Category: Nonsense

Another scientist has sold his soul to the God of PR and promoted a nonsense formula in the media – this time for the ‘perfect Page 3 girl’. For those not used to the British tabloid press, page 3 traditionally displays a picture of a topless girl.

The offender on this occasion is Cambridge University medical researcher Dr David Granger, who is seemingly trying to promote a commercial diagnostics company by talking drivel to the media.

I honestly don’t know how this happens. If I was looking to hire a commercial science company, one that had just advertised itself with some spectacularly bad pseudoscience would be bottom of my list.

Link to Dr Petra with the gory details.

And who could resist finishing the day with rock n’ roll?

Seed magazine has an account of rock producer turned cognitive neuroscientist Dan Levitin meeting with rock musician David Byrne, and 3QuarksDaily have found a curious reference to 80s group The Smiths in a book on the philosophy of mind.

The first paragraph of philosopher Akeel Bilgrami’s book Belief and Meaning (ISBN 0631196773) contains a reference to The Smiths track ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’:

Content is what is specified by sentences or propositions in that-clauses when we attribute intentional states to agents. Thus, in the attribution, “Smith believes that Bigmouth has struck again,” the sentence or proposition (Bigmouth has struck again) which follows the “that” specifies the content.

Link to Dan Levitin and David Byrne interview in Seed.
Link to 3QuarksDaily on philosophy and The Smiths.

Shirt and t-shirt site Hide Your Arms has just reviewed a fantastic t-shirt that has a wonderful exploded brain picture on the front and a recent neuroscience news story on the back.

The shirt is from a company called T-Post who send subscribers a new t-shirt every six weeks based on a recent news story.

This t-shirt is based on the findings of a research study that found that activation in an area of the right temporal lobe when viewing others’ actions was associated with self-reported altruism.

Link to Hide Your Arms shirt review.
Link to T-Post.

The Independent on Sunday has the dubious honour of publishing one of the worst pieces of science journalism I have ever read on today’s front cover – claiming to ‘reveal’ that children are at risk from Wi-Fi computer networks because of their developing nervous systems.

The headlines include “Children at risk from electronic smog”, “Revealed: radiation threat from new wireless computer networks”, “Fears rise over health threat to children from wifi networks” and “Danger on the airwaves”.

This is despite the fact that not one single study has found a health risk for wifi networks.

In fact, a recent study that measured wifi emissions found “In all cases, the measured Wi-Fi signal levels were very far below international exposure limits (IEEE C95.1-2005 and ICNIRP) and in nearly all cases far below other RF signals in the same environments”.

Personally, I’m more concerned about the smog that comes from whatever they’ve been smoking at the Independent on Sunday.

Link to abstract of recent study on wifi exposure.

You wait all day for a neuroscience version of an 80s pop song with scientifically accurate lyrics, and two come along at once.

Hot on the heels of the occipital lobe remix of Britney’s Baby One more Time… comes a re-working of Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now.

This time, some medical students who have obviously spent a little too much time in lab class, bring you the video extravanganza that is I Think With My Brain Now.

The lyrics are very special.

Link to YouTube video of ‘I Think with My Brain Now’.

A recent study comparing British and non-British participants has found some compelling differences in brain structure that may account for differences in national character.

One of the images from the study is available online and is a striking demonstration of how cognitive neuroscience can answer some of the mysteries of cultural diversity.

Link to online copy of brain scan image (thanks Kevin!).

Why does this leave a bad taste in my mouth? Numerous news sources are reporting that chocolate has a stronger effect on the heart and brain than kissing.

Alarm bells started ringing when it became obvious that the story is a promotion for a sweet company trying to advertise a new line of chocolate bars.

The ‘research’ was conducted by a company called The Mind Lab who offer to do psychology studies for a number of purposes, including “PR oriented research” to get a “route into the media”.

Their founder, Dr David Lewis, can even be hired to “provide independent, third party, endorsement”, demonstrating that contradiction is no barrier to good marketing.

Apparently, the study used EEG and heart rate measures to compare response during kissing, to response during a bizarre condition where a lump of chocolate was put on the tongue and was left until it melted.

