Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Why does the concept of ‘schizophrenia’ still persist? Great post from Psychodiagnosticator.
Nature reviews two new movies on notorious psychology experiments: the Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s conformity experiments.
Can the thought of money make people more conservative? Another social priming effect bites the dust Neuroskeptic with a great analysis.
The Psychologist has a transcript of a recent ‘teenagers debunked’ talk at the Latitude Festival.
Oliver Sack’s excellent biography On The Move serialised on BBC Radio 4. Streaming only, online for a month only, but definitely worth it.
Science reports a new study finding that the ‘rise in autism’ is likely due to diagnostic substitution as intellectual disability diagnoses have fallen by the same amount.
Great piece in the New England Journal of Medicine on placebo effects in medicine.
The New York Times has an op-ed on ‘Psychiatry’s Identity Crisis’.
Brain Crash is an innovative online documentary from the BBC where you have to piece together a car crash and brain injury for other people’s memories.
Gamasutra has an absolutely fascinating piece on innovative behavioural approaches to abusive gamers.
Mind Hacks 
Apropos of none of the above: I know researchers are starting to take notice of asexual people – that is, people who don’t experience sexual attraction, or who only experience in limited ways or circumstances.
However, I’ve also met many people online who identify as aromantic: they don’t experience romantic attraction – for example, the desire to date someone – or might only experience it rarely or in certain ways. The lack of interest in crushes, boy/girlfriends, and so on is a profound part of an aromantic’s personality and life.
Would you happen to know of any research into aromantic people?
Spendng too much time on tumblr are we?
Thank heavens for Tumblr, where I was finally able to make sense of a lifetime’s confusing feelings and experiences by meeting others who share them – including the common experience of being jeered at by the ignorant.
Understanding myself better in this way has not just been a great relief, but is helpful in my marriage, which has been impacted by the difference in my spouse’s and my romantic feelings.
The next step is to learn how and why I and others more or less lack the desire for romance (as opposed to sex) – which could in turn tell us a lot about how romantic love works both in our culture and in our brains and bodies.
Are you asking if shizoprenia exists or if it being over diagnosed – nothing sure what you are trying to say but having a daughter with schizophrenia proves to me it is a real thing. Drugs allow people with the disease to function like nothing ever did before but trust me – it doesn’t go away, it just makes it easier to deal with