June 30, 2005

Online guide to fault-finding the nervous system:

NeuroExam.com explains the standard examination conducted by neurologists to check the functioning of the nervous system, complete with video.

The website is intended to accompany a book called Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases, written by Professor Hal Blumenfeld.

It works pretty well on its own however, and gives a fascinating insight into exactly what neurologists are doing as they push, tweak, tap and prod their way through an assessment.

It also shows that surprisingly simple tests can tell us a great deal about the nervous system.

For example, asking someone to stand still with their eyes closed and giving them a slight push (something known as the Romberg Test) can help determine whether there is damage to the proprioceptive or vestibular system.

Link to neuroexam.com

—Vaughan.

June 29, 2005

Brain re-wires for object recognition:

Open-access science journal PLoS Biology reports on research looking at how the brain handles object recognition among the clutter of the everyday visual world.

Researchers, led by neuroscientist Zoe Kourtzi, asked participants to detect objects hidden in various background images, whilst being scanned in an fMRI scanner.

"The authors found that subjects demonstrated an increased number of correct responses for shapes they encountered during the training sessions, regardless of the type of background the shapes were presented on. By contrast, the fMRI responses differed dramatically, depending on whether the surroundings made the shapes easy or difficult to detect."

"These results demonstrate that the ability to learn to detect novel shapes is independent of the degree of difficulty, but suggest that the brain employs different mechanisms of perceptual learning depending on whether the objects stand out from their surroundings, or are obscured by them."

Link to summary of study.
Link to full-text of study.

—Vaughan.

June 28, 2005

Cannabis and psychosis: The evidence:

The BBC recently aired an edition of current affairs programme Panorama on cannabis and psychosis. If you missed it, they've summarised current research on possible links between cannabis and severe mental illness on their website.

Although most people who smoke cannabis will not develop psychosis, the evidence for a link is now growing. The risk seems greater if users start younger and use in greater amounts.

It has recently been reported that those with forms of the COMT genes, known as a val-val combination, are particularly at risk.

The BBC website also has a page for those wanting more information or support concerning cannabis use and / or mental health.

Links to BBC webpages:
* Cannabis and psychosis: the key research.
* Interview with Dr Philip Robson on cannabis and psychosis.
* Interview with Dr Robin Murray on cannabis and our genes.

—Vaughan.

June 27, 2005

Philosophy and limb amputation:

Australian philosophers Tim Bayne and Neil Levy have argued that people who want to be amputees should be allowed to have elective amputations, even if they have healthy limbs.

This unusual desire has been labelled 'body integrity identity disorder' or BIID by psychiatrists.

It has caused much ethical concern among doctors who are bound by the hippocratic oath to 'do no harm', but are faced with some patients wanting healthy limbs removed.

Bayne and Levy argue that such people are not "globally irrational", and should be considered to have the capacity to make such decisions about their body.

Tim Bayne has previously done work on delusions and rationality, and has extended this analysis into applied ethics.

Link to story from ABC News.
Link to study abstract.
Link to Tim Bayne's homepage with full-text publications.

—Vaughan.

June 25, 2005

Maths ability without language skills:

Scientific American reports on three individuals who retained remarkable mathematical skills after brain damage that left them unable to use language to communicate.

Varley and her colleagues found that although the subjects could no longer grasp grammatical distinctions between, say, "The dog bit the boy" and "The boy bit the dog," they could interpret mathematical formulas incorporating equivalent structures, such as "59 - 13" and "13 - 59."

Although subjects easily answered simple problems expressed in mathematical symbols, words continued to stump them. Even the written sentence "seven minus two" was beyond their comprehension. The results show quite clearly that no matter how helpful language may be to mathematicians--perhaps as a mnemonic device--it is not necessary to calculation, and it is processed in different parts of the brain.

This suggests that maths ability does not necessarily rely on written or spoken language to give calculations logical order and coherence.

Link to Scientific American story 'Math without Words'.

—Vaughan.

June 24, 2005

2005-06-24 Spike activity:

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

Insightful, sardonic and often sharply witty blog, detailing the trials and tribulations of a mental health nurse (via PsyBlog)

Website from the Boundary Institute has online 'Psi' tests to look for extransensory abilities.

Raj Persaud takes us inside the mind of an adulterer, discussing the psychology of infidelity.

Violent video games activate similar brain areas to real violence.

The smell of male pheromones makes men more likely to opt for male lifestyle magazines than other titles.

Women are more afraid of dentists than men, research shows. Must be all those men's lifestyle magazines in the waiting room.

Narcissicists seem better able to handle trauma than others.

Sex psychologist Petra Boynton critical of attempts to brain scan orgasm, but clarifies her comments after feedback.

Metafilter on what you think about when you're not thinking about much.

—Vaughan.

Evidence for 'grandmother cells':

This week's edition of the science journal Nature reports that single brain cells may be specialised for recognising specific faces.

This is an interesting finding, as it provides support for a derided hypothesis known as the 'grandmother cell' theory, that was thought up to ridicule attempts to reduce human experience down to smaller and smaller components of the brain.

