Category: News

The BPS Research Digest has published the last of the articles in its series on the ‘Most Important Psychology Experiment Never to be Completed’, written by a number of leading psychologists and one over-caffeinated keyboard monkey.

Actually, that goes quite well. I don’t know what I was worried about.

The series has been published an article at a time over the last two weeks, and includes inspired but impossible experiments on the cognition of unborn children, brain optimisation, resisting tyranny, and one inspired by The Truman Show – to name but a few.

They’re all now available online, so have a look and see which of the 13 impossible studies catches your eye.

Link to the most important psychology study that’s Never been done’.

Oklahoma State University’s online psychology museum has launched an exhibit to commemorate African American Pioneers of Psychology. It’s an excellent resource but they’re missing some photos and you might be able to help.

The photo on the left is of Dr Inez Prosser. She earned her PhD in educational psychology from the University of Cincinnati in 1933.

She did some of the earliest research into the effect of racial segregation on academic achievement.

There have been many more African-American psychologists who were working in the USA as far back as the 1920s and the new ‘Pioneers of Psychology’ site is collating their history.

Unfortunately, it’s missing photos for Drs Robert Prentiss Daniel and John Henry Brodhead.

If you think you can help out with photos of either of the above, or have additional information on any of the people featured in the exhibit, I am sure the curators would love to hear from you.

Link to African-American Pioneers of Psychology Website (via AHP).

The ever-excellent Fortean Times has an article about an exhibition that showed some of the most important works in the history of visionary and psychiatric art which depict the mysterious ‘influencing machine’.

The term was coined by psychoanalyst Viktor Tausk who noted that the delusions of people with schizophrenia often involved them being influenced by a ‘diabolical machine’, just outside the technical understanding of the victim, that influenced them from afar and is operated by a shadowy group of the person’s enemies.

The exhibition is partly drawn from the Prinzhorn Collection, which was started by the German psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn who collected art work by asylum inpatients.

Unlike his contemporaries, he didn’t assume the interest was solely that the work reflected the mental state of the patient, but collected them for their aesthetic value and, in the process, discovered some amazingly creative artists.

His subsequent book, Artistry of the Mentally, was hugely influential and was an inspiration to Jean Dubuffet, who wanted to capture art as it appears ‘in the raw’, away from the influence of art schools and the art world.

Dubuffet began to collect what he called ‘art brut’ (raw art) and suggested that people who worked outside the art world were ‘outsider artists‘ – to which now whole galleries, magazines and academic conferences are devoted.

The Prinzhorn Collection and the Collection de l’Art Brut are now two of the most important collections in the world.

The Fortean Times article discusses a recent Prinzhorn exhibition that focused purely on the ‘influencing machine’, with some truly spectacular pieces from both mainstream and ‘outsider’ artists.

The exhibition is, appropriately, dominated by the Air Loom, the first known example of an influencing machine, which was detailed in eerily precise technical drawings between 1800 and 1810 by a Welsh tea-merchant named James Tilly Matthews, at that time confined in Bedlam (Bethlem) as an incurable lunatic.

Matthews’s plans showed a machine fuelled by barrels of magnetised gas and ‘putrid effluvia’, and powered by Leyden jars and windmill sails, that wove invisible mesmeric currents which, beamed at a human target by its sinister operators, filled the mind with alien voices and nightmarish visions and could be programmed to convulse, torture and even kill.

In an inspired and classically fortean move, the installation artist and crop circle pioneer Rod Dickinson has turned Matthews’s hallucinatory blueprints into reality. The result is an inscrutable piece that fills the main exhibition floor, towering ominously over the spectator. On one level, it’s a sober and ‘authentic’ assemblage of 18th-century technology, with oak panelling, brass fittings, hooped barrels and tanned leather tubes: a period piece, yet also brand new, as if fresh off the assembly line and poised to hiss and rumble into life.

As an aside, I was inspired by Tausk in a couple of papers I wrote on the interaction between psychosis and the net, where I discussed the appearance of the internet in paranoid delusions as the modern day incarnation of the influencing machine [pdf1, pdf2].

Link to Fortean Times article ‘Shadow of the Air Loom’.

