May 31, 2005

the emperor's new paradigm:

And to follow up on recent posts (here, and here) on evolutionary psychology there is a new review in the latest edition of Trends in Cognitive Sciences:

Evolutionary psychology: the emperor's new paradigm David J. Buller Trends in Cognitive Sciences Volume 9, Issue 6 , June 2005, Pages 277-283 Abstract For some evolutionary psychology is merely a field of inquiry, but for others it is a robust paradigm involving specific theories about the nature and evolution of the human mind. Proponents of this paradigm claim to have made several important discoveries regarding the evolved architecture of the mind. Highly publicized discoveries include a cheater-detection module, a psychological sex difference in jealousy, and motivational mechanisms underlying parental love and its lapses, which purportedly result in child maltreatment. In this article, I argue that the empirical evidence for these ‘discoveries’ is inconclusive, at best. I suggest that, as the reigning paradigm in evolutionary psychology has produced questionable results, the evolutionary study of human psychology is still in need of a guiding paradigm.

—tom.

Using technology to add cyborg senses:

A team of researchers will use technology to extend the human senses, allowing people to sense magnetic fields, experience sight via tactile vibrations and see behind them.

The experiment is being conducted by Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, and artist and researcher Sarah Angliss - who has spent several years experimenting with the sensory and psychological properties of sound.

The volunteers augmented with the new technology will be asked to keep video diaries which will appear online, and members of the public can try the technology themselves at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

The experiment is intended in part as a demonstration of neural plasticity, the process by which the brain reorganises through experience to allow for new functionality.

Link to write-up from we-make-money-not-art.com

—Vaughan.

May 29, 2005

Scott Adams and focal dystonia:

Scott Adams, the artist behind the comic Dilbert, has a movement disorder called focal dystonia that prevents him from drawing in the regular way. It, and his response to it, are discussed in an article in the Washington Post.

Focal dystonia, which can affect the hand (where it's commonly called "writer's cramp" when it affects writing), the neck (the most common site), eyelids or vocal chords, is something of a mystery. First reported in people who do fine finger work, including writers, seamstresses and musicians, it affects an estimated 29.5 individuals per 100,000 population [...] Often, focal hand dystonia patients are people who use the small muscles of the fingers and hands.

What I find most interesting about this condition is its neurological roots, as the fine finger work coupled with the stress that often triggers focal dystonia appears to "teach" part of the brain some broken connections:

"We think the disorder is largely associated with the basal ganglia," which are deep brain structures that help regulate movement, Karp [Barbara Karp, deputy clinical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)] said. One theory is that repetitive movements or some other cause somehow trigger abnormal learning patterns in the brain.

One therapy for focal dystonia is "sensory training," changing techniques of practice so that the sensory areas of the brain can learn again how to give proper feedback to the motion parts. Adams, in his case, now uses a graphics tablet and draws Dilbert at many times the final size.

Link to Scott Adams, Drawing the Line in the Washington Post.

—Matt.

Brain freeze and 'ice cream headaches':

TheBrainFreeze.com is a website dedicated to 'ice cream headaches', a condition sometimes known as 'brain freeze'. It hosts a short yet strangely compelling movie of people causing headaches in themselves with slushed ice drinks.

A 1997 article in the British Medical Journal explained why cold things cause headaches, and describes some good old-fashioned self-experimentation in the service of science.

Experimenting on himself, Smith characterised the features of the headache. Applying crushed ice to the palate, he found that ipsilateral temporal and orbital pain developed 20-30 seconds later. Bilateral pain occurred when the stimulus was applied in the midline. The headache could be elicited only in hot weather; attempts to reproduce the pain during the winter were unsuccessful, even with use of a cold stimulus of the same temperature.

Luckily for ice creams fans, the article shys away from medical scaremongering, recommending that "ice cream abstinence is not indicated".

Link to TheBrainFreeze.com
Link to BMJ article on Ice cream headache.

—Vaughan.

May 28, 2005

Sagittal section t-shirt:

Vote-to-print t-shirt shop Threadless must have some neuroscience fans amongst their users, as they've just printed another brain-based t-shirt.

This time it's an abstract interpretation of a sagittal section through the head and brain, with the corpus callosum a riot of decorative trim.

Know of any other mind- or brain-based t-shirts ? Let us know.

Link to Think Slow t-shirt.

—Vaughan.

May 27, 2005

Are we designed for violence?:

I thought I'd post a short essay, originally written for another destination, that touches on issues discussed below in a previous post. It's also cross-posted at my own blog. Hope y'all enjoy, and I welcome any feedback or crit of my somewhat contentious take on the issue.

Violence is common to our present, history and prehistory. Is there reason to hope that our future will be different? Doubtless we’ll know in the long run, thanks to the grand uncontrolled experiment of life. Meanwhile some argue we can get an early forecast by using the behavioural sciences – investigate our nature to divine our future. But just what do we mean by a violent nature, and would such a nature necessarily force us to be so pessimistic? Such a wide issue needs to be viewed through a narrow prism, so here we shall focus on the neuroscience of violence. Are we wired for violence - is it brain-based, an original sin never to be expelled? Or could it be less indelible than we fear?

While examples of human violence are varied and plentiful, the most chilling are those individuals who seem innately disposed towards causing suffering: the Hannibal Lecters of the world who seem calm and controlled as they torture, scheme and kill. Psychopathy is marked by a total lack of empathy with others, allowing them to act without compunction. The rare cases of acquired sociopathy, where brain damage leads to behavioural patterns that resemble the psychopath, are perhaps even more unsettling. It's one thing when it's the other guy - born different. But the acquired case holds the terrifying promise that it could be you.

While we shiver at the horridness of all this, scientists have leapt at the chance to study these individuals in the hope that it may shed some light on whether we have a design for violence. As with much research, the exception helps you find the rule: the differences in the psychopaths' brains and behaviour give insights into what is shaping the behaviour of normal people. One thesis that has gained broad popular attention (to which popular science writer Steven Pinker devotes a chapter of his recent book The Blank Slate) is that cases of violence running wild illuminate the caged beast inside all of us. This account argues we have inclinations towards violence only barely kept in check by imposed restraints; not dissimilar to a popular religious notion that humanity is fallen from grace -urged to good but drawn to evil.

