March 31, 2006
2006-03-31 Spike activity:
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Carl Zimmer tackles a common claim about the brain's fuel consumption.
Photographer David Maisel has created a touching project photographing unclaimed cannisters of ashes of ex-psychiatric patients found in an abandoned psychiatric hospital.
New breed of video games aim to keep the mind and brain sharp into middle-age and beyond.
Studies finds paradoxical effect - people with phobias who ingest a stress hormone seem to be less stressed during anxiety provoking episodes.
Get your cyber clichés at the ready: brain cells fused with computer chip.
New device can indicate the emotional state of a person you're having a conversation with via a spectacles mounted camera.
CrimePsychBlog reports that findings from the controversial 'replication' of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment are published.
Switching between different languages can alter your personality, new study suggests.
—Vaughan.
March 30, 2006
Cognitive control and Tourette's tics:
I've just noticed that Christian has written up a great summary of recent research which suggests that people with Tourette Syndrome, a neurological condition that causes involuntary movements or vocal outbursts, have better 'cognitive control' than people without the syndrome.
This is quite surprising, as at first site, you might think that people with Tourette's have poor control because of their involuntary movements.
In the study, the experimenters assessed cognitive control by asking participants to make quick eye movements to on-screen targets. The participants with Tourette's could do this far more effectively than the control participants.
The fact that people with Tourette's can do these tasks better than others may be due to the fact that they have a lot of practice trying to control their tics. In fact, it is a myth that they have no control, as some people can 'hold in' tics and 'release' them at a more appropriate time.
Fast eye movements (or saccades) are researched quite extensively as they seem to give an indication of brain function, and can be affected by genetic abnormalities, mental illness and certain drugs (as this review reported, and as Christian's own research has indicated).
Link to summary of research from BPS Research Digest
—Vaughan.
Grey matter, the developing brain and intelligence:
A report in today's Nature describes an association between IQ score and changes in the thickness of the brain's grey matter through childhood and adolesence.
The researchers, led by neuroscientist Philip Shaw, used structural MRI scans to measure changes in the brain, and scanned the same children as they grew up.
Crucially, the findings do not indicate that more intelligent children have a generally thicker cortex, but that the thickness of the cortex changes at different rates for children with different IQ scores:
When the researchers split the children into three groups according to their initial IQ scores, they noticed a characteristic pattern of changes in the brains of the group with the highest scores. The thickness of the cortex — the outer layer of the brain that controls high-level functions such as memory — started off thinner than that of the other groups, but rapidly gained depth until it was thicker than normal during the early teens. All three groups converged, with the children having cortexes of roughly equal thickness by age 19. The strongest effect was seen in the prefrontal cortex, which controls planning and reasoning.
Anything to do with IQ tends to be controversial, as the concept has been used in political arguments (particularly to do with race), and there is much debate about how well IQ tests actually relate to the more general (and more vague) concept of intelligence.
Link to Nature news report on study.
Link to abstract of scientific paper.
—Vaughan.
March 29, 2006
Treating shell-shock during World War 1:
"In leading his patients to understand that breakdown was nothing to be ashamed of, that horror and fear were inevitable responses to the trauma of war and were better acknowledged than suppressed, that feelings of tenderness for other men were natural and right, that tears were an acceptable and helpful part of grieving, he was setting himself up against the whole tenor of their upbringing. Men who broke down, or cried, or admitted to feeling fear, were sissies, weaklings, failures. Not men. And yet he himself was a product of the same system…Certainly the rigorous repression of emotion and desire had been the constant theme of his adult life. In advising his young patients to abandon the attempt at repression and to let themselves feel the pity and terror their war experience inevitably evoked, he was excavating the ground he stood on".
The thoughts of army psychiatrist W.H.R. Rivers from the novel Regeneration by Pat Barker. In Regeneration, the first of a trilogy, Barker blends fact with fiction in her depiction of the relationship between Rivers and the celebrated poet Siegfried Sassoon, at Craiglockhart during the First World War. More excerpts to follow next week.
—christian.
Deathbed phenomena:
The Glasgow Herald reports on the work of neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick, who is investigating 'deathbed phenomena', the unusual experiences that are often reported by a dying patient or their relatives.
Fenwick and his team have just published the results of a study in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care that notes that these experiences are not the result of medication and are relatively common.
Furthermore, they tend to be quite diverse and not simply the traditional 'light at the end of a tunnel' or 'friendly figure' appearing at the end of the bed.
Their origin is still a mystery, but Fenwick is running an ongoing research project to better understand the experiences to try and improve care and support for the dying person and their familes.
Link to article 'Visions of the Dying' in the Herald.
Link to website of Fenwick's research project.
—Vaughan.
March 28, 2006
The dating game:
Wise words to us all from Luke Jackson, a 13 year-old with Asperger Syndrome, who has written a book full of information and advice for teenagers with the condition called Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome.
The following is from the section on dating (p176):
If the person asks something like 'Does my bum look fat?' or even 'I am not sure I like this dress' then that is called 'fishing for compliments'. These are very hard things to understand, but I am told that instead of being completely honest and saying that yes their bum does look fat, it is politer to answer with something like 'Don't be daft, you look great'. You are not lying, simply evading an awkward question and complimenting them at the same time. Be economical with the truth!
Link to more information and extracts from the book.
—Vaughan.
Action potential on Wikipedia:
The Wikipedia article on the action potential is just beautiful - clearly written and wonderfully illustrated.
The action potential is the electrical impulse that travels along nerve cells, facilitating communication throughout the brain and peripheral nervous system.
The action potential was researched by Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley, who managed to generate equations which explained the process. Unsurprisingly, they won the Nobel prize for their efforts.
Link to Wikipedia article on the action potential.
—Vaughan.
March 27, 2006
New Psyche on 'action in perception':
A new edition of Psyche, the journal of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, has just been published online, and is a special issue on 'action in perception'.
The edition is curated by philosopher Alva Noë and takes a novel approach to understanding conscious perception.
The main idea of this book is that perceiving is a way of acting. Perception is not something that happens to us, or in us. It is something we do. Think of a blind person taptapping his or her way around a cluttered space, perceiving that space by touch, not all at once, but through time, by skillful probing and movement. This is, or at least ought to be, our paradigm of what perceiving is. The world makes itself available to the perceiver through physical movement and interaction.
This has some similarities with the later work of psychologist J. J. Gibson, who argued in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception that perception could only be understood by accounting for the way in which in an organism uses vision to act within its environment.
Link to Psyche.
—Vaughan.
Week 3 book draw:
A couple of weeks ago, I posted some thoughts on Mind Performance Hacks, a new book from Ron Hale-Evans and O'Reilly (there are sample hacks online and you can browse the support site for it).
When I made that post, we got hold of some copies from the publisher, and we've been having a weekly give-away since. There have been 4 winners so far, and we're looking for another 2 this week.
If you'd like a chance of winning one of 2 copies of Mind Performance Hacks, send an email to mphdraw3 at mindhacks dot com. Good luck!