This week’s ABC Radio National All in the Mind discusses how the internet can affect the mind, whether we can be addicted to it, and how it’s being used to delivered effective psychological therapies for a range of mental disorders.

This is the programme I was interviewed for a few weeks ago (through the magic of editing, I sound quite coherent!) where I mainly discuss why I think the concept of ‘internet addiction’ is nonsense.

The other guests are Dr Nick Titov, Prof Isaac Marks and Dr Stephanie Bauer, who discuss their pioneering work on using computer technology to provide treatment for mental illness.

Isaac Marks is one of the founders of behavioural therapy and has been quite involved in adapting some of the techniques so they can be taught by computer or over the internet. In fact, he’s one of the editors of a new book on computer assisted psychotherapy.

One of the things I plug on the programme is an online cognitive behaviour therapy for depression website called MoodGYM.

It’s one of the great success stories of online therapy. It’s been extensively researched, found to be effective and is free and advert free. Highly recommended.

Link to All in the Mind with audio and transcript.

Ed Boyden, a neuroscientist who specialises in developing technology to enhance the mind and brain, has just started writing a blog on the Technology Review site.

I had the pleasure of giving a joint session with Ed at the SciFoo conference on ‘clinical problems in neuroscience and practical cognitive augmentation’ where I learnt a great deal about techniques to control brain circuits developed by his research team, both for treating neurological and psychiatric disorders, and to boost normal cognitive function.

In his first blog post he outlines some of the principles and promises of human augmentation, and discusses what sort of impact this is likely to have on our ideas of ‘normal’.

If his work is anything to go by, his blog is going to be well worth reading.

Link to Ed Boyden’s blog at Technology Review (via BrainWaves).
Link to Ed Boyden’s homepage.

It’s not often one gets one’s bong in the scientific literature, let alone one designed to allow you to smoke weed inside an MRI scanner, but this is exactly what has been achieved in an article published in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior.

Most studies on the neuroscience of marijuana have used pills or injections of THC, the main active ingredient, but this is quite different from smoking – both in the way it reaches the brain and because of the fact that burning the plant creates many other chemicals which also get inhaled.

A team from Harvard Medical School are interested in how smoked marijuana affects the brain, but have come to the inevitable conclusion that it’s actually quite hard smoking a joint when you’re lying on your back being brain scanned.

So the research team put their heads together (!), and realised they needed to design a bong – a water pipe for smoking marijuana – safe to use in an MRI scanner.

This isn’t a trivial task. Apart from being free of metal parts that could be affected by the MRI scanner’s strong magnet, the device had to be installed and removed within one booked session and also needed to control the smoke.

As well as allowing the person take hits from the bong, the device also had to capture the smoke that was exhaled. Otherwise, the scanner room would get filled with smoke which could interfere with the equipment and affect any participants who took part in other studies that happened afterwards.

Presumably, after much trial and error, the final device was created with two main parts: the first was a face mask with pipes going to the bong and the ‘exhaust’, the second was the water pipe which was sealed in a box.

One thing you may not be aware of is that the US research agency NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, have standard issue spliffs. These are government approved reefers guaranteed to have a measured amount of THC in them.

The bong was designed so these could be attached to the water pipe and lit at the appropriate time so the participant could smoke while being brain scanned.

The researchers tested their creation with a simple brain scan, declared the project a success and published their MRI-safe bong design in the medical journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior.

Link to write-up of study from Wired.
Link to abstract of article.

The latest edition of the American Psychological Association’s monthly magazine has a special feature on military mental health.

The issue is timely, as mental illness in the US military is at an all time high and military mental health services were recently described as “woefully inadequate” by a Pentagon task force.

It’s a bit of a curious mix for a magazine that’s usually heavily academic: it serves as a description of the problem, some motivational material to encourage psychologists to work in military mental health, and a collection of heart-warming tales of success.

There is certainly a great need for psychologists to help treat with psychiatric disorder in veterans, especially now increased government funding has been made available.

However, one wonders whether this issue is also a way of the APA executive mending relationships with the military after the membership voted to condemn the majority of their interrogation practices as torture.

Either way, it’s an interesting peek into the coming wave of mental health care changes that have been initiated by the large numbers of psychiatric casualties coming back from Iraq.