Neuroscience often develops by trying to understanding how smaller parts of the brain support larger processes. Bologist Jerry Lettvin argued that we can't expect everything to reduce down to the smallest level, as some things will be distributed across the brain.

It is unlikely, he argued, that there is a single brain cell to represent each person we know, a neuron that is active when we see our grandmother, for example.

This has since been used as an argument against any theory that is seen as over-simplifying how things are represented in the brain.

But now, a team led by neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga has identified neurons which do seem to be active for individual faces.

He implanted harmless electrodes into the temporal lobes of volunteers undergoing surgery for epilepsy.

Quiroga then showed the participants pictures of famous faces, and discovered some cells were only active for individual faces in the set - Halle Berry, or even members of The Simpsons.

Of course, it's impossible to say whether these cells are truly selective for an individual face out of all the ones a person may know, but this level of selectivity is a great surprise for those who thought individual cells would be active for very general features of the visual world.

Link to write-up from nature.com
Link to study abstract.

—Vaughan.

June 23, 2005

Cognitive daily on 'childhood amnesia':

Cognitive Daily has an elegant summary of research on why we don't remember the first years of life. The results suggest that it may be because young children lack the language resources to support the necessary memories.

I would be tempted to quote some of the post here, but its described so succinctly its probably best just to read the original.

Link to 'Why do we forget our childhood?' from Cognitive Daily.

—Vaughan.

Optical street art of Julian Beever:

Julian Beever is a street artist who takes advantage of the way the brain understands the world to create some amazing artwork.

The brain works out our 3D experience of the world from the 2D light patterns that fall onto our retina at the back of the eye.

This process takes advantage of many of our implicit assumptions of the world, such as the fact that textures will fade as they go farther away, parallel lines will tend to converge in the distance and that objects will seem larger the closer they are.

Julian Beever's art uses a knowledge of these processes, so when seen from a certain angle, the pictures fool the visual system's inbuilt processes to produce a false sense of depth.

When seen from an alternative angle, the illusion breaks-down, and it's possible to see how the artwork was created.

There's plenty more examples of this amazing effect on Julian's pages that are well worth checking out.

Links to Julian Beever's homepage and street art page.
PDF of notes on 'An Introduction to Visual Perception'.

—Vaughan.

June 22, 2005

At last! Female orgasm neuroimaged:

Finally, someone has done a neuroimaging study of the female orgasm.

Although the paper from this study has not been published yet, if the conference reports are anything to go by, it may be the first functional neuroimaging study of orgasm in healthy human females.

My only caveat is the rather random way this story is being reported (e.g. 'Brain scans detect fake orgasms') and the seemingly odd quotes from the researcher involved (from a BBC News story):

Professor Holstege said: "Women can imitate orgasm quite well. But with genuine orgasm", he said: "What we see is an extreme deactivation of large portions of the brain hippocampus and especially the emotional parts involved with fear... And if you are fearful, it is very hard to have sex. It's very hard to let go." He said this was useful for men to know. "When you want to make love to a woman, you must give her the feeling of being protected."

If reported correctly, Prof Holstege seems to have gone from a discovery about a reduction in brain activity (possibly based on a weak cliché that the amygdala circuit is the 'fear' part of the brain) to advice on 'how to make love to a woman'.

Come again ?

Link to story from newscientist.com
Link to story from BBC News.

—Vaughan.

Anaesthesia can lead to sex delusions:

The Arizona Daily Star is reporting that doctors are being warned that some general anaesthetics are associated with sexual dreams which some people may remember as real.

Although it is almost impossible to verify how often sexual hallucinations occur, some studies indicate it happens in 1 percent to 3 percent of anesthetized patients, Strickland said. With some anesthetic drugs - such as ketamine or propofol - the incidence is up to 5 percent.

Just why it happens is not well understood. But the risk is higher under lighter, sedating anesthesia than under deep anesthesia, doctors have found.

Link to article from Arizona Daily Star (via BoingBoing)
Links one and two to cases on PubMed.

—Vaughan.

June 21, 2005

This is your girl on grapefruit:

Research suggests that the scent of grapefruit causes men to judge women up to six years younger than their chronological age.

Let's see if the evolutionary psychologists can come up with an explanation for this one!

Link to write-up from WebMD.com
Link to story from ScienceDaily.com

—Vaughan.

Neurotheology via Numenware:

Numenware is a recently re-launched blog that covers the developing world of neurotheology - the neuroscience of spiritual experience and belief.

The site is authored by Bob Myers, who manages to approach the subject in a critical but non-dogmatic way and avoids scoring easy points on complex topics.

Some of my favourites include a post musing about a neurological basis of average age of enlightenment, one on developmental neurotheology, and note on the possible adaptive value of near-death experiences.

Link to numenware.com

—Vaughan.

June 20, 2005

Epilepsy and the risk of psychosis:

A study published online by the British Medical Journal suggests that people with epilepsy or a family history of epilepsy may be more likely to develop schizophrenia or psychotic symptoms.