Next Sunday evening, UK time, I'll choose 2 emails randomly and, if you're a winner, I'll be in touch to get your address. Please include your name in the email; if my email to you bounces I'll choose a different one; cheaters will be excluded; organiser's decision is final; void where prohibited; etc. You don't have to be in the UK, and emails are deleted if you're not a winner (if you entered last week and didn't win, you're welcome to enter again). Please note that the email address is different from last time. And next Monday... we'll run the final draw.
—Matt.
Unknown White Male under the microscope:
Cognitive Daily and The Washington Post cast a sceptical eye over the recently released documentary Unknown White Male which claims to depict two years in the life of someone with a curious form of amnesia.
Cognitive Daily examines the representation of memory in the film, and how closely it accords with what is known about the psychology of knowledge and remembering.
Reporting on the controversy over the film's truthfulness, The Washington Post analyses the inconsistencies in the film, and the opinions of those who support and doubt the main character's condition.
The Post quotes memory and amnesia researcher Hans Markowitsch and, rather endearingly, calls him a 'neural psychologist'.
Link to discussion from Cognitive Daily.
Link to 'A Trip Down Memory Lane' from The Washington Post.
—Vaughan.
March 26, 2006
Week 2, book draw winners:
Entry to the second Mind Performance Hacks free book draw from last Monday is now closed. All that's left to do is randomly select the 2 winners. Here we go (I'll do it in the same way as the first draw)... And congratulations Jacob Krall and Chris Berry--well done! I'll be in touch shortly to get your postal addresses.
—Matt.
Zombie t-shirt:
Is the person next to you conscious? It might be impossible to tell, and they could be a zombie - someone who acts exactly like a conscious being, but who has no conscious experience at all.
Philosophers have devised this idea, not necessarilly because they believe zombies exist, but to show that if they did, we currently don't have the ability to tell them apart from genuinely conscious people.
This is a way of both highlighting the difficulty of defining consciousness, and of having an interesting conceptual tool for exploring the limits of the conscious mind (not everyone agrees, however).
Now, t-shirt company Sebei Industries have created a nifty zombie t-shirt remixed from the Run DMC logo, so you can advertise the fact that you're actually an unconscious zombie, and save everyone the trouble of having to work it out.
Or maybe you just suffer from walking zombie syndrome?
Link to zombie t-shirt.
—Vaughan.
March 25, 2006
Is religion a product of mind and evolution?:
There's been a lot of interest about naturalistic approaches to religion recently, largely related to the release of Daniel Dennett's new polemical book Breaking the Spell.
In a similar vein, the New Times has an in-depth article about much of the empirical research that's fuelling the debate.
Crucially, this research is not simply tackling the idea that biblical ideas such as creation are incorrect, but arguing that the belief in God or other supernatural forces, itself is a product of evolution.
The article focuses on the work of psychologist Jesse Bering, whose work we've featured before on Mind Hacks.
Unlike with the wider evolution debate, however, reaction to such work seems to be muted, even among the religious community.
Even when their afterlife study was featured prominently in a recent Atlantic Monthly article written by Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology and linguistics at Yale, and titled provocatively "Is God an Accident?," there was scant response.
"I tell you, a couple of years ago, there was a science article on a dog, Rico, that could obey verbal commands," Bloom tells New Times. "That got me ten times more angry e-mails than this. Souls and gods are one thing, but people care a lot about their dogs. So my rule is: I can write about God but not dogs."
I suspect, however, that as the issue becomes more widely known (especially with Dennett turning up the ante) this will quickly change.
Link to article 'The God Fossil' from New Times.
—Vaughan.
March 24, 2006
Circadian rhythms of human copulation:
Circadia has a post about a brief study on how patterns of human love-making change during the day. Unsurprisingly, the most common times are before going to sleep and after waking up.
Notably, the original paper uses the scientific term 'nycthemeral' (meaning daily). This must be one of the most lovely sounding words I've discovered in quite some time.
—Vaughan.
1001 links:
Mind Hacks has reached the 1000 link mark on social bookmarking site del.icio.us.
Some of the comments are priceless. A few of my favourites...
"Crazy/beautiful"
"Curiosidades sobre la mente" [¡Gracias!]
"Mind Hacks is a collection of probes into the moment-by-moment workings of our brain with a view to understanding ourselves a little better and learning a little more, in a very real sense, about what makes us tick."
"url links (yellow)" [huh?]
"this looks like it might be interesting"
—Vaughan.
2006-03-24 Spike activity:
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Tom Lunt asks web visitors to name my brain tumour.
A series of fits, terrors and crying spells hit children in Chechnya and is blamed on mass hysteria.
Psychologist Lauren Slater discusses the common 'wonder-drug to toxic tablet' story of new psychotropic medicines in the New York Times.
Woman with a 'perfect memory' is investigated by neuroscientists to try and understand her remarkable talents, reports ABC News (abstract of scientific paper here).
Daniel Dennett on taking a scientific approach to understanding religion in a Seed Magazine article, and a piece for American Scientist.
A study finds few consistent tell-tale signs of lying, providing further evidence against this sort of nonsense.
Mixing Memory has a careful analysis of recent claims that people with strong political affilitations show 'irrationality' in reacting to opposing pitches.
Impulsive violence linked to gene for monoamine oxidase.
Aliens gave me psychic powers says clinical psychologist.
American Scientist reviews new book "Origins of the Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Child Development" - charting the beginnings of 'EvoDevo Psych'.
Live Science examines the neuropsychology of numbers, and 'dyscalculia' - impairment in the ability to do mathematical operations.
—Vaughan.
March 23, 2006
Freud's not dead:
Newsweek has a special edition on the legacy of Sigmund Freud and its relevance for the modern mind and brain sciences.
The issue includes several articles and takes a comprehensive approach, looking at Freud's early life as a neurologist, and interviews Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel about the influence of Freud on modern psychiatry.
The issue is also accompanied by a podcast interview with Kandel and psychoanalyst Leon Hoffman (section on Freud start's 18 minutes 40 seconds in).
Link to 'Freud in Our Midst' (via Anomalist).
—Vaughan.
White Lies (Don't Do It):
Research shows dopamine has the same effect on the brain as taking cocaine!
A fantastically backward scientific explanation from the transcript of a TV programme on the neuroscience of love.
If you're not familiar with why this is so silly, it's because cocaine has its major effect by altering the dopamine system.
The above explanation is like saying "the economy has the same effect on society as shopping", rather than "shopping affects society via the economy".
—Vaughan.
March 22, 2006
Neuroessentialism:
I'm a bit late to the neuroword party with this one, but here goes:
Neuroessentialism - the belief in, or tactic of, invoking evidence, or merely terms, from neuroscience to justify claims at the psychological level. See also neuromysticism, neurobollocks.
There's a mild example of this in George Lakoff's Don't Think of An Elephant which is an otherwise excellent book:
"One of the fundamental findings of cognitive science is that people think in terms of frames and metaphors - conceptual structures like those we have been describing. The frames are in the synapses of our brains, physically present in the form of neural circuitry. When the facts don't fit the frames, the frames are kept and the facts ignored."