I say apparently, because the research itself seems not to be available.

It doesn’t seem to have been published anywhere (although I can’t say there are many neuropsychology journals crying out for EEG studies comparing melted chocolate and kissing) and so far, the company has not responded to my request for the details of the study.

What is slightly disappointing is that the company seems also to do ‘serious’ research and the founder is an established researcher.

A well-written, elegantly designed, surprisingly creative research paper may yet turn up in my inbox, but until that time, I’d avoid the junk.

Anyway, we know from published neuroscience research that too much chocolate makes you feel sick (and just how the brain might generate the feeling).

UPDATE: Four days later and no reply to my requests. This one’s junk.

UPDATE 2: I finally did get details of the study from The Mind Lab. I posted about it here.

Link to a genuinely interesting chocolate study.

It’s a timeless romantic tale. Boy meets girl. Boy accidentally puts girl into a coma in a car accident. Boy tries to revive girl in his neuroscience lab while singing an 80s pop song.

The video for the 1985 song Future Brain by Italian pop artist Den Harrow is on YouTube if you want to satisfy your morbid curiosity.

According to Den Harrow’s Wikipedia entry he didn’t even sing his own songs. Presumably the lab was all his own work though.

If you think the neuroscience of mental illness is just too complicated to understand, there’s no need to worry your pretty little head about it.

Dr Bonkers has kindly collected explanations of these otherwise poorly understood disorders, simplified for you, by those ever helpful drug industry marketing departments.

Why waste time following those baffling scientific debates about how the most complex organ in the known universe experiences distressing and disabling mental states when the following explanation will suffice:

Although [insert name of mental disorder here] is not fully understood, there is growing evidence that it is caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain.

What ‘growing evidence’ can mean is everything from virtually none (in the case of serotonin and depression) to the evidence points to some role for an excess of neurotransmitter action in a particular brain circuit but there is still some contradictory evidence and isn’t a complete explanation of the whole disorder (in the case of dopamine and psychosis).

But who would want to worry patients who already have a lot on their minds with complicated brain science, let alone trouble them with mixed evidence from the results of clinical trials that tested the medication for its usefulness.

It’s interesting to note that the information on Dr Bonkers’ site is all from direct-to-consumer marketing, at a time when psychiatrists themselves are being specifically trained to communicate the complexities of the science to patients.

An excellent Royal College of Psychiatrists podcast tackles how to communicate the results of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to a patient wanting to know how a drug might affect them.

It’s well worth listening to if you want some insider knowledge that will help you make sense of the marketing claims.

And if you want a simple explanation of the neuroscience of mental disorder and how drugs affect the brain, well, there isn’t one.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Link to Dr Bonkers’ Science Made Simple (thanks Ben!).
Link to RCP podcast on interpreting drug trials.

RAY: Peter, this is an incredible breakthrough. I mean, what a discovery! A psychoreactive substance! Whatever this stuff is, it responds to human emotional states.

PETER: Mood slime. Oh, baby…

WINSTON: You mean this stuff actually feeds on bad vibes.

RAY: Like a cop in a donut factory.

Dialogue from one of the only comedy films to star parapsychologists: Ghostbusters II.

So I prescribed her, something to revive
And surprise her, she’s liver and much more wiser
Than the light I shine when my brain cells spark,
Come to me so we can glow in the dark

A curious combination of psychiatric metaphor and romantic storytelling from Eric B & Rakim’s 1990 track Mahogany. The hip hop duo mention the brain surprisingly often in their lyrics.

The word ‘bedlam’ commonly refers to disorder or chaos, but it originally referred to Bethlem Royal Hospital – the world’s oldest psychiatric hospital, founded in 1247 and still operational today.

The modern day Bethlem is the only psychiatric hospital I’ve ever been to that has a souvenir shop, as it has an on-site museum and archives open to the public.

Sadly, they don’t do t-shirts, but it seems a company called Bedlam Clothing may have unintentionally filled the gap in the market.

They produce a range of t-shirts, some of which are just printed with the clothing label’s name and logo on.