It seems true that abnormal populations differ from us because they lack some kind of restraint: some failure of an inhibition mechanism which ordinarily screens out or rejects violent actions in healthy individuals. James Blair, a leading researcher in this area, has termed this a Violence Inhibition Mechanism (VIM, see e.g. Blair & Cipolotti 2000): and follows early ethological work showing that some animals in the wild cease their aggression if their victim shows signs of distress (Lorenz, 1966). Evolutionary pressure could promote such a tendency to discourage fighting to the death, switching you off from pursuing a conflict once your opponent caves in.

Other researchers point more generally to the role that the frontal lobes of the brain play in inhibition of inappropriate behaviour, suggesting that problems with these regions lead to the failure to inhibit violent acts. The two explanations may not be exclusive, but the inhibition-frontal lobe thesis is primarily investigated in acquired cases, whilst the VIM is researched in developmental cases. The upshot is that proponents of a deep and negative human nature argue that as we are engaging in suppression, there must be something there to suppress - therefore, there is violence within us. For example, Steven Pinker (2002) states that “direct signs of design for aggression” include the fact that “disruptions of inhibitory systems...can lead to aggressive attacks” (p316).

But this conclusion is premature in principle, and not supported in practice. Firstly, the principle. The argument that we can judge our inclination to violence by observing it in a free situation is flawed because it doesn't take base rates into account. By base rates, I mean what our level of violence would be if we were `violence blind': if we had no interest, but no disinterest, in whether our actions caused harm.Science fiction author Isaac Asimov recognised that this rate would not be zero, and made this a key concept in his Robot trilogy, the First Law of Robotics. This was the rule which trumped all others, and commanded that
"A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."
The robots are not given this rule to counteract some kind of 'assassination chip' placed there by a mischievous designer, but simply to act as a guiding principle to distinguish certain kinds of actions into acceptable and unacceptable. Asimov saw that you would need an inhibition system in place even when there is no tendency to cause harm; without specifications, harm will tend to occur. Without establishing fully what such a base rate would be, it is absurd to look at the harm any individual causes and conclude this is evidence for violence worked into the design.

When we turn to the evidence, violence for its own purpose does give a good account of the actions of these patients. For example, Blair and Cipolotti (2000) describe a patient with frontal lobe damage whose use of violence was goal-directed, for the purpose of excitement (pushing another resisting patient around in a wheelchair at speed) or to protest when frustrated. This does not resemble the sating of a wild hunger for aggression, but is more like a slide towards the base-rate – uncaring that your desires have harmful consequences.

It is difficult to see how someone could seriously advance the perspective that we are innately violent - commit violence far in excess of the base rates. Even considering the bloodiness of human history (and leaving apart the social factors underpinning conquest and genocide), the potential bloodshed from the base rate is equally boggling. Moreover killing for the sake of it would be inefficient, and considering our basis as a social species would be utterly foolish, so it makes good evolutionary sense that we are not drawn to violence.

So let's retreat a little: perhaps the issue isn’t innate violence, despite the rhetoric; perhaps the argument is that we're not averse to using violence, that we use it when it pays, much like we would do if we used the base rate. This is an issue that evolutionary psychology often investigates, modeling factors to uncover in which situations it would pay us to commit harmful acts (such as to revenge a slight in a culture of honour (Cohen, Nisbett, Bowdle, & Schwarz. 1996). All very well, if proving very little about violence in the brain. But however productive this line of research is, even this weak version finds a fairly big stumbling block, in the very phenomena we began with: the existence of systems that work to inhibit violence.

We took aside these inhibition systems (i.e. looked at neurological patients with damage to the areas that they reside in) in order to say “let’s look at what’s really going on.” But whilst this approach can tell us useful things, we need to put it all back together again: what makes us human isn't just what lies beneath our inhibition systems, but is the fact that we inhibit at all, in such a sophisticated and complex manner. This is what renders the quote from Pinker so empty: the inhibition system itself is a product of design.

Anyone doubting that treating other people as more than instruments is founded in the brain would do well to look into developments in the study of self–other mapping. This has provided stronger and stronger evidence that these relationships are hardwired into us, strikingly with the discovery of mirror neurons that fire in the same way for events that occur to you or to those you observe (Gallese and Goldman 1998). Many argue that empathy is an outcome of these representations (see e.g. Frith and Frith 1999). And recent research demonstrates appreciating someone else's pain activates many of the same areas as experiencing it (Jackson, Meltzoff, & Decety 2004): good evidence for a VIM-like mechanism, and certainly a rebuttal to those who think our withdrawal from violence is unnatural.

By making psychopaths into poster-boys for innate violence, we risk ignoring crucial aspects of their behaviour. The patients investigated by Blair and Cipolotti were reported as socially inappropriate in a variety of ways, and recent imaging work suggests that the areas crucial for regulating and preventing aggression also keep us within the bounds of socially acceptable behaviour (Berthoz, Armony, Blair, & Dolan, 2002). Rehabilitation would require addressing that big picture.

Designed for violence? Really, the strongest conclusion that this work can give is that we sometimes are violent when it's in our interests. We are not innately disposed to violence, or even indifferent to violence, we are neurologically bound away from violence. This understanding gives us a solid basis for treatment, and an honest beginning from which to address the continuing problem of violence in society.

