Feel good necklace

The scientifically accurate molecular jewellery store Made With Molecules has produced this wonderfully alluring endorphin necklace.

The necklace accurately depicts the structure of human beta-endorphin and is wrought in silver to adorn someone who will undoubtedly make you feel as good as the opioid brain chemical itself.

It is handmade by biochemist turned artisan Dr Raven Hanna, and contains each of the 31 amino acids as separate links in the chain.

You’ll notice it has a price tag to match the quality of the craftsmanship, so is strictly for the most glamorous occasions.

Link to Made With Molecules endorphin necklace.

Musicophilia goes live

NPR public radio has recently broadcast two interviews with Oliver Sacks about the cases in his new book Musicophilia – which tackles the neurology of music.

The first interview is only eight minutes and the second, which you’ll have to scroll down to the bottom of the page for, is a more in-depth half hour discussion.

The book itself appeared on the shelves last week and the book’s website has just gone live which, as well as containing information about the new release, also has a series of videos of Sacks discussing everything from why we sometimes can’t get tunes out of our heads, to music and amnesia.

Link to two NPR interviews with Sacks (scroll down for second).
Link to Musicophilia website with videos.

The Tumour in the Rue Morgue

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.

Power of birth order

Time magazine has a great article discussing psychological differences that have been picked up by research looking at birth order effects. Interestingly, while first and last borns seems to have distinct traits, middle children are still a bit of a mystery.

Birth order effects seem to be one of those things that can be reliably found when examining large groups but, because of the large amount of individual variation, strong effects are not reliably present on the level of single families.

Nevertheless, the research has found over the population there are, on average, some interesting psychological differences linked to birth order – particularly between first and last borns.

…personality tests show that while firstborns score especially well on the dimension of temperament known as conscientiousness ‚Äî a sense of general responsibility and follow-through ‚Äî later-borns score higher on what’s known as agreeableness, or the simple ability to get along in the world. “Kids recognize a good low-power strategy,” says Sulloway. “It’s the way any sensible organism sizes up the niches that are available.”

Even more impressive is how early younger siblings develop what’s known as the theory of mind. Very small children have a hard time distinguishing the things they know from the things they assume other people know. A toddler who watches an adult hide a toy will expect that anyone who walks into the room afterward will also know where to find it, reckoning that all knowledge is universal knowledge. It usually takes a child until age 3 to learn that that’s not so. For children who have at least one elder sibling, however, the realization typically comes earlier. “When you’re less powerful, it’s advantageous to be able to anticipate what’s going on in someone else’s mind,” says Sulloway.

We featured some studies previously on Mind Hacks that suggested that first born children have marginally higher IQ scores, although a similar study in Thai medical students found the reverse effect, younger siblings tended to be more intelligent.

This highlights the role of culture in these effects, and the Time article illustrates a similar point with regards to girls. Perhaps fifty years ago when girls were less expected to go to college and have careers, the birth order effect may have been much less clear because of the cultural limitations on female work and education.

Now the cultural expectations have changed, the effect of birth order on psychological development may also be different.

Link to Time article ‘The Power of Birth Order’.

To the bunkers! No really, to the bunkers

In another sign the robot revolution is coming, a robot cannon used by the South African military malfunctioned and tragically killed nine and wounded fourteen after firing uncontrollably.

Mechanised self-targeting machine guns with artificial intelligence systems to distinguish between targets (e.g. humans) and non-targets (e.g. trees) are becomingly increasingly common.

Last year Samsung announced that it had developed a machine gun toting robot sentry that can identify and shoot a target up to two miles away.

The system uses twin optical and infrared sensors to identify targets from 2.5 miles in daylight and around half that distance at night. It has a microphone and speakers so that passwords can be exchanged with human troops.

If the password is not accepted the robot can either sound an alarm or fire at the target using rubber bullets or a swivel-mounted K-3 machine gun.

South Korea’s northern border is the most heavily militarised zone in the world, and the southern government has poured millions of dollars into automated military technology.

…

The Intelligent Surveillance and Guard Robot was jointly developed with a South Korean university, and is designed to replace some of the troops guarding the border with North Korea.

North Korea?!? When World War Three is over, someone is going to get a Darwin Award for that decision.

Where’s Asimov when you need him?

Link to ‘Robot Cannon Kills 9, Wounds 14’ from Wired (via BB).
Link to new story on Samsung robot sentry.
Link to Samsung page with specs of their robot sentry.

