Month: July 2005

Last Tuesday saw a new series of the BBC version of All in the Mind hit the airwaves.

It’s broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and hosted by psychiatrist Raj Persaud, and is quite separate from the ABC Radio National version – also called All in the Mind – just to add to the confusion.

The BBC version has a different format to the Radio National All in the Mind, as it typically covers several topics in one week, sacrificing depth for breadth and variety.

All of the editions of the BBC programme are archived on the website as realaudio streams, and the first programme covers the psychology of negotation, happiness and a relatively new method of brain scanning called magnetoencephalography or MEG.

Link to BBC Radio 4 ‘All in the Mind’ website with realaudio archive.

The latest issue of the History of Psychiatry journal contains an article by psychologist Jay Joseph, discussing a disturbing debate in a 1942 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, over whether the ‘feebleminded’ should be killed.

The debate was held between neurologist Robert Foster Kennedy, one-time president of the American Neurological Association, and psychiatrist Leo Kanner, famous for his work on autism.

In an article entitled ‘The problem of social control of the congenital defective: education, sterilization and euthanasia’, Kennedy made the argument that ‘defective’ or ‘feebleminded’ children, reaching the age of five, should be examined by a medical review board and if found to have ‘no future or hope of one’, should be killed, suposedly for the good of society.

Kanner argued strongly against this position in a reply entitled ‘Exoneration of the feebleminded’, although Joseph notes that he did believe sterilisation was appropriate for those ‘intellectually or emotionally unfit to rear children’.

Perhaps most shocking was an unsigned editorial in the same issue, siding with Kennedy’s ideas in the debate.

Joseph is a stark critic of genetic research into mental illness, and so perhaps it is not surprising that he finishes the article warning that such research could support similar views today.

Whatever you think of Joseph’s take on the issue, however, it is surprising to learn that respected clinicians in America were supporting eugenics during the the time of World War Two.

Link to summary of the paper ‘The 1942 ‚Äòeuthanasia‚Äô debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry’.

The U.K.’s Office of Science and Technology Foresight programme has published a free report “Drugs Futures 2025?” that seeks answers to how we can best manage the use of psychoactive substances in the future for the betterment of society. The report points to three areas that will be affected by our rapidly growing understanding of how substances act in the brain: treatment for mental health, drug addiction and the use of cognitive enhancers like modafinil and ritalin. The report draws on 15 state-of-the-science reviews, from experimental psychology, to genomics, to social policy that are also free to download.

For the third week in a row, New Scientist is full of mind and brain articles. This week, a special on the science of lying and deception.

The issue covers the psychology of lying, but also deception in the wider sense.

Mediums and fortune tellers are put under the spotlight. Even if some mediums are genuine, there must be many who aren’t, and yet still seem successful to their clients. One article analyses ‘cold reading’ and considers the techniques that could be used to give the impression of supernatural insight.

Another article looks at the psychology of stage magic, and the interview puts Derren Brown, television mind-manipulator (and Bristol University psychology graduate), in the hot seat.

Also for the third week in a row, none of the article are online, so it’s hard cash or the library for this one.

Link to New Scientist contents.

Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, is to give a lecture to an international neuroscience conference, despite protests from some of the delegates.

His lecture on the neuroscience of meditation, and participation in a discussion on the ‘Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation’, is planned for the prestigious annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience, to be held in Washington DC in November.

The Dali Lama has a longstanding interest in neuroscience, having founded the Mind and Life Institute, to promote dialogue between science and buddhism.

The Institute has regular meetings between the Buddhist leader and leading neuroscientists, which has resulted in research collaborations and a number of books that have included transcripts and analyses of the gatherings.

His talk also comes at a time when therapies based on Buddhist ‘mindfulness’ techniques are being found to be increasingly effective for treating physical and mental distress in well-controlled scientific studies.

Some potential delegates are protesting his appearance, however, suggesting science and religion should not be mixed and declaring his views to be in ‘poor scientific taste’. Neuroscientist Jianguo G. Gu has reportedly started a petition against the Dalai Lama’s lecture.

The Society for Neuroscience have defended their decision and noted that the Dalai Lama will not be talking about ‘religion or politics’.

Link to Guardian article ‘Plan for Dalai Lama lecture angers neuroscientists’
PDF (5.5Mb) of programme for Society for Neuroscience Annual conference. Details of Dalai Lama’s participation on p8 and p27.
Link to Mind and Life Institute.
Link to scientific paper ‘Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice’.
Link to information on mindfulness therapy from Cambridge University’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit.

BBC One is showing a television programme on Wednesday 27th July at 9pm on the work of neurosurgen Chris Chandler, as he completes an operation to prevent life threatening seizure in a 19 year-old woman.

19-year-old Sarah has epilepsy and suffers over 20 fits a day. Harry is seven, and his fits are so severe they can stop him breathing. Surgery is their only hope of a normal life, but the risks are high.

Brain surgeon Chris Chandler, who works at King’s College Hospital in London, is one of only a handful of surgeons able to perform this complex surgery. Their lives are in his hands.

UPDATE: BBC News has a story about the programme online.

Link to BBC TV listing.

ABC Radio’s All in the Mind has so many good shows, we almost require a permanent feed. This week is no exception with an excellent edition on ‘An Intimate History of the Unconscious’.

Our minds are wayward beasts. Many of the quirks of our conscious experience go unexplained. Could our conscious mind be but the tip of an iceberg, underpinned by the seething underbelly of the unconscious? Freud famously thought so. The Ancients appealed to gods, the gremlins and the underworld to explain our strange ways. Cognitive scientist Guy Claxton has unearthed the unconscious throughout history. Despite the exciting triumphs of neuroscience, he argues that mystical metaphors of the hidden mind still have their place.

Guy Claxton has written a book on the same topic, entitled The Wayward Mind: An Intimate History of the Unconscious, and shares some of the insights he discovered while writing it.

mp3 or realaudio to programme audio.
Link to transcript.

This week’s New Scientist has a mixed bag of articles on psychology and neuroscience, covering the effects of amphetamine on the brain, and developments in understanding chronic fatigue syndrome, anosognosia and suicide bombers.

The effects of amphetamine are a hot topic at the moment, owing to recent sharp increases in its use, illegally – in the form of street speed, particularly methamphetamine or ‘crystal meth’, and on prescription – in the form or dexamphetamine and ADHD drug Adderall.

New Scientist has one of its lead articles on the debates over the potential damaging effects of amphetamine, and what this means for recreational users and the millions of children prescribed amphetamine-like drugs.

One worry is a lack of long-term studies into the effects of using such stimulant drugs in childhood, on adult health and functioning.

Another, shorter article, in the same issue, discusses a condition called anosognosia, where a brain-injured patient may be unaware of, or seem to deny, sometimes quite striking disabilities – for example, being blind or paralysed.

Other short articles tackle the social psychology of terrorism and the role of intra-group declarations of commitment in motivating suicide bombers, and recent findings on contributory genes for the still, largely mysterious, chronic fatigue syndrome.

None of the articles are online (grumble grumble), but your local library may have it if your newsagent doesn’t.

Link to New Scientist contents page.