Curiously, the web page of the special feature has an interesting Freudian slip.

It’s been erroneously titled “Serving those we serve”, rather than its presumably correct title, given in the table of contents, of “Serving those who serve”.

Link to special feature on military mental health.

The New York Times has a record of publishing some cutting edge mind and brain journalism, most of which was collected on their ‘Mental Health and Behavior’ page. However, the page seems to have ground to a halt, removing one of the best psychology resources from the net.

Actually, they’ve not stopped publishing high-quality psychology articles, as the recent piece on the genetics of moral behaviour and social altruism demonstrates.

But their single best advert for their articles, a one-stop shop that gathered them all in one place, seems to have died a death.

It’s such as shame for a publication that has the rare and enviable record of publishing engaging pieces by writers who actually understand the science.

Link to moribund ‘Mental Health and Behavior’ page (thanks Jeremy!).
Link to excellent piece on genetics and moral behaviour.

Over the next two weeks the BPS Research Digest will be publishing articles by leading psychologists on the greatest psychology experiment that’s never been done.

Each contributor was asked to think of a psychology study they would love to see completed, even if it would be so impractical, it would never be possible.

Two will be published each day over over the coming week, and the first ones have just appeared online.

Susan Blackmore suggests we could brain scan people as they die to understand near-death experiences, while Pam Maras thinks we should do a social psychology experiment that looks at every possible interaction in everyday life.

During the week, the authors will suggest studies on the mind of the unborn child, resisting oppression, kindness-centred care for psychosis, the effect of switching parents, and radically reshaping the mind to improve its performance, to name but a few.

Other authors include Richard Gregory, Will Meek, Richard Bentall, Chris Chatham, Martin Seligman, Jeremy Dean, Alex Haslam, Judith Harris, Scott Lilienfeld and Annette Karmiloff-Smith.

So keep tabs on the BPS Research Digest over the coming week to catch the latest releases.

I’ve also been asked to contribute, and an article on using detectives to find the line between reality and psychosis will be appearing in the next few days.

I realise that means I included myself as a ‘leading psychologist’ in the opening line, but the more accurate description of “articles by leading psychologists and one over-caffeinated keyboard monkey” made the intro a bit clumsy. Either way, it should be a great series.

Link to ‘The most important psychology experiment that’s Never been done…?’

I’m not really one for blog memes, but I was pleased to see Psych Central has given us a nod. Actually, we’ve had a few of these now and they always give us a boost, but getting one from John Grohol is especially welcome because he’s the granddaddy of online psychology info.

It’s a bit like having Freud announce that you’ve got good taste in cigars.

For those of you who don’t know, Grohol is a psychologist who’s been putting mental health information on the net since the early nineties, and was putting information on BBS’s before that. He’s officially old school (if you thought ZMODEM was the best thing since sliced bread, you’re old school too).

At this point it’s probably worth mentioning that Mind Hacks is a substantial team effort of which my hypergraphia is just one part. Just Tom and Matt’s behind the scenes emails would fill a blog of their own. Plus we get a load of material sent by friends and readers (you know who you are! at least, Christian certainly does). Thanks!

The latest edition of the Psychiatric Times has a special section on sexuality that discusses everything from dealing with sex-related problems as a clinician, to the science of sexual orientation.

It’s actually quite a refreshing change from much of the recent hype we’ve seen about sexual dysfunction, which usually suggests that a patch, pill or prostheses is an essential treatment for unsatisfactory sex.

Psychiatrists who develop an interest in clinical sexuality tend to employ 2 different paradigms, depending on the clinical situation. One is quite familiar to modern psychiatric continuing education. The patient has a disorder, we possess a range of medication treatments, and the etiological theories support our treatment. Lifelong premature ejaculation is an ideal example.

Another paradigm is necessary for most sexual disorders, however. We approach these disorders from the viewpoint of general etiology rather than disorder-specific causation. Sexuality unfolds in adolescence and continues to evolve over decades of adult maturation. The sexual problem serves as a window into personal development and individual and relationship psychology. Sex is understood to be about the unfolding of the individual self, the capacity to give and receive pleasure, the capacity to love and to be loved, the ability to be psychologically intimate, and the ability to manage expected and unexpected changes throughout adulthood.

