Category: Nonsense

The World Health Organisation’s ICD-10 manual of diseases and health problems has a diagnosis of ‘Strange and Inexplicable Behaviour’ that gives, rather appropriately, no further explanation, except that it’s classified with code R46.2

It is from Chapter XVIII of the ICD-10 which tackles ‘Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified’.

It turns out that the whole of Section R46 is a bit of a gold mine:
 
R46.0  Very low level of personal hygiene
R46.1  Bizarre personal appearance
R46.2  Strange and inexplicable behaviour
R46.3  Overactivity
R46.4  Slowness and poor responsiveness.
R46.5  Suspiciousness and marked evasiveness
R46.6  Undue concern and preoccupation with stressful events
R46.7  Verbosity and circumstantial detail obscuring reason for contact
R46.8  Other symptoms and signs involving appearance and behaviour
 
Many thanks to my friend and colleague Jorge who pointed out this little known and under-appreciated diagnostic gem.
 

Link to ICD-10 chapter with section R46.

Eric Kandel, push that Nobel Prize to the back of the cabinet. Your work has inspired a song by Canadian death metal band Neuraxis.

The track is called Imagery from the 2002 album ‘Truth Beyond…’ Sadly, I can’t find any audio of the piece online, but if you want a taster of what the band sound like, get someone to repeatedly drive a tank into a guitar shop, or click here.

Presumably the band have a long-standing interest in neuroscience as they are named after the layout of the central nervous system.

Anyway, here are the lyrics to Imagery, which reference Kandel’s work on the neurobiology of memory:

Imagery by Neuraxis

Striving… Memories. Striving… Memories.

Aplysia’s sensory neurons, alter response level to a given stimulus based on action transpired.
Protein synthesis; Involved in learning.
The strengthening, weakening of synaptic connection; The cellular basis of memory.

All thoughts and feeling; Euphoric or bizarre.
Results of endless interactions of neurochemicals.
Altered perception, re-altered beliefs, affects the mind, the thought process.

Endless emotions, infinite dreams.
Endless emotions, infinite dreams.
Affects the mind, the thoughts patterns.

This machinery called imagination.
Weaves an intricate.
Web of imagery… Imagery.

This machinery called imagination.
Weaves an intricate.
Web of imagery…
Imagery.

Link to Wikipedia page on Neuraxis.

io9 has a fantastic piece that analyses the favoured subjects of investigation for mad scientists – tracking trends in 200 years of fictional evil research.

The researchers from io9’s underground science bunker scanned films and literature for depictions of the slightly unbalanced investigator to look at how research topics varied as fashions changed.

So what did we discover? First of all, mad scientists have obviously grown in popularity a great deal since the nineteenth century. Of all the sciences, biology seems to enjoy the most adherence from the maniacal – followed closely by its sister discipline, biotechnology. It’s interesting to note that big spike in mad scientists researching biology during the 1910s and 20s – this would have been the era when cinema and pulp fiction were gaining traction, and along with them “scientifiction” stories. It was also a time of great medical and biological experimentation in the west.

Coincidentally, today’s Guardian has an article on dispelling the image of the ‘boffin’ and the ‘mad scientist’ from the public’s mind to improve the image of science, noting that in the last decade Hollywood scientists are almost entirely depicted as beautiful competent young women.

If you work in cognitive science, of course, your research colleagues are probably entirely made up of beautiful competent young women, and I would like to make a stand for socially awkward not fully-in-touch-with-reality badly dressed male boffin.

Don’t get me wrong, I am frequently in awe of female cognitive scientists, but how many have burnt their ear with a soldering iron? A different but still valuable form of awe-inspiration I’m sure you’ll agree.
 

Link to io9 ‘Research areas of mad scientists, 1810-2010’ (via @NoaWG ).
Link to The Guardian ‘Who are you calling a boffin?’

Writer Douglas Coupland has a playful article in the The Independent where he defines ‘new terms for new sensations’ and lists new psychological states that may be arising from 21st century life.

Coupland is known for his careful observations of how technology impacts on day-to-day living and there are many delightful entries in the list, but a few of my favourites are below:

Deselfing: Willingly diluting one’s sense of self and ego by plastering the internet with as much information as possible.

