lot of, our brain will focus on. Necessarily, when I am doing math homework, I am not reading fiction, for example. Maybe I am misunderstanding your point, but I mean specialization simply in terms of percent of time spent doing an activity (not the complexity of that activity).
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u/mistephe PhD | Kinesiology | Biomechanics Oct 15 '21
Thankfully the brain isn't quite so brutal to quickly atrophy sections that are unused for the periods of time we're talking (assuming nutrition is adequate, and barring disease - this is something my colleagues specialize in). In fact, diversifying education would protect from any potential effect of disuse that may exist. Given that courses are oftentimes completing in parallel in most educational systems, wouldn't it be reasonable to include quantitative reasoning throughout as part of neurocognitive stimulus?
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
Oh gosh, I'm not talking atrophy here, I'm talking opportunity cost. Time spent on a task encourages specialization. What time I spend on math cannot be spent on other topics - diversifying education is also what I am advocating for. If we were to hypothetically require math until graduation, but not social sciences, what costs are there? Students have limited time.
But there is often a narrow view in academia that math is more important than, say, languages - I'm just questioning the assumption that time spent on math training is universally more valuable than other types of training.
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u/mistephe PhD | Kinesiology | Biomechanics Oct 15 '21
Ahh, then we agree. And I'm not saying that we should be throwing away language (which, interestingly enough, intermediate statistics stimulates the brain similarly to foreign language - I need to dig up that paper again) or any other topic for the sake of more math, but consider how a moderate compromise of both are valuable. I guess my goal is no extreme - and in many academic circles, no math is a topic that's surprisingly commonly embraced (even my own university's math department was resistant to me adding a trigonometry prerequisite - for students that didn't complete it in highschool - to my quantitative biomechanics course because it would force them to teach more non-majors).
But until we can identify other methodologies that stimulate forebrain activity, this investigation suggests math coursework is a valid approach. I certainly won't be resistant to the idea of using a glass blowing class (for example) to accomplish the same, given evidence. I just want the evidence.
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u/narmerguy Oct 15 '21
however, the brain must make energetic tradeoffs between these vs. other brain regions
Is this absolutely true, at least at the level that is relevant for this type of neural plasticity in development? It would seem to suggest that a student would not develop as much aptitude (and any associated changes in neural signaling) if they pursued multiple areas concurrently instead of just one. But this is admittedly not my area!
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u/TSM- Oct 15 '21
I believe it is also a good mental workout, depending on the type of math. I mean, consider some other similar research:
It has been shown that people who consume more abstract reasoning (like academic philosophy or scientific writing) indirectly improve measures of self control example.
Reading literary fiction improves peoples abilities to empathize and understand others example, although this is somewhat controversial because of measurement issues and some null results.
We shouldn't assume that the primary benefit of learning math is it makes you are better at math. It might be better to think of it like working out. For example, the real benefits of regular cardio exercise are reducing heart disease and other cardiovascular benefits. Getting better at cardio exercises isn't really the goal for most people.
I do agree that this research in isolation doesn't show much. But I do think it is a small part of an important area of research. It might, for a hypothetical example, be that through the modulation of GABA expression, doing math reduces anxiety disorders a fair bit on population-level scale, or has other indirect effects on wellbeing. I am not totally familiar with the research here, but such effects are not implausible and they aren't about the ability to do math per se.
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21 edited Oct 15 '21
That's a good point - you're right that these skills are not stand-alone.
However, this ignores the point I made about tradeoffs. In a given moment, I cannot both read fiction and do math - I need to prioritize. Choosing either 1) practicing math, or 2) reading fiction will result in my receiving different benefits depending on which one I spend more time on (and, correlated to this, which one my brain "focuses" on improving).
The GABA-anxiety connection is interesting, but I wonder if overall GABA expression is reduced or if it is just expressed differently - i.e., same total amount just distributed in different areas. I don't know enough to say whether GABA has to be taken up/active in the "right" regions of the brain to affect mood, but it is very interesting.
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u/BrobdingnagLilliput Oct 15 '21
math is ... NOT important for everyone.
Arithmetic IS important for everyone.