Since few sexual dysfunctions have a specific treatment, diagnosis per se usually is not the determinant of treatment. Rather, it is the invitation to study the context in which the problem arose. Treatment rests on the clinician’s understanding of how biological, psychological, interpersonal, and cultural factors combined in this case to create the symptom. This second paradigm reminds psychiatrists that the management of sexual disorders often requires interest and skills in psychotherapy.

The fact that most sexual problems are a manifestation of wider difficulties with relationships, mood, or adjustment is taken as read by most clinicians working in the area.

Unfortunately, most of the messages we encounter from TV, magazines and V!aGr4 spam suggest sexual difficulties are nothing more than a physical problem that needs a fix – as if you could help someone drive better by selling them tyres.

Link to August Psychiatric Times.

This week’s edition of New Scientist has a cover article outlining a number of try-it-yourself experiments that give you an insight into the cognitive science of the mind and brain.

Hang on a minute, that sounds familiar.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if so, the British science weekly have just paid a huge complement to Tom and Matt.

The NewSci article has six sections, each covering different areas of neuroscience, and each of which uses at least one example that appeared in the Mind Hacks book, and in some cases several. Here’s the overlap:

NS: Seeing isn’t believing
MH: Hack #17 Glimpse the Gaps in Your Vision
MH: Hack #18 When Time Stands Still
MH: Hack #49 Speech is Broadband Input into Your Head
MH: Hack #59 Hear With Your Eyes: The McGurk Effect
MH: Hack #53 Put Timing Information Into Sound and Location Information into Light

NS: This is not my nose
MH: Hack #63 Keep Hold of Yourself
MH: Hack #64 Mold Your Body Schema

NS: A Brain of two halves
MH: Hack #69 Use Your Right Brain – And Your Left, Too

NS: Probe your subconscious
MH: Hack #80 Act Without Knowing It

NS: Pay attention!
MH: Hack #36 Feel the Presence and Loss of Attention
MH: Hack #40 Blind to change
MH: Hack #41 Make Things Invisible Simply by Concentrating (On Something Else)

NS: Made-up memories
MH: Hack #85 Create false memories

Actually, several of the NewSci sections have completely new examples and have otherwise added updates with the latest scientific findings. A few discuss areas untouched in the book, but mainly they cover the same ground.

If you’ve got the book already, it’s an interesting update with some new experiments to try. And if you haven’t, it’s like the book, but shorter.

In fact, some of the article text mirrors the flow of the book rather closely. And not even a favourable nod to Tom and Matt. Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

Sadly, the article isn’t freely available online, so you’ll have to buy a copy to have a look.

UPDATE: Grabbed from a comments, feedback from the author:

Yes, Mind Hacks was a major inspiration for this article. But there’s loads of new stuff in there too. And it does give a nod to Tom Stafford and Matt Webb. That’s why it says at the end “Further Reading: Mind Hacks: Tips and tools for using your brain, by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb (O’Reilly 2006).”

Keep up the good work!

Thanks Graham. Unfortunately, the Further Reading section doesn’t appear on the online version, which is why I missed it.

Link to Scientific American. Petty, I know.
Link to NewSci article. The world is at peace.

The Dana Foundation have collected a list of widely praised books on the mind and brain that cover everything from academic texts to compelling fiction. Every book on the list is accompanied by a brief write-up.

It’s an extensive list with a number of great books on the list. My only reservation is that David Marr’s Vision (ISBN 0716715678) is missing.

I’ll get round to writing more about Marr in the future, as he is probably one of the most influential figures in 20th century neuroscience.

An amazing feet considering his book was written while he was dying from leukaemia, to which he eventually succumbed at the age of 35.

Vision was published after his death and has had a massive impact on vision science, neuropsychology and computational neuroscience – the latter of which was largely inspired by his work.

It’s also the only academic neuroscience book I’ve ever read which starts with the line: “This book is meant to be enjoyed”.

I read about the Dana guide on the excellent My Mind on Books – a site dedicated to mind, brain and cognitive science books – which also comes highly recommended.

Link to ‘Important Books on the Brain’ from the Dana Foundation.
Link to My Mind on Books.