References

Berthoz, S., Armony, J.L., Blair, R.J.R., & Dolan, R.J. (2002). An fMRI study of intentional and unintentional (embarrassing) violations of social norms. 125, 1696-1708
Blair, R.J.R. & Cipolotti, L. (2000). Impaired social response reversal: A case of ‘acquired sociopathy’. Brain, 123, 1122-1141
Cohen, D., Nisbett, R.E., Bowdle, B.F., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Insult, aggression, and the Southern culture of honor: an “experimental ethnography.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 945 60
Frith, Chris D., & Frith, Uta Interacting Minds--A Biological Basis Science 1999 286: 1692-1695
Gallese, V., & Goldman, A. Mirror neurons and the stimulation theory of mind-reading. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2: 493-501, 1998.
Jackson, P.L., Meltzoff A., & Decety, J. (2004). How do we perceive the pain of others? A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. NeuroImage, 24, 771-779.
Lorenz, K. (1966). On aggression. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace and World.
Pinker, S (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Viking Press.

—Alex.

Psychologist Susan Blackmore on taking drugs for inspiration:

Psychologist Susan Blackmore has written an article for the Daily Telegraph, arguing that taking drugs has provided inspiration for her work.

So can drugs be creative? I would say so, although the dangers are great - not just the dangers inherent in any drug use, but the danger of coming to rely on them too much and of neglecting the hard work that both art and science demand. There are plenty of good reasons to shun drug-induced creativity.

Yet, in my own case, drugs have an interesting role: in trying to understand consciousness, I am taking substances that affect the brain that I'm trying to understand. In other words, they alter the mind that is both the investigator and the investigated.

She discusses her experience with a range of drugs, including cannabis, LSD, ketamine and MDMA and examines the influence on her own career choices and insights.

Interestingly, she's taking part in a debate at the Cheltenham Science Festival on whether using drugs can tell us anything about ourselves, with neuroscientist Colin Blakemore and author Mike Jay.

Lets hope the irony of Cheltenham Science Festival being sponsored by a major pharmaceutical company won't be lost on the panel.

Link to article I take illegal drugs for inspiration.

—Vaughan.

2005-05-27 Spike activity:

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

Ex-automotive engineer is attempting to understand the brain in terms of thermodynamics and energy transfer.

Trying to describe the taste of wine in flowery language may ruin memory for its taste.

Scientists discover brain areas for understanding sarcasm. Full text of scientific paper is at this PDF.

Anorexia 'caused by brain not society' claims report. Presumably society has no effect on the brain and we are all brains in vats.

It's always good to see the annual 'downloading the brain nearly here' story come round again. Presumably foot downloading will be tested first.

"The unpalatable truth is that falling in love is, in some ways, indistinguishable from a severe pathology". Drug companies to market anti-love medication any day now.

Mothers' ability for reading babies' emotions more important than economic status for successful development.

Politicians take note: Charisma by numbers!

Review of the biography of the inventor of lobotomy from the British Medical Journal.

—Vaughan.

May 26, 2005

New Scientist on brain optimisation:

New Scientist have put their cover article on brain optimising technologies online - which covers everything from nutrition to neurofeedback.

Their story, 11 steps to a better brain, looks at the science behind techniques that have been shown to boost mental performance.

Some of the techniques are fairly common-sense approaches, like sleeping well and exercising, although the article explains exactly how these might affect thought and behaviour.

Others are a little more controversial and potentially hazardous, such as the use of stimulant drugs like modafinil and methylphenidate.

One particularly interesting part however, is the mention of mental training techniques to boost wider cognitive performance.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, they measured the brain activity of adults before and after a working-memory training programme, which involved tasks such as memorising the positions of a series of dots on a grid. After five weeks of training, their brain activity had increased in the regions associated with this type of memory.

Perhaps more significantly, when the group studied children who had completed these types of mental workouts, they saw improvement in a range of cognitive abilities not related to the training, and a leap in IQ test scores of 8 per cent

Interestingly, similar techniques are now being applied to traditionally hard-to-treat conditions such as schizophrenia that have been shown to have a positive impact on cognitive performance and brain function.

Link to 11 steps to a better brain.

—Vaughan.

May 25, 2005

Minds Designed For Murder?:

The notable evolutionary psychologist David Buss thinks that Murder is in our blood. Specifically that homicide isn't a rare pathology, or the product of social forces, of culture, poverty or poor parenting - but is an evolutionary adaptation that we all share. He's saying that in the right circumstances we will all kill, because ancestors of ours who killed had greater reproductive success.

Emotive stuff. I'd be interested to hear what readers of mindhacks.com have to say on it. Here are a few of my first thoughts:

As an observation, this is as old fashioned as original sin. What would make this interesting to me, is detailed, rigourous, demonstration of the psychological mechanisms behind murderous behaviour. Self-styled 'Evolutionary psychology' tells a plausible story about the context of murder, but I don't think there's much content to disagree or agree with until the experimental work has been done.

Related to this, Buss maligns theories that social forces/parenting/culture/poverty are behind killing while at the same time (in the penultimate paragraph) using them to explain why the rate of murder is so much lower in modern society compared to stone-age civilisations ("Among the Yanomamo of Venezuela and the Gebusi of Africa, for example, more than 30% of men die by being murdered" remember that next time someone trys to force a declension narrative about the collapse of society upon you). The thing about, say, the theory that parenting style produces murder is that at least it is a specific theory - both with regard to the factor and the mechanism. You may not agree, but at least you have something to disagree with (maybe it isn't that particular style of parenting? maybe it isn't parenting at all but peer group involvement? etc).

Evolution is an essential theoretical background to psychology, but it only provides hints and allegations - the real work still has to be done. Alas, you can't derive your answers from the calculus of reproductive success, but need to go collect data to test your each hypotheses against.

—tom.

Internet delusions:

A report in the medical journal Psychopathology notes that psychotic delusions increasingly concern the internet, suggesting high-technology can fulfil the role of malign 'magical' forces often experienced in psychosis.

Traditionally, psychiatry has considered the content of delusions as irrelevant and only sees the 'form' of a belief as important in diagnosis and treatment. For example, how true it is, how strongly it is held, how it was formed and so on.

This paper analyzes four case-reports and notes that, contrary to the traditional view, the cases are examples where an internet-theme has particular clinical implications.