They’re currently on sale for only $6 dollars, and they do two female versions and one in black for men.

So if your wardrobe is lacking in history of psychiatry memorabilia, look no further.

Link to Bedlam Clothing.
Link to Royal Bethlem Hospital Museum and Archives.

Delirium Tremens is the name of the life-threatening alcohol withdrawal syndrome that can cause seizures and hallucinations – it is also the name of a strong Beligian beer.

I’m not entirely sure about the wisdom of naming an alcholic drink after a severe neurological syndrome caused by alcohol intoxication.

It’s a bit like naming a motorbike ‘traumatic brain injury’ or a boating company ‘drowned passengers’.

Apparently, it’s an excellent beer, as it won Best Beer in the World at the World Beer Championships.

Probably best drunk in moderation though, for irony’s sake.

Link to information on the alcohol withdrawal syndrome.
Link to information on the beer.

Of course what makes Paris such a wonderful city is how all the parts fit together, and the same is true of the brain. Indeed a more apt use of the Parisian brain metaphor might be to think of the prefontal cortex as the Pompidou Center, a piece of modern architecture in the heart of the old city. As we shall see. at the heart of who you are is a complex blend of old and new regions, Picasso-like prefrontal cortex grounded in the old masters of more ancient brain structurs, some of them so old that humans share them with insects

This is a quote from Quartz & Sejnowski’s (2002) ‘Liars, Lovers and Heros’. It’s an excellent book, rallying an impressive range of biological and sociological material to give a nuanced opinion on ‘what the new brain science reveals about how we become who we are are’ (the book’s subtitle). The quote isn’t particularly representative, but I enjoyed ‘the Parisian Brain metaphor’ so much I thought I’d share it!

The eDrugSearch blog has noted that Mia Heaston, the current Miss Illinois and one of the 2007 Miss USA hopefuls, is also a pharmaceutical industry representative.

If this link seems a bit too tenuous to be newsworthy, the blog also identifies two of last year’s Miss USA contestants who were drug reps and identified no less than 16 professional cheerleaders who also work as reps for the pharmaceutical industry.

If you’ve ever met a drug rep, you’ll know they tend to be charming, aesthetically pleasing young people with free gifts and selected scientific publications to hand, which of course, suggest that the company’s medication is the best treatment for any number of mental illnesses or assorted disorders.

In a classic 1983 paper Webster and Driskell reported that attractive people are generally thought to be more intelligent and more competent, including when judged on their likely performance on tasks completely unrelated to good looks, such as ‘ability to pilot a plane’.

The use and perceived credibility of information provided by drug reps to doctors has been found to correlate with prescribing.

In other words, even apart from the sex appeal, attractive drug reps are likely to make the marketing information seem more convincing, which in turn leads leads to more doctors using the drugs.

So it’s no surprise that one of the biggest industries on the planet is selectively recruiting some of the most attractive people to promote both their product and their product-supporting research.

No Free Lunch has an extensive list of peer-reviewed research on drug marketing that is an essential antidote and will help you judge their information more effectively.

Link to eDrugSearch blog on Miss USA drug reps (via Furious Seasons).
Link to eDrugSearch blog on cheerleader drug reps.
Link to first page of classic Webster and Driskell paper.

The robot rebellion got a step closer this week as a US court cited a web-based artificial intelligence system for practising law without a license.

The website provided legal advice based on an expert system – a database of knowledge that is often structured by the links and associations made by human experts in the field.

Someone obviously took exception to a programme providing legal advice and the issue ended up in litigation.

The Wired Blog reported on the curious case and linked to the pdf of the court ruling that stated:

[The] system touted its offering of legal advice and projected an aura of expertise concerning bankruptcy petitions; and, in that context, it offered personalized — albeit automated — counsel. … We find that because this was the conduct of a non-attorney, it constituted the unauthorized practice of law.

I’ll be looking out for more signs that Skynet is becoming self-aware and will be heading for the bunkers at the earliest sign of impending nuclear war.

Link to Wired Blog on ‘AI Cited for Unlicensed Practice of Law’.