Category: Other People

Author Terry Pratchett recently announced that he has early onset Alzheimer’s disease, a form of the brain disorder that strikes before the age of 65.

In typical Pratchett style, he described the news as ‘an embuggerance’ but still continues to work on his comic novels.

He’s just given an audio interview to the BBC where he discusses his diagnosis, how he views the future, and how the brain changes are affecting his day-to-day life.

He is wonderfully open and optimistic, and quite inspiring, in his usual quiet, humorous way.

Link to BBC audio interview with Terry Pratchett.

Wired magazine has a feature article on the life, work and tragic deaths of two of the leading lights of Artificial Intelligence: Chris McKinstry and Push Singh.

Singh was a young researcher at MIT’s AI lab while McKinstry was considered a maverick and most of his AI work was conducted independently.

Both had a significant impact on the field as personalities and took a similar line in trying to make AI more focused on dealing with ‘common sense’ knowledge, rather than applying neural networks to complex pattern-recognition and transformation tasks as was more common at the time.

Interestingly, it seems from the Wired article that their ideas are experiencing something of a renaissance.

Tragically, both took their own lives. We covered the sad event of McKinstry’s death back in 2006, and the Wired article discusses the somewhat less clear circumstances surrounding the death of Singh.

Link to Wired article ‘Two AI Pioneers. Two Bizarre Suicides’.

Film star Cary Grant talks about his experiences with LSD in an excerpt from his autobiography.

Grant was one of the few people who were medically treated with LSD-assisted psychotherapy when it was still legal in 1960s America, and he claimed he benefited greatly from it.

The feeling is that of an unmarshaling of the thoughts as you’ve customarily associated them. The lessening of conscious control, similar to the mental process which takes place when we dream. For example, when you’re asleep and your mind no longer concerned with matters and activities of the day, your subconscious often brings itself to your attention by dreaming. With conscious controls relaxed, those thoughts buried deep inside begin to come to the surface in the form of dreams. These dreams, since they appear to us in symbolic guise, are fantasies and, if you will accept the reasoning, could be classified as hallucinations. Such fantasies, or hallucinations, are inside every one of us, waiting to be released, aired and understood. Dreams are really the emotions that we find ourselves reluctant to examine, think about, or meditate upon, while conscious.

Under the effect of LSD 25, these dreams or hallucinations, if you wish, are speeded up, and interpreted, when properly conducted ba a psychiatrically orientated doctor who sits quietly by, awaiting whatever communication one cares to make — the revealing of a hidden memory seen again from an older, more mature viewpoint, or the dawning of new enlightenment. Then, if the doctor is as skilled as mine was, he carefully proffers a word or key, that can lead to the next release, the next step toward fuller understanding.

Link to Grant on LSD, from his autobiography (via MeFi).

Bookslut interviews author Christopher Lane, who argues in a new book that shyness has been transformed in the mental illness ‘social phobia’, partly due to it being used as a political football during a time of theoretical upheaval in psychiatry.

Social phobia is a type of anxiety that is triggered in social situations.

It can be specific to a certain situation, such as eating in public, or more generally associated with interacting with any group.

Some have argued that it is a prime example of where drug companies have picked up on an unpleasant but common anxiety and promoted it as a mental illness to be treated with medication, whereas others feel it is disabling enough to require wider recognition and medical attention.

As in a previous article for The New York Times [pdf] and seemingly in this book, Lane argues that definition is so vague as to be virtually meaningless.

Throughout the book, Lane suggests that the conceptual problems of the DSM arise in part from its weird eagerness to break decisively with Freud. Lane has vividly reconstructed the decision-making process of the DSM-III in the 1970s, showing how scoring points over rival theoretical schools frequently trumped logic or consistency. Insisting on the biochemical nature of all mental suffering leads psychiatrists to turn away from the vicissitudes of the mind — what Lane calls “the strange, unusual turns of consciousness, themselves in thrall to vivid memories, irrational fantasies, persistent associations, and sometimes-inexplicable impulses.” By reducing the complexity of these “turns” into “disorders” — no matter how “multiaxial” — modern psychiatry seems to drain the life out of the mind. Shyness is passionately and compellingly argued, in clear prose that is in turn scathing, hilarious, and sympathetic.

In the interview below, Lane discusses the origins of the book, the implications of shifting from a “reaction-based” to a “disorder-based” model of diagnosis, the differences between psychoanalysis and neuropsychiatry, and the problem of emotional blunting.

Link to interview with Christopher Lane.
Link to book details with excerpt.
pdf of NYT article ‘Shy on Drugs’.