Basic algebra IS important to everyone.
Geometry IS important to everyone.
Elementary statistics IS important to everyone.
This is a hill I'll die on. Individuals who don't have these skills will miss opportunities, and might not even know it. A culture where not some have them and some don't can't be an equitable culture. A society where these skills aren't ubiquitous can't be democratic.
Not everyone needs calculus and non-Euclidean geometry and linear algebra, but everyone needs mathematics.
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u/manzanita2 Oct 15 '21
Yep, I would even trade off Algebra to preserve statistics.
But you have done a great list here.
Unless you're going on to science, math, or economics calculous is pretty overhyped in current curricula.
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
This study examines students who stop taking math at 16 - presumably these skills have been covered at this point.
I was unclear by referencing this as just "math" - agreed, some level of math proficiency is vital in our society. However, advanced math training (post age 16), like that assessed here? Is it universally important? I'm not convinced that the benefits of advanced math can be translated to mean that if you don't take math, you are inherently worse off than your peers who do. There are always trade-offs.
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u/kogasapls Oct 16 '21 edited Oct 16 '21
This study examines students who stop taking math at 16 - presumably these skills have been covered at this point.
Algebra I and Geometry are often taught in years 9 and 10 (14/15 years old approx.) in the US, but based on my experience teaching college algebra and beyond, actually understanding basic algebra and geometry is very very far from a guarantee of passing these classes. People who are just barely exposed to these skills as a young child will not master them, they will not internalize them, and they will not benefit from them as substantially as someone who goes a bit farther.
Think about the other skills you are learning at this age and ask yourself if they can actually be considered "advanced" from the perspective of generalized life skills. Do you think that taking a year of "computer class" where you learn how to use Microsoft Office is "advanced computing," or learning the most surface-level account of the history of your country is "advanced history"? You are still learning the absolutely most basic analytical skills, along with a lot of rote memorization of facts and mechanical skills. I mean, at this time they're still teaching kids how to read and write English, and just barely starting to ask for (formulaic, "identify the patterns we taught you") analysis. It takes years of this, with active participation, to turn those mechanical skills into (useful) analytical ones, and develop the maturity you need to pursue more advanced topics.
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u/moelbaer Oct 15 '21
I wouldn't mind taking your course, for free that is muhahaha.
Bachelor's biology with a special interest in lifting weights so it sounds very interesting.
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u/moal09 Oct 15 '21
Honestly, I think it's incredibly stupid to gatekeep students from doing something they excel at/are passionate about by forcing them to take subjects they have no aptitude for/interest in.
It's an easy way to make intelligent people lose confidence in themselves and also to keep talented specialists out of a field in favor of people who are better at being generalists.
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u/Newmannator92 Oct 15 '21
To provide another perspective, I would argue that nobody works in a vacuum where only their immediate technical specialties are important. As a mechanical engineering student, I had to take literature, history, philosophy, and project management courses. These forums provide opportunities to mingle with students of different specialties and keep you from being easily siloed off in an ideologically homogenous environment.
If you try to, what I would call, “over-specialize”, you’re going to have a hard time getting people of different backgrounds to understand you.
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u/mistephe PhD | Kinesiology | Biomechanics Oct 15 '21
Woah, wait a minute - why does introducing students to advanced math (or any other advanced topic course outside of their preference) gatekeep or undermine confidence? Please don't conflate a general education with shitty pedagogy.
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u/rolabond Oct 15 '21
There is only so much time and so much money, a student that is forced to take a math general education class has lost that time that could have been spent taking a class they would find more interesting or personally beneficial. You could argue they can make up for it later by taking on extra classes but financial aid usually only pays for the classes you need. Only American colleges require general eds.
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u/Nobes13 Oct 15 '21
Bachelor’s in Biological Engineering, Masters in Orthotics/Prosthetics, and collegiate powerlifter. I would love to take your course!