(p73, which you can also view here)
He's talking about frames (psychology). He's advancing a claim that frame-incompatible facts get rejected (psychology). What do the statements 'The frames are in the synapses of our brains, physically present in the form of neural circuitry' add to the argument? Nothing. They do not provide any evidence nor do they even provide any information - everything psychological is represented somehow in the brain, and knowing that conceptual frames exist in neural circuits doesn't help us figure out anything about their properties. The statements are contentless.
There's no need to pick on Lakoff particularly, it is just what I'm reading today. Far more offensive examples of neuroessentialism abound (Brain Gym springs to mind). This is in part because neuroscience is a technical and sexily complicated discipline, and in part because of the mistaken belief that evidence at a lower level of description somehow has explanatory precedence over that at a higher level of description (cf physics envy). Many claims about human psychology are adequately and entirely addressed at the level of behaviour with no need to invoke neuroscientific evidence. Indeed, for many psychological claims neuroscience can add little or nothing to our assessment of their truth. Taking for example this claim that frame-incompatible facts get rejected, knowing that frames are embedded in brain tells us nothing, but even knowing how frames are embedded in the brain may not be as useful as it first appears. Whatever neuroscientific facts we discovered about frames, the final judgement of the truth of this claim would rely on answers to questions such as is it true that frame-incompatible facts tend to get rejected? In what range of circumstances is this true and how can it be affected? The last word would be behavioural evidence, regardless of what information was provided by neuroscience.
—tom.
Inkblots:
This page used to hold a picture and glowing recommendation for Off The Mark Cartoons. However, we received a threatening legal notice from them so we've withdrawn the picture.
We've also withdrawn our recommendation because they seem to think that sending threats for $150,000 dollars, out-of-the-blue, with not so much as an introduction, is an appropriate way to treat their fans.
We think different, so we hope you don't mind us changing a page in our archives.
For those still desperate for some cartoon action, this XKCD cartoon is wonderful.
—Vaughan.
March 21, 2006
Ready for your close up?:
Cognitive Daily has just published two fascinating articles on research showing that the angle at which a police interview is filmed can affect how well people judge whether a confession has been forced.
The first article discusses a study which suggests that coerced confessions are much more likely to be picked up by jurors if they are filmed from the side.
The second looks at an extension of the first study, where the experimenters setup and ran a simulated trial (wow!), and found that the camera angle used to film a suspicious confession could influence the jurors' final verdict.
Interestingly, the researchers used a re-enactment of a real-life interview, from someone who falsely confessed to his girlfriend's murder under police pressure.
Fascinating work and a great write-up, showing the importance of understanding psychological influences in the process of justice.
Link to 'Coerced confessions: Is videotaping part of the problem, or part of the solution?'.
Link to 'Can court procedure mitigate abuse?'.
—Vaughan.
(un)emotional investment:
Here's a spin on the depressive realism story. Shiv et al (2005) found that substance abusers and those with brain damage affecting their emotions had enhanced performance on an investment task. According to the authors of the study, the normal controls were actually distracted from making optimum decisions by their emotional involvement in the task.
'The dark side of emotion in decision-making: When individuals with decreased emotional reactions make more advantageous decisions' Baba Shiv, George Loewenstein and Antoine Bechara. Cognitive Brain Research, 23(1), April 2005, Pages 85-92. summary here
Abstract:
Can dysfunction in neural systems subserving emotion lead, under certain circumstances, to more advantageous decisions? To answer this question, we investigated how individuals with substance dependence (ISD), patients with stable focal lesions in brain regions related to emotion (lesion patients), and normal participants (normal controls) made 20 rounds of investment decisions. Like lesion patients, ISD made more advantageous decisions and ultimately earned more money from their investments than the normal controls. When normal controls either won or lost money on an investment round, they adopted a conservative strategy and became more reluctant to invest on the subsequent round, suggesting that they were more affected than lesion patients and ISD by the outcomes of decisions made in the previous rounds.
Link: a related post at mindhacks.com
—tom.
Neurologism:
The winner of the Neurofuture create-a-new-'neuroword' contest has been announced as the very worthy...
Neurologism: a word created by prefixing "neuro" to almost any normal word.
...coined by Neil H.
—Vaughan.
A retro 'Chinese room' moment:
This video is a 1972 documentary about the beginnings of ARPANET, the forerunner to the modern internet, developed by the U.S. Department of Defense
In one scene, a woman is seen typing Chinese symbols into a computer, echoing a beautifully whimsical scene from John Searle's famous 'Chinese room' thought experiment.
Searle's experiment addresses the question of whether information processing would be sufficient to account for consciousness, and includes people in a room, typing Chinese symbols into a computer.
Link to 'Computer Networks' video (via BoingBoing).
—Vaughan.
March 20, 2006
Neurowords:
Sandra Kiume, founder of the Neurofuture blog has kicked off a tongue-in-cheek competition to coin a new 'neuroword'.
Some of my favourites include the beautifully recursive "neurologism: a word created by prefixing 'neuro' to almost any normal word" (by Neil H) and "neuromanticism: the discipline that investigates neural correlates of love" (by Andrea Gaggioli). My own contribution is "neurosceptic: someone who doubts grand media claims made on behalf of neuroscience".
If you want to enter, you'll need to be quick. The competition closes shortly.
Link to neurowords competition (via Brain Waves).
—Vaughan.
Eliminative materialism on Wikipedia:
The Wikipedia article on eliminative materialism has undergone a radical transformation since the end of January. It is now a clear and comprehensive introduction to one of the most important philosophical approaches to modern cognitive science.
Philosophers, unfortunately, have an image problem. Ask the average person in the street about what philosophers do and you're likely to be informed that they try and work out whether God, reality or each other exist.
In reality, a significant number are involved in the cognitive sciences and are doing some much needed structural work on the foundations.
Philosophy of mind focuses on understanding and testing the foundations of psychology and cognitive science, and is now an essential partner in the bid to explain human thought.
The majority of theories about the mind make assumptions about the sort of mental states we have. Many of these assumptions are taken from everyday language and culture, and are usually described by 'common sense'.
For example, the everyday concept of 'belief' features regularly in scientific explanations of the mind, despite the fact that this concept is often applied so widely in natural language as to be seemingly contradictory in places.
A school of thought called 'eliminative materialism' argues that these 'common-sense' concepts are like the ancient four humours theory of medicine - which said that the body and mind are controlled by levels of 'blood', 'black bile', 'yellow bile' and 'phlegm'.
Although this theory was assumed to be true at the time, modern science hasn't given us an improved explanation of the 'four humours', it has rejected the idea as completely ridiculous.
Eliminative materialism argues that everyday concepts like 'belief' and 'desire' will suffer the same fate because of their inconsistencies, and that theories that use these concepts are ultimately flawed.
Supporters also point to the lack of clear evidence that these everyday concepts are linked to any consistent pattern of brain activity. This might suggest that these concepts are also not supported by other, similarly intentioned, approaches.