Researchers from the University of Aarhus analysed the records of 2.27 million Danish people, and found the risk of schizophrenia-like psychosis slightly raised in people with epilepsy, or those with family members who have epilepsy.

The absolute risk still remains small however, as only 1.5% of the people with epilepsy went on to develop psychosis.

The significance of these findings are in the suggestion that epilepsy and psychosis may have some common genetic influences. This influence is likely to be complex however, as demonstrated by a curious interaction.

The study found that people with epilepsy were more likely to develop psychosis if there was no family history of psychosis or schizophrenia.

Link to story from Yahoo News.
Link to study abstract.

UPDATE: The BMJ have just published a 'rapid response' I submitted about the article's findings.

—Vaughan.

Brain scan early detection of Alzheimer's:

A research team has announced that they have developed a brain imaging technique to detect the early stages of Alzheimer's disease with a claimed accuracy of 78%.

The technique, named HipMask and developed by neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi and her team, uses a brain scanning technique called PET. This involves injecting weakly radioactive glucose into the blood and measuring where it accumulates in the brain.

Glucose is used as 'fuel' by the brain, so brain activity in a particular location can be inferred from measuring the levels of radioactivity.

Mosconi's team have discovered that poor levels of activity in a brain area called the hippocampus, a crucial memory area, predict the onset of Alzheimer's disease up to 9 years before standard diagnosis.

Because the hippocampus is small and hidden deep within the brain, measuring its activity has been traditionally considered quite hard, as it produces a relatively weak signal.

Mosconi's team overcame this problem by also using an MRI scan of the brain, which gives a more accurate internal picture, to complement the PET scan, which gives a clearer measure of hippocampal function.

Link to write-up of study from from Eureka Alert.
Link to story from Yahoo News.
Link to study abstract.

—Vaughan.

June 18, 2005

Walter Freeman: Controversional lobotomy surgeon:

Jack El-Hai, the biographer of surgeon and early lobotomy enthusiast Walter Freeman is interviewed on ABC Radio's In Conversation.

El-Hai has written The Lobotomist: a maverick medical genius and his tragic quest to rid the world of mental illness, that follows Freeman's life, and the history of psychosurgery - the use of brain surgery to attempt to treat mental disorder.

Freeman is now a controversial character, and many see his enthusiasm for doing literally hundreds of lobotomies as verging on abuse of vulnerable patients, whereas Freeman himself argued that his was an effective treatment for otherwise untreatable people.

One of Freeman's most notable lobotomy patients was Rosemary Kennedy, sister of JFK - an episode El-Hai describes as "one of the worst" in Freeman's career.

Realaudio or webpage of In Conversation on Walter Freeman.
Link to New Statesman review of El-Hai's book.
Link to the book's website with first chapter online.

—Vaughan.

June 17, 2005

Nine-way love:

Researchers claim to have identified nine different types of love. In reality, it is more likely that they have simply classified love in nine different ways.

For the curious however, the types include:

The "Cupid's dart" variety, in which couples - think Antony and Cleopatra or even Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity - are swept away by blind passion.

Hedonistic love, concerned with personal and perhaps fleeting pleasure, the theme of much Hollywood film noir.

Love as the ultimate connection: an essentially romantic view.

I'm not sure whether it is the reporter or the researchers who are getting carried away there.

Call me a cynic, but I think that maybe they've just watched too many movies. Be thankful it wasn't Dawson's Creek.

Link to article 'How do I love thee? Which of the nine ways?'

—Vaughan.

2005-06-17 Spike activity:

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

RedNova reviews Plotkin's book Evolutionary Thought in Psychology.

There's been a recent flurry of reinterest in the effect of the cat parasite toxoplasma gondii on human personality - see also PDF of related SciAm article.

Cornell lawyers discuss the legality of using brain scans in suspect interrogation (via BoingBoing).

Kid's asthma may be linked to mothers' depression.

Buddhist monks can control perceptual rivalry suggesting they have exceptional control over certain mind and brain processes.

Deep brain stimulation (a brain 'pacemaker') is being trialled to help untreatable depression (via PsyBlog).

Discussions and deliberations continue about the classification of mental disorders.

Radio programme The Connection discusses the ethics of creating consciousness - including Marvin Minsky discussing IBM's new Blue Brain Project.

—Vaughan.

June 16, 2005

Electronic voice phenomena: A history:

The Fortean Times has published an online article about EVP, or electronic voice phenomena, the experience of hearing 'voices' in the background of sound recordings.

The author of the piece has experienced EVP and believes the sounds to be spirits of the dead trying to communicate through the static.

Whether you believe this explanation (or think that EVP is more likely due to apophenia) the article remains a fascinating description of the history of the phenomena, most associated with parapsychologist Konstantin Raudive.

Link to article 'Distant voices'.
Link to wikipedia entry on EVP.

—Vaughan.

NewSci on autism, free will and homo florensis:

This week's New Scientist has a slew of articles relevant to the mind, brain and behaviour.

