2A — Thursday, December 3, 2015
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
THREE THINGS YOU
SHOULD KNOW TODAY
Daily Arts Writers hang
with
up-and-coming
rock band The Moxies,
talk
to
student
producer,
YOG$,
visit
Third
Man
Records and more in a music-
centric edition of The B-Side.
>>SEE B-SIDE, PAGE 1B
2
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
Flute trio
WHAT: Iridescent Flutes,
a trio of classically trained
flutists, will perform at the
University Hospital.
WHO: Gifts of Art
WHEN: 12:10 p.m. to 1
p.m.
WHERE: University
Hospital, First Floor
Panel discussion
WHAT: Joseph Cialdella,
Edie Disler and John Rams-
burgh will speak about
writing for and working
in the public sphere.
WHO: English Department
WHEN: 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
WHERE: Angell
HallRoom 3222
Law
enforcement
responded to an active
shooter situation in San
Bernardino, California
community
center,
NBC
News reported. Local police
say the incident resulted in
14 fatalities.
1
Felicia
Andrews talk
WHAT: Detroit native
Felicia Andrews will
lecture Public Policy
students about her
experience with
international policy.
WHO: International Policy
Students Association
WHEN: 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
WHERE: Weill Hall
British
lawmakers
voted this week to
commence
airstrikes
against ISIS targets
in Syria, CNN reported.
Officials said the actions
could include “surveillance
or operational missions over
Syria.”
3
Karen Finley
lecture
WHAT: Writer Karen
Finley will present
her work, Written in
Sand, which includes
performance pieces and
writings on AIDS.
WHO: Stamps School
WHEN: 5:10 p.m. to 6 p.m.
WHERE: Michigan
Theater
Women’s
basketball
WHAT: The Michigan
Women’s Basketball
team will be facing the
Pittsburgh Panthers.
WHO: Michigan Athletics
WHEN: 7 p.m.
WHERE: Crisler Center
TUESDAY:
Campus Voices
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk
FRIDAY:
Photos of the Week
WEDNESDAY:
In Other Ivory Towers
MONDAY:
This Week in History
Seminar on
fish diversity
WHAT: Dr. Holly
Kindsvater, assistant
professor at Rutgers
University, will lecture on
fish species.
WHO: Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology
WHEN: 4:10 p.m. to 5 p.m.
WHERE: Chemistry
Building, Room 1210
The University’s second annual
Giving BlueDay raised more
than $4 million in funds.
“#GivingBlueDay is officially over,
and we met our new $100,000
fundraising goal. Thank you to
our incredible donors.”
— @umichband
“I love seeing people in @UMich ap-
parel no matter where I am in the world.
#WhereverYouGo #GoBlue”
—@UMichstudents
Alyssa Setting tweeted from the Michigan
Students account while at the airport
heading home.
Each week, “Twitter Talk”
is a forum to print tweets
that are fun, informative,
breaking or newsworthy,
with an angle on the
University, Ann Arbor and
the state. All tweets have
been edited for accurate
spelling and grammar.
Gov. Rick Snyder (R) commented
on Wednesday’s shooting at a
community center in California.
“Our thoughts and prayers are
with the victims, their families
and the first responders in San
Bernadino.” - @onetoughnerd
FOLLOW US!
#TMD
@michigandaily
“
“
ANALYZING IN THE ARB
SINDUJA KILARU/Daily
LSA senior Amanda Salvi and LSA sophomore Neha
Srinivasan study for their Woody Plants: Biology and
Identification exam in the Arb on Wednesday.
The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by
students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may
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Michigan
dance crew
WHAT: Eight student
dance crews will compete
for the title of Michigan’s
Best Dance Crew.
WHO: Center for Campus
Involvement
WHEN: 7 p.m to 9 p.m.
WHERE: Lydia
Mendelssohn Theatre
Study links dopamine levels
with learning, motivation
#GrowBlue raises more than
$117,000 for cancer research
Signals assist in
evaluating benefits,
downsides of action
By MEGAN DOYLE
Daily Staff Reporter
Students can sometimes lose
motivation heading into final
exams, and the answer as to why
may lie with dopamine, accord-
ing to University researchers.
Psychology
Prof.
Joshua
Berke, one of the study’s authors,
and Arif Hamid, a neurosci-
ence doctoral student and lead
author of the study, point to a link
between dopamine, a reward
chemical in the brain, and learn-
ing and motivation.
The study found that dopa-
mine levels in the brain com-
municate the value of particular
tasks. Berke said these value sig-
nals then allows people to deter-
mine how much effort they
should put toward a goal. Those
judgements are based on an eval-
uation of the potential rewards
from completing the task and the
consequences of either avoiding
the test or failing to complete it
successfully. If dopamine lev-
els communicate that a task is
worthwhile, the individual will
likely feel more motivated to
tackle it.