Forced normalization

I love the way this completely startling fact is dropped into a sentence about one of the pioneers of German neurology:

The work of Wilhelm Griesinger (1817-1868) (whose father was murdered by the family’s insane piano teacher) marks the birth of neurology in Germany.

The excerpt is from a book I’m reading called Forced Normalization (ISBN 1871816378) by Trimble and Schmitz which is nothing to do with forcing people to be normal, but tackles the fascinating phenomenon where some people become psychotic as soon as their epilepsy is successfully treated (their EEG is ‘normalised’).

The person most associated with this concept is Heinrich Landolt, and the book contains a translation of his key 1958 paper in which he reported a case series of people with epilepsy. It contains this interesting conclusion:

Thus, these cases reveal an unmistakable correlation between the course of the psychotic process and the changes in the EEG, in the the paroxysmal focus which is active before and after the twilight state dissolves during this twilight state, and often so completely that the record is normalized. In other words, and putting it more crudely, there would seem to be epileptics who must have pathological EEG in order to be mentally sane…

Interestingly, this phenomenon may have been the basis of Meduna’s false belief that epilepsy and psychosis don’t occur together, leading him to try inducing seizures as a treatment. This was the birth of an idea that was later developed into electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

This is certainly not the most common pattern, however, as for the majority of people, epilepsy makes psychosis slightly more likely to occur.

Link to more info on ‘forced normalization’.

2007-10-19 Spike activity

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

Third time lucky? After the third time time, it’s seemingly not luck, because we think it’s a pattern, according to research covered by the BPS Research Digest.

Why has Steven Pinker studied verbs for 20 years? Discover magazine publishes an interview and sets up a great feed for a joke. If only I could think of the punchline. Answers on a postcard…

BBC News on findings that fearful faces are recognised faster that happy faces.

The science of truthiness: gossip triumphs over facts in people’s financial decision making, reports The New York Times.

The Phineas Gage Fan Club examines the psychophysics of audiophiles and the limitations of human hearing.

Blood flow may be part of the brain’s information processing system, suggests a new paper in the Journal of Neurophysiology.

ABC Radio National’s Ockham’s Razor on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on doctors.

Neurophilosophy finds more of the wonderful neurology of Alice in Wonderland: depictions of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome in migraine art.

Friends not sympathetic about your hangover? Banish those easily dismissable subjective impressions with the first psychometrically valid hangover scale.

Cognitive dissonance, one of the most important findings in social psychology, is discussed by PsyBlog.

The LA Times looks at research which has found that we get happier as we age, contrary to media stereotypes.

Yahoo! News on a study that finds that swearing at work can boost team spirit and morale. Running in corridors found to improve productivity.

Psychiatric assessments via video link are just as accurate as face to face consultations, reports Treatment Online.

Language Log brings some sense to the Neanderthals had ‘speech gene’ story that’s been doing the rounds.

These brains rule

It’s a timeless story. Boy meets girl. Boy annoys girl. Girl goes off on a brain eating rampage before battling her creator and finishing the day at a zombie pool party.

I’m not entirely sure what it’s all about, but then again, I don’t think this rather bizarre music video was designed to have any deep symbolic meaning.

It’s not entirely safe for work, mainly due to lots of swearing and flesh eating, but it’s a magical combination of brains and zombie girls, which is good enough for me.

Chat up line for a zombie: I’m conscious of how attractive you are but I’d like to know how you feel.

Note to self: go to bed, you’re rambling.

UPDATE: From Shannon Lark, director of the music video! Grabbed from the comments…

I am actually the Director of OMG BRAINS and I gotta tell you that it does have a very deep symbolic meaning!

Besides poking fun at the entertainment industry by using commercialized hot zombie chicks (who are supposed to be endless drones performing corpse-like activities), we also make a statement of the weight issue in America and how a parent’s negative comments can even hurt a dead person.

Link to zombie brain rampage music video (thanks Laurie!).

The relationship between money and happiness

Newsweek has a brief article on what research has told us about the link between money and happiness. Essentially, more money makes you happier until you’re comfortable, and then, it really doesn’t do much good.

Interestingly though, a study that looked at how happy a number of similarly earning young people were, found that the happier ones went on the make more money later in life.

If money doesn’t buy happiness, what does? Grandma was right when she told you to value health and friends, not money and stuff. Or as Diener and Seligman put it, once your basic needs are met “differences in well-being are less frequently due to income, and are more frequently due to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work.” Other researchers add fulfillment, a sense that life has meaning, belonging to civic and other groups, and living in a democracy that respects individual rights and the rule of law. If a nation wants to increase its population’s sense of well-being, says Veenhoven, it should make “less investment in economic growth and more in policies that promote good governance, liberties, democracy, trust and public safety.”