The New York Times has an interesting piece on Heather Kuzmich one of the recent contestants on reality TV show America‚Äôs Next Top Model who reportedly has Asperger’s syndrome.

Asperger’s syndrome is essentially High Functioning Autism (the difference in diagnosis lies in a fairly academic point about the age at which someone acquires language), meaning that the person is not impaired in terms of intelligence, but has difficulties understanding others’ emotions, social interactions and can have ‘special interests’ or repetitive behaviours.

The stereotype of someone with Asperger’s is that they’re quite shy, withdrawn or socially unattractive.

In contrast, a video of Kuzmich on YouTube shows her to be an engaging and outgoing personality with a delightfully kooky edge that shines through.

It’s always great to see when someone doesn’t conform to a negative stereotype and the impact is all the more enhanced when it’s someone high profile or in the public eye.

Link to NYT article ‘Asperger‚Äôs Syndrome Gets a Very Public Face’.

We must, in the next place, investigate the subject of the dream, and first inquire to which of the faculties of the soul it presents itself,

i.e. whether the affection is one which pertains to the faculty of intelligence or to that of sense-perception; for these are the only faculties within us by which we acquire knowledge.

The opening lines of Aristotle’s early sleep text On Dreams, written in approximately 350 BC.

The scientific journal Molecular Interventions has a whole load of open-access articles that contain interviews with leading molecular biologists, including several with notable neuroscientists.

As you might expect from a scientific journal (which rarely include interviews) the exchanges are in-depth and gloriously geeky in places.

I haven’t found a search term to cleanly pull out all the interviews, but so far I’ve found discussions with:

Kay Redfield Jamison: ‘The Personal and Professional: Of One Mind’.
David Colquhoun: ‘An Uncommon Scientist with a Lot of Common Sense’.
Geoffrey Burnstock: ‘Most highly cited scientist’.
Floyd Bloom: ‘Neuroscience was not even a word’.
Candace Pert: ‘Paradigms from Neuroscience: When Shift Happens’.
Nora Volkow: ‘Motivated Neuroscientist’.
Sol Snyder: ‘Research as an Art Form’.
Eric Kandel: ‘The future of memory’.

I’ve not read them all, but there’s some real gems in there from some neuroscience heroes, so well-worth a read through.

Jonah Lehrer is the author of a new book that argues that arts and literature can help us understand the brain. It’s provocatively titled Proust was a Neuroscientist and it challenges us to look beyond the lab when understanding neuroscience.

Lehrer himself moved from graduated from the neuroscience lab to a career in writing, and is now one of the editors of Seed Magazine.

He also pens gripping brain science articles, including, most recently, a wonderful encounter with Oliver Sacks in this month’s edition, and of course, his frequent updates at the Frontal Cortex blog.

He’s also kindly agreed to speak to Mind Hacks about his new book, why Cezanne is a candidate for cognitive science experiments, and how reverse engineering art can help us understand the mind.

Continue reading “Five minutes with Jonah Lehrer”

“Among the millions of nerve cells that clothe parts of the brain there runs a thread. It is the thread of time, the thread that has run through each succeeding wakeful hour of the individual.”

Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, apparently quoted in a 1958 edition of Reader’s Digest.

Psychiatrist Prof Anthony Clare has sadly passed away. He was particularly known in the UK as the presenter of In the Psychiatrist’s Chair, where he interviewed celebrities about their lives, loves and losses, but was also known as a respected academic psychiatrist in both Britain and his native Ireland.

In the Psychiatrist’s Chair saw a number of celebrities discuss their innermost concerns, and most famously, agony aunt Claire Rayner broke down and cried inconsolably during her interview.

As well as his numerous media appearances and extensive academic research, he wrote Psychiatry in Dissent (ISBN 0415039428) at the height of the anti-psychiatry movement in the 1970s, which still remains one of the most convincing and balanced defences of mainstream psychiatry.

Link to obituary from The Telegraph.
Link to more from Google News.
Link to article on Psychiatry in Dissent’s impact.

Dr Lolita Shant√© Gooden is New York-based psychologist with a block rockin’ background. Under the stage name Roxanne Shant√© she revolutionised hip-hop at the age of 14 when she recorded a direct reply to a popular hip-hop track which became a hit in its own right.

This was one of the first rounds in an avalanche of subsequent musical responses, dis records, and on-air replies – a phenomenon now known as the Roxanne Wars.

She was famously dissed in Boogie Down Production’s track The Bridge is Over but she always gave as good as she got and, over the next decade, defined herself as one of the strongest female MCs in rap music.

Nevertheless, at the age of 25 she decided to go to college and study psychology. She describes in a video how she was funded by a clause in an early record contract that promised to pay for her education.