In one case, a patient began to have paranoid thoughts and used an internet search engine to investigate suspicions about an ingredient on a chewing gum packet.

Her searches led her to believe she had discovered a secret terrorist network, and was therefore being personally targeted by the authorities using phone taps and hidden cameras.

Presumably, by using a different search engine, she would have found different pages, and her delusion would have been centred on something else.

The authors also consider that a person's understanding of technology may be a limiting factor in their ability to incorporate it into a delusional system. People with a poor understanding for example, may be more likely to attribute seemingly supernatural abilities to technology.

As Arthur C. Clarke famously noted "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

In delusions that feature spirits or other supernatural forces, there is no objective limit to the perceived 'powers' of the 'spirits', making such delusions sometimes difficult to refute.

In contrast, technology-related delusions can be more easily tested against reality, making for a good prognosis by using techniques such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

The authors also note that cultural concerns can influence delusional beliefs, suggesting technology-related delusions will become more common as the use of high-technology grows.

Link to study abstract.
PDF of full text.

Disclaimer: This paper is from my own research group.

—Vaughan.

May 24, 2005

SciAm Mind on the darker side of human nature:

The latest edition of Scientific American Mind has just hit the shelves. Two articles have been made freely available online - one on lying and deceit and the other on the psychology of bullying.

The cover story on lying discusses the adaptive advantages of deception in its various forms throughout both the plant and animal kingdoms.

It also discusses the seemingly paradoxical process of self-deception:

[Benjamin Libet] found that our brains begin to prepare for action just over a third of a second before we consciously decide to act. In other words, despite appearances, it is not the conscious mind that decides to perform an action: the decision is made unconsciously... This study and others like it suggest that we are systematically deluded about the role consciousness plays in our lives.

This general model of the mind, supported by various experiments beyond Libet's, gives us exactly what we need to resolve the paradox of self-deception--at least in theory. We are able to deceive ourselves by invoking the equivalent of a cognitive filter between unconscious cognition and conscious awareness.

The article on child bullying examines research into the motivations of bullies, and effective methods for children, parents and teachers to stop and prevent bullying in schools.

Other articles only available in the print edition cover the neuroscience of hypnosis, improving memory through visualisation techniques, an interview with consciousness researcher Christof Koch, dreaming, transcranial magnetic stimulation, sign language, neuromarketing and research into why people confess to crimes they haven't committed.

Link to article Natural-Born Liars.
Link to article Stopping the Bullies

—Vaughan.

May 23, 2005

Dr. Victoria Zdrok on the psychology of sex:

Dr. Victoria Zdrok is an ex-lawyer, international model, author, webmistress and clinical psychologist, and she has agreed to share her insights into the sexual psyche with Mind Hacks.

 
Providing a unique perspective on the amorous mind, Dr. Zdrok talks about her influences as a psychologist, her views on the current state of sex research and her own studies into the psychology of sexual fantasy.
 

Victoria Zdrok is not your average psychologist. Despite her fame as a model, she has remained committed to understanding the human mind since she first became fascinated by it during her teenage years, gaining her undergraduate degree in psychology at the precocious age of 18.

Her subsequent work in psychology has encompassed a number of issues and theoretical approaches, with her doctoral thesis applying experimental methods to understanding the cognitive psychology of the courtroom.

After completing her doctorate in clinical psychology, she went on to specialise in sex therapy at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and now focuses on the psychology of sex, love and relationships.

Victoria recently added 'webmistress' to her CV after starting several successful websites, including the playful www.SexySexpert.com, a developing project Love-Sex-Dating.com, and the X-rated (and definitely not safe-for-work) PlanetVictoria.com.

Who have been your major influences in psychology ?

I have an eclectic approach - everyone from Freud and Jung to Maslow, Beck and Buss, although I am not impartial to humanistic-existential thinking.

I discovered psychology back in the USSR where it was banned as a "petite-bourgeois" domain, relegated to Pavlovian reflexology. My mother who worked at a research institute brought me Freud's "Totem and Taboo" from the library's special access only secret archives. I was immediately hooked.

Later I became fascinated with Jungian archetypes. During my graduate school I trained mostly in cognitive behavioral therapy, which is what I would use to treat patients, and lately I have been reading a lot of evolutionary psychology. But I am a humanist at heart, driven by existential angst!

If you could commission research into one area of psychology, what question would you want answering?

I am fascinated with sexual paraphilias, particularly rare and dangerous ones, like necrophilia. I think we need to know more not only how they originate but what propels some of the individuals with these fetishes to act them out while others are able to keep them under psychic control, relegating them to fantasies.

When writing a previous article for Mind Hacks, I discovered there is more research on the neuroscience of hiccups than orgasm. Considering that sex is one of the most important human activities, why do you think there is so little good research in this area ?

The question of why there is more research on hiccups than on orgasms is an easy one: because the fear of human sexuality, engendered by religious dogma which portrays sex as "sinful," has caused scientists and researchers to fear studying sex.

Not only do many of them feel a personal fear in exploring a topic which may bring down the wrath of the repressed religiously-cowed multitudes, but they cannot realistically expect to receive any funding for research into this area.

Politicians are notoriously paranoid about having public funds being used for sex research - think of the furore over the display of the Robert Maplethorpe photos in a public museum; and even private foundations shy away from any association with sex, even from an academic interest in it.

It is the same reason that sex education in America is deplorable; that ignorance about human sexuality is commonplace among adults and nearly universal among post-pubescent children; and that AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, especially teen pregnancies, are far more prevalent than they have any reason to be in a technologically-advanced, highly developed society.

Thanks to a group of uninformed medieval religious "scholars" - all of whom were male and many of whom were advocating celibacy - the modern Judeo-Christian-Islamic world is dominated by medieval theories of human sexuality.

Ironically, from a psychologist's standpoint, the major theologians responsible for this debacle, such as St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, were major league libertines for most of their lives - even bi-sexual libertines!

