For those wanting to catch the vibe from the recently ended 2006 Society for Neuroscience annual conference in Atlanta, the latest edition of The Synpase psychology and neuroscience writing carnival is an SfN special.
There’s also been some good coverage on reanimated Nature Neuroscience blog Action Potential if you want an alternative slant on proceedings, and some photos of the event have been put online by Neurocontrarian.
Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Cooking with sleeping pill Ambien!
ABC Radio’s science show Ockham’s Razor compares behaviour across the animal kingdom and asks ‘What counts as intelligence?’
New Scientist reports on a wonderfully designed study suggesting that facial expressions might be inherited to some degree.
Apparently, I am not pictured smoking a large reefer on mental health blog The Trouble with Spikol.
A correlation between TV watching and autism causes a stir. Original paper here.
Was Agatha Christie’s previously unexplained temporary disappearance due to a ‘fugue state’? A rare memory disorder.
The Guardian looks at recent research suggesting a link between omega-3 intake and violence.
The New York Review of Books has philosopher John Searle reviewing Humphrey’s “Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness”.
New Scientist reports that the initial trials for gene therapy reduces Parkinson’s disease symptoms.
BrainsRule! is a neuroscience website for kids.
It’s along the lines of the University of Washington’s Neuroscience for Kids but focuses more on interactivity and has sections for teachers and professionals.
There’s plenty of great resources there, although the talking brain on the front page is a little bit disturbing. Maybe it’s the lipstick which does it.
You can even get neuroscience merchandise (some of it for free) including a BrainsRule lunch bag!
Link to BrainsRule! website.
ABC Radio’s All in the Mind has just broadcast a panel discussion on psychosis and creativity by three artists who have had their own experience of altered states.
The discussion was part of an exhibition and conference entitled ‘For Matthew and Others: Journeys with Schizophrenia’ that is being held at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales and includes a number of artists influenced by schizophrenia.
The panel consisted of artists James de Blas, Simon Champ and Martin Sharp, the latter famous for a number of landmark psychedelic album covers from the 60s and illustrations for the notorious Oz magazine.
They cover a wide range of topics, and largely avoid the hackneyed discussion about whether madness and genius and different sides of the same coin, and don’t always agree on mental influences on the creative process.
Link to audio and transcript of ‘Reclaiming imagination: art, psychosis and the creative mind’.
For those wanting their fortnightly hit of studies from the British Psychological Society Research Digest, a new edition has just been released and is welcoming eager readers…
BoingBoing has alerted me to the fact that a book on psychology of rumours has just been published.
The book is by two psychologists, Profs Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia who have been researching the topic and have consulted on legal cases where rumours have been involved.
It is entitled Rumor Psychology (ISBN 1591474264) and tackles the function and structure of rumour and gossip, and distringuishes between these two forms of social communication.
Exactly what is rumor, and how does it differ from gossip? Even though these terms are commonly used interchangeably, they differ greatly in function and content. While gossip is evaluative social talk that provides social network formation and group solidarity, rumor functions to make sense of an ambiguous situation or to help people adapt to perceived or actual threats. Why do people spread and believe rumors? Rumors are an enduring feature of our social and organizational landscapes. They attract attention, evoke emotion, incite involvement, affect attitudes and actions—and they are ubiquitous. Rumor transmission is motivated by three broad psychological motivations—fact-finding, relationship-enhancement, and self-enhancement—all of which help individuals and groups make sense in the face of uncertainty.
In fact, you can take part in their research online, by completing a survey that asks about a rumour and how you heard about it or discussed it with others.
I’ve not read the book, but I’m always fascinated by books on the psychology of seemingly mundane behaviour.
A recent book by sociologist Charles Tilly, entitled “Why?” (ISBN 069112521X) analysed the reasons people use to explain events or behavior.
He lists four basic types of reasons: conventions (socially accepted clich√©s like “My train was late,” or “We’re otherwise engaged that evening”), stories (simplified cause-effect narratives), codes (legal, religious) and technical accounts (complicated narratives, often impenetrable to nonspecialists).
He argues that the type of reason we give is often determined by the social relation to the people we are talking to in any given situation.
Link to more info on book.
Link to article on Tilly’s arguments in “Why?”.
During the coming week, artist Simon Pope and I will be giving a couple of talks on Walking Here and There – an art / science collaboration project that aims to investigate the interaction of place and memory in psychosis, and particularly reduplicative paramnesia, the delusional belief that a place exists in two or more locations simultaneously.