If eliminative materialism is accurate, many past theories will have to be re-thought, and how we test, create and think about the mind and brain will change radically.
It is not clear, however, whether it is accurate, and the recently updated Wikipedia page gives an excellent and evolving account of the arguments.
Link to Wikipedia article on eliminative materialism.
—Vaughan.
Week 2 book draw:
If you missed it last week, I posted some thoughts on Mind Performance Hacks, a new book from Ron Hale-Evans and O'Reilly (you can read sample hacks and browse the support site for it).
We managed to get some copies from the publisher, as they also published Mind Hacks, the book this blog spun out from, and last week we gave away 2 copies in a draw. We're doing the same this week, and have another two draws after this.
If you'd like a chance of winning one of 2 copies of Mind Performance Hacks, please send an email to mphdraw at mindhacks dot com. Next Sunday evening, UK time, I'll choose 2 emails randomly and, if you're a winner, I'll be in touch to get your address. Please include your name in the email; if my email to you bounces I'll choose a different one; cheaters will be excluded; organiser's decision is final; void where prohibited; etc. You don't have to be in the UK, and emails are deleted if you're not a winner (if you entered last week and didn't win, you're welcome to enter again).
Please note that the email address is different from last time.
—Matt.
March 19, 2006
Babbage in a bottle:
I went to the Royal College of Surgeons' Hunterian Museum on Saturday.
They have the left hemisphere of Charles Babbage's brain, in a jar, on display.
—Vaughan.
Book draw winners, week 1:
Hey folks, entry to the Mind Performance Hacks free book draw from last Monday is now closed. The email address has now been deactivated, and all that's left to do is randomly select the 2 winners. Here we go (see how I did the selection after the jump)... And congratulations Adrian Neumann and Chris Elliott! I'll be in touch to get your postal addresses. Well done!
Everyone else, thanks for entering, and look out for the next draw tomorrow.
Here are the commands I used on my server to select the winning emails:
matt@truth$ for EMAIL in `find ~/Maildir/.06-03.freemph -print |grep historicalfact\.com`; do cat $EMAIL |formail -x"From " |sed -e "s/\([^ ]*\) .*/\1/"; done |uniq > mphemails
matt@truth$ random -fmphemails | head -n2
(and the two email addresses were printed here.)
—Matt.
These are not my beautiful things!:
Philip K Dick would have loved this kind of stuff:
Capgras syndrome – in which the patient believes their friends and relatives have been replaced by impersonators – was first described in 1923 by the French psychiatrist J.M.J. Capgras in a paper with J. Reboul-Lachaux.
Now Alireza Nejad and Khatereh Toofani at the Beheshti Hospital in Iran have reported an extremely rare variant of Capgras syndrome in which a 55-year-old woman with epilepsy believes her possessions have all been replaced by substitute objects that don’t belong to her. When she buys something new, she immediately feels that it has been replaced.
More on this, and other research news, at the BPS Research Digest (written by Christian Jarret)
—tom.
March 18, 2006
Mind-controlled pong:
A online video purports to show two people playing the classic video game Pong using what looks like an an EEG machine to read electrical activity from the brain.
Although I'm no EEG expert, the kit looks authentic and it's certainly a technically possible feat with the current state of neurofeedback research.
So if anyone can actually verify whether this was genuinely an example of 'mental pong', or knows more about the event being filmed, I'd be interested to find out.
Link to video of 'Berlin Brain Computer Interface'.
—Vaughan.
March 17, 2006
Unwavering love of pharmaceutical companies:
Satirical newspaper The Onion hits the mark with an article on PharmAmorin, "a prescription tablet developed by Pfizer to treat chronic distrust of large prescription-drug manufacturers".
One TV ad, set to debut during next Sunday's 60 Minutes telecast, shows a woman relaxing in her living room and reading a newspaper headlined "Newest Drug Company Scandal Undermines Public Trust." The camera zooms into the tangled neural matter of her brain, revealing a sticky black substance and a purplish gas.
The narrator says, "She may show no symptoms, but in her brain, irrational fear and dislike of global pharmaceutical manufacturers is overwhelming her very peace of mind."
After a brief summary of PharmAmorin's benefits, the commercial concludes with the woman flying a kite across a sunny green meadow, the Pfizer headquarters gleaming in the background.
Link to article 'Wonder Drug Inspires Deep, Unwavering Love Of Pharmaceutical Companies'.
—Vaughan.
2006-03-17 Spike activity:
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Science Central News discusses change blindness (with video demos).
Researchers find that antibiotic D-cycloserine, used to treat tuberculosis, improves recovery rate in psychological treatment for social anxiety.
CBS News has an in-depth article on the science of sexual orientation.
Research suggests that solo exercise may not have the same beneficial effect on the brain as exercising with someone else.
The American Journal of Psychiatry has an article on the potential use of virtual reality to diagnose schizophrenia.
A couple of articles on ADHD:
* The New York Times discusses the potential value of ADHD to 'knowledge economy' works.
* USA Today reports on the use of computer games and neurofeedback as a treatment.
Natural sleep is bimodal - two stretches with a brief wakening in the middle - reports Circadiana.
Drugs which lower blood pressure may significantly reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
Long term users of marijuana have poorer memory function, finds new study.
Antidepressant drugs may be more effective in treating older people, suggest new research.
—Vaughan.
March 16, 2006
Open-access at Cortex Online:
I love Cortex. I'm not referring to my brain (although I do think very highly of it - "my second favourite organ" to quote Woody Allen) but to the neuropsychology journal which has been around since 1965.
Although the website doesn't work properly in Firefox, and all the links seem to open as new windows, these are forgivable foibles (and hopefully fixable ones), as all Cortex papers are published online as open-access articles.
As well as publishing original cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology research, Cortex includes articles on the history and philosophy of mind and brain science.
Like this one on the history of the concept of 'inner speech' and its relationship to the early discoveries in aphasia - the dysfunction of language or speech after brain injury.
There's plenty more gems in the archive.
Link to Cortex Online.
—Vaughan.
USA Memory championship:
Wired has some brief coverage of the USA Memory Championship, which was won by a journalist who entered as research for a book!
This was Foer's first time competing, but he'd covered it as a freelance science journalist, he said. This year, he decided to experience things from the inside as research for a book he’s writing on memory, and was shocked at the results.
"I really did not expect to win," Foer said. "I thought maybe I’d crack the top five."
He practiced for the competition starting in July, and his techniques echoed those used by other contestants. He'd spend five to 10 minutes several times a week trying to memorize the order of playing cards in a deck. He also mentally linked integers from 1 to 100 with images and letters to help in remembering lists of numbers. Thirteen, for example, is his girlfriend, he said.
Link to 'Flexing Brains: Feats of Memory'.
—Vaughan.
March 15, 2006
Churchill in strait-jacket statue taken down:
It looks like the statue of Winston Churchill in a strait-jacket (see previously on Mind Hacks) has been removed by the owners of The Forum - the library and tourism centre where the monument was displayed for three days.
There's more information at the Rethink website, including a downloadable postcard of the statue!
—Vaughan.