The record company obviously didn’t think that the young MC, who was already a teenage mother, would amount to much at school.

However, she used the contract to her advantage, applied herself with enthusiasm to her studies, and eventually earned a PhD in psychology.

She now practices in Queens, New York.

Link to Wikipedia page on Roxanne Shanté.
Link to video of Roxanne Shanté explaining how she got her PhD (via MeFi).
Link to MySpace page with audio of key tracks.

Poe’s final days are as mysterious as the best of his Gothic tales. He was found in the streets of Baltimore, delirious and disturbed before dying the following week in a state of distress.

Many theories have been suggested as to what caused his confusion and eventual death, from poisoning, to a suicide attempt, to syphilis.

The Observer has an article on a new theory by Matthew Pearl, author of a new book on Poe’s death, suggesting his condition may be explained by brain cancer, owing to a curious finding when his body was exhumed some years later.

But Pearl has now discovered evidence that Poe died of brain cancer, which may explain why he had suffered from hallucinations and delusions. Pearl’s evidence came in the form of several old newspaper stories written about the exhumation of Poe’s body 26 years after his death. Poe’s coffin was being moved to a more prominent spot in the cemetery and the onlookers were amazed to see that his shrunken brain was still visible inside his skull. It was described as being ‘dried and hardened in the skull’ in an 1878 article in the St Louis Republican newspaper, whereas a letter in the Baltimore Gazette claimed that: ‘The cerebral mass… evidenced no sign of disintegration or decay, though, of course, it is somewhat diminished.’

Pearl contacted a friend’s wife who worked as a forensic pathologist. She pointed out that the descriptions could not possibly have been of a brain, as it is one of the first parts of a corpse to rot after death. But she said some forms of brain tumours can calcify after death and leave a hardened mass. One account described the brain as almost rattling around inside Poe’s head. Pearl also looked up pictures of calcified tumours and discovered that some resembled shrunken brains.

It’s an interesting theory, but one that will have to remain speculative – unless Poe’s body is ever exhumed again.

Link to Observer article ‘Fresh clues could solve mystery of Poe’s death’.
Link to Wikipedia page on the death of Poe.

Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

A quote from pioneering American politician Barbara Jordan. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Jordan’s long-term partner was an educational psychologist.

You probably know Shelley Batts from the eclectic neuroscience blog Retrospectacle, but what you might not know is that her online writing has gotten her nominated for a scholarship to help with her PhD. She’s a finalist with a number of other students but is the only neuroscientist, so if you want to vote for her, you can do so online.

Shelley studies the neuroscience of hearing to inform treatments for deafness, and, while maintaining a somewhat peculiar obsession with parrots, writes with great clarity in her engaging blog.

Your vote could help her win a scholarship which would substantially aid her studies.

Best of luck Shelley!

Link to finalists’ voting form.

Beastie Boys MC Adrock (Adam Horovitz) give props to his epilepsy in the 1992 track ‘Skills to Pay the Bills’:

Well I’m an epileptic, a skept-a-cleptic, check it
I’m cutting up the beats from the bear I clept it

He first discussed his experience of epilepsy in several interviews for music magazines in the early 1990s.

Link to lyrics of ‘Skills to Pay the Bills’.

The five pictures are by Victorian artist Louis Wain who painted cats through the whole of his life and continued through periods of intense psychosis.

Almost every article on Wain uses them to demonstrate the progression of schizophrenia but the evidence for them being painted in chronological order is actually quite weak.

The five pictures are from an original series of eight which were collected by Dr Walter Maclay who was interested in the effect of mental illness on art.

However, the pictures were undated and, as Rodney Dale notes in his biography of Wain (Louis Wain: The Man Who Painted Cats; ISBN 1854790986), “with no evidence of the order of their progression, Maclay arranged them in a sequence which clearly demonstrated, he thought, the progressive deterioration of the artist’s mental abilities.”

In fact, his later works are for the most part conventional cat pictures in his normal style, with the occasional ‘psychedelic’ example produced at the same time – where he experimented with what he called ‘wallpaper patterns’.

However, the increasing abstraction over time is likely to be a myth. Wain’s biography again:

Assembling what little factual knowledge we have on Dr Maclay’s paintings, there is clear no justification for regarding them as more than samples of Louis Wain’s art at different times. Wain experimented with patterns and cats, and even quite late in life was still producing conventional cat pictures, perhaps 10 years after his [supposedly] ‘later’ productions which are patterns rather than cats. All of which is to say no more than that the eight paintings were done at different times, which could be said of eight paintings by any artist!

Link to Wikipedia page on Louis Wain.
Link to online gallery of Wain pictures.