Internal Voice Blindness: The near universal inability of people to articulate the tone and personality of the voice that forms their interior monologue.

Karaokeal Amnesia: Most people don’t know all the lyrics to almost any song, particularly the ones they hold most dear. (See also Lyrical Putty)

Lyrical Putty: The lyrics one creates in one’s head in the absence of knowing a song’s real lyrics.

Zoosumnial Blurring: The notion that animals probably don’t see much difference between dreaming and being awake.

Link to ‘New terms for new sensations’ in The Indepedent.

The Twilight series of young adult novels “could be affecting the dynamic workings of the teenage brain in ways scientists don’t yet understand” according to a bizarre article from LiveScience.

To be fair, the premise of the article is quite correct, Twilight novels (along with everything) are indeed altering the brain in ways we don’t understand, because the brain changes in response to any and every experience we have – plus, we don’t have omniscient powers of all-knowing.

The report has apparently been inspired by a recent conference just held in the UK called ‘The Emergent Mind: Adolescent Literature and Culture’ which, judging by the pdf of the programme, had nothing to say about the brain.

The literature researchers quoted in the article make some vague and unhelpful generalisations about neuroscience but it’s hard to say whether they were just speculating based on the reporter’s questions.

The result, however, is an Onion-esque ‘vampire novels are changing teen brains’ article. Perhaps its only redeeming feature is that it makes an ironic scare story about books that balances out the usual scare stories about technology.

All those misinformed parents who stopped their kids using the internet and made them read novels are likely kicking themselves now. This would be funnier, of course, if it wasn’t so likely.
 

Link to fiction-inspired LiveScience article (via @stevesilberman).

Satirical website Newsbiscuit has a funny piece about linguist Noam Chomsky being a new judge on X-Factor.

Professor of linguistics and political campaigner Noam Chomsky has been confirmed as the new judge on TV talent show The X Factor. ‘Cheryl Cole was still recovering from malaria and we needed someone who could fill the intellectual void,’ said programme creator Simon Cowell, ‘Professor Chomsky is perfect and the audience just loves him.’

In his first outing as judge, Chomsky quickly made his mark. ‘Your act is part of a propaganda state promoting a culture-ideology of comforting illusion’, he told one hopeful young girl, before adding, ‘I’m saying yes.’

Chomsky then set about a teenage boy-band, describing them as ‘yet another example of pre-packaged ideological oppression whose lyrics systematically fail to demonstrate even a basic understanding of what happened to East Timor in 1975,’ he paused for effect, ‘But, I’m giving you a second chance…You’re through to the next round.’

Link to Newsbiscuit story.

Brain-machine interfaces have been of huge interest to the press over recent years, particularly as the technology sparks concerns that have been the subject of numerous science-fiction fantasies.

I found a lovely offbeat example of a fictional brain-machine interface, not from recent high-tech science fiction, but from a H.P. Lovecraft horror story called ‘The Whisperer in Darkness’ – written way back in 1930.

It concerns a race of winged fungi creatures who transport themselves across the space-time continuum as brains-in-cylinders that can be plugged into sensory and speech apparatus where necessary.

There was a harmless way to extract a brain, and a way to keep the organic residue alive during its absence. The bare, compact cerebral matter was then immersed in an occasionally replenished fluid within an ether-tight cylinder of a metal mined in Yuggoth, certain electrodes reaching through and connecting at will with elaborate instruments capable of duplicating the three vital faculties of sight, hearing, and speech.

For the winged fungus-beings to carry the brain-cylinders intact through space was an easy matter. Then, on every planet covered by their civilisation, they would find plenty of adjustable faculty-instruments capable of being connected with the encased brains; so that after a little fitting these travelling intelligences could be given a full sensory and articulate life – albeit a bodiless and mechanical one – at each stage of their journeying through and beyond the space-time continuum.

It was as simple as carrying a phonograph record about and playing it wherever a phonograph of corresponding make exists. Of its success there could be no question.

I also note it’s an early example of the ‘brain in a vat‘ thought experiment used in philosophy of mind.
 