A neuroscientist's grief:
Neuroscientist Ruth McKernan was a guest on Radio 4's midweek this morning, talking about her father's death from a mystery illness, and how her scientific background shaped her coping and grief, an experience she has described in her book Billy's Halo. Here's an excerpt from the book's synopsis:
Now, she tells the story of her father's last year as a collection of cutting-edge scientific themes - memory, consciousness, microbes, stem cells - like pearls strung together on the thread of her father's life. The result is an inspired blending of personal emotion, love and grief, with a crystal-clear scientific explanation of the way our brains and bodies work in sickness and in health.
Midweek's host Libby Purves commented that it was clear from McKernan's book that as she wrote about the emotional turmoil of her father's passing, she struggled not to take a scientific perspective. On the contrary, McKernan said she wanted to write an objective, factual account of what happened, but couldn't help her emotions from spilling over into her words.
Link to replay of Midweek on Radio 4 (McKernan was the second guest).
Link to Billy's Halo on Amazon.
—christian.
Sleep drug causes 'sleep driving'?:
AADT have some intriguing coverage on recent concerns that popular sleep drug Ambien is linked to 'sleep driving' and 'sleep eating' in some people.
The issue has recently been covered by the New York Times owing to the increase in people who have had the drug detected in their body by toxicology tests after "bizarre" road traffic accidents.
A registered nurse who lives outside Denver took Ambien before going to sleep one night in January 2003. Sometime later — she says she remembers none of the episode — she got into her car wearing only a thin nightshirt in 20-degree weather, had a fender bender, urinated in the middle of an intersection, then became violent with police officers, according to her lawyer.
The woman, whose lawyer says she previously had a pristine traffic record, eventually pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of careless driving after the prosecutors partly accepted her version of events, said the lawyer, Lloyd L. Boyer.
A further article from the NYT examines a recent study which looked at Ambien users who seemed to compulsively eat while asleep.
Although sleep-walking and related behaviours and relatively common, some researchers suspect that the drug may make them more likely, although no clear explanation for why this might happen is available.
Link to 'Dangers Begin to Surface for Sleep Drugs' from AADT.
Link to NYT article 'Some Sleeping Pill Users Range Far Beyond Bed' (reg free link).
Link to NYT article 'Study Links Ambien Use to Unconscious Food Forays' (reg free link).
—Vaughan.
March 14, 2006
Why can't we choose what makes us happy?:
This from Hsee, C. K. & Hastie, R. (2006). Decision and experience: Why don't we choose what makes us happy? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(1), 31-37
Another common belief is that more choice options are always better. In reality, having more options can lead to worse experiences. For example, if employees are given a free trip to Paris, they are happy; if they are given a free trip to Hawaii, they are happy. But if they are given a choice between the two trips, they will be less happy, no matter which option they choose. Having the choice highlights the relative deficiencies in each option. People who choose Paris complain that ‘Paris does not have the ocean’, whereas people who choose Hawaii complain that ‘Hawaii does not have great museums’ .
(my emphasis)
The reference is:
Luce, M.K. et al. (2001) The impact of emotional tradeoff difficulty on decision behavior. In Conflict and Tradeoffs in Decision Making (Weber, E.U. and Baron, J., eds), pp. 86–109, Cambridge University Press
Seems opportunity cost isn't just something that bothers economists!
—tom.
Amedeo Challenge now open to small donations:
Amedeo Challenge, the site aiming to fund the creation of high-quality open-access medical textbooks, is now taking small and private donations.
On the donations page you can give towards a 'bounty' for the completion of a textbook on a number of different topics.
Medical professionals and researchers can work towards creating books to claim the bounty. So far, online books on HIV and influenza have already been published and bounties are available for books on tuberculosis and viral hepatitis.
Of interest to readers here might be proposed books on Alzheimer's disease, neurology and Parkinson's disease (I've just donated 50 euros towards the creation of an open-access textbook on neurology and can't wait to see it online).
When completed the books will be freely available for online viewing, to print, and will not have restrictions to prevent them from being translated into other languages.
Unfortunately, medical textbooks can be incredibly expensive (50 euros would be a cheap one) which make them inaccessible to many doctors and researchers in economically deprived countries, not to mention impoverished students the world over.
High-quality open-access textbooks would, therefore, be of great advantage to the advancement of medical science and training throughout the world.
Even the smallest donations will be of use.
Spread the word!
Link to Amedeo Challenge.
Link to Amedeo Challenge donations page.
—Vaughan.
Neuroimaging genetics:
Thomas Ramsøy, one of the guys responsible for the Brain Ethics blog, has written a fantastic introduction to the emerging field of 'imaging genetics' for Science and Consciousness Review.
Imaging genetics uses neuroimaging ('brain scanning') to examine the differences in brain activation between people with different versions of a gene, both to understand the interaction between cognition, behaviour and genetics; and to better understand mental distress and psychiatric illness.
Ramsøy uses the example of a gene known as '5-HTTLPR', which codes for the serotonin transporter protein - involved in regulating the concentration of serotonin in the synapse (the 'gap' where neurons connect and communicate chemically).
People who hold different versions of this gene are known to show different levels of anxiety and respond differently to anxiety or fear provoking tasks.
Ramsøy notes that the '5-HTTLPR' genotype can determine how the amygdala reacts to fearful and angry faces, suggesting how this differing anxiety response is supported by brain function.
Psychiatry is increasingly using this approach to identify the 'endophenotypes' of disorders, in an attempt to get away from an understanding of mental illness based largely on self-reported symptoms.
The Science and Consciousness Review article is an excellent introduction to this field, and a forthcoming article in Biological Psychiatry gives a more in-depth treatment for those wanting extra detail
Link to 'How your genes make up your mind' by Thomas Ramsøy.
Link to abstract of Biological Psychiatry article (full article not open access unfortunately).
—Vaughan.
March 13, 2006
What tangled webs we weave:
Carl Zimmer has deleted his post on the controversy surrounding an upcoming TV programme about a Turkish family who walk on 'all fours' (see previously on Mind Hacks).
Presumably, he could do without the headache (and who can blame him?).
Nevertheless, there's a good analysis over at Gene Expression, to which an interesting comment has been added by one of the TV company's production team, explaining Nicholas Humphrey's views more accurately.
Humphrey was widely cited (seemingly incorrectly) as the person suggesting that the inherited problem in the family caused an 'evolutionary regression'. It seems his actual analysis is a lot more measured.
—Vaughan.
Mind Performance Hacks:
While I've been away, I've been reading Mind Performance Hacks by Ron Hale-Evans. (Full disclosure: There are a couple of Mind Hacks pieces in the book, so O'Reilly sent me a free copy.) What follows are some brief thoughts, so if you already know about the book then skip to the end of the post for the interesting bit.