The first will be at 4pm this Friday (20th) at the Chapter Gallery in Cardiff, as part of Simon’s solo exhibition Gallery Space Recall. The discussion will be followed by a participation event in the gallery where you can experience a tour through a remembered exhibition.
The second will be at 4pm, on Wednesday 25th of October at Goldsmiths College, University of London, as part of the 2006 Whitehead Lectures on Cognition, Computation and Creativity. This talk will take place in the Pimlott Lecture Theatre, Ben Pimlott Building on Goldsmiths campus (location details).
I’ll be talking about the science and neuropsychology of reduplicative paramnesia and we’ll both be discussing how we’ve found trying to combine our disciplines to better understand space and location, as well as unusual states of mind.
Unfortunately we didn’t got much choice over timing, and we realise 4pm isn’t the most convenient time for most people to attend a talk, but we hope to do some more in the future during more accessible slots.
Plus, there’ll be a chance to participate in the experimental stage of the project for anyone who wishes to volunteer. More on this when the time comes!
Link to Walking Here and There website.
Link to details of Goldsmith’s talk.
Link to details of Gallery Space Recall at Chapter.
The Washington Post asked one of their journalists to test-drive several of the increasing number of ‘cognitive fitness’ websites that have online games and puzzles specifically designed to increase mental performance.
Although there isn’t a massive amount of research on the subject, the little research there is suggests that staying mentally active, particularly during later life, can increase or maintain mental abilities.
The success of Nintendo’s Brain Age cartridge has spawned an industry of ‘mental workout’ computer games, many of which are now available on pay-for-use websites.
The Washington Post article gives a brief run-down of some of the science that motivates these companies, and tries out several of the websites for size.
Interestingly, the Post also got research psychologists to comment on the sites to see if their tasks were likely to be doing what they claimed.
Link to Washington Post article ‘Pumping Neurons’.
Psychology lecturer and author Gerard Keegan has created a fascinating website of psychology curios, including a ‘psychology art gallery‘ that contains a number of visual illusions or images that play with the limits of our visual perception.
Keegan is the author of Higher Psychology a textbook for 16-18 year-old psychology students and his site shows a similar passion for communicating psychology in a straightforward and accessible manner.
Link to psychology art gallery.
Thin is a photo essay and award-winning documentary by photographer Lauren Greenfield that charts the lives of patients at the Renfrew Center, a residential centre for the treatment of women with eating disorders.
Although the photo essay is available online, the full documentary is not. However, an extended preview of the documentary is available which is quite moving even in its abbreviated form, showing the emotional turmoil experienced by young women with anorexia and bulimia.
Greenfield is interviewed about the film and gives some of her motivations for pursuing the project:
After some thought, I came to the conclusion that eating disorders were an extremely dramatic and poignant example of the way girls use their bodies instead of their voices to express themselves. I thought this subject could be particularly interesting in film because there are few mental illnesses that have a physical manifestation that can be seen visually.
Link to Thin documentary website (via MeFi).
Link to extended preview.
Link to online photo essay.
Link to information and resources on eating disorders.
Online t-shirt shop and design free-for-all Threadless just ran a competition to design a t-shirt for the upcoming Michel Gondry film ‘The Science of Sleep‘.
The film is about a man whose life is constantly invaded by his dreams.
Unfortunately, the competition passed me by and has just closed. However, you can vote for the best design and the winning design will get turned into a t-shirt you can buy online.
There seems to be a lack of the sort of psychology and neuroscience t-shirts that you’d actually want to wear out of the house, but several of the designs look very promising.
Link to Science of Sleep t-shirt candidates.
An independently-funded study on the impact of older and newer antipsychotic drugs, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, has found that the older and cheaper drugs seem to lead to a better an equal quality of life.
Antipsychotics are generally used to treat delusions and hallucinations in a number of mental disorders, but are most used by people diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The study has caused barely a whisper in the mainstream media but is interesting for a number of reasons.
The first is that it was not funded by a drug company. Studies funded by the pharmaceutical industray are more likely to report favourable results, so independent studies, although rare, are valued in the literature.
Also, it was a well-designed study, running as a randomised controlled trial – the ‘gold standard’ for evaluating treatment effects.
Finally, it produced some surprising findings.
Even psychiatrists who are typically suspicious of drug-company claims that the newer drugs have ‘less side-effects’ (the evidence suggests they just tend to have different ones) will admit that the older generation of antipsychotic drugs produced permanent and unpleasant undesired consequences, including uncontrollable facial contortions and movement problems (something called tardive dyskinesia).