The most notable is on the developing 'autism rights' movement, which aims to reframe autism and Asperger's syndrome as a normal (if perhaps, less common) human variation.

This is championed by groups such as Aspies for Freedom, but has caused controversy, particularly with carers of people with autism who are more severely disabled by their condition.

New Scientist also tackles the ongoing implications of the discovery of the remains of homo florensis, the small humanoid nicknamed the 'hobbit'.

Finally, there is an article on whether the universe is deterministic, i.e. purely 'mechanical' in nature, and whether this is compatible with notions of free will.

Sadly, none of these are available online, although occasionally they do appear in the days following publication. If any become available, we'll be sure to link to them here.

Link to New Scientist table of contents.

—Vaughan.

The cognitive basis of good and evil:

Michael Shermer, who writes the Skeptic column for Scientific American, and who is normally right on the mark has this to say about the concepts of Good and Evil:

'The myth of good and evil is grounded in Christian theology and the belief that such forces exist independently of their carriers,'

You can read the full article - byline 'It is too simple to blame evil people for horrifying acts of terror' - here. I don't want to disagree with Shermer's conclusions, but just nit-pick on this specific point. In effect, I think i totally disagree with the above statement - let's call it the 'Cultural Invention of Evil Theory'. Rather, and readers of Mind Hacks might have guessed, I believe seeing Good and Evil in the world is the result of a basis cognitive process which we we all share.

The myth of good and evil arises from a psychological bias we all have, and which in the social psychology biz is called the 'the fundamental attribution error'. This is simply that when looking at other people's behaviour we tend to over-emphasise inherent characteristics (eg "he didn't do the washing up because he's lazy"), while when looking at our own we tend to over-emphasise situational variables ("i didn't do the washing up because i had to go to work and do lots of marking"). Why this exists is probably because although it is often wrong, it is an adaptive way to think about the causal world. When trying to understand your own behaviour it is easiest to look at the things that vary (ie the situation) and try and control that, but when looking at other people's behaviour the major variable is which other person you are looking at. It doesn't make it right, but it is just easier to see other people as Good, or Evil, or Lazy, or Clever than it is to take full account of the complexity of both their situation and their personality.

Surely that is sufficient reason to explain the persistence of notions of good and evil, and also helps avoid the problem of how non-Christian cultures come also to use the concepts. The cultural background just flavours a universal, a universal which arises from the information-mechanics of our cognitive apparatus.

—tom.

June 15, 2005

Consciousness as a life / death decision maker:

Slate has an insightful article on the possible legal consequences of developments in the neuroscience of consciousness, including implications for issues such abortion and right-to-die cases.

It also discusses some of the history and disparities between how different groups define life and death.

Religious conservatives want the law to define life as the existence of a single living cell containing human DNA. Yet their Schiavo campaign bolstered both the acceptance of consciousness as the boundary between life and death and the authority of neuroscience to measure it.

Link to article 'The Consciometer' via Metafilter.

—Vaughan.

Minsky slams modern AI:

Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of artificial intelligence research, has slammed modern AI as "brain dead".

Quoted in Wired magazine, he lambasted the last 30 years of work in the area, particularly the focus on creating AI driven autonomous robots.

However, the article finishes on a throwaway comment about the 'moving goal posts' problem in the perception of artificial intelligence, that belies much of the problem with how AI is perceived.

It is illustrated by the success of chess computers. In the 60s, it was said that computers will never beat people at chess, because that requires intelligence and computers aren't capable of intelligent thought.

When computers regularly started winning matches in the 80s, it was claimed that playing chess wasn't a test of real intelligence because computers could do it.

As there is no widely accepted definition for intelligence, this is often an example of the No true Scotsman fallacy.

Link to Wired article.
Link to Minsky on 'Smart Machines' from edge.org
Link to Wikipedia page on Minsky.

—Vaughan.

June 14, 2005

Art and the altered mind:

Rolldance is a blog started by artist Laurie Buenafe that highlights the intersections between art, the mind and mental illness.

Creativity and mental illness have often been linked. A number of prolific artists who have been mentally ill, sometimes leading to some truly striking artwork, and many people suffering mental distress find relief in art and art therapy.

More recently, scientific evidence is now emerging to show that many of the same psychological attributes are associated with both psychosis and creativity.

Rolldance aims to keep the reader up to date on interesting news items relevant to understanding and coping with mental illness, as well as noting where art and the altered mind meet to good effect.

Link to Rolldance blog

—Vaughan.

June 13, 2005

Psychosis and modern-day hysteria:

Mind Hacks favourite All in the Mind had a split edition on Saturday, discussing the topics of hysteria (otherwise known as conversion disorder) and the neuroscience of psychosis.

Conversion disorder is a poorly understood condition where physical symptoms, sometimes as severe as total paralysis, seem to be caused by psychological problems and have no basis in detectable damage to the nervous system or other parts of the body.

It is now thought that these sorts of problems occur on a continuum of medically unexplained symptoms and that milder forms are a significant part of a doctor's caseload.