MPH is O'Reilly's second foray into the cognitive world, and focuses on strategies in high-level areas like memory, creativity and self-analysis. I especially enjoyed the the maths chapter, which includes topics like how to count to a million on your fingers (I've tried dactylonomy before) and how to estimate square roots in your head. The approach does mean that, for some of the hacks, there's little room for the kind of explanation I usually look for, and I do admit to feeling sceptical when reading about a creativity technique from Edward de Bono or a mnemonic structure for figuring out your own emotional responses. Personally, I find some hacks like these are based on world-views that I find difficult to swallow whole--I don't know whether independent assessments of the techniques exist, but if they do then I'd like to hear more about them. Happily, since the book is based on the Mentat Wiki (that's the book's support page), which is constantly growing, it's quite likely that this kind of information will appear there in the future.
Our own Vaughan Bell and Tom Stafford have original hacks in MPH too, on sleep and nutrition. I'd forgotten they were making an appearance, for some reason, and it was a pleasant surprise to run across the familiar names and always-informative articles.
For me, the highlights were the ideas I'd run across but not chased down, and these had me reaching for my notebook. There's discussion and much linking on artificial languages, constrained writing and board games, among much more. From this perspective, the entire book is a creativity machine. I can use it as a series of provocations, and that's always good to have on the shelf. (And, as a last thought, I half-suspect that the fact the title abbreviates to MPH (for miles-per-hour) is not an accident. Hale-Evans comes across as an author with exactly this kind of intertwingled sense of humour.)
(Update: Ron points out, in the comments, that there are MPH sample hacks online (as PDFs). Do have a read.)
Free books!
As you'll know, mindhacks.com isn't an O'Reilly site. It was started to support the Mind Hacks book, that's true, but since then it's taken on a life of its own, thanks to our blog authors.
We do, however, have enough of a connection to wangle free copies of Mind Performance Hacks. More than that, we have enough free books to give away 2 copies a week for the next 4 weeks.
So: If you'd like a chance of a free copy of Mind Performance Hacks, send one email to freemph at mindhacks dot com. Next Sunday evening, UK time, I'll choose 2 emails randomly and, if you're a winner, I'll be in touch to get your address. Please include your name in the email; if my email to you bounces I'll choose a different one; cheaters will be excluded; organiser's decision is final; void where prohibited; etc.
Next Monday, I'll delete all the emails received so far and we'll have another draw. Not bad eh?
Good luck!
(Update: I thought I'd better confirm that you don't have to be in the UK to enter - anywhere in the world is fine - and I'm the only person who will see your email address (except if you win, obviously. All other emails will be deleted at the end of the draw).)
—Matt.
Start of brain awareness week:
Today is the start of Brain Awareness Week with a number of events happening across the globe.
Your local college, university or science museum might be putting on public events about the mind and brain, and encouraging lively debate and participation.
The Brain Awareness Week website also has plenty of resources, including everything from in-depth educational materal to puzzles and quizzes for younger children.
Link to Brain Awareness Week website.
—Vaughan.
The creative brain and outsider art:
ABC Radio National's All in the Mind has had a couple of related editions over the last couple of weeks that have tackled the psychology and neuroscience of creative thought.
Psychiatrist and one-time english literature professor Nancy Andreasan discusses the neuroscience of creativity and whether genius is related to particular brain states or measurable mental attributes.
The most recent All in the Mind continues the theme, discussing 'Outsider art' - artworks created by those who have had no formal training and often little or no contact with the mainstream art world.
'Outsider art' is often associated with people who experience mental illness, particularly psychosis, and the programme features artist Anthony Mannix who has been inspired by his experience of altered states.
One of the most famous historical examples is Adolf Wölfli, a troubled orphan who ended up in a Swiss asylum at an early age, but began creating books of visual art, music and text that he would continue to develop for the rest of his life.
We've featured previous posts on outsider art here and here on Mind Hacks.
The Creating Brain
mp3 or realaudio of programme.
Link to transcript.
Outsider Art
mp3 or realaudio of programme.
Link to transcript.
—Vaughan.
March 12, 2006
Marshall smurf:
I just found this great three-panel comic strip from Partially Clips that made me laugh out loud.
It looks like a case of iatrogenic paraphasia, perhaps induced by an accidental lesion to the temporal lobe?
I've just realised I'm diagnosing cartoon characters. I think I need to get out more.
Link to 'Brain surgeon' comic strip from Partially Clips (thanks John!).
—Vaughan.
March 11, 2006
Churchill in a straitjacket:
As part of an anti-stigma campaign, mental health charity Rethink has unveiled a statue of Winston Churchill in a strait-jacket, to highlight the great war-leader's struggles with mental illness.
Churchill was subject to severe bouts of clinical depression throughout his life (which he called his "black dog"). Despite these, he managed to lead and inspire millions of people through the difficult years of World War Two.
Demonstrating that there's still some way to go before stigma is eradicated, the headline in one UK national daily newspaper, the Daily Express, is "Insult to Britain's Greatest Hero".
This leads me to ask, what is so insulting about the image? Actually putting someone in a strait-jacket is insulting, but depicting them in one is something quite different.
Although an outdated cliché, the strait-jacket symbolises mental illness to many people and the statue is just meant to emphasise Churchill's experience of mental distress
I've personally used Churchill as an example of hope to many patients I've met in psychiatric hospital and it usually comes as a surprise that he was mentally ill.
Hopefully, the controversy has served its purpose and more people are now aware that great things can come from troubled minds.
Link to 'Churchill sculpture sparks uproar' from BBC News.
—Vaughan.
March 10, 2006
Post-traumatic growth:
Trauma has been traditionally considered as intrinsically pathological. Some psychologists are now arguing that although damaging, the experience of trauma can also inspire some people to change in positive ways.
The concept has been named 'post-traumatic growth' and is the subject of significant debate among contemporary researchers and clinicians.
The debate is covered in a recent article for Psychology Today where proponents of both sides of the argument make their case.
The article relates the experience of trauma to activities such as ultra-marathon running where competitors may run hundreds of miles and push themselves to physical and psychological exhaustion in an attempt to achieve new goals.
A slightly more weighty article on the topic appeared in a 2004 article in the Psychiatric Times where psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun aimed to explain how such personal development could occur after extreme experiences.
One thing which is still not clear, is how many people experience 'post-traumatic growth' and whether it is more than optimistic thinking after the event, as research into the phenomenon is still relatively thin on the ground.
Link to Psychology Today article "The Hidden Side of Happiness".
Link to Psychiatric Times article "Posttraumatic Growth: A New Perspective on Psychotraumatology".
—Vaughan.
Some theories are more equal than others:
There's a storm brewing on Carl Zimmer's blog The Loom over an upcoming documentary about a family that walks on 'all fours' - which some have claimed is the result of a genetic mutation that causes evolutionary regression.
Those with their heads more firmly screwed on suggest that it could result from inherited abnormalities to the cerebellum which has a significant role in supporting movement and balance.
There are now accusations that the family involved were paid off, and that other scientists weren't allowed access to the family members, and tempers are starting to fray.
The discussion is ongoing.
Link to post and discussion on Carl Zimmer's The Loom (see point 3).
Link to coverage of the story on World Science.
—Vaughan.
2006-03-10 Spike activity:
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
PBS have an online documentary about anorexia called 'Dying to be thin'.
