vaughanbell

Psychiatric drug combining on the rise

A study just released in the Archives of General Psychiatry has found that the prescription of multiple psychiatric drugs to individual patients has increased greatly in recent years despite their being little hard evidence about the benefits and risks of combining medication.

The practice of prescribing multiple drugs is called ‘polypharmacy‘ and usually occurs because a single medication doesn’t treat the symptoms adequately or quickly enough.

This situation is common in psychiatry partly due to what is euphemistically known as ‘treatment resistance’. This phrase is often used as if the patient has an especially tough case of the disorder (e.g. they have ‘treatment resistant schizophrenia’) or if it is a biological trait of the person (the patient is ‘treatment resistant’) but it could equally well describe the fact that the drugs don’t work very well – or rather, they don’t work very well for everyone.

This is common enough that in schizophrenia, about a third of patients show little or no response to common antipsychotic drugs and many of the rest don’t have their symptoms completely controlled. There are similar numbers in people with depression.

It may also be the case that a patient has other symptoms, severe anxiety for example, and in any of these cases the psychiatrist will often add medications on top of each other, attempting to improve the outcome.

However, there is very little research on medication combinations. We have some studies that show that adding one drug to another (‘augmenting’ in the jargon) can improve outcome with some drugs and in some conditions, but these are few and far between.

There is virtually no good quality evidence on the effects of three or more drugs, but this is exactly where the rates of prescribing have risen, as shown by the most recent study which looked at how common this was in US office-based (rather than on hospital ward) consultations with a psychiatrist:

Between 1996 and 2006, there was a substantial increase in the proportion of patient visits in which 2 or more psychotropic medications were prescribed. During this period, the proportion of visits in which 3 or more psychotropic medications were prescribed increased from fewer than 1 in 5 to nearly 1 in 3.

One of the reasons there are so few trials of medication combinations is that drug companies are reluctant to fund them, given that they would rarely include two in-patent medications from the same company, meaning they could use the results to promote their products.

This has meant that we have had to wait until quite recently for, for example, the results of the US government funded STAR*D study on depression treatment to find out whether some combinations actually help.

Link to study on increase in polypharmacy in psychiatry.

Tough on trauma, tough on the causes of trauma

Clinical psychologist and US Congressman Tim Murphy has volunteered to treat soldiers traumatised by the war he voted for.

From January’s APA Monitor magazine:

Clinical child psychologist Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) has consistently voted to continue America’s military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan while appreciating the deepening psychological toll the repeated deployments and combat experiences are taking on service members. That’s why Murphy, 57 and now in his forth congressional term, secured a commission as a military psychologist in the Naval Reserve.

‚ÄúIt’d be difficult for me to continue to vote to send soldiers there and not provide for them what they needed when they got back,‚Äù he says.

Freudians would have a field day with you my lad.

Link to ‘U.S. Congressman will provide psychological services to military’.

Touch Of Fire

The pictures are the interesting results of an MRI scan on a 15-year-old boy who had his hair in ‘twists’ that were held in place with beeswax coloured black with iron oxide.

The iron oxide is magnetic and it interfered with the scanners’ magnetic field causing the rather lovely aura effect on the images.

This is not the only case of a hair style interfering with a brain scan in the medical literature. An earlier report is remarkably similar, as the iron oxide coloured braids of a 51-year-old lady caused similar flame-like patterns on the scans.

Link to MRI ‘aura’ in 15-year-old boy.
Link to MRI ‘aura’ in 51-year-old lady.

Nuthin’ but a G thang

Dr Petra has an excellent write-up of the new study which has been widely reported as showing there is ‘no genetic evidence for the g spot’, but in fact indicates that there is ‘no genetic evidence for thinking you have a g spot’, which is quite a different thing and doesn’t bear particularly well on whether this famed point of sexual ecstasy really exists.

The research is a twin study, which looks at the differences in how human traits vary between identical twins, who are genetically identical, and regular twins who share, on average, only 50% of their genetic information. The differences between how the trait varies between the two types of twins indicates how closely controlled the trait is by genetics in that sample.