The second part of the programme discusses the dopamine hypothesis of psychosis, that argues that delusions and hallucinations can be largely explained by dysfunction to the dopamine systems in the brain.

My impression is that the discussion is a little uncritical of this over-simplified theory of the complex experience of psychosis, but is valuable as a clear explanation of the approach none-the-less.

mp3, Realaudio or transcript of 11^th June "All in the Mind".

Link to editorial from Canadian Journal of Psychiatry on conversion disorder and related conditions (see side panel for further articles).

—Vaughan.

June 12, 2005

The madness of Batman:

A story from NY Newsday queries professional psychologists about the mental health of Batman and the likely causes of his mental instability.

Batman is a fascinating character, not least because his mind and motivations have become an integral plot device in many films and graphic novels.

In fact, the portrayal of madness in the Batman universe is a topic I have tackled myself, in a past article for kuro5hin.org

Almost uniquely for such a popular genre, the plots of Batman revolve around mental illness, because, in addition to Batman's own troubled thoughts, almost all the criminals are depicted as insane.

It is likely that Batman is both a mirror for our own stereotypes of madness, as well as a medium through which children get some of their first impressions of mental illness.

Link to 'Is he really batty?' from NY Newsday
Link to 'Madness in Gotham' from kuro5hin.org

—Vaughan.

June 10, 2005

Behavioural and Brain Functions journal:

Open access journals are good. Not only do they mean that the copyright on publicly funded-research doesn't end in the hands of private companies, and that scientists don't have to pay to read their own research, but it also means that everyone can read scientific research as it is communicated directly by scientists to their peers. There aren't that many open access journals in psychology, so it great to hear about Behavioral and Brain Functions is a new, open access journal from biomedcentral, edited by Terje Sagvolden. Well done guys

—tom.

A critical look at the genetics of orgasm:

PsyBlog has done a great job of tracking down some critical views on recent reports that suggest there may be a genetic contribution to women's ability to orgasm and whether this relates to an evolutionary role for sexual climax.

The comments are from psychologist Dr Petra Boyton and bear reading in full.

She criticises both the original research findings, and the subsequent way the media have reported the results.

Some criticisms are more telling than others - the fact that the research "wasn't published in a recognised sex journal" seems a little circumstantial to me - but overall, it's a well needed analysis of the recent media frenzy.

Link to article ' Women, orgasm and genetics'.
Link to article 'Women! Don’t orgasm so easily'

—Vaughan.

2005-06-10 Spike activity:

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

A widely reported story suggests that Ashkenazi Jews may be genetically more likely to be highly intelligent. Full text of research paper here.

Psychometrics, the science of measuring the mind, has a long tradition in Maori culture.

Cool demonstration of the rapid afterimage effect. Doesn't seem to work in Firefox though.

In the USA, about one in four adults have the symptoms of at least one mental illness every year, and nearly half suffer disorders during their lifetimes, says new government report.

Cognitive Daily has a fascinating article on how children learn to walk.

A short article discusses sites on the internet that seem to promote eating disorders.

BBC Radio 4 has a news story and a radio programme (archived as a realaudio stream) on controversial psychiatrist and alien abductee researcher John Mack.

Also on BBC Radio 4:

1) Leading Edge discusses IBM's project to simulate the brain, mentioned previously on Mind Hacks.

2) Material World discusses the science of film and emotion.

—Vaughan.

June 09, 2005

BrainMeta:

I'm not quite sure what BrainMeta is exactly, but it sure is interesting.

It bills itself as

a community site that was established for the purpose of accelerating the development of neuroscience through web-based initiatives, which include the development, implementation and support of a wide range of neuroinformatics tools, services, and databases. BrainMeta also functions as an internet hub for fostering communication between individuals involved with the neurosciences.

It certainly has a mass of useful links and resources online that would pique the interest of the most hardened of academic neuroscientists.

But then has essays about "The Consciousness Singularity" when "history as we know it, will cease" and "our consciousness will be expanded beyond the confines of an egocentric sense of self".

If anything, it's great fun to explore, even if some of the the blue sky thinking (blue universe thinking maybe ?) is a little puzzling at times.

Link to BrainMeta.com

—Vaughan.

June 08, 2005

Mixed gender pornography boosts sperm production:

Science journal Nature is reporting on a study which has found that sperm production is boosted when men view pornography including images of both men and women, rather than pornographic images of women only.

Although this seems to go against common perceptions about male sexual preferences, it is consistent with the theory of sperm competition, says study leader Leigh Simmons of the University of Western Australia, Perth. This states that males (of many species, including humans) should produce better sperm when faced with a female who has other mates, because this stimulates them to boost their chance of procreation.

It seems all this week's science news is about sex. I guess summer is officially here, even in the world of science.

Link to story from nature.com

—Vaughan.

The genetics of female orgasm:

New Scientist is reporting on a study into the genetics of the female orgasm. This is timely, as its evolutionary role is now a subject of much debate, as mentioned previously on Mind Hacks.