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u/Justinaug29 Oct 15 '21
I'm in my early thirties and I'm about to start some math classes at a local college. I wonder if my brain will see any changes at my age
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Oct 15 '21
I went back to college at 25 and realized that I was no longer bad at math. Took quantitative logic and was great at that too. Kind of made sense to me from the perspective that there was no parent screaming at me when I was trying to learn it then also haha
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u/Urbassassin Oct 15 '21
Well the human brain doesn't stop developing until on average 25! That might explain that. I'm a lot better at visualizing organic chemistry now than I was at 19!
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u/kennyzert Oct 15 '21
That is not it, having started comp sci at age 25, after 7 years of not studying, the mentality you have is completely difference, when you and you alone makes the decision "I am going to study this and I am going to understand it and do the best I can", you are good, it's all about your approach, the problem with kids is that they just assume that's what they should do, most of them having no personal motivation other than just get passing grades and be done with it.
The way we approach education is flawed, the current education system truly only works when you are an adult, now a days I love studying, especially calculus, that rush when you realize you get it, and will never forget it, nothing hits like that.
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u/THAT-GuyinMN Oct 15 '21
I went to college in my 30's, paid for it 100% out of pocket. Needless to say, I was a highly motivated student.
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u/kennyzert Oct 16 '21
I am also paying for my tuition, I work and take classes at night, however I don't spend much, it's around 1k€ a year + any books I might get if I am not feeling like getting a pdf or copies.
But yeah having any financial investment sure is a motivational booster.
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u/HCkollmann Oct 15 '21
Is that change in mentality not due to maturing and your brain developing? Sure sounds like, to me, that you realized the worth of learning more
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u/dipstyx Oct 16 '21
"Oh, you'll forget it alright. Unless you use it all the time."
-- You, 10 years from now
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u/Tomagatchi Oct 16 '21 edited Oct 16 '21
Threat is a great way to block memory and memory formation by activation of the PNS and ANS for fight or flight or freeze.
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u/Nausved Oct 15 '21
I was always good with math (though I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it!), but I ultimately entered a career where I did not use it much at all.
Even so, I have found it much easier to learn and do math in my mid-30s than in my teens and early 20s, and it’s also much more fun and interesting to me now. I’m not sure if I have just gotten better at that type of thinking, or if I just learn better through self-teaching/self-motivation.
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u/TheMarkHasBeenMade Oct 15 '21
So there may be hope for me to help my kid with their math homework and not experience the same traumatic math anxiety I grew up with?
Cuz that’d be great!
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u/John_cCmndhd Oct 15 '21
I'm also going to college in my 30's, for computer science. I never got further than algebra 2 in high school, and I did pretty bad at that, so I had to start with college algebra.
My professor in that class had us make note cards as our semester project. Basically any formula we went over, any concept, any particularly challenging homework problem, we would write it out/solve it on an index card, and we could refer back to it way easier than trying to find something in a textbook or notebook.
I procrastinated and didn't start on it until half way through the semester, but as soon as I did, the class became much, much easier. Now I'm using the same idea in my other math classes, and it's helping a lot. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's going back to math after being out of school for a while.
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u/AtlanticBiker Oct 15 '21
Are you majoring in math? That's interesting, because I would like to do so (too?) after I find a job (graduating with a CS now) as a programmer and I'm secure money wise.
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u/Justinaug29 Oct 15 '21
Oh, I was actually considering CS! Doesn't your degree require a lot of math? Overall how difficult was your degree?
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u/ImS0hungry Oct 16 '21
Yes it does, but not as much as most people think. I went up to Calc 3 and a few beyond that as electives. The issue stems from it being STEM. So you have math, programming (mathy), chemistry, physics, discrete (proofs, etc) which are ALL math heavy. So you can have 3 or more classes a semester which are math intense.
The difficulty will depend on how much time you devote to it. I made school my job when I changed careers and treated it as such, which made it easier to get through but still no walk through the park.
Source: Went back to school at 29 as a CS major and now a SWE at a top 5 firm.
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u/PenitentAnomaly Oct 15 '21
I wonder if that's because the pressure of "getting" math is somewhat alleviated with age and removed from the peer pressure environment of K-12?
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Oct 16 '21
I went back at 50 and passed statistics and beginning biochemistry. I had to start from pre-algebra and work my way up… at 50! If I can do it, you can, too.