Link to Wikipedia page on ‘The Whisperer in Darkness’.
Link to short story full text.

The New York Times has an odd feature article on how a group of cognitive scientists went into the ‘wilderness’ supposedly as part of a “quest to understand the impact on the brain of heavy technology use”.

As far as I can make out, though, the entire story is ‘scientists go rafting’. No research was conducted, or, in this situation, could have been usefully conducted to really test the impact of technology on the mind and brain. The main thrust of the piece is that the researchers discussed the topic among themselves.

I have no objection to scientists going rafting or heading off into the wilderness (I’m not averse to a bit of that myself) but I am baffled as to how such a weak story gets splashed as an insight into ‘technology and the brain’.

Scientifically, the trip is next to useless, as even if the team was doing research in the wild it tells us nothing specific about technology.

There is a whole host of studies that tell us contact with nature has psychological benefits, so any effects of being in the wilderness could be equally due to immersion in the natural world rather than lack of technology.

If you really wanted to see if there were any differences related to technology you’d want people to live their regular lives without the devices they usually rely on. Sending people on holiday just isn’t useful because you can’t tell whether any differences are due to changes in diet, sleeping patterns or sunset banjo playing.

The piece is also based on the bizarre premise that technology = multi-tasking and this is a new and ‘unnatural’ form of mental activity that may be ‘changing us’.

As we’ve mentioned before, this is an odd myth that ignores the fact that in the majority of the world, and for the majority of human history, we have multi-tasked without digital technology.

Anyone who thinks multi-tasking is novel should spend a day looking after four children, a small collection of animals and cooking on a stove at the same time (that, by the way, is an easy day).

So New York Times you can have that suggestion for free and I look forward to your forthcoming piece “Unplugged with Kids in a Brazilian Favela, Studying the Brain”.

I would volunteer but I can’t bear to be without my electric toothbrush.
 

Link to New York Times on scientists’ rafting holiday.

McSweeney’s has a funny piece where Freud visits the ad agency Sterling Cooper from the Mad Men television series:

FREUD: Well, as you know, we’ve dominated psychology for decades. But lately we’ve begun losing our share of the market to Behaviorism. People want a more comforting interpretation of their lives. They don’t want to be told that they’re suppressing base urges, or that their problems can be traced back to how they learned to use the toilet.

DRAPER: But that’s always been your identity. People think of Freudian insights as rising above the crowd. It’s an attitude that says, “I’m educated. I’m not a mechanic.” I don’t think you toy with that.

FREUD: Society is changing. At our last board meeting, we decided we have to reposition ourselves. We want to promote our expertise in dreams. We want people to see them as the means to discover themselves, and that Freud will show them how.

PEGGY OLSON: When I was a girl, I always lay in bed in the morning thinking over the dream I just had. It was the happiest part of my day.

FREUD: (Brightening) That’s the feel that we’re looking for. People want a lift, and we give it to them.

OLSON: You could have a slogan like, “Dare to Dream.” Or “Full Dream Ahead.”

Although intended to be satirical, Freud’s family has a long association with advertising. His nephew, Edward Bernays, essentially invented the field of PR, and his great grandson, Matthew Freud, is the founder of Freud Communications, one of the biggest PR companies in the UK.

Link to ‘Freud: The Rebranding’ (via @mrianleslie).

If you’ve ever wondered how much caffeine it would take to kill you (and I know you have) there is now a handy online calculator that lets you enter your body weight and caffeine source to find out how many energy drinks, coffees, teas or bars of chocolate would be needed to cause your teeth-chattering demise.

It’s a little bit basic, as a ‘friend’ would like to be able to factor in any caffeine tolerance already developed, and perhaps understand whether skipping-the-breakfast-energy-drink-headaches have any long-term neurological effects.

Apart from that, it looks like a handy resource. On an energy drinks review site. As my student bank manager used to tell me – it’s a limit not a goal.

Link to death by caffeine calculator.

The digital drugs hilarity just keeps on giving. Back in 2008 we discussed an unintentionally hilarious USA Today article on the ‘dangers of digital drugs’ which I thought would never be toppped.