Spector's team asked more than 6000 female twins to fill out a confidential questionnaire about how often they achieved orgasm during intercourse and masturbation. They received 4037 complete replies, which included answers from 683 pairs of non-identical twins and 714 pairs of identical twins.

According to a study published this week, up to 45% of the differences between women in their ability to reach orgasm can be explained by their genes.

There are two common ways that researchers compute genetic influence from twin studies however, one known as 'pairwise concordance' the other as 'probandwise concordance' (some details here).

Probandwise concordance typically suggests much higher levels of influence from the same data.

I've not been able to read the full text of the article, so can't find out what method has been used to calculate concordance, but if anyone has, please get in touch.

Link to New Scientist story.
Link to summary from nature.com
Link to abstract of study from Biology Letters.

—Vaughan.

Out of the corner of my eye...:

When we direct our attention to an object, we usually look directly at it, but research just published in the journal Neuron looks at how we focus our attention on things that we notice 'out of the corner of our eye'.

A research team, led by David Melcher from Oxford Brookes University, has been investigating this process, known to psychologists as implicit selective attention.

They found when focusing on a certain attribute of visual experience - such as colour, the visual system automatically groups other objects of the same colour that move together, even if they are not directly involved in the task at hand.

They also found that objects are understood by the visual system in different ways, depending on whether the object was the focus of attention, or outside of it.

Objects being focused on were understood as wholes by using the fact that all the visual elements have the same surface, whereas objects outside the current focus were grouped in a more basic way, using the fact that visual elements are close together or move in a similar way.

Link to story from medicalnews.com
Link to summary of study from Neuron.
Link to lots of experiments, demonstrations and tutorials on attention.

—Vaughan.

June 07, 2005

Why can't Robert Lansberry get his mail ?:

Filmmaker Richard Pell has released online a compelling documentary that questions the distinction between psychosis, reality and reasonable paranoia.

It focuses on the life of the late Robert Lansberry, an anti 'mind control' protestor who heard voices he attributed to mind control technology. He also believed he was being targetting by the FBI and secret service, who were stopping him getting his mail.

It turns out however, that his mail was being intercepted by the authorities, as his FBI file shows. Furthermore, many of his concerns about mind control turned out to be less crazy than they sounded.

The documentary discusses research into conformity and mind control, genuinely carried out by the secret services during the 60s and 70s, and has archive footage and interviews with some of the people involved.

As well as giving an insight into a warm and fascinating character (who at one stage ran for office and gained over 30,000 votes) it questions the basis for understanding psychosis and paranoia in an increasingly paranoid world.

Link to documentary Don't Call Me Crazy on the 4th of July

—Vaughan.

Cigarettes designed to "addict women":

A review of tobacco industry documents show research on psychological and behavioural needs in women was used to target cigarette advertising and ingredients, to increase smoking and reduce quitting rates.

The recently released review (PDF), published in the journal Addiction notes that:

A 1976 British-American Tobacco Company (BAT) review of gender differences (drawing on both internal and published studies) concluded that women were more motivated to smoke, smoked more for insecurity reasons and exhibited more neurotic traits.

The author further observed that higher neuroticism among women may intensify responses to smoking-related health pressures, and that female smokers found quitting more difficult and reported fewer successful cessation attempts.

In response, cigarette advertising and ingredients were altered to make them even more difficult to give up, and more attractive for new smokers.

Link to summary from Science Blog
PDF of full-text paper Designing cigarettes for women.
PDF of Addiction editorial Exploitation by design

—Vaughan.

June 06, 2005

IBM to simulate the "entire brain":

New Scientist is reporting that IBM will attempt to simulate the "entire brain" in collaboration with the Swiss Brain Mind Insititute using a specially modified computer system dubbed 'Blue Brain'.

It seems from the news reports that the system will attempt to simulate the physical properties of individual neurons and their connections - a science known as neuroinformatics. Both the New Scientist story, and another from Business Week, are a little light on detail however.

They both suggest that an initial project will be to simulate the structure and function of neocortical columns - the three dimensional, highly interconnected layers of neurons, famously found to be an essential part of the visual cortex.

Although impressive, this seems a far cry from simulating the 'entire brain', which would involve simulating 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses in real-time.

This assumes, of course, there is a good enough understanding of how each neuron and synpase works - a science which is still very much in development.

The project is long-term however (a decade is mentioned), so hopefully it will allow for some important developments, even if physically simulating the entire brain might be a little far fetched - even in the near future.

Link to New Scientist article 'Mission to build a simulated brain begins'.
Link to Business Week article 'Blue Brain: Illuminating the Mind'.

—Vaughan.

No function for the female orgasm ?:

Elisabeth Lloyd caused a stir with a recent book that suggests the female orgasm has no evolutionary function, and she discusses her controversial views on ABC Radio's All in the Mind.

Professor Lloyd has examined the current evolutionary theories and argues none adequately explain why females orgasm, as sexual climax is not needed for succesful conception in women, nor is it related to levels of fertility.