The rationale behind the research is that if the g spot is a genuine fixed anatomical feature, then it should be more likely to be influenced by genetics, as other such features are.

However, this study didn’t measure anything anatomical, it just asked the women whether they thought they had a g spot or not with a single question: ‚ÄúDo you believe you have a so called G spot, a small areas the size of a 20p coin on the front wall of your vagina that is sensitive to deep pressure?‚Äù.

This is a bit of an odd strategy because we’re not necessarily the best guides to our own internal anatomy.

This was demonstrated in 1998 when a study by surgeon Helen O’Connell and colleagues dissected several dead bodies and found that the clitoris was much larger than had been thought for thousands of years and in fact had nerves and blood vessels that extend deep within the body.

Crucially, the sexual experiences of women throughout history had not provided a reliable guide to the anatomy of the clitoris and it took a detailed look at the body’s structures to work this out. This suggests that asking people whether they think they have a particular feature may not be a reliable guide to whether they do.

Dr Petra’s write-up gives an excellent account of the history of ‘g spot’ concept and discusses how this study fits into the bigger picture.

Link to ‘Where have all the g spots gone?’

World-wide cocaine cut mystery

A veterinary deworming drug called levamisole has mysteriously appeared in almost two-thirds of cocaine seized in the United States and is now common throughout the world.

No-one is quite sure why, although some researchers have suggested that it may be added to boost the effect of cocaine in the brain.

Now a brief article in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology suggests this may indeed be the case based on the neurological effects of the two substances.

Street drugs are typically ‘cut’ with additional substances, often to bulk them out, but occasionally to alter the effect of the main substance. As we discussed in a post on adulterants in heroin, this can be a way of changing the drug to give it a different effect to benefit the dealer.

As an excellent article on Erowid notes, the fact that cocaine is cut with only small amounts of levamisole (only 6% of the deal in one study) suggests that it is not being used just as a handy powder to thin out the coke – more likely, it is being added for a specific effect.

Levamisole is, in some respects, similar to nicotine and the drug binds to specific nicotine-triggered receptors for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and causes the nerve cell to respond. It turns out that this is most likely to increase activity in the body’s ‘fight-or-flight’ system – the sympathetic nervous system.

In fact, this is exactly how the drug has its deworming effect. In worms, it targets nerve cells involved in muscle activity, causing the muscles to contract. The worm is paralysed and so can be easily expelled from the body.

As cocaine also stimulates the body, the two drugs could combine to cause additional arousal.

This effect would largely be on the peripheral nervous system, outside the brain, but levamisole might also boost the effect of cocaine directly within the brain – enhancing pleasurable feelings.

In the brain, levamisole likely also enhances the release of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that is known to encourage or excite the function of neurons.

We known cocaine boosts dopamine function in the reward system, but the reward system is not single brain area. It’s actually a network of related structures deep within the brain that have connections that communicate and feedback their activity levels to carefully tune their running. An essential part of the feedback mechanism uses glutamate.

To use a sound system analogy, if cocaine cranks up the volume by boosting dopamine, levamisole might work by increasing power to the speakers by upping glutamate levels. The effects add up and the high is amplified.

What this means is that dealers can sell less actual cocaine but users get a similar effect from the smaller amount.

However, this comes at a price. The additional ramping up of the ‘fight-or-flight’ system is likely to put an additional strain on the heart and heart failure is one of the most common cocaine-associated fatalities.

Levamisole also causes the immune system to stop working so well by killing off white blood cells (in fact, this is why it is rarely used in humans in modern medicine) and several cases of life-threatening illness caused by levamisole-cut cocaine have already been reported.

The fact that this additive has been appearing at all, is, in itself, quite surprising. The fact that this relatively obscure compound has become so common in the global cocaine industry might suggest that it was selected on the basis of its pharmacological properties.

In other words, on the basis of the study of neuroscience. One study reported that professional heroin cutters can charge up to $20,000 a kilo and I wouldn’t be surprised whether the big players in the cocaine industry can afford to pay for neuroscientists or pharmacologists to tweak their products.