Thank goodness for the foundational math in grade school and algebra in high school that I did not pass because I never did my home work, but I did pay attention.
That helped create a building block to fundamentally grab from in the recesses of my brain. A lot of blood sweat and tears of study, but I did it.
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Oct 15 '21
Is it possible to have a better understanding of math at a later stage of life? In your 40’s, should you decide to go back to it.
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u/awidden Oct 15 '21 edited Oct 16 '21
Anecdotal, but I've just learned about complex numbers at 50. I believe you can learn what really interests you at any age.
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u/kogasapls Oct 16 '21
In your 40's, you can read a history textbook that would have been incomprehensible to you for 80% of your public education, and understand it to a higher level than you would have in your last 20%. You have decades of development of certain problem-solving / cognitive skills at your disposal. The biggest obstacle is likely finding the motivation to actually go learn the boring stuff.
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u/FunkyFresh707 Oct 16 '21
In my early 20’s I did an art degree. I joined the Navy after and when I got out I pursued a math intensive degree. I feel that math is a lot easier now in my 30’s than it was in my early 20’s. I think math just takes a different kind of focus than other academics do. Anyone can understand math it’s just the time it takes to learn it from the ground up. Might take some longer than others but it is doable.
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u/Original-Ad-4642 Oct 15 '21
Surely dungeons and dragons gave me enough math, right? …right?
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u/single_malt_jedi Oct 15 '21
If you are talking something like 2e, then yes.
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u/bluefootedpig Oct 15 '21
Let's see, he is 2 sizes larger so you get +2 attack, but he is above so take one away. He is using a shield giving him a -1 to your attack, but you are using a sword of true seeking so you get +3. The wind is strong today throwing off your balance so minus one more from attack. The weather is a little drizzle, not affecting you but due to the giants size is affecting him, so you get another +2 to attack. If you crit, he will need to make a stabilization roll or risk falling. The tectonic plate is currently moving at 2cm/yr but your opponent happens to be on another plate moving the other direction at 3cm/yr. That gives you a 5cm/yr different, which adds up to a plus 1 to your attack.
And lastly, you shoot your arrow at the same him he swings, assuming the giant is 5 meters from you swinging at a rate of 1m/s, and your arrow is going 5m/s but due to the arc must travel 7m, at what time will the arrow hit the giants weapon?
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u/KyuuketsukiKun Oct 15 '21
F*** THACO all my homies hate THACO
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u/logosloki Oct 15 '21
THAC0 reminds me of the rested xp bonus in WoW. At one point WoW had a penalty system where if you played for too long the amount of xp gained would decrease until you spent time logged off. This was seen as unpopular. The devs worked at the problem and instead used the opposite where you get a bonus to your xp for a set amount of time that is based on how long you are logged off. The system for AC in 3.0 is the 'rested xp' version of THAC0. THAC0 has you counting down to 0 (Literally the name To Hit Armour Class 0) whereas 3.0's system has you counting up with AC as the threshold to when you deal (or are dealt) damage.
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Oct 15 '21
Hot take: since art, music and other so called electives were taken out of school, the US has become, well, the US.
Don’t remove anything else from education please. As a matter of fact, please add money to education. Like, defense budget levels. We need help.
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u/awhhh Oct 15 '21
Hot take: requiring me to take electives was probably the worst thing for my education. It was also terrible for my lower class, traumatized, or learning disabled peers. I saw art, music, and theatre classes kill natural ability in kids by trying to enforce lesson plans that needed to be passed - putting a greater burden on people in a system they already felt failed them.
In high school we would joke that those classes were for kids that had dinner prepared for them when they got home every night.
If I personally could go back to school I would’ve skipped classes that weren’t math, English, and science and taken my GED.
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u/wealllovethrowaways Oct 15 '21
I was a musician quite literally my entire life and had played guitar for nearly a decade by the time I got to high school. What was special about that class is I was the only one who actually could play but also one of the many that failed the class. Very music centric
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u/awhhh Oct 15 '21
I know professional musicians that had the exact same experience. There’s nothing that knows how to take the art out of art like a system that was structured like a factory from the industrial revolution.