In contrast, males need to orgasm for successful reproduction. Lloyd argues that the female orgasm is only present due to the similar structure of early-stage embryos.

Male and female embryos share the nerve pathways necessary for orgasm, like they share the tissue structure for nipples, despite them being reproductively useful in only one half of adults.

Other theories, she claims, have been unduly influenced by ideas about what is sexually 'normal' or 'appropriate'.

On a bit of a tangent, All in the Mind now produces its programmes as podcasts as well as Realaudio streams, allowing them to be downloaded for later listening.

Realaudio or mp3 of The Perplexing Case of the Female Orgasm.
Link to transcript.

—Vaughan.

June 05, 2005

Social problems activate additional brain resources:

Continuing the recent evolutionary psychology theme (here,here), I'd like to recommend a piece posted by the ever excellent Carl Zimmer. Recent brain scanning evidence shows, possibly, that problems involving social exchange activate additional specific brain regions compared to problems of the same logical form which don't involve social exchange. What's this got to do with Evolutionary Psychology? Well the particular tasks involved are something called the Wason Selection Task, and a variant on it developed by the Evolutionary Psychologists Tooby and Cosmides, and subsequently used as a foundational piece of research for the Evolutionary Psychology movement (note the capital E and the capital P). Swing over to Carl's place and take a look.

—tom.

Mental Health Update:

The recently created Mental Health Update is a blog that collects mental health posts from across the internet.

Although it bills itself as providing the "Latest info on bipolar disorder, mad cow disease and other mental conditions", which strikes me as a bit of an odd combination for a strapline, it is frequently updated and links to a suprisingly diverse number of stories and news sources.

Link to Mental Health Update.

—Vaughan.

June 04, 2005

Influence, anorexia and the body beautiful:

Online media journal Stay Free! Daily takes a critical look at a recent newspaper report that anorexia is 'caused' by a brain dysfunction rather than pressure from society.

The story is based on a recent paper from a research group led by psychiatrist Bryan Lask.

Their study found decreased blood flow in a variety of brain areas in a group of adolescents with anorexia, but found that this was not actually linked to any features of the eating disorder, contrary to what the newspaper headline suggests:

There appears to be no association between this reduction in blood flow and cerebral dominance, nutritional status, length of illness, mood, or eating disorder psychopathology. However, there is a significant association between reduced blood flow and impaired visuospatial ability, impaired complex visual memory, and enhanced information processing.

This suggests that the underlying brain changes in anorexia do not directly affect eating, food or body perception - they are much more general.

How then, does this lead to anorexia ? Lask and his team suggest that a part of the brain called the limbic system might be involved, and that:

Within specific setting conditions such as sociocultural pressures to be thin and a driven and perfectionist personality, the limbic system imbalance may be triggered by such factors as puberty, dieting, weight loss, and various stressors.

In other words, without the pressures from society and a 'perfectionist personality', people who have these differences in brain function are unlikely to become anorexic. People who have both therefore, are at the greatest risk of wanting to starve themselves.

A recent study published in the British Journal of Psychology gives us a clue as to what might cause this pressure to be thin.

Researchers showed participants pictures of female bodies, digitally altered to be wider or more thin than average, and then asked them to pick out most attractive body shapes from a range.

After being shown thin bodies, participants tended to pick thinner bodies as the most attractive.

The authors argue that perception of attractiveness and beauty are relative to our experience of the most common body shape, suggesting that the promotion of thin bodies in the media may distort our idea of attractiveness by affecting the 'data' on which we judge normality.

Link to Stay Free! article.
Link to abstract of anorexia / neuroscience study.
Link to body shape study.

—Vaughan.

June 03, 2005

Sex and science: The debate continues:

Some notable scientists have pitched into the gender determinism debate recently held between Pinker and Spelke, as previously mentioned on Mind Hacks.

The debate centred on the influence of biology, sex and gender on psychological abilities, and was inspired by controversial comments suggesting that women might be genetically less suited to science.

The commentary includes insights from psychologists Diane Halpern, Alison Gopnik and Nora Newcombe and geneticist David Haig.

Link to gender determinism commentary from Edge.org

—Vaughan.

2005-06-03 Spike activity:

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

Review article from PLoS Medicine suggests schizophrenia is less prevalent than previously thought.

It seems to be artificial intelligence week:

1) The Yemen Times runs an article giving an introduction to AI.

2) An article on kuro5hin takes a critical look at the recent completion of a verbal analogy exam by an AI system.

3) AI seduces Stanford students reports Wired, although Stanford students seduce AI would be cooler.

An interview with the current director of the Kinsey Institute on sexual behaviour and sex research.

Paper on CogPrints on 'A Psychedelic Neurochemistry of Time'.

Researchers discover a map for smell in the brain.

The early stages of "early, intense romantic love may have more to do with motivation, reward and 'drive' aspects of human behavior than with the emotions or sex drive."

Wired discusses the controversial use of cognitive neuroscience to design effective advertising - (Thanks Michal!).