Link to PubMed entry for brief article on possible effects of levamisole.
Link to excellent Erowid reviewing findings on levamisole-cut cocaine.
Link to Wall Street Journal on prevalence of levamisole in US cocaine.

The death row inmate

A summary of an eye-opening 2002 article on the psychological characteristics of prisoners on ‘death row‘ in the United States, published in the journal Behavioral Sciences and the Law.

Death row inmate characteristics, adjustment, and confinement: a critical review of the literature

Behav Sci Law. 2002;20(1-2):191-210.

Cunningham MD, Vigen MP.

This article reviews and summarizes research on death row inmates. The contributions and weaknesses of death row demographic data, clinical studies, and research based on institutional records are critiqued. Our analysis shows that death row inmates are overwhelmingly male and disproportionately Southern. Racial representation remains controversial.

Frequently death row inmates are intellectually limited and academically deficient. Histories of significant neurological insult are common, as are developmental histories of trauma, family disruption, and substance abuse. Rates of psychological disorder among death row inmates are high, with conditions of confinement appearing to precipitate or aggravate these disorders. Contrary to expectation, the extant research indicates that the majority of death row inmates do not exhibit violence in prison even in more open institutional settings.

These findings have implications for forensic mental health sentencing evaluations, competent attorney representation, provision of mental health services, racial disparity in death sentences, death row security and confinement policies, and moral culpability considerations. Future research directions on death row populations are suggested.

It’s a fascinating, if not slightly morbid article, and the full text is available online as a pdf if you want a full breakdown of the research.

Link to PubMed entry for study.
pdf of full text of the article.

The psychology of ‘super-human strength’

Scientific American has an interesting short piece on whether people can really demonstrate super-human strength in emergency situations. The typical story is where someone is trapped under a car after an accident and a friend or relative manages to lift a seemingly impossible weight to free them.

This common tale has all the hallmarks of an urban myth, but it turns out to be partially plausible. Fear seems to increase our available muscle strength – but not by super-human amounts – only by a fraction of our normal lifting power.

Vladimir Zatsiorsky, a professor of kinesiology at Penn State who has extensively studied the biomechanics of weightlifting, draws the distinction between the force that our muscles are able to theoretically apply, which he calls “absolute strength,” and the maximum force that they can generate through the conscious exertion of will, which he calls “maximal strength.” An ordinary person, he has found, can only summon about 65 percent of their absolute power in a training session, while a trained weightlifter can exceed 80 percent…

But there’s a limit to how fast and how strong fear can make us. We’ve all heard stories about panicked mothers lifting cars off their trapped babies. They’ve been circulating for so long that many of us assume that they must be true. Zatsiorsky’s work, however, suggests that while fear can indeed motivate us to approach more closely to our absolute power level than even the fiercest competition, there’s no way to exceed it. A woman who can lift 100 pounds at the gym might, according to Zatsiorsky, be able to lift 135 pounds in a frenzy of maternal fear. But she’s not going to suddenly be able to lift a 3,000-pound car.

The SciAm article is apparently an excerpt from a new book entitled Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger.

Link to SciAm excerpt on ‘super-human strength’
Link to book website.

2010-01-01 Spike activity

Quick links from the past two weeks in mind and brain news:

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the psychology of will power in light of the season for New Year’s resolutions.

As a follow-up to the review of the year, Dr Petra discusses some sex and relationships predictions for 2010. By the way, Dr Petra just arrived on Twitter. You can follow her @DrPetra

The New York Times discusses ‘pleasure procrastination’ where people put off pleasurable activities often to the point of never doing them. See also the psychological concept of ‘hyperopia‘.

An innovative study finding it’s possible to treat tinnitus with specially designed music is covered by Not Exactly Rocket Science.

The LA Times has a brief obituary for Ruth Lilly, heiress to the Eli Lilly fortune and philanthropist, who spent much of her life in psychiatric hospital struggling with depression.

The 12 psychology studies of Christmas are featured on PsyBlog.

Science Daily covers a study finding that lighting can influence how we perceive the taste of wine.