Someone’s uploaded a video which serves both as an important teaching aid for MRI brain scanner safety and a wonderfully entertaining guide to the destructive power of a magnet the size of a small car.

The video itself is a a little bit old, and so has a sort of B-movie quality to it, but which makes it all the more fun.

However, it contains the classic sequence, part of virtually every MRI safety video, where technicians release a steel wrench near the magnet, which then flies through the air and obliterates a number of destructible objects in its path.

The magnetic field is designed to focus on a very specific area, and that’s where your head is placed when you’re scanned.

Any ferrous metals in the room will be drawn towards the centre of the field, probably at speed, which can be quite unfortunate if your head is occupying the same position.

We collected some nice examples of objects stuck in scanners earlier in the year, including chairs, oxygen bottles, and other assorted medical equipment.

If you want to see the sort of force generated by a steel oxygen bottle heading towards the centre of an MR magnet, there’s a short (and somewhat frightening) video on YouTube of some brave MRI technicians demonstrating the effect.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened in one tragic case where a six-year-old boy was killed. The incident is now also a standard part of MRI safety training.

However, the danger isn’t only from the ‘missile effect’. Additionally, elongated ferrous objects will try to align with the magnetic field. This is a problem if you have metal implants in your body.

For example, brain surgery to prevent aneurysms (strokes) often involves putting a small metal clip over the blood vessel to clamp it shut, to prevent blood flowing to the burst or weakened area. Nowadays, these clips are not ferrous, so aren’t a problem, but older ones might be affected by magnets.

Having a ferrous metal clip suddenly move inside your head can be disastrous, as it has the potential to shear the blood vessel, causing internal bleeding.

The video also talks about other sorts of possible MR hazards, largely involving the liquid helium and nitrogen boiling off and freezing, poisoning or pressurising the surroundings.

An explosion of an MRI magnetic when the gasses boiled off too quickly was caught on video by a TV news crew which creates quite a spectacular effect.

However, do bear in mind that these incidents are few and far between. Having an MRI is significantly safer than crossing the road.

If you go for an MRI scan, you’ll likely be interviewed and / or examined to make sure you have no metal in your body, and you’ll have all metal removed from you.

If you want to try, you can volunteer for brain scanning experiments where you’ll usually get a small payment and a picture of your brain – contact your local university or teaching hospital.

Link to B-movie style MRI safety video.
Link to video clip of oxygen bottle flying towards MRI scanner.
Link to MRI explosion video.
Link to previous Mind Hacks post on things stuck in scanners.

The New York Times has an article on the changing fortunes of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and why psychoanalysis is being increasingly marginalised in mental health.

Psychoanalysis, the name for both the theory practice of psychological treatment developed by Freud, was once the driving force behind American psychiatry and the only game in town as far as psychological treatment was concerned.

It is now becoming increasingly marginalised, thought of as a bit eccentric, and overtaken by newer cognitive therapies. Some of the reasons for this are undoubtedly to do with the culture of psychoanalysis itself.

A major historical factor has been the long and contentious history of the movement, which has been subject to constant splits, disagreements and factional in-fighting.

Part of the reason for this, perhaps more than for other therapies, is that psychoanalysis involves a much closer relationship between theory and practice.

In this framework, mental illnesses arise from unresolved emotional conflicts that the mind tries to handle by various psychological defences. These defences may fail, or they may be counter-productive in the long-term, supposedly leading to the symptoms of mental disorder.

The goal of psychoanalysis is not necessarily to reduce the symptoms but to resolve the inner conflicts (Freud famously said he wanted to transform “neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness”).

So, what tells you when the patient is improved? Why psychoanalytic theory of course.

And if you come up with a new theory of a disorder, you are, by definition, suggesting a new form of treatment, and often, new criteria for therapeutic success.

You also might be suggesting that your colleagues’ practice is wrong – hence the infighting and divisions.

In contrast, most other forms of treatment (including drugs and other psychological therapies) rely on descriptive measures of symptom improvement that form of the benchmark of psychiatric outcome studies, so theory and practice are much less intertwined.