“You’re less likely to be dis-
tracted because this activity that
you’re engaged in is considered
to be more worthwhile,” he said.
“That is not previously accounted
for by our theories of dopamine
function, and now it is.”
The research was conducted
by measuring dopamine levels
in rats. The rats were observed
while they performed decision-
making tasks, like choosing a
door, then rewarded for choos-
ing the correct door. When the
rats had been rewarded, they
began to decide faster, indicat-
ing increased motivation. They
also were more likely to choose
the option that had previ-
ously rewarded them, showing
increased learning.
Elevated
dopamine
levels
corresponded with both moti-
vation and learning in the rats.
This finding is novel. Previ-
ously, researchers considered
it counterintuitive that a neu-
rotransmitter such as dopamine
could achieve both motivating
and learning functions. In other
words, dopamine could contrib-
ute either to motivation or to
learning, but not to both.
Though
many
researchers
have attempted to resolve this
dynamic, Berke said this new
study represents a major stride
toward doing just that.
“All the theoretical ideas had
been about learning, but so much
of the observations about how
drugs affect people and so forth
have really been about motiva-
tion and not about learning,”
Berke said.
Additionally, the team looked
at the effect of artificially spik-
ing dopamine levels in rats. They
found that this spike also corre-
lated with increased motivation
and learning.
Hamid said this finding has
implications
in
humans,
as
DAVID SONG/Daily
LSA sophomore Patrick Mullan-Koufopoulos discusses the wording of the course evaluation release resolution during
the LSA Student Government meeting in Mason Hall on Wednesday. >>SEE PAGE 3A
Hayes lecture
WHAT: Part of the lecture
series by the Eisenberg
Institute for Historical
Studies, Patricia Hayes
will focus on the the colo-
nization and taxation of
Namibia post-WWI.
WHO: History Department
WHEN: 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
WHERE: Tisch
Hall, Room 1014
Month-long MRelay
initiative puts new
spin on “No Shave
November” campaign
By ALYSSA BRANDON
Daily Staff Reporter
Last month, many University
students opted to let their beards
grow for “No-Shave November”
— an effort designed to raise
awareness and lend support to
cancer patients and survivors.
Drawing inspiration from this,
MRelay — the University’s chap-
ter of the organization Relay for
Life, which raises research fund-
ing through the American Cancer
Society — spearheaded #Grow-
Blue, a month-long initiative.
With the campaign completed,
the student organization raised
more than more than $117,000 in
donations.
As part of the initiative,
MRelay members encouraged
male students to grow their
facial hair and female students
to wear blue ribbons and hair
extensions in solidarity with
cancer patients who lose their
hair during treatment.
Public Policy senior Rebecca
Hart, who serves on MRelay’s
senior leadership team, said the
campaign was initially concep-
tualized in 2014 as an offshoot
of #NoShaveNovember.
Hart said the initial cam-
paign only called for male stu-
dent participation, but MRelay
has since expanded the program
to promote female involvement
as well.
“We had — as a campus —
come together, (with) this great
community effort, and we got
girls involved this year,” she
said. “I think that’s the first
time that’s been done anywhere,
so we’re really proud of that.”
LSA junior Kelly O’Donnel,
a member of the MRelay senior
leadership team, said the team
created #GrowBlue to connect
the national movement to the
University community.
“We
created
our
own
hashtags,
#GrowBlue
and
#BePurple, because MRelay’s
color is purple,” she said. “We
wanted to make it ‘GrowBlue’ to
make it specific to the Univer-
sity of Michigan campus, but we
also wanted to tie it back to our
mission and what we’re really
going for.”
The MRelay leadership team
encouraged students to post
pictures of themselves on social
media
using
#GrowBlue
to
encourage friends and family
to make donations to the cause,
which would in turn go to the
American Cancer Society.
O’Donnel
said
students
accrued several hundred tweets
after the initiative launched.
“We had hundreds of people
using these hashtags that we
could then search and repost
and share people’s stories (and)
stories about their friends who
have been affected by cancer
and their family members, and
why they’re doing it,” she said.
“It was impactful to see so many
people engaged with the cam-
paign.”
O’Donnel said it was inspir-
ing to see the Delta Chi fra-
ternity rally in support of a
brother and MRelay participant
who had recently been diag-
nosed with cancer.
“His entire fraternity rallied
around him to get involved,”
she said. “I just got a notifica-
tion today that they’re branding
all this apparel that they want
the MRelay community to send
out to support him. More so
than just the fundraising, we’re
really about being a community
for people, and being that con-
nection to survivors and other
people that have been affected.”
In addition to planning for
their 24-hour campus aware-
ness relay event in April 2016,
Hart and O’Donnel said MRelay
will host a benefit concert Jan.
25 at the Lydia Mendelssohn
Theatre.
COUR SE EVALUATIONS
See DOPAMINE, Page 3A