PsyBlog discusses how we maintain a sense of identity when we live regulated lives.
BBC Radio 4's science programme Leading Edge discusses Stroke, transcranial magnetic stimulation and aggression.
Blogger records the recent LSD symposium in honour of Albert Hoffman.
Science News suggests ways to optimises the brain in two parts: 1) Exercise; 2) Nutrition.
The New York Times discusses recent genetic evidence that humans are still evolving.
Happiness is a false memory says an engaging article by Mixing Memory.
Nature discusses the light and colour-based art work of Dan Flavin.
Leading scientist of the Human Genome Project expects genes 'governing' personality to be found.
Consciousness continues to baffle psychoanalysts says Psychiatric News (who doesn't it baffle?).
—Vaughan.
March 09, 2006
Simple ways to make yourself cynical:
Why do I have a bad feeling about the upcoming BBC series Get Smarter in a Week? It's discussed in this article in The Guardian.
Is it because it claims that 'brain exercises' can make someone '40% cleverer' in a week (whatever that's supposed to mean), or perhaps because this claim is based on a trial of 15 volunteers with no control group?
Control groups are essential because people can improve due to non-specific effects (such as the placebo effect or the Pygmalion effect) where simply being involved with people trying to help you can have a beneficial effect - regardless of how effective the actual treatment is.
Looking at the advice recounted in The Guardian article, it mostly seems quite sensible if continued in the long term, i.e. practising mental skills, eating well and staying fit (although I'm not sure there's much evidence that having a shower with your eyes closed in likely to improve the mind in any significant way).
I suspect, however, that most people will come away from the programme with the idea that doing these activities for only a week will cause a permanent improvement in their intelligence.
One of the best ways of making yourself 'cleverer' is to understand how to evaluate scientific claims, particularly when they're used as ideas for TV programmes.
Of course, this may all be hype before 'Get Smarter in a Week' hits the airwaves, but I'd question the use of misleading scientific claims to promote a popular science programme.
Anyway, I look forward to being pleasantly surprised (or not).
In the meantime, the best bets for sharpening your mental abilities are: eat healthily, exercise regularly, stay mentally active.
Oh, and consider watching less TV (see also this pdf). Strangely, that's one they forgot to mention.
Link to uncritical Guardian article on 'Get Smarter in a Week'.
—Vaughan.
If only I'd listened to my mother (and W.H.Auden):
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.
- W.H. Auden, 'Under Which Lyre'
Full text here
—tom.
Classic R.D. Laing documentary online:
Asylum, a 1972 documentary filmed in the therapeutic community established by radical psychiatrist R.D. Laing, is available for download via this bittorrent tracker.
Laing wanted to establish a community for helping those who were experiencing mental distress without recourse to the uneven power balances present in mainstream psychiatry, where patients can be forcibly detained or drugged.
The result was the Archway Community, where residents were free to come and go and lived together with psychiatrists.
The film is largely without a narrative structure and simply captures some of the people and situations that occur during a seven week period.
The first thing that struck me was how bleak, chaotic and depressing it looked, far from the utopian vision of its founder. The residents are treated with respect, however, and are genuinely listened to, although the surroundings can hardly be described as luxurious.
The film is quite difficult to get hold of, so finding it online is a rare treat.
It isn't necessarily an easy film to watch, although it gives a fascinating insight into one of the most influential and misunderstood people and projects from the heyday of radical psychiatry.
The film shouldn't be confused with the other 1972 Asylum which was a low budget horror flick starring Peter Cushing and Britt Ekland.
Link to webpage with torrent of movie.
Link to information about the film.
Link to Wikipedia page on Bittorrent.
—Vaughan.
March 08, 2006
Can science explain religion?:
Daniel Dennett’s been at it again, this time in a juicy online Prospect debate with Richard Swinburne (pictured right), Emeritus Nolloth professor of the Philosophy of the Christian religion at the University of Oxford. In the debate Swinburne suggests science can’t begin to study religion without first acknowledging that God exists. Dennett argues that religions might well be a nice way of explaining what’s happened so far, but they’re not useful for furthering our understanding of the natural world because they don’t make any meaningful, testable predictions. But according to Swinburne that’s not what science is all about. Hmm…
A few excerpts:
Swinburne: “So why are the most general laws of the multiverse as they are? Why do all particles behave in exactly the same way as each other, so as together ultimately to produce human life? This enormous coincidence in particle behaviour requires explaining. I've got a good theory which explains it [God]; you haven't”.
Dennett: “From my perspective, your imaginative attempt at an inference to the best explanation is telling for the one thing it lacks: a single striking prediction. That's why it can't be taken seriously as a contender against a purely secular and materialist theory of cosmic and biological and cultural evolution”.
Swinburne: “I don't think that it is in any way important that science should make predictions”.
Link to earlier post about science explaining religion.
Link to earlier post about Prospect debate on whether science can explain mental illness.
Link to event at At-Bristol Imax next Weds, where Dennett, Swinburne and others will be debating science and religion.
Make a real day of it and check out their Your Amazing Brain exhibition while you're there.
—christian.
Women in mind:
Today is International Women's Day, where the achievements of women are celebrated, which seems particularly appropriate in the cognitive sciences as there is a strong tradition of female participation.
In fact, the majority of cognitive scientists are women and most males will find themselves outnumbered on psychology and neuroscience courses.
This is, perhaps, because there are some strong female role models who have made a huge impact on the understanding of human thought and behaviour.
One of my many female heroes is neuropsychologist Professor Elizabeth Warrington, who published her first paper in 1962, and, although now officially retired, is still heavily involved in research and is publishing regularly.
Warrington was one of the most influential figures in the development of cognitive neuropsychology and helped define the field during its emergence in the 1970s and 1980s.
Many of the standard clinical assessments of cognitive function were created by her, which are now crucial components of clinical assessment after brain injury.
Link to Royal Society Fellowship Citation for Elizabeth Warrington.
Link to PubMed entries for Elizabeth Warrington.
—Vaughan.
Is 'theory of mind' impaired in autism?:
The claim that people with autism have an impaired 'theory of mind' (that is, they are supposedly not able to imagine what other people are thinking) is one of the most commonly repeated 'facts' about the condition.
This typically infuriates people with autism, especially when it gets translated into the more everyday, and, perhaps, even less accurate claim, that autism involves a 'lack of empathy'.
It is now being challenged by researchers, such as Professor Morton Gernsbacher, who are comparing the performance of participants with autism on experimental tests of 'theory of mind' with individuals who do not have autism but do have similar problems in understanding language.
Gernsbacher is interviewed in a short section on BBC Radio 4's science programme Leading Edge (starts 15 minutes into the realaudio stream) where she explains that apparent 'theory of mind' problems may be due to participants with autism not always understanding the complexity of the verbal instructions in tests such as the 'Sally-Anne' task.
Gernsbacher claims that in 'theory of mind' tests that use drawing, rather than verbal interaction, autistic children actually do better than non-autistic children.