The presence of these might be thought to lead to a worse quality of life than the side-effect of the newer antipsychotics, which, although serious (typically an increased risk of diabetes, heart problems and obesity) can be at least partly dealt with by diet and exercise changes.
There’s a ongoing discussion at the British Medical Journal website, with lots of ‘damn the data, I know my experience’ type comments, but what this study suggests is perhaps that we need a better understanding of what people value in their lives, the impact of these drugs on how people live, and how to most appropriately measure life ‘quality’.
It’s also worth noting that these older drugs are now barely-profitable compared to the newer ones. The fact that independently funded studies tend not to produce as much supporting evidence for the most marketed medications suggests that a healthy skepticism about drug company marketing is a must.
UPDATE: Neuroshrink has added a fantastic commentary on this post, including some clarifications on things I missed and misinterpreted from this study. See the comments for more.
SfN 2006, the Society for Neuroscience’s yearly tribal gathering, has kicked off in Atlanta and several bloggers are keeping tabs on the proceedings.
Jake from Pure Pedantry, Shelley from Retrospectacle, the Neurocontrarian and Neurotopia are all bringing you some of the latest scientific developments from the floor.
They’re also bringing you some of the news that isn’t appearing in the mainstream news feeds:
…Jake and Shelley and I had dinner last night and went clubbing, and poor Neurocontrarian ended up crashing on our floor after making out with some hottie.
You may wish to compare with the recently risen-from-the-ashes Nature Neuroscience Action Potential blog:
Nature Publishing threw a very classy party at the Sundial Restaurant, slowly rotating high above downtown. I was astonished to hear Morgan Sheng, Moses Chao and Bartlett Mel all speak (some) German! Very good, guys, keep it up 🙂
I’ve not been able to find any relevant feeds on Flickr yet, so if anyone is uploading any photos, or is blogging the conference and hasn’t been mentioned, do get in touch.
Link to SfN 2006 website with searchable abstracts.
Edge reports that several cognitive scientists were at the recent Future of Science conference in Venice in Italy.
Some of the talks are available as online video for those wanting to catch up on what was discussed:
* Stephen Pinker on The Cognitive Niche [wmv]
* Marc Hauser on Evolution of a Universal Moral Grammar [wmv]
* Michael Gazzaniga on Are Human Brains Unique? [wmv]
* Antonio Damasio on The Emotions in Evolution: a Neurobiological Perspective [wmv]
* Daniel Dennett on The Domestication of the Wild Memes of Religion [wmv]
The New York Times has just published an article on the work on Prof Brian Wansink who investigates the psychology of snacking and eating behaviour.
Although, at first, this seems quite a mundane topic, his research team has produced some fascinating results that suggest that the amount we eat is governed as much by the perception of how much we should eat, rather than purely on how hungry we seem.
“We don’t have any idea what the normal amount to eat is, so we look around for clues or signals,” he said. “When all you see is that big portions of food cost less than small ones, it can be confusing.”
Although people think they make 15 food decisions a day on average, his research shows the number is well over 200. Some are obvious, some are subtle. The bigger the plate, the larger the spoon, the deeper the bag, the more we eat. But sometimes we decide how much to eat based on how much the person next to us is eating, sometimes moderating our intake by more than 20 percent up or down to match our dining companion.
His experiments even include a soup bowl that has been specially modified to slowly fill itself back up without the participants noticing. It seems the participants eat much more soup as a result, again without noticing.
This sort of research is used by food companies to try and get us to eat more, but could also be used by those concerned with healthy eating to promote certain sorts of foods and reduce the intake of others.
Link to NYT article ‘Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You’.
London’s Science Museum has just opened a new exhibition and website entitled NEURObotics that investigates how medical technology could boost our brains‚Äö read our thoughts or give us mind control over machines.
The exhibition tackles topics such as brain-scan lie detectors, enhancing brain function with TMS (magnetic pulses) and even has the Braingate ‘brain interface chip’ as one of the exhibits.
This sort of technology, sometimes called neuroprosthetics, was recently profiled in an open-access Nature special and has allowed people to operate simple computer controls via their thoughts in experimental set-ups.
The exhibition is free and runs until April 2007.
Link to Science Museum NEURObotics website.
Link to list of exhibits.
Link to BBC News story on the exhibition.
Mind Hacks 