Neuroscience tops the menu at Beakerhead's Lunch Without Light

Editor's note: UCalgary researcher Dr. Jaideep Bains, PhD, and science broadcaster Jay Ingram are once again hosting Lunch Without Light on Sept. 18 and 20, 2019, as part of the 2019 Beakerhead lineup. Tickets are available on the Beakerhead website.

 

I’ll have the Lack of One of My Primary Senses along with a side of Anxiety please, and oh — what other stressors do you have available on the menu today?

At the Beakerhead event Lunch Without Light at the Dark Table Restaurant, University of Calgary neuroscientist Jaideep Bains explains what’s happening in everyone’s brains as they dine in the dark.

Along with science broadcaster and co-host Jay Ingram, Dr. Bains, PhD, participates in an adventurous dining experience that’s part leisurely laboratory and part foodie fun.

The plan is for people to walk into a bar area that has a bit of light, says Bains, who heads up the Stressynomics laboratory at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) in the Cumming School of Medicine. They’ll next be led to the completely dark, main dining room, where they’ll be assisted by servers who are visually impaired.

A soupçon of stress, anyone?

“The diners will at this point likely be experiencing traits consistent with anxiety,” says Bains, professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacolgy. “Some will become very quiet and start feeling around the table, while others will become quite talkative — likely a nervous conversation to make themselves feel in control. Others will try to make some connection with others around them.” 

Even though they can rationalize what’s going on because they’ve chosen to have this experience, there’s a subconscious part of the brain that does not pay much attention to logic and reason, he says. It’s part of an evolutionarily conserved physiological response to a novel and potentially threatening environment that is exaggerated by not having one of your key senses at your disposal.

One of the things my lab is very interested in is how our brains respond to threats and challenges, which is a different way to say acute stress,” says Bains, who with his team has had his research featured in Nature Neuroscience and other leading publications. “We’re interested in different behaviours and the neural circuits that contribute to these behaviours.”

When you are in a situation where there is a high degree of uncertainty, your brain is evolutionarily programmed to increase arousal so you can act quickly, because from an evolutionary standpoint, uncertainty means potential danger. That arousal component feels to us like an anxious state. Your blood pressure and heart rate go up.

In the absence of any visual information, the brain starts to tune up the other senses, says Bains. It’s likely occurring in the cortex and although the mechanisms are difficult to pin down, it likely involves rapid adjustments in biochemical and electrical signalling in brain regions that are activated by auditory signals (hearing), sensory stimuli (touch), smell and taste.

These sensory inputs and how they are interpreted will help to adjust anxiety levels. As the brain adapts to its environment, things should go more smoothly. For the diners who will be attending the Beakerhead lunch, Bains recommends the best way to enjoy yourself when eating in the dark is to “embrace the novelty and just try to live the experience.”

The good news is that Bains’s lab has shown that essential brain circuits are capable of adapting and fine-tuning themselves when faced with an ever-changing environment. So the next time you dine in the dark, it’s likely you’ll have learned not to upend your spoonful of dessert into your lap. And even if you do, you’ll probably be less stressed about it.