I was wrong. Oklahoma City’s News9 channel produced a bulletin of such sheer alternative-dimension pant-wetting hilarity you couldn’t have written anything funnier if you tried.

If the incredulous reporters, concerned parents and freaked-out students don’t split your sides, top marks to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics for earnestly warning us about the dangers.

Wired rounds-up some of the other pointless hand-wringing but they missed a minor gem where yesterday, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered invited a naturopath on-air to discuss whether digital drugs really could emulate the effects of ‘cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana and Viagra’.

Link to News9 comedy gold.
Link to previous Mind Hacks on ‘digital drugs’.

Slate has a tongue-in-cheek article making the case that national levels of infection with the toxoplasma gondii parasite could be responsible for World Cup success.

It’s timely because the parasite has most recently been discussed in the press due to a new study that found a correlation between infection rates and national IQ levels. However, it’s previously been linked (again, correlated) with a whole host of human characteristics.

This is from some insightful coverage from Not Exactly Rocket Science:

Indeed, as I alluded to earlier, this new paper is the latest in a long line of hypothesis-generating publications from Fincher and Thornhill linking parasites and infections to pretty much any sweeping aspect of human life you can think of. Through similar studies based on correlations at the national level, Thornhill and Fincher have suggested that infections are linked to individualism and collectivism, religious diversity, linguistic diversity, armed conflicts and civil war, and democracy and liberal values. Like any attempt to explain very complex patterns of human behaviour through a single cause, this ought to raise an eyebrow. I’m raising two.

The case for the parasite being linked to football success in the Slate article sounds about as reasonable as everything else it’s been linked to as all the arguments are based on a correlation and some conjectures about how one could cause the other.

However, we could probably find dozens of things that might correlate with toxoplasma gondii on the national level (levels of traffic accidents? Eurovision song contest performance? spiciness of the food?).

It could be that such infections genuinely cause changes in aspects of thought or behaviour, but we won’t find this out from these sorts of studies because the links could be entirely incidental as our World Cup example likely demonstrates.

Link to Slate on toxo infections and World Cup success.
Link to Not Exactly Rocket Science on toxo correlations.

Full disclosure: I’m an occasional writer for Slate.

The Health Editor of The Independent has written a baffling article where he seems to confuse transcranial magnetic stimulation, a technique used in cognitive neuroscience to induce current in the brain through the use of large electromagnets, and dodgy ‘magnet therapy’ which involves wearing magnetic pendants that are advertised as curing various ailments.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS is a technique that takes advantage of the fact that if you move a magnetic field over a conductor, a current is generated.

Your brain, of course, is a conductor of electricity and TMS allows researchers or clinicians to electrically stimulate parts of the brain by applying a magnetic field from outside the skull.

But to generate enough electricity to actually cause neurons to discharge you need very large electromagnets. Typical TMS magnets generate pulses of about 1 telsa (30,000 times greater the the Earth’s magnetic field) for less than a hundred milliseconds.

In fact, this requires so much energy that if you use a TMS machine plugged into standard domestic power supply, the lights dim when you trigger a pulse.

Depending on the arrangement of pulses, TMS can be used to temporarily increase or decrease the activity in parts of the brain near the surface of the skull and there is now an increasing interest in using this to treat psychiatric or neurological disorders.

This new study used the technique to ‘tune down’ the activity of an area of the frontal lobe called the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, finding that it improved the understanding of sentences when given over four weeks.

The trial only included 10 patients, 5 in each group but it is an interesting but preliminary pilot study.

Magnet therapy, on the other hand, is a practice from alternative medicine that claims that wearing a magnetic bracelet or drinking ‘magnetised water’ can relieve arthritis or cure minor ailments.

Curious then, that the article in The Independent, despite noting that there is no evidence for ‘magnet therapy’, suggest that results from this new TMS study “are likely to be seized on as further evidence of magnetism’s healing powers”.

In the same way, I presume, that obstetrics could be seized on as further evidence for the effectiveness of rebirthing therapy.

Needless to say, some of the people commenting on the article are less than impressed with the piece.

Link to article ‘Magnets can improve Alzheimer’s symptoms’.
Link to summary of scientific study.