There’s an excellent piece on the health effects of television viewing over at Seed Magazine.

The Neurocritic covers one of the brilliant light-hearted studies in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal. This one on the relationship between the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the value of coins swallowed by children.

The brief history of how psychoanalysis shaped consumer culture via Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays is discussed in the APA Monitor magazine.

The Neuroskeptic covers the launch of the free online neuropathology database – the Stanley Neuropathology Consortium brain collection.

Elyn Saks is a law professor at the University of Southern California, a Marshall scholar, and a graduate of Yale Law School, and has a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Scientific American has an interview.

Frontier Psychiatrist has a brief piece on Couvade Syndrome where men show ‘sympathetic’ signs pregnancy-like when their partners are pregnant.

There’s an interview with fear specialising psychologist Daniela Schiller in the latest Discover Magazine.

The BPS Research Digest covers a studying on how doodling can boost memory and concentration.

Why do more women than men still believe in God? asks Double X magazine.

Scientific American has an article on optogenetics or the use of light and genes to probe the brain.

Seeing the humanity in brain-damaged youths. The Boston Globe has a piece on looking beyond the sometimes erratic behaviour of young people with neurological problems.

Psychiatric Times has a good write-up on atypical antipsychotics increasing cardiometabolic risks in children.

The development of the brain in old age and ‘how to train the aging brain‘ is tackled by The New York Times.

If you’re a Twitter user and interested in criminology and crime, I recommend following @crime_economist.

Discover Magazine has a brief piece on how child abuse leaves its mark on the victim‚Äôs DNA.

There’s an articulate, almost poetic account, of living with ALS motor neuron disease in the New York Review of Books.

By king or cobbler

A thoughtful reflection on the psychology of the New Year, published in 1895 by the acclaimed essayist Charles Lamb in his collection The Essays of Elia.

Every man has two birth-days: two days at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial manner he termeth his. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnising our proper birth-day hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor understand anything in it beyond cake and orange. But the birth of a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam.

Charles Lamb was one of the most celebrated writers of his generation although struggled with mental illness for much of his life and directed a great deal of his energies to caring for his sister, Mary, who was similarly affected by mental disorder and an exceptional talent for literature.

Link to Wikipedia page on Charles Lamb.

Undercover in Accra Psychiatric Hospital

Award winning journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas went undercover in Ghana’s Accra Psychiatric Hospital and has published a hard hitting report on the appalling conditions in one of the country’s main institutions for treating mental illness.

In a spectacular piece of investigative reporting Anas posed as a patient, a trader, a baker and a taxi driver and has reported on institution-wide problems that include drug dealing, abuse, maltreatment, thieving, and medical negligence leading to the deaths of patients.

One of the most striking parts of the report is where he notes a few of the staff members who carry out their roles with due diligence and genuine compassion for the patients in the midst of the systemic failure of the institution.

The neglect, abuse and maltreatment of patients by nurses in the hospital remain one of the most disturbing aspects of life within the hospital. On many occasions, this reporter filmed instances where patients suffering severe fits were left to lie at the mercy of the weather, with nurses totally apathetic. Some nurses were captured beating patients who lay on the ground helpless and writhing in pain. On one occasion, a male patient is seen helping a female patient suffering from epilepsy to get on her feet. After many futile attempts to help the ailing girl, the male patient leaves her on the ground close to a nurse‚Äôs office and moves on. Minutes later, a nurse passes by without offering any assistance to the patient. Not far from the patient, three nurses could be seen chatting idly as the epileptic patient lies in pain. When help finally arrives, the patient is beaten mercilessly by the nurses amidst shouts of ‚Äúget up‚Äù, ‚Äúfoolish girl‚Äù, ‚Äúif we beat her she would get up‚Äù.

The attitude of nurses is generally so outrageous that the hard work and conscientious disposition of Ken Wholley Brantuo, Alex Baah and a few others shone forth like torch in pitch- darkness.

Francisca Ntow, a young nurse at the hospital epitomised the spirit of care and love that accompanies nursing. With beaming smiles each day, she tries her best to give attention to patients and to find out their state of being. Her shining example gives hope to the future of psychiatric nursing in the country.

