Month: October 2008

Apologies for the lack of posts, but I’ve just arrived in Punto Fijo in Venezuela, as I’ve kindly been invited to be a guest of the Venezuelan Psychiatric Society at their annual conference, where I shall be talking about the cognitive neuropsychiatry of psychosis later in the week.

Unfortunately it’s dark and I’ve been travelling since yesterday, so all I know about Punto Fijo is that it is supposed to be remarkably beautiful and it’s incredibly humid.

However, I spent a fantastic day in Caracas with Jorge, a superb colleague from Medellín, and Jose and Claudia, a Venezuelan psychiatrist and psychologist couple who graciously toured us through the city and showed two weary travellers some warm Venezuelan Hospitality.

Updates to follow shortly (after some well deserved sleep).

I recently got back from the Colombian Congress of Psychiatry and was incredibly impressed both by the high standard of scientific work and the wonderfully welcoming people I met.

I have to say, I didn’t see quite as much of the conference as I normally would owing to the rather relentless pace of partying that seems to occur in Bogot√° (things I haven’t seen at UK psychiatry conferences: the president of the national psychiatric association stood atop a table getting everyone to wave their hands in the air like they just don’t care).

For me, one of the academic highlights was actually from a Spaniard, Julio Sanju√°n, who talked about some innovative research he’s doing on auditory hallucinations.

In one elegant study, Sanju√°n and his team decided to look at what sort of brain activation is triggered by neutral and emotional words in patients with schizophrenia who hear voices.

It’s remarkably how many studies in schizophrenia have been done of changes in visual perception when one of the major problems for many people with the diagnosis is that they hear intrusive and unpleasant hallucinated voices.

Sanju√°n came up with the idea of simply looking at how the brains of people with schizophrenia react to hearing emotional words (such as swear words) compared to neutral words – matched for word type and frequency.

The image on the right shows the remarkable difference, whereby emotional words cause a much larger response in the brain. In fact, they found they triggered much greater frontal lobe, temporal cortex, insula, cingulate, and amygdala activity, largely on the right.

It’s a ‘why didn’t I think of that’ study that might help explain why people with schizophrenia often find their voices so disabling when other people in the population can hear voices and remain undisturbed.

In terms of drug company ridiculousness that often appears as part of the ‘educational effort’ in European Conferences (i.e. models on bikes), it was remarkably muted in comparison.

However, one particular lowlight was finding out the session I was speaking at was being used by Janssen to advertise their ‘new’ antipsychotic paliperidone – which is actually little more than a repackaged risperidone.

Did I mention risperidone has just gone out of patent and can now be produced much more cheaply by other drug companies? Obviously nothing at all to do with Janssen having a newly patented drug to sell I’m sure.

Wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care.

Link to Sanju√°n study on emotional word reactivity.
Link to PubMed entry for same.

I’ve just watched part two of Adam Curtis‘ series on the relationship between memory and the history of the 20th century where he explores the link between brain washing, the emergence of cognitive science and the politics of the cold war.

Curtis is a documentary maker who is particularly interested in the link between psychology and history and creates gripping programmes that are always thought-provoking even if you don’t agree with all of his analysis.

He has a gift for finding archive material and this programme is no exception where he finds film footage from previously secret research programmes.

The programme is actually from his 1995 series The Living Dead which tackles the relationship between memory and the political manipulation of history.

The first part is about how the ‘official’ memory of the Second World War was created – a process psychologists call ‘social remembering‘. Essentially, the social psychology of how we construct history, either on the scale of cultures, subcultures or families.

However, the second part focuses specifically on the rise of cognitive science and how theories of memory during the 50s and 60s were key to some of the Cold War efforts to research and create ‘brain washing’ and other mind manipulation techniques.

Curtis is probably best known to psychologists for his remarkably 2002 series Century of the Self where he tracked the Freudian idea of the self as one of the major social influences of the 20th century.

Virtually all of Curtis’ programmes are available on Google Video and they’re fantastic viewing. One of the few people who can genuinely said to be making powerful intellectual arguments on psychology through the medium of video.

Link to part two of The Living Dead.

Philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel and psychologist Fiery Cushman have designed a ‘Moral Sense Test‘ that asks respondents for their takes on various moral dilemmas so they can compare the responses of philosophers and non-philosophers.

You may recognise Schwitzgebel’s name as he writes The Splintered Mind blog that we often link to, owing to his talent for great ideas and explaining philosophy of mind in a compelling and eye-catching manner.

He’s been involved in project comparing the intuitions of philosophers and non-philosophers for a while now, and he’s now asking that you take part in the research.

The test takes about 15-20 minutes and has a number of interesting moral dilemmas for you to ponder.

Link to the ‘Moral Sense Test’.

Today’s Nature has an interesting review of a new book, called Albion Dreaming, on the history of LSD in the UK. The book also has a slightly ramshackle but wonderfully engrossing website which is full of fascinating information on LSD.

The site has a great collection of quotes by famous Britons where they describe their experiences with LSD. One of the most eloquent is by the actor, writer and general all round good chap, Stephen Fry, where he writes in his autobiography:

I don’t know if you have ever taken LSD, but when you do so the doors of perception, as Aldous Huxley, Jim Morrison and their adherents ceaselessly remind us, swing open wide. That is actually the sort of phrase, unless you are William Blake that only makes sense when there is some LSD swimming about inside you. In the cold light of the cup of coffee and banana sandwich that are beside me now it appears to be nonsense, but I expect you know what it is taken to mean.

LSD reveals the whatness of things, their quiddity, their essence. The wateriness of water is suddenly revealed to you, the carpetness of carpets, the woodness of wood, the yellowness of yellow, the fingernailness of fingernails, the allness of all, the nothingness of all, the allness of nothing. For me music gives access to every one of these essences of existence, but at a fraction of the social or financial cost of a drug and without the need to cry ‘Wow!’ all the time, which is one of LSD’s most distressing and least endearing side-effects.

The review notes that Albion Dreaming discusses how the UK played quite a significant role in the LSD revolution of the 1960s.

In fact, at one point, half the world’s LSD was produced in the UK before the production was smashed by Operation Julie. The BBC has a fantastic website about the history of Op Julie that talks to some of the key figures and discusses the legendary trip-impeding police operation.

Link to Nature review of Albion Dreaming.
Link to Albion Dreaming website.
Link to BBC website on Operation Julie.