(Curiously, although money doesn’t buy happiness, happiness can buy money. Young people who describe themselves as happy typically earn higher incomes, years later, than those who said they were unhappy. It seems that a sense of well-being can make you more productive and more likely to show initiative and other traits that lead to a higher income. Contented people are also more likely to marry and stay married, as well as to be healthy, both of which increase happiness.)

It’s not only the case that money doesn’t buy happiness, being materialistic is also associated with worse mental health and overall adjustment.

Link to article ‘Why Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness’.

BBC series has an odd definition of alternative

The BBC have announced a new series which will investigate the scientific basis of three ‘alternative therapies’: reflexology, hypnosis and meditation – except that two of them, hypnosis and meditation, are well-supported scientifically validated treatments.

In fact, systematic reviews have found hypnosis to be an effective treatment for reducing nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy, distress during childbirth, irritable bowel syndrome, and needle pain in children, to name but a few. That’s not counting the numerous studies on the cognitive neuroscience of hypnosis and hypnotisability.

Similarly, mindfulness meditation-based therapies have been researched extensively and found to be useful in a large number of conditions.

In fact, they are one of the best treatments to prevent relapse in people who have already had several depressive episodes in the past.

Both hypnosis and mindfulness-based therapy are used in Britain’s National Health Service and the Royal Society of Medicine has its own dedicated hypnosis section.

Although it’s probably true to say that meditation and hypnosis are also used inappropriately by quacks, so are vitamins, painkillers and exercise, none of which are thought of as ‘alternative’.

The measure of a treatment is not only what it does, but what it’s used for. Antibiotics aren’t an alternative therapy unless you’re trying to use them to cure cancer.

Presumably, the BBC’s next series on alternative music will feature The Rolling Stones and U2 (in contrast, I’m guessing reflexology is the Menswear of medicine).

Link to odd BBC programme announcement.

Sleep attacks may be caused by immune problems

Narcolepsy is a disorder where the affected person can just drop off to sleep during the day. It’s known to be a problem with the brain’s arousal system and an interesting article in Discover magazine discusses recent findings that suggest a immune system impairment may be at the root of the problem.

As well as falling asleep unexpectedly, people with narcolepsy can experience other sleep experiences that would usually be a relatively common part of sleep (such as confusing dreams with reality, waking or drifting off hallucinations, sleep walking-like activity and paralysis) but because they are so often dropping in and out of consciousness, they occur more frequently or more intensely than in others.

Because of these strange and unpredictable phenomena, sufferers often appear to be drunk or delusional rather than just extremely sleepy. Why the disease has such a wide range of effects isn’t completely understood, but in recent years a potential cause—the loss of hormone-producing neurons, possibly through an autoimmune response—has been identified. That knowledge in turn promises to pave the way for more precise treatments and stronger relief from narcolepsy’s debilitating symptoms.

Studies looking at the genetics of the disorder have found that about 90% of cases can be linked to a gene which is involved in the regulation of the immune system.

It is thought that this may lead to the erroneous destruction of the hormone hypocretin, which is known to be involved in the sleep-wake cycle.

Link to article ‘What Breaks Down the Asleep/Awake Divide?’

Tuning the ageing brain

Wired News has a brief article on how ageing affects the brain and what are the current best-supported practices to keep our mental edge as we progress into our senior years.

The article discusses ways in which the brain overcomes the natural decline in function and how this process can be supported.

Despite the current interest in ‘brain training’, which in its current version seems to have a moderate effect at best, the most effective technique seems to be physical exercise (although a combination of both may well be the best option of course).

Exercise is known both to boost mood and maintain the blood supply network to the brain, both of which are known to be crucial to mental functioning.

What’s the advice for now?

Physical exercise is the best-proven prescription so far, the scientists agreed. Memory improved when 72-year-olds started a walking program three days a week, and sophisticated scans showed their brains’ activity patterns started resembling those of younger people.

Then there’s the “use-it-or-lose-it” theory, that people with higher education, more challenging occupations and enriched social lives build more cognitive reserve than couch potatoes.

It’s never too late to start building up that reserve, said Columbia University neuroscientist Yaakov Stern. But, “the question is how. What is the recipe?”

Everything from doing crossword puzzles to various computer-based brain-training programs has been touted, but nothing is yet proven to work. Johns Hopkins University has a major government-funded study under way called the “Experience Corps,” where older adults volunteer to tutor school students 15 hours a week, to see if such long-term stimulation maintains the elders’ brains.