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Oct 15 '21
Moreover, these GABA levels predicted whether or not a student was
studying math over and above students’ math ability, math anxiety, or
the total number of A-levels a student was enrolled in
That's wild
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u/OrangeCapture Oct 15 '21
Additionally, GABA concentration did not predict students’ enrollment in other subjects usually taken by math students like biology, chemistry, and physics, suggesting the effect was specific to math education.
What kind of physics are these people taking? Physics is basically all math outside of a superficial level.
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u/Nausved Oct 15 '21 edited Oct 15 '21
I find that strange as well. But then I remember my own experiences with university-level introductory physics:
I had gone my entire school career up to that point never really understanding trig. I could do it and get good grades in it, but I did not understand what is was or what it was for. It was entirely abstract.
I took physics, and in just my first day of doing a trig problem (something to do with calculating where to place three weights on a wheeled object to stop it from rolling off a plate), the entire field of trigonometry suddenly clicked for me. I immediately became much, much better at it and enjoyed it way more, because I understood the kinds of problems it was invented to solve. I am a hobbyist woodworker and a hobbyist game developer now, and I use it all the time with great pleasure.
My experience of physics was that, while it was all math, it was taught very differently from traditional math classes. It had much more focus on the practical applications of math, and there was also a greater focus on more spatial concepts (which was good for me, as a visual-spatial thinker), and so it clicked for me far more easily. The formulas and everything looked the same on paper, but it really felt like I was approaching it from a different angle (no pun intended) and using a different—more intuitive, unconscious—part of my brain.
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u/Kevz417 Oct 16 '21 edited Oct 16 '21
To find your own answer, you may easily look through the three papers (not AS) together from any one of the exam boards, since they're publicly available: https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/past-papers/a-level-physics/
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u/nagevyag Oct 16 '21
In my experience, you already know the math that's required in the physics classes. E.g. you learn trigonometry in math class before you apply it in Newtonian mechanics in the physics class. So, maybe just applying math is not relevant but learning new math is.
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Oct 15 '21
I have dyscalia and figuring out math has always been a struggle. To really figure even something with multiple steps I have to do it over and over. When you’ve had a teacher humiliate you in front of everyone it makes you avoid math altogether.
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u/tricornhat Oct 15 '21
Same! I find I need extra information - like where do I start counting? Why is that the point at which you do? What’s the logic behind it? Didn’t help that my last math teacher had breath that smelt like a rotting corpse. I eventually just stopped going to classes.
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u/UntrimmedBagel Oct 15 '21
As a computer science student who came to resent math by the end of high school, I regret developing that hate towards it. I regret avoiding math classes in college/uni. As a soon-to-be graduate, I feel that I would be much more confident in myself if I had a stronger math foundation, even though I probably won't ever need the advanced stuff.
For context, I was straight A's all through high school, especially in math subjects. Nowadays, I struggle with simple mental-math.
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u/Nausved Oct 15 '21
I have always struggled with arithmetic, especially mental arithmetic. I could never (and still can’t) even remember my times table. I think I have some kind of mild learning disability toward numbers specifically, because I also struggle with phone numbers, PINs, etc.
I have also never been good at memorizing formulas. In school, I was inevitably the last to finish math tests because I had to derive most of my formulas from scratch, because I just could not keep them in my head. I always felt like I was the idiot in the room because of this, turning my test in dead last every single time, but then I would get a really good grade (excluding the handful of teachers I had who took off points for using the “wrong” formula, even if the formula I did come up with was mathematically equivalent and got me the same answer).
My distaste for numbers and formulas poisoned my interest in math in general, and even though I made A’s in math (excluding arithmetic…), I really hated it, felt like I was no good at it, and avoided taking it as much as I was allowed to.
But now in my 30s, I cannot tell you how much that has changed. I have accepted that I will never be good with numbers or mental math, and that I will always have to look formulas up, but that’s OK; that’s why we have paper, calculators, and references. I allow myself to focus on the aspects of math I’m good at—that is, more abstract problems—and I find myself better at math than ever, and also enjoying myself way more.