If you check out nothing else I recommend listening to a gripping interview with Anas where he discusses his undercover investigation on Ghana’s Super Morning Show

His follow-up piece on abuse of people with mental illness by traditional healers and prayer camps is also a powerful piece of reporting.

Probably one of the most remarkable pieces of mental health reporting you are likely to encounter for a very long time. Truly excellent work.

Link to Exposed: Inside Ghana‚Äôs ‚ÄúMad House‚Äù (via TWS).
Link to interview with Anas Aremeyaw Anas on his investigation.
Link to ‘Investigative report: Lies of prayer camps and traditional healers’.

A year in science and sex

Dr Petra has two great posts, one looking at the best and worst of sex and science stories from 2009, and another revisiting her annual predictions for the year in sexuality and sexual health.

The best and worst include everything from clitorocentric conspiracies, informed sex education, the Ugandan government, female sex drugs and Shakira (who is clearly still too shy to call).

Additionally, Petra will shortly post her predictions for the coming year online, so you can see how 2010 might shape up.

Link to ‘The best and worst sex (and science) stories of 2009’.
Link to ‘Revisiting my sex predictions for 2009’.

Personals from psychologists

Adverts from psychologists in the Personals section of the New York Magazine.

Marriage-Minded Jewish Doctor – Successful. 43-year-old behavioral psychologist and entrepreneur. I’m 5’11”, slim, considered handsome, and have many diversified social and cultural interests. More importantly, others judge me to be warm, sensitive, romantic, altruistic and capable of great love and devotion. I’d love to hear from you if you are a highly educated, emotionally mature woman, interested in a relationship leading to marriage. 9896

Slender, Dark-Haired, Very Pretty – Bright, funny psychologist, young 37, blues and jazz fan, seeks witty, sane, attractive man, 30-45. NYM M182

Your Mother’s Dream: 28, handsome, caring Jewish psychologist. Into Jazz, arts, sports. Seeks and interesting attractive woman. Photo/phone. NYM H108

Dynamic, Attractive Psychologist – Seeks secure Jewish man: 30’s. Be sincere, successful and witty. Enjoy NYC and nature. Bio/photo/phone. NYM S910

Tall, Slender, Attractive – Intelligent Black woman, 36, PhD psychologist, seeks warm, emotionally mature, active, successful, professional man, 30-46. Nationality unimportant. Please send letter, photo, phone. NYM B395

Affectionate, Attractive, Caring – Older NJ psychologist seeks attractive woman for a loving, enduring relationship. Please include photo and phone. NYM B341

Beautiful, Slim Jewish Divorcee – 45, successful female media psychologist with private practice, seeks male with usual demographics – but believes in chemistry above all. 9778

Handsome Psychologist – Sincere, down-to-earth, looking for bright attractive woman, 30-45. Photo. 4338

Very Attractive Single Woman – Psychologist / writer, seeks leftist man who is fit, funny and fortyish. NYM P036

Tanglewood anyone? – Lovely picnic, Boston Symphony… Engaging, cheeky LI psychologist, pretty, trim, 60s, understated, seeks like male. 5209

Woman Psychologist – 37, blond, sexy, great sense of humor, optimistic, love to cook and loves the outdoors, down-to-earth, voracious reader, whimsical. I am looking for a sensitive, sexy, successful, witty, generous, smart, kind man who wants an intimate relationship. If this is you, please send a note. 8477

True Romance – Desired by psychologist 44, 5’7″, brown hair, serious artist – with pretty woman, intelligent, passionate, self-reliant, beautiful eyes, sexy smile, any race or age. Please write. 6806

Sensual-Spirited Psychologist – 40something, 5’5″ brunette seeks handsome, humorous, honest professional with strong Jewish consciousness, family values and love of the arts – for joyful, marriage-minded relationship. 4148

Slim Pretty, Jewish Widow – Psychologist, 48; strong cultural interests, liberal politics. Enjoys country, beach. Intelligent, sensitive, emotionally stable woman seeks make counterpart to share life. Photo?/bio/phone. NYM G404