Better educated women sleep more soundly, although the reverse is true for men. Coincidence ? I think not.

Spraying the hormone oxytocin into the nose makes people more trusting.

Article on Cognitive Daily examines research that suggests emotions don't appear to affect trust when the person in question is a close friend, but play a strong role when the person is only an acquaintance.

Fantastic analysis of recent research showing cannabis may increase the risk of psychosis particularly in people with certain genes.

—Vaughan.

June 02, 2005

The Magnetic Sense:

To add to Vaughan's post about cyborg senses the other day, here's another group experimenting with new ways of perceiving the world. Steve Haworth and Jesse Jarrell are body modification artists, and one of their clients was Todd Huffman, who has had a small magnet implanted in the tip of his finger.

In an interview with Todd, The Gift of Magnetic Vision (some pictures on this site are not for the squeamish), he describes how this magnet isn't just a trick and what "seeing" magnetic fields feels like:

There are two distinct feelings I get from fields. For a static field, like a bar magnet, it feels like a smooth pressure. Imagine running your hand slowly through lukewarm water, and brushing your finger across the top of a large invisible marshmallow. That is the closest description I can give. Oscillating fields, such as electric motors, security devices, transformers, et cetera, vibrate the magnet. This sensation is much more sensitive and noticeable.

Having the magnet implant makes his understanding of the world more visceral:

Another time I opened a can of cat food for my girlfriend’s pets, and I sensed the electric motor running. My hand was about six inches away from the electric can opener, and I was able to sense where the motor was inside of the assembly. Again it brought my attention to a magnetic source that I understood intellectually, but would have otherwise been unaware of.

The interview also covers other supersenses Todd is thinking about, and the relation of this kind of experimentation to new computer interfaces--which is subject I find fascinating.

Interfaces of all kinds, whether it's burglar alarms, televisions or computer screens, present information in a very factual way and in a way that's intended for intellectual understanding. But compare that to the ambient understanding we have of the rest of the world around us: reading somebody's scribbled note also carries a hurried sense; a car getting a flat or needing an oil change will drive differently; a glance along the spice rack will influence your shopping list. Our regular senses work on both attentive and preperceptive channels... so why do our technological systems so often stick to the former? And is it possible to transform the previously invisible - like magnetic fields - into senses we can use? This is what academic subjects like ubiquitous computing and ubicomp computer-human interaction are attacking, on technological and design fronts. But it seems that the folks really breaking new ground are the body-mod crowd.

Link to The Gift of Magnetic Vision.

—Matt.

Are our memories suffering from our reliance on gadgets?:

So I'm in this month's edition of Wired, just a short quote. Since it's here and it's now I've reproduced the full quote I sent them below:

> I'm looking for a response to this question: "Are tools like Google and PDAs
> ruining our ability to remember things?"

So we have this amazing brain which constantly scans our environment and seeks out short-cuts. New bits of tech, like google or mobile phones, stop being strange very quickly (even though, truely, they're just incredible. Unthinkable just a few years ago). They get absorbed, become artifical information-processing prosthetics. Are they making us forget things? Sure, we're forgetting the things they allow us not to have to remember. But when we use something, or design something, we get a choice about what it asked us to remember. My mobile phone means the only numbers i remember are the ones i deliberately haven't put in their so i'm forced to learn them. Not knowing any phone numbers is fine - as long as i don't lose my phone. Then it becomes a bit of a problem.

But phone numbers are hard to learn anyway - a hang-up from an old technology. The situation is completely reversed for getting in touch with people through the web. Knowing the URL or email isn't so useful - it might change. But with Google, knowing a person's name (exactly the piece of information you store in your phone to allow you to forget their number) means you can find their details on-line in seconds. The technology lets us forget an implementational detail, and allows us to concentrate on remembering a versatile, tech-enabled, solution.

—tom.

June 01, 2005

BrainBlog:

BrainBlog is a recent discovery of mine, that regularly updates with neuroscience and neuropsychology news.

It's run by neuropsychologist Anthony Risser and is more explicitly academic than most other news sources, but often includes abstracts of interesting papers as soon as they hit the press - covering from everything from protein folding to news from the drug regulators.

—Vaughan.

The euthanasia underground:

An online article from Scientific American discusses the work of criminologist Russel Ogden, who has been researching the social organisation of the euthanasia underground.

The practice of assisted suicide is illegal in most countries and Ogden has been pressured academically and legally to give up his research or reveal the identities of anonymous interviewees in his study.

He has successfully continued his research while navigating the novel ethical issues his works brings-up, and has discovered some surprising facts about the existence of the often unacknowledged 'euthanasia networks'.

[Euthanasia organisation] NuTech is at the forefront of what Ogden calls the "deathing counterculture," in which nonmedical death practitioners offer referrals, consultations and house calls. "They are taking the place of physicians to deliver virtually undetectable death assistance," says Ogden

Link to article A Culture of Death.
Link to abstract of paper Non-physician assisted suicide: the technological imperative of the deathing counterculture.

—Vaughan.