What about medication? Companies have been reluctant to test side effect-prone drugs in an otherwise healthy aging brain, but scientists cited animal studies suggesting low-dose estrogen and drugs that might mimic or ramp up brain signaling are promising possibilities.

Link to Wired article ‘Doctors Discuss Theories on Aging Brains’.

The immortal brain

New Scientist has an article and video interviews with several transhumanists who are attempting to make the human brain immortal by reversing neural ageing, implanting stem cells and uploading the mind to a computer.

Transhumanism is a movement that aims to enhance the limits of human capabilities through techology.

The ideas stretche from the reasonable and shortly to be possible, to the outlandish and barely conceivable.

Unlike some other slightly left-field movements, it’s got some heavy-weight scientists attached to it. This means it’s rarely dull and at the very least it’s thought-provoking, even when it does stretch to the outer limits of sci-fi philosophy.

The New Scientist article discusses the possibilities of escaping death by developing the cutting edge of biotech.

Sandberg and his fellow transhumanists plan to bypass death by using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), genetic engineering and nanotechnology to radically accelerate human evolution, eventually merging people with machines to make us immortal. This may not be possible yet, the transhumanists reason, but as long as they live long enough – a few decades perhaps – the technology will surely catch up.

To many, these ideas sound seriously scary, and transhumanists have been attacked for jeopardising the future of humanity. What if they ended up creating a race of elite superhumans bent on enslaving the unmodified masses, or unwittingly programmed an army of self-replicating nanobots that would turn us all into grey goo? In 2004, political scientist Francis Fukuyama singled out transhumanism as the world’s “most dangerous idea”.

If you think these fears are unreasonable, have a look at some of the Marvin Minsky quotes later in the article. He obviously wants to be robot overlord when SkyNet becomes sentient.

Link to New Scientist article ‘The plan for eternal life’.
Link to video interview with Sandberg, de Grey and Bostrom.

Walking the line

Last weekend, a group of mental health professionals took part in a study as part of the art science collaboration Walking Here and There. It’s a joint effort between myself and artist Simon Pope, and like earlier stages of the project, it questions how we use art and science to construct meaning out of memory, location and psychosis.

The study looked at the influence of recall on walking behaviour, drawing on an existing paradigm in psychosis research.

But the experiment was also designed to give the participants an experience common to psychiatric inpatients: feeling disoriented, having their experience of the hospital affected by their memories of being outside, and being experimented on.

The experiment was designed, reviewed and ethically approved, with the scientific aim of looking at how walking is affected by recall via differences in hemispheric activation.

Participants were asked to walk a route around Ruskin Park, a tranquil green area near to the Maudsley Hospital which inpatients often visit on breaks from the ward. Later, while blindfolded and earplugged, participants were asked to recall aloud their stroll around the park while attempting to keep to a midline in a basement corridor of the hospital.

A similar approach has found that people with higher levels of schizotypy (subclinical psychosis-like experiences) and people given the dopamine boosting drug L-DOPA, are more likely to veer to the left on this task, reflecting increased right hemisphere activation.

Recall is known to preferentially activate the right hemisphere, so we might expect greater left veering during the task.

However, the study was located both to communicate some of the subjective experience of psychiatric inpatients to Maudsley staff, and also as a commentary on mental health care, as patients often find their time in the park more therapeutic than the disorienting environment of the hospital.

By doing this, we’re also attempting to question whether experiments can be meaningful beyond their data.

Occasionally, the sheer existence of a study has profound implications for society. Experiments such as Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment or Milgram’s conformity experiment were landmarks in reforming the ethics of participation owing to the subjective experience of the participants and their attempt to study the extremes of human behaviour.

With the increased ethical scrutiny into research, perhaps experiments are now only valued for their data, and participants only for their behaviour.

An earlier phase of the project, Gallery Space Recall, was a gallery exhibition without any objects. Visitors, largely artists and art curators, were asked to recall, while walking through the gallery, their experience of an earlier exhibition.

And while the walking experiment was designed to comment on mental health care, one of the main themes for Simon was that Gallery Space Recall critiqued the art world and its obsession with saleable objects and the prestige of gallery spaces.

But in terms of the experience, the gallery visitors were asked to value their subjective experience as a key component in the piece, rather than relying on any objective aspects of an artwork.

In the walking experiment, we attempted to do something similar, but rather than attempting to highlight the role of subjective experience in art, we focused on the subjective aspects of science.

We’re debating what to do with the experimental data, and we think we might bury it – to create an exhibition without objects and an experiment without data.

Link to Walking Here and There.