Attractive Psychologist, Male – 38, warm, funny, smart and successful would like to meet a truly beautiful woman (both inside and outside) under 34. Photo much appreciated. NYM G423

Successful Male, PhD, Psychologist – 41, 5’10”, slim, warm, caring, sensitive, health conscious, non-smoker, Jewish (not religious). Seeks vivacious, tender, professionally accomplished woman with depth and emotional resources open to becoming best friend/lover/wife. NYM V320

Pretty School Psychologist – Caring, slim, Jewish woman, 36, with zest for the outdoors, seeks thoughtful, active, attractive, professional man, 35-45, for long-term. Note/photo please. 8624

“How But In Custom – And in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?” Jewish psychologist, 36, bright, verbal, attractive, a lover of Yeats, seeks man with romantic heart and high values. NYM K142

Send No Photo – Warm, loving, attractive, sexy psychologist, mother, 47, seeks professional man, 45-58, who values honesty, closeness, simple pleasures. Appreciate meaningful reply. NYM R372

Ten to know

The Brainspin blog has a list of ‘Ten Psychology Studies from 2009 Worth Knowing About’ that covers a mix of well-known studies and hidden gems from the last year.

The descriptions, as you might expect, are a little brief and give just the punchline without some of the possible drawbacks but all are linked to the original study so you can them in full (well, at least as far as your access allows).

One of my favourites was number 7, which provides evidence against the common idea that people who connect better with others might be better at detecting lies:

A study in the journal Psychological Science tested the hypothesis that emotional mimicry‚Äîthe tendency to mirror the emotions of someone we‚Äôre interacting with‚Äîmakes it difficult to identify liars. Nonmimickers were significantly better at identifying liars than mimickers, and thus were harder to fool with the old flim flam sales routine. The reason is that mimicry reduces psychological distance and lowers defenses. Even if someone probably isn‚Äôt lying to you, it‚Äôs best to keep the cushion in place just in case.

Link to ‘Ten Psychology Studies from 2009 Worth Knowing About’.

Going gently

The New York Times has an sensitive and in-depth article about the difficult decision to administer strong sedative drugs to terminally ill patients to ease their suffering at the expensive of potentially quickening their death.

It is, in all but one respect, a very good article, however it does contain a monumentally stupid paragraph:

For pain, the guidelines list opioid drugs, including morphine, methadone and fentanyl.

Doctors say that other drugs used for sedation are ketamine, an anesthetic and sedative popular at rave parties, and propofol, an anesthetic, which was ruled, with lorazepam, to have caused Michael Jackson‚Äôs death. In very high doses, sodium thiopental is used as a sedative in the three-drug combination used for lethal injections.

You could link almost any drug (or indeed, any substance – table salt – for example) to some nefarious use or lethal outcome. In fact, some of the most demonised street drugs – heroin and cocaine – have common and legitimate medical uses.

Medicine is always a case of balancing the positive and negatives of any treatment for the benefit of the patient. Context-less examples tell us nothing about this balance.

Other than that, the article is very good and really gets to the core of why end-of-life sedation is such as difficult topic, both emotionally and medically.

Link to NYT article ‘Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death: Sedation’.

The isolation contagion

The Boston Globe covers an interesting new study finding, seemingly paradoxically, that loneliness can be spread from person-to-person and can work its way through social networks.

The paradox is resolved by the important point, outlined by one of the study’s authors, John Cacioppo, that ‚ÄúLoneliness isn‚Äôt being alone, it‚Äôs feeling alone”. In other words, it’s not about having social contact but about feeling like you have meaningful relationships.

This feeling, it turns out, was increased or was more likely to occur when one person had contact with a person who already reported themselves to be feeling lonely.