It was guilt over their own behavior that drove them to pronounce sex as "evil" and "sinful," to proclaim women as the cause of this evil (the "Eve and the apple" doctrine), and to preach celibacy and sex 'only for procreation in church sanctioned marriages'.

You have mentioned in a previous interview that you are writing a book on the psychology of sexual fantasies. What has surprised you most during your research ?

I was amazed on how early some of the sexual fantasies originate and how rigid and constant they remain across a person's lifetime.

It seems that there is a critical period for the sexual fantasy formation, usually in late childhood, and they seem to be incorporated in what has been called our "lovemaps". It is very hard to alter what turns someone on, no matter how much psychological insight or behavioral reprogramming one undergoes later in his life.

In magazine articles on sexual attraction, there's always a throw-away comment on the mind - usually that a 'sense of humour' or 'confidence' is important. In your opinion, what are the most under-rated aspects of the mind that people find attractive ?

Empathy - ability to take another person's perspective, to understand and relate to another one's pain. I believe that high degree of empathy requires intelligence and insight, both of which are inherently sexy qualities.

Evolutionary psychologists have shown that kindness and empathy is one of the main qualities we look for in our prospective mates as well as display to gain someone's sexual interest. Intelligence is incredibly sexy. I can attest to that as I was always falling in love (mostly platonic) with my old and ugly but very intelligent and erudite professors.

How would you like to be remembered ?

As a revolutionary in the area of love, sex and dating, akin to Masters and Johnson - Dr. Ruth of the Z generation.

Fondly,
Dr. Z

—Vaughan.

May 22, 2005

BBC Discovery on Memory:

Discovery, the science programme from the BBC World Service, starts the first of a four part series on the psychology and neuroscience of memory.

"...its extraordinary capabilities, how and why it can go wrong - from the vivid intrusions of memory in post traumatic stress disorder to our uncanny ability to adopt memories that aren't even our own. We'll find out how and why memory fails and what we can do to improve it."

The first programme looks at how memory is based in the neurons and structures of the brain and interviews a number of notable memory researchers such as Martin Conway and Kim Graham.

Unfortunately, it looks like the programme isn't archived online for longer than a week, but the latest programme appears online each Wednesday at 09:00 GMT.

Realaudio archive of last week's programme.
Link to webpage of BBC World Service Discovery programme.

—Vaughan.

May 21, 2005

Happy birthday morphine:

21st May is morphine's 200th birthday - we've had the pain-killing poppy extract for two centuries and it has had a massive impact on medicine. Strangely, one of the most important effects was found when it was never used...

Anaesthetist Henry Beecher was involved in treating wounded soldiers during World War II. During particularly fierce fighting morphine supplies ran out. In desperation, Beecher used saline solution instead.

The soldiers reported that the fake 'morphine' eased their pain - Beecher had discovered the placebo effect.

Inspired by his experiences, Beecher ended up writing one of the most influential papers in medicine The Powerful Placebo, leading to placebo-controlled trials being used as standard in the testing of new medicines.

Chemist and psychedelic compound researcher Alexander Shulgin reports a similar experience in his book PiHKAL, when during his time in the Navy, he needed an operation for a damaged thumb.

...it was this that started me on my career as a psychopharmacologist. I was told that the white "drug" which was undissolved at the bottom of my orange juice glass, and which had finally plopped me over the line from being an alert and defensive surgery candidate to being comatose subject available to any and all manipulation by the operating physician, was nothing but undissolved sugar.

For those interested in the history, psychology and neuroscience of the placebo effect, you could do a lot worse than check out Placebo by cognitive scientist and Mind Hacks contributor Dylan Evans.

And for those still hungry for more about morphine, this is part of birthday celebrations hosted by Kelly from Time to Lean blog, where various authors are contributing morphine related posts. Party on.

—Vaughan.

May 20, 2005

2005-05-20 Spike activity:

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

Brain injury can have unconcious but significant effects on artistic style and expression.

Babies who have difficult births and a family history of mental illness are more likely to develop autism researchers find.

The ex-editor of the BMJ, writing in PLoS Medicine, slams drug company influence on medical journals and scientific findings.

Research finds that Yoga can enhance body satisfaction and reduce the likelihood of eating disorders, perhaps countering fears of the 'yogarexia' effect.

Mysterious 'piano man' is found in Kent, with few clues to his identity. A potential case of dissociative fugue?

Jennifer Fink writes a beautiful piece, mixing fact and fiction, on fugue and epilepsy.

People continue to believe false news reports, even after they are aware they've been proved untrue.

Research on children's security blankets find that they can compensate for insecure attachment to parents in some situations.

Subliminal messages can invoke emotion without awareness.

Sports teams playing in red have a slight advantage in winning.

—Vaughan.

May 19, 2005

Metapsychology reviews...:

Metapsychology is one of the hidden gems of the internet, publishing in-depth reviews of books on the mind, brain and society, at a rate of about 10 a month.

The reviewers are largely professional psychologists, neuroscientists or social science researchers but rarely lapse into using the dry language of academia.

The surprisingly diverse selection of books often includes novels and photographic collections as well as scientific and scholary writing.

So, if you ever wanted a psychologist's take on XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits, a book of collected essays by philosopher-of-mind Donald Davidson, a picture book for children on coping with grief, or a book on the cognitive science of the self, Metapsychology has all this and more.

Link to Metapsychology Book Reviews.

—Vaughan.

May 18, 2005

Avoiding 'stereotype threat' for better performance:

An article in Scientific American describes 'stereotype threat' - an effect where, if a person is challenged in an area they are concerned about, such as intellectual ability, the fear of confirming a negative stereotype can impair performance.

The findings have largely been uncovered by psychologist Claude Steele, who found that the way a test is framed can significantly affect performance.

He was particularly motivated by the fact that black students did much worse at college, despite having achieved equal grades at school, and wondered if some black students were suffering impaired performance because of worries about their own abilities.