Analysts will argue that these other treatments only deal with the surface symptoms and don’t deal with the ‘deeper concerns’, but the same issue arises – what constitutes ‘deep’ in this context is psychoanalytic theory.

In contrast, the development of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) has seen an opposite pattern. If new innovations work, they are typically re-included under the same CBT banner – giving the impression of a single unified therapy, when in fact, the boundaries are quite loose and determined by what has been shown to be effective in studies.

One of the other quirks of psychoanalysis, is that it’s selective for people who are quite wealthy.

Training as a psychoanalyst takes up to seven years, and requires you are in therapy yourself, usually for five times a week, at a cost of up to £100 ($200) a session. This comes on top of the cost of the training course itself.

For patients, therapy can also take years, and while most analysts will have discounts for the less well off, the costs can be significant. So despite some notable exceptions, it’s mostly the wealthy treating the wealthy – a curious enclave of the upper middle classes.

These factors also mean it’s very difficult to subject psychoanalysis to randomised controlled trials, because it’s so unlike anything else. This has made a new generation of clinicians, brought up with the mantra of ‘evidence based medicine’, suspicious of it.

With great reluctance in some quarters, the principles of psychoanalysis have been shoehorned into a number of briefer versions: psychoanalytic psychotherapy, transference-focused psychotherapy and so on.

Interestingly, symptom outcome studies have found that these can be quite effective, particularly it seems for ‘personality disorders‘ – a group of fairly ill defined diagnoses, but which typically involves destructive mood and relationship problems.

Despite the eccentricities and circular reasoning involved in some aspects of psychoanalysis, 100 years of practice has led to some important insights.

However, only recently has research started to pull out the wheat from the chaff in terms of how it can be applied to the demands of 21st century mental health care.

Link to NYT article ‘Patching Up the Frayed Couch’.
Link to AJP editorial on treatment of borderline personality disorder.

Renowned psychologist Dr Mary Pipher has handed back her American Psychological Association presidential award in protest at the organisation’s refusal to ban participation in US military interrogations which some deem to be torture under the Geneva Convention.

However, the whole issue of psychologists participation in government interrogations shadows a significant, but little mentioned, change in the status of psychologists in the medical establishment.

Fifty years ago, clinical psychologists were little more than test technicians who provided information for psychiatrists to interpret.

During the last decade, clinical psychology training has become equally, if not more, arduous than medical training, and psychological interventions have been shown to be highly effective.

Consequently, psychologists are now being considered on a par with physicians in many organisations. For example, psychologist-led mental health and brain-injury teams are increasingly common.

This change in status is being increasingly reflected in the law. In the UK’s 2005 Capacity Act, psychologists are now able to sign assessments concerning someone’s mental competence to make a contested decision, something that was previously reserved for medical doctors.

The recently approved UK Mental Health Bill is likely to allow psychologists, rather than just psychiatrists, to take a lead in ‘sectioning’ people – i.e. detaining them if they’re deemed a risk to themselves or others owing to mental illness.

In the the US military, and in some US states, psychologists are now able to prescribe medication, previously the sole domain of physicians, and the APA is pushing for the extension of these rights.

Not all psychologists are of a same mind on these issues, and many see these changes as much as a ‘poison chalice’ as as benefit.

In many ways, psychologists and psychiatrists are a ‘good cop, bad cop’ double act in mental health. Psychiatrists can forcibly drug and detain people, while psychologists can tut and scowl with the patient and continue to work collaboratively to improve their mental state.

Of course, patients may be a lot less willing to work with psychologists if they’ve played a role in their detention or forcible medication.

Internal debates aside, the fact that the US Government is quite happy to rely on psychologists, rather than physicians, for their interrogation practices is testament to a general change in status.

Contentious issues concerning a potent mix of economics, ethics and power balance shifts are common for physicians, who are used to governments wanting to give or take responsibilities away from them to suit their political agenda or latest reform plan.

In contrast, these sorts of ethical dilemmas are relatively new for psychologists.

What makes this an interesting time, is that psychology is in a transition period where lots of legal changes are being made to solidify their responsibilities.

This makes the profession much more susceptible to influence by government, and it will be interesting to see how these issues play out, of which the debate over military interrogations is perhaps only an early skirmish.

Link to interview with Dr Mary Pipher.