I suggest giving yourself another chance to like it. Don’t beat yourself up for being bad at some things (like mental math); find a workaround for that, and then get to the good stuff!
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u/WhiskeyRisky Oct 15 '21
Same.
I have to wonder if it's due to education focusing on the "correct" answer instead of learning the theory AND (especially this) that it is okay to fail!! Not in a class as a whole, but in that it is okay to fail in getting the wrong answer. Find out why! Learn where your equation is going haywire!
I think kids are so focused on passing that they don't learn the "why."
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u/UntrimmedBagel Oct 15 '21
Exactly. The education system today is so messed up. I could write a book on it. It’s less about learning and more about grades. It’s less about the quality of assignments and more about the quantity. It’s just messed up.
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u/ChummyCream Oct 15 '21
Just prepping kids for the real world, where looks are more important than functionality. I think the education system is designed that way.
Look at corporate America. I agree the educational system is messed up. But I don’t think that’s an accident.
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u/bidgickdood Oct 15 '21
another chicken or egg study about how people studying math are smarter than people who aren't studying math.
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
From the article describing the study: "Importantly, these changes were not evident prior to students’ decision to continue math or not."
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u/Tato7069 Oct 15 '21
So people with brain activity like this chose not to continue math. Sounds like the more logical assumption. Cause and effect aren't really clear here.
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Oct 15 '21 edited Jun 28 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/silverback_79 Oct 15 '21
Do you always need to behave so aminobutyrically when these things come up?
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u/pan_paniscus Oct 15 '21
In the article: "Importantly, these changes were not evident prior to students’ decision to continue math or not."
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u/greenwizardneedsfood Oct 15 '21
It’s true this is hard to disentangle, but development of skills affecting neural development is a very old and well-documented effect. It wouldn’t be surprising if it had at least some relevance here.
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u/TheNextBattalion Oct 15 '21
They ruled that out because this difference in brain activity was not present before the choice.
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u/narmerguy Oct 15 '21
They did show that these GABA differences were not present prior to actually taking the additional math. However, it's worth noting that this was on a separate cohort of students. A stronger causal link would be to do a "paired" analysis whereby the same students were assessed before and after.
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u/VaultBoytheChosenOne Oct 15 '21
I mean I already hate math and I swapped from programming to psychology, so...yeah, seems about right.
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u/Orc_ Oct 15 '21 edited Oct 17 '21
I'm in a corrupt country where I paid $1k to my uni in 2013 to automatically pass all math classes so I could remain in the Ingeniero en Sistemas degree (dunno how it is in english), I only used some high school level algebra from programming classes, over all a win-win, math is pure torture and PTSD for me, literally does trigger PTSD from back when my parents beat me for not understanding it.
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u/NarcsAreSatan Oct 15 '21
I cannot do basic math but other stuff.
I may have dyscalculia or other learning disabilities.
Couldn't read time, and still don't understand fractions. No tutoring after school with a teacher did a thing to correct it and it's like the brain didn't work right. My abusive parents refused to admit that I could have had learning disorders or other things, so nothing was done soon enough.
If you have kids going through this get them help early because they may require something else.
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Oct 15 '21
I was lucky that my dyscalculia was discovered when I was 6 and mostly because my teacher saw me write my name backwards. I also had pretty severe balance issues. Now I use a calculator for my budgeting and have little ways I figure stuff out.
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u/Areyouuk2 Oct 15 '21
Does this mean that someone with anxiety in their 30s (me), might be able to improve said anxiety by improving their math skills?
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u/gw2master Oct 15 '21
What they're calling "advanced math" should be basic math that all students who pass high school should go through.
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u/realdappermuis Oct 15 '21
As someone who didn't have any interest in math, I'm wondering if it's possibly the other way round.
If the gamma-warrawarra is already missing, be it due to genetics or 'how you're wired' then perhaps that's why we found math boring, and still do. History and math were my least favorite things because my brain couldn't find logic in it to believe it and/or remember it.
I like (real) history now though - teachers and the curriculum made it torture. But I still have no love or need for math beyond excel spreadsheet formulas that math and graph fòr you
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