Steele wondered if the [black] Michigan students suffered from a kind of self-image threat, so with colleagues Joshua Aronson and Steven Spencer, he designed a series of studies. They gave sophomores matched by SAT scores a frustrating section of the Graduate Record Examination. When first told that the test evaluated verbal ability, the black students scored a full standard deviation lower on average. But when the researchers described it as a study of problem-solving techniques unimportant to academic achievement, the scores for blacks leaped to the same level as those for whites.

Similar findings have been found for female students taking maths tests and even with white golfers taking tests of "natural athletic ability".

Link to Performance without Anxiety from Scientific American.
Link to Claude Steele discussing stereotype threat.

—Vaughan.

May 17, 2005

Is depression a brain disease ?:

A kuro5hin.org article on 'Demystifying depression' gives an excellent account of the experience of depression, but uncritically repeats some common assumptions about the condition - namely that it is a 'physical illness' caused by 'low serotonin'.

Despite the familiarity of these claims, both are problematic.

The article by an author entitled Name of Feather takes a comprehensive look at clinical depression, and vividly describes the experience at the heart of the author's malady. It is also abound with good advice, such as seeking the help of a competent well-informed professional early in an episode.

It also attempts to describe what causes depression but makes several points that are often repeated as facts, but have surprisingly little support, or are highly controversial in the scientific literature.

Depression as a physical disease

The author asks us to "forget purely psychological explanations of the illness", "clinical depression is a physical illness" and claims that dualism, the idea that mind and brain are separate entities, is responsible for this false view of mental illness.

On a pragmatic level however, clinical depression is defined as mental phenomena. The criteria used by psychiatrists for diagnosing a Major Depressive Episode lists 'depressed mood' or 'loss of interest or pleasure' as the core feature and the majority of the additional features are purely psychological in nature.

If we want to believe that depression is a purely 'physical disease', then we could in fact feel pushed into dualism. Perhaps thinking that depression affects the brain and somehow the separate mind reacts to this impairment of thinking or emotion to produce the conscious experience of depression.

More likely, the view that depression is purely a physical illness reflects a school of thought known as epiphenomenalism, which argues that the mind has no causal effect at all, and is just the subjective experience of our brain at work.

However, both of these theories are roundly rejected by the majority of contemporary neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers.

The most common view is that mind and brain are exactly the same sort of thing, but described at different levels of explanation - a school of thought known as property dualism. In other words, the mind is changes in the physical structure of the brain, and changes in the physical structure of the brain are the mind.

To make an analogy, no-one would deny that the economic system exists in the physical world, but to try and explain unemployment in terms of atomic physics would be folly, as would trying to solve economic problems by using a particle accelerator. In a similar way, we can accept that the mind and brain are both based in the physical world, but explaining the mind, or mental illness, purely in physical terms, may not always be appropriate or useful.

In a recent article for the American Journal of Psychiatry psychiatrist Kenneth Kendler cautions against exactly these sort of simple 'physical' explanations for mental illness and argues that comprehensive explanations and treatment will have to involve both psychological and biological theories.

If the logic of this argument is not convincing enough, recent studies have shown that psychotherapy has a measurable influence on brain function, with the neuroscience of psychotherapy now becoming an exciting complement to the vast amount of research on the psychological effects of physical treatments.

Depression as an illness of 'low serotonin'

In Name of Feather's article, he or she suggests that depression is caused by exhausting levels of serotonin in the brain. Unfortunately, there is little support for this simple theory.

If depression is nothing more than low serotonin, drugs that specifically lower serotonin levels in the brain should lead to depression or at least low mood. Studies which have tried this in both healthy participants and depressed patients show remarkably little effect on mood, with a mild dysphoria being the only occasional effect.

Furthermore, drugs which increase serotonin levels in the brain typically do not start having an effect on mood for several weeks, despite affecting serotonin levels immediately.

It is likely that serotonin plays some role in mood, but in a recent article for Nature Reviews Neuroscience, neuroscientist Eero Castrén criticises the oversimplified view of depression, stating:

Over the last few decades, the view that depression is produced by a chemical imbalance in the brain has become widely accepted among scientists, clinicians and the public.

However, during the past decade, several observations indicated that there might be an alternative hypothesis to the chemical view of depression. This network hypothesis proposes that mood disorders reflect problems in information processing within particular neural networks in the brain and that antidepressant drugs and other treatments that alleviate depression function by gradually improving information processing within these networks

It is notable that Name of Feather does mention an information processing approach to understanding depression, although it is important to note that this theory is a more complex and nuanced explanation than a simple 'low serotonin' theory can support.

Should we be cautious of purely biological theories of mental illness?

One motivation sometimes given for stating that mental illness is a purely 'physical disease' is to draw parallels with physical ailments, to try and make mental illness less stigmatised. Nevertheless, some research has suggested that purely biological explanations might have the opposite effect.

One study asked groups of participants to give their views on a person describing their experiences of mental illness. In one group, participants were subsequently given a biological and genetic explanation of mental illness, in another, they were given a social and psychological explanation. The group given the biological explanation were much more likely to rate the person as dangerous and unpredictable. Other research has suggested that clinicians with a purely biological perspective are likely to rate patients as more disturbed than other clinicians.

So why do simplified theories - like the 'low serotonin' theory of depression, persist - despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary ?

One view is from noted psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist David Healy who has criticised drug companies for promoting simplified biological theories of mental illness that seem to imply the primacy of drug treatments while ignoring social and developmental factors, which are known to be important influences in the development of mental illness.

Focusing specifically on depression and the development of antidepressant medication in his book The Antidepressant Era, he argues that drug companies have spent as much time marketing diseases as treatments, and laments the influence of pharmaceutical companies on scientific understanding.

Healy's views are not without controversy and need more unpacking than is space for here, although perhaps we can forgive overworked clinicians for seeing the attraction of simple 'one sentence' explanations for mental distress, despite the obvious complexity of the issue.