The paper Cacioppo co-wrote with Christakis and Fowler, published in the current issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that having a friend who reports feeling lonely makes a person 52 percent more likely to feel lonely. In another measure, they found that, for each additional day per week a person reported feeling lonely, his friends reported an additional lonely day per month. Not only that, having a friend who has a friend who feels lonely makes a person 25 percent more likely to feel lonely, and at three degrees of separation (a friend of a friend of a friend) the odds are still increased by 15 percent…

The spread of loneliness seems to have its own particular characteristics. Women, for example, seem to be more susceptible than men. Also, the more lonely people a person knows, the more likely she herself is to become lonely. That trait distinguishes loneliness from something like alcoholism: Having an alcoholic friend increases your odds of becoming an alcoholic, but having three alcoholic friends makes you no more likely than having just one…

Distance also seems to matter to the spread of loneliness. The authors found that living close to a lonely friend was more likely to make their loneliness contagious – if the friends lived more than a mile apart there was no significant effect. This was in contrast to obesity, which, Christakis and Fowler have found, doesn‚Äôt require physical proximity to spread. In other work, the two have found that an obese friend who lives in the next state can still make you more likely to gain weight.

Not mentioned by the Globe article was the interesting finding that loneliness spreads most strongly through mutual friends but only weakly through family members.

The study, which you can read the study in full as a pdf, was drawn from data from the famous Framington Heart Study which tracked the health of a small community over many years and, rather fortuitously, asked who was related to and friends with who, initially for the purposes of tracking people down if the researchers lost contact.

Link to Boston Globe article ‘The loneliness network’.
Link to PubMed entry for loneliness study.
pdf of full text of study.

The Edison Brainmeter

The Psychologist has a fantastic article on one of the first psychological ability measures, created not by a psychologist but by the inventor of the domestic light bulb, Thomas Edison, who devised his trivia-based ‘brainmeter’ test as a way of selecting employees.

Although earlier tests had been in use, such as the prototype of the modern IQ test created by French psychologist Alfred Binet, they were designed to detect disability rather than ability – specifically, to identify children with learning difficulties.

Edison’s test was quite different though. It consisted of a 163 seemingly unconnected obscure general knowledge questions of which the pass mark was arbitrarily set at 70%.

The test was considered by be nonsense by psychologists of the day, lacking both statistically validity and a proven connection with other mental abilities, but it became wildly popular and became a frequent media topic:

After the complete test was leaked to newspapers, the questions spread across the country in a national craze. ‚ÄòIf You Cannot Answer These You‚Äôre Ignorant, Edison Says,‚Äô declared one Pennsylvania newspaper, while police in Massachusetts picked up a deranged young man claiming that he was on the run from assassins who were after his book of Edison test answers, ‚Äòvalued at $1,000,000‚Äô.

Journalists gleefully sprang Edison questions on politicians, professors and captains of industry. New York‚Äôs governor failed; so did the mayor of New York City, its police commissioner and, rather alarmingly, its superintendent of schools. One particularly enterprising reporter tracked down Edison’s son Theodore, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also failed. ‚ÄòDad would find me amazingly ignorant,‚Äô the younger Edison admitted.

His father faced a media circus: the Fox movie studio ran mock Edison tests of biblical trivia to advertise its ‚Äòsuper-screen spectacle‚Äô The Queen of Sheba, while ads for Vogue magazine assured women readers ‚ÄòNever mind the Edison questions! All you need to know is how to be becomingly dressed‚Äô. Others were more seriously interested in its value: within days, the Eastman Kodak company announced a similar test for its employees, and the elite Groton School in Massachusetts extended its use to applicants.

The article goes on to explain that Edison’s ‘brainmeter’ test was the inspiration for the American college entry exam, the SAT, which is still in use today.

There turns out to be a few articles on Edison’s test in the archives of The New York Times, my favourite, from 1921, being titled “EDISON BRAINMETER DIVIDES THE CRITICS; Comments on Questionnaire Continue and About One-Half Are From Scorners. COLLEGE MEN NOT SOOTHED Suggestion That Chess Game Would Be a Better Test Meets With Favor From Players.”

Link to The Psychologist article ‘163 ways to lose your job’.

Full disclosure: I am an unpaid associate editor and occasional columnist for The Psychologist and I file all knowledge under the categories ‘psychology/neuroscience’ and ‘miscellaneous’.