This echoes findings from studies on non-autistic deaf children (pdf) who seem to show 'theory of mind' impairments if they suffer problems with language development, but not if they become fluent in sign-language.
Link to description of 'theory of mind'.
Link to Leading Edge webpage for 23rd Feb edition (via Autism Diva).
Realaudio of programme (section starts 15 minutes in).
Link to flash heavy website of Morton Gernsbacher's lab.
PDF of 'Insights into theory of mind from autism and deafness' by Peterson and Siegal.
—Vaughan.
March 07, 2006
Marketing anxiety:
I recently went to a talk by Professor Nikolas Rose where he noted that for £8,000 you can buy a report entitled 'Anxiety Disorders: More Than Just a Comorbidity' from an online business intelligence company.
The report will apparently allow you to "assess the size of the drug-treated population", "target physicians more effectively" and "identify commercial opportunities".
An excerpt:
Anxiety disorders are considered the most prevalent of psychiatric disorders. However, poor diagnosis rates and treatment outcomes mean that there is still considerable scope for manufacturers to move into the anxiety market.
Yes, you read that right, it genuinely uses the phrase "anxiety market".
It even promotes investment in 'awareness campaigns' (i.e. astroturfing) as a way of 'maximising revenues' in the drugs market.
Psychiatric drugs are a useful option for treating mental distress, although many professionals consider them over-used and over-promoted, particularly in light of the fact that the treatment with the longest duration of effect for anxiety disorders is cognitive behavioural therapy rather than medication (see pdf of NICE guidelines).
Unfortunately, the business intelligence report mentioned above reflects exactly the sort of approach to healthcare that makes people cynical of the mental health system.
Link to NICE review on treatment of anxiety disorders.
Link to report summary 'Anxiety Disorders: More Than Just a Comorbidity'.
—Vaughan.
Neurology of headache:
BBC Radio 4's medical programme Check Up just had a special on the most common neurological symptom - headache.
Neurologist Professor Peter Goadsby joins the programme to explain the current science and treatments. One particular focus is cluster headaches which are a particularly severe form that are notorious for beginning without warning.
As well as tackling the neuroscience of the various conditions, Professor Goadsby also passes on straightforward advice for managing and preventing headache in those who are susceptible.
Link to Check Up webpage on Headaches edition.
Realaudio of programme.
—Vaughan.
March 06, 2006
A Darwinian tiff:
This had me in stitches. Apparently Darwinian philosopher Daniel Dennett (who's out and about promoting his new book) has fallen out with fellow Darwinian, British-Born philosopher Michael Ruse. Ruse warns against taking evolutionary theory too far, so that it becomes an argument for atheism. Anyway, during the tiff (see here for detail) Dennett emailed Ruse suggesting he was being enlisted by the dark side. So Ruse replied:
"I am a full professor with tenure at a university known chiefly for its prowess on the football field, living out my retirement years in the sunshine – I have no reputation to preserve, and frankly can say and do whatever the fuck I want to without sinking further”.
“I am a hardline Darwinian and always have been very publicly… in fact I am more hardline than you are, because I don’t buy into this meme bullshit but put everything…in the language of genes".
Reflecting on the fall out, Ruse apparently had this to say:
“I think he [Dan Dennett] finds it very difficult when people don’t say to him ‘you were fantastic. Can I warm the bog seat for you before you take a crap?’”.
Link to Guardian article where I read about this.
Link to William Dembski's blog - he's an Intelligent Design Creationist who first made the saga public.
—christian.
Thinking with a damaged brain:
Journalist Floyd Skoot has written an insightful article for Lost Magazine about his experiences of virus-induced brain damage and the curious effects it has had on his speech, movement and mathematical ability.
Skoot interlaces personal experience with his wide reading in the cognitive sciences to bring alive the generalities and clinical detachment typically found in neurological textbooks.
In their fascinating study, Brain Repair, an international trio of neuroscientists — Donald G. Stein from America, Simon Brailowsky from Mexico, and Bruno Will from France — report that after injury "both cortical and subcortical structures undergo dramatic changes in the pattern of blood flow and neural activity, even those structures that do not appear to be directly or primarily connected with the zone of injury." From this observation, they conclude that "the entire brain — not just the region around the area of damage — reorganizes in response to brain injury." The implications of this are staggering; my entire brain, the organ by which my very consciousness is controlled, was reorganized one day ten years ago. I went to sleep here and woke up there; the place looked the same but nothing in it worked the way it used to.
It's rare to find such a carefully considered and well-informed account of brain damage from someone who has suffered the consequences.
One other source, however, is a book called Injured Brains of Medical Minds where medical people, including some neuroscientists and psychologists, discuss their own experience of brain injury. The book covers 120 years of accounts, with some only attributed to 'anonymous'.
Link to article 'Thinking with a damaged brain'.
Link to information on book 'Injured Brains of Medical Minds'.
—Vaughan.
March 05, 2006
the endowment effect & marketing:
The endowment effect is that we value more highly what we already have. It's a variation on the status quo bias that we talk about in Mind Hacks (Hack #74). This cognitive bias is of particular interest to economists, because it has implications for how eonomies work. If it is strongly in effect then people will trade less than is required to bring about the optimal resource allocation that free market's are theoretically capable of. The most famous demonstration of the endowment effect directly addresses the operation of the endowment effect in a market trading situation [1] - showing that even though preferences for a small arbitrary item (a coffee mug) are randomly distributed, if you give half of the group one and allow them to trade less trading happens than you would predict. In other words more people want to hold on to their mug now they've got one, than people without a mug want to get hold of one. The preferences of the group have been realigned according to initial resource distribution.
This is all relevant to marketing, as well as economics of course. You can see why car-salespeople are keen for you to take a test-drive before you purchase, or why shops are happy to offer a money-back-with-no-questions-asked option. You figure the money-back option into your cost-benefit calculation about whether to take something home, but once you've got it home your preferences realign - that item is now "yours", so you're far less likely to take it back to the shop, even if it doesn't turn out to be as good as you thought when you bought it.
Refs and Links:
[1] Kahneman, D., J.L. Knetsch and R.H. Thaler (1990). Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem. Journal of Political Economy. link
Wikipedia: The Endowment effect: : link
Experienced traders can overcome the endowment effect : Economist article
References at behaviouralfinance.net
[Cross-posted at idiolect.org.uk]
—tom.
March 04, 2006
Excellent All in the Mind on epilepsy:
Last week's edition of ABC Radio National's All in the Mind was an excellent programme on the science, experience and treatment of epilepsy.
The programme talks to several neurologists about what causes the curious condition and how it is being treated.
Also featured on the programmme is Gail Williams, a 16 year old girl who had epilepsy since the age of 4, an experience which included seeing unusual hallucinations before she lost consciousness.
Gail's epilepsy was particularly serious, and was eventually given brain surgery which has since stopped her seizures. She describes the experience of the surgery and life before and after epilepsy.
This is one of the most comprehensive and engaging programmes I've yet heard on the condition. Half an hour well spent.
mp3 or realaudio of programme.
Link to transcript.
Link to Epilepsy Action information pages.
—Vaughan.