Conclusion
It is clear from the scientific literature that a purely biological theory of mental illness is not sufficient to explain and treat the experience of mental distress. Furthermore, simplified theories, that argue, for example, that depression is 'caused by low serotonin' are lacking in support and best avoided.

Psychological factors are equally important as biological factors in both the treatment and understanding of mental distress. Denying one or the other will undoubtedly slow scientific progress and lead to further misunderstanding of ourselves and each other.

—Vaughan.

May 16, 2005

Health Report on the science and ethics of ADHD:

ABC Radio National continues its tradition of high-quality science radio with an edition of Health Report focusing on Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, better known as ADHD.

The programme discusses progress in current treatments for ADHD and the latest findings in causes, mechanisms and confusions in understanding the condition.

ADHD is a controversial subject, particularly in the area of treatment, as it is common for doctors to suggest the use of amphetamines or amphetamine-like drugs in people diagnosed with the condition.

As these drugs are often prescribed for children, this has been the subject of much debate concerning the ethics of appropriate classification and treatment.

A further segment of the programme - on neuroprosthetics - is a good introduction to the science of human-brain interfaces, although largely covers the same ground as a radio show on the same topic recently featured on Mind Hacks.

Realaudio archive of May 9th Health Report.
Link to transcript of ADHD segment.
PDF of debate on treatment of ADHD from The Psychologist.

—Vaughan.

May 13, 2005

2005-05-13 Spike activity:

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

Differing patterns of brain activation are found for faces of different races.

A gene linked to depression may weaken a brain circuit linked to emotion and mood regulation.

One of the basic tenants of motivation theory is questioned: Instrinsic motivation - doing things for their own reward - doesn't exist claims researcher.

An article describes a writer's experience with ADHD medication and its effect on his life.

Opposites attract - particularly in people diagnosed with personality disorder - claims psychologist.

An article on psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck finds him a complex, troubled and contradictory character - much like everybody else.

New Scientist reports on highlights from the international autism conference in Boston.

An article exames the existence of gay imagery in alien abduction accounts.

—Vaughan.

May 12, 2005

Pinker vs Spelke on gender determinism:

A distinguished female biologist walked out when the Harvard President suggested that women were biologically less suited to science. The existence of such differences are now the subject of a heated exchange between psychologists Stephen Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke in the latest Edge debate.

The topic is notable as despite its political importance, it is rarely informed by science, particularly as there are reliable differences in psychological abilities and brain structure between men and women.

Simon Baron-Cohen has become notable for arguing that there are fundamental differences in male and female thinking.

A recent study suggested however, that although there are obvious differences in brain structure, overall intelligence was not any different between the sexes. Some have speculated that such structural differences may reflect specialisations for particular skills.

In this regard, Pinker and Spelke make an interesting contrast. Pinker argues that such specialisations are largely inherited, whereas Spelke argues that they are more likely to be the result of sex roles and the influence of society.

The debate includes audio, video and text transcripts of the exchange.

Link to Edge debate on The Science of Gender and Science (via BoingBoing).

—Vaughan.

May 11, 2005

Magnetism and human behaviour:

New Scientist reports on research showing that social behaviour can follow the laws of a surprising phenomenon - magnetism.

Physicists Quentin Michard and Jean-Philippe Bouchaud were interested in modelling imitation in society - to explain the drop in European birth rates, the explosion in mobile phone ownership and the way clapping at a concert suddenly stops.

The researchers noted similarities in the way magnetic fields influence the spin of electrons in an atom. One atom can influence the next, and with enough effect, the direction of spin in all the atoms can suddenly align.

Modelling each atom as a person allowed the creation of a mathematical model that can accurately predict how, like atoms, human behaviour can suddenly align.

This is not the first time physicists have used mathematical models to predict large-scale human behaviour. Physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi used models of dynamic synchronisation to also model audience appreciation - particularly the phenomenon where thunderous applause turns into synchronised clapping.

Steven Strogatz's book Sync explores these models in more details, and shows that similar patterns underly many diverse aspects of the world - from human behaviour to the wobble of the London's Millennium Bridge.

Link to New Scientist item on magnetism and social behaviour.

—Vaughan.

May 10, 2005

Pheromones and sexual attraction:

Two recent studies have revealed the complex interactions between pheromones, sexual orientation and attraction - suggesting that our sense of smell may be an important part of the turn-on.

Psychologists Charles Wysocki and Yolanda Martins have been studying the effect of human pheromones in an experiment where they asked participants to judge odour from a cloth wiped across the body.

In particular, participants were asked to guess sexual orientation from the person's scent.

Wysocki found that gay men preferred odours from gay men and heterosexual women, whereas odours from gay men were found least attractive by women and straight men.

A possible biological basis for this effect has been suggested by a brain scanning study completed by a research team led by Ivanka Savic Berglund.

Berglund found that male pheromones caused similar brain activity in gay men as it did in straight women, although the effect was not found in straight men.

A similar brain activity pattern was found for straight men however, but only when they were exposed to an oestrogen based chemical.

Even the fine-grained preferences of individuals might be important. Research by Claus Wedekind has suggested that such preferences are optimised to match-up people with complementary genes for immunity.

Link to article on Wysocki's body odour study from plebius.org
Link to article on Berglund's brain scanning study from New Scientist.
Link to article on smell and sexual attraction from Psychology Today.

—Vaughan.

May 09, 2005

Ramachandran interviewed on Radio National:

Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran features on the latest edition of ABC Radio National's All in the Mind where he is interviewed about how the mind and brain understand art.

Ramachandran is well known as a broadcaster and author. Notably for his book Phantoms in the Brain and for giving the 2003 BBC Reith Lectures on The Emerging Mind.

UPDATE:
UK magazine The Psychologist has just made an interview with V.S. Ramachandran available online (PDF). Ramachandram is interviewed by our very own Tom Stafford.

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Realaudio of All in the Mind interview with V.S. Ramachandran
Link to transcript of programme.

—Vaughan.

May 07, 2005

Control context to aid memory:

Reader Matt Doar writes in with this Mind hack which uses our brain's natural ability to encode context as an aid to writing code:

My hack/tip/thing that makes people look at me oddly, useful for when I'm working on a large piece of software, an activity which involves holding a lot of related abstract information in your head. Here it is:

1. Pick one tune or one album that you like.

2. Listen to it while you develop the code. Over and over, on repeat. Listen to no other music. Headphones are a must for the office!

3. Don't listen to it again until ...

4. You need to work on the same code, then listen to it.

Lots of context returns with the tune and helps to write better code. One colleague suggested using scents too. Other colleagues (and my wife) just stared at me, then shook their heads sadly ;-)

I think this is great. By training in a tune-as-context you can then use it as a trigger to help recall everything else that was on your mind at that time. And the idea of using scents instead of tunes might work well - smell and memory are famously intertwined, and there may be a neuroanatomical basis for this: the nerves from the nose enter the brain next to the areas associated with storing memories for episodes. The only drawbacks are that you may not get as many distinct smells as distinct tunes, and tunes come with headphones to stop you distracting your colleagues - there's no such device for smells (although maybe the message is that smells should be used for pair-programming or group projects).

—tom.

Fat, food and behaviour:

An article in the schools section of the Education Guardian discusses the growing evidence for a link between fatty acids, brain function and behaviour.

The story focuses on the potential effects on visual problems, dyslexia and difficulties with attention.

The writer does seems to get a little carried away however, when he questions whether such findings "challenge the very notion of free will":

Revealing as it does that mood, behaviour and achievement are affected by whether the brain has enough of the right kind of nutrients to function properly, it throws into doubt how far anyone... can actually control their behaviour.

Perhaps we are all being brainwashed by breakfast cereal ?

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Link to article Why it's time we faced fats

—Vaughan.

May 06, 2005

2005-05-06 Spike activity:

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

Children of women pregnant during the 9/11 attacks are more likely to develop stress disorders themselves, echoing similar findings from Finland.

A review of cases of people who have woken up from coma.

The latest issue of Nature Neuroscience has an temporary open access special on the neurobiology of obesity.

Two recent studies suggest loneliness can affect the immune system and heart.

BBC Radio 4 science programme The Material World examines hearing and genetic hearing loss. Includes "the sound of a healthy ear". Really.

Acupuncture no better than placebo for migraines claims one study. Acupuncture has a measurable effect on brain function claims another. Good comments and discussion at PsyBlog.

New Scientist discusses what we can learn about human conflict from the animal kingdom.

Eskimos discover 'best ever' snow: We've discovered new wonder drug - claims drug company. NB: Cortex make modafinil.

Great Cognitive Daily article on an experimental test of flashbulb memory.

—Vaughan.

May 05, 2005

The neuroscience of hyper-reading:

Weekly research digest Science News has put this week's cover article online - a story on the neuroscience of reading and children with hyper-advanced reading skills.

The condition is called hyperlexia and involves an ability to read words far in advance of children of the same age, usually accompanied with problems with spoken language and social interaction.

Because of the mixed picture, researchers have debated whether it is a superability or disability, as it almost always occurs in children with developmental problems.

The article also examines research on Chinese readers, who seem to use more parts of the brain to read the information-rich Chinese characters.

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Link to article Read All About It from sciencenews.org

—Vaughan.

May 04, 2005

Sudden recovery of brain function after 10 years:

The New York Times reports on a firefighter who has made a remarkable and sudden recovery after suffering severe brain injury in 1995.

Donald Herbert sustained a serious head injury when a roof collapsed during a fire fighting operation and has been in hospital since, with his ability to communicate and recognise people severely impaired.

According to news sources, Mr Herbert suddenly started speaking after 10 years, asking to see his wife and other family members.

The recovery has left doctors baffled. So little is known about how the brain repairs and regenerates after injury that it is difficult to predict the course of recovery, although substantial improvement after the first few years of injury are rare.

Some other remarkable cases have been recorded though, including the case of Terry Wallis who regained consciousness after 19 years.

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Link to story from New York Times.
Link to story from Yahoo News.
Link to additional information on recovery at the Brain Injury Recovery Network.

—Vaughan.

May 03, 2005

Virtual Reality test for brain trauma:

A group of neuroengineers led by Michelle LaPlaca have developed a virtual-reality test for psychological impairments caused by head injury.

The system called DETECT ('display enhanced testing for concussions and mild traumatic brain injury') is designed to pick-up subtle cognitive problems that can accompany blows to the head.

Such problems are often difficult to detect at first, but can be important medical pointers to more significant or longer lasting impairments.

The VR system presents a number of neuropsychological tests that seem like simplified video games, but record accuracy and reaction time scores, that allow memory and visual perception to be assessed.

Crucially, it only takes 7 minutes, whereas traditional testing could take several hours, and because of the immersive nature of VR, it might be possible to use it in noisy environments, such as emergency rooms, sports fields or even battlefields.

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Link to New Scientist story on DETECT.
Link to details from Georgia Tech University website.
PDF of research summary.

—Vaughan.

May 02, 2005

Mental health and human rights:

Open access medical journal PLoS Medicine has a thought-provoking article on mental health, human rights and the standard of mental health care around the world.

It mentions some shocking statistics that highlight how low a priority mental health is for most countries, despite the massive burden of disability it causes.

According to the 2001 World Health Report, "some 450 million people suffer from a mental or behavioral disorder, yet only a small minority of them receive even the most basic treatment"... According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental and behavioral disorders are estimated to account for 12% of the global burden of disease, yet the mental health budgets of the majority of countries constitute less than 1% of their total health expenditures.

Various cases of poor practice are highlighted, including a shocking picture of the sanitary facilities in Larco Herrera Psychiatric Hospital in Lima.

The article goes on to suggest ways to tackle the problem, both in the health care and legal systems, and discusses integrating an approach to mental disability into a wider human rights approach.

Link to PLoS Medicine article Out of the Shadows.

—Vaughan.