Eyes-closed fantasies

An excerpt from the entry for the psychedelic drug 4-TASB from the book Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved (otherwise known as PiHKAL).

The drug was one of many developed by chemist and psychedelics researcher Alexander Shulgin. As with hundreds of other compounds, the chemical structure and effects of this new drug are described in the book.

From the experiences of testing this compound, it seems 4-TASB was not a success:

Music was lovely during the experiment, but pictures were not particularly exciting. I had feelings that my nerve-endings were raw and active. There was water retention. There was heartbeat wrongness, and respiration wrongness. During my attempts to sleep, my eyes-closed fantasies became extremely negative. I could actually feel the continuous electrical impulses travelling between my nerve endings. Disturbing. There was continuous erotic arousability, and this seemed to be part of the same over-sensitivity of the nervous system; orgasm didn’t soothe or smooth out the feeling of vulnerability. This is a very threatening material. DO NOT REPEAT.

Link to 4-TASB entry from online PiHKAL.

Subliminal messages on slot machines

CBC News is reporting that Ontario’s gambling regulator has removed almost 90 slot machines from use because they appear to show subliminal jackpot displays every time the game is played.

Information displayed very quickly, or within a sequence of other images (known as ‘masking’ in psychology), can be found to have a detectable effect on the brain and measurable mental processes, despite the fact that people may be unaware of seeing them.

For example, one study found that images of fearful faces displayed at a rapid rate changed activity in a brain area called the amygdala, despite the participants having no conscious experience of seeing the fearful expressions.

It is not clear how much this sort of thing actually changes anyone’s behaviour, although the practice is outlawed in many countries as being dishonest.

Link to CBC News story on subliminal slot machines with video segment (via BB).

The benefits of inheriting despair

The LA Times has an interesting article on evolutionary theories of depression that also discusses how these might lead to new and improved treatments for the condition.

The fact that mental illness is both widespread and disabling is a puzzle in evolutionary terms, if you believe that a vulnerability to psychological disorder is strongly inherited.

Indeed, the evidence suggests that there is a significant inherited component in mental illness, although the extent of this influence is debated.

If this is the case, the question arises ‘why do we still have mental illness if inheriting the risk for it makes you much less likely to reproduce?’. Surely it should have been ‘bred out’ of the population?

Some use this as an argument to suggest that the role of genetics in mental illness has been overstated, and that the majority of risk arises from environmental factors, particularly those that cause stress and trauma.

Others suggest that the same inherited attributes that increase risk for mental illness can be beneficial when they don’t result in serious impairment.

For example, research has suggested that people who are at high risk for schizophrenia, or have slight or fleeting psychosis-like thoughts, are more likely to be creative or original thinkers [pdf].

More recently, it was reported that a gene called DARPP-32 increases risk for schizophrenia as well as being linked to the more efficient use of a key brain circuit in the frontal lobe.

This might explain why genes that increase these tendencies are still in the gene pool, and only when too many of these traits are inherited is the person very likely to suffer ill-effects when confronted by severe life stresses.

A similar theory was put forward by the late Dr David Horrobin is his book The Madness of Adam and Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity (ISBN 0593046498).

As an aside, Horrobin was famously the subject of a controversy after a critical obituary was published in the British Medical Journal, leading to an angry reaction and the journal publishing an apology.

The LA Times article is a great overview of evolutionary theories of depression that might help answer questions about why someone might inherit a tendency to be depressed.

If this tendency is understood as an exaggerated form of something that might be beneficial in small doses, it may give clues to new treatments, and the article looks at what treatments researchers are considering with this in mind.

Link to LA Times article ‘The mind, as it evolves’.

Encephalon 17 ahoy

The latest edition of psychology and neuroscience writing carnival Encephalon has been been published, this time ably hosted by Pure Pedantry.

A couple of my favourites from this curiously pirate-themed edition include a demonstration of an effect known as ‘boundary extension’ and an article on the sometimes paralysing effects of choice.

Head on over if you want more of the latest articles from the online mind and brain community.

Link to Encephalon 17.

Real life earthquake simulator to treat disaster trauma

As an intriguing follow-up to our recent story on using virtual reality to treat battle-related PTSD, BBC News is reporting on a relatively low-tech solution for earthquake-related PTSD – a house on a shaking platform.

The research, led by Dr Metin Basoglu, has just been published in the journal Psychological Medicine and reports that the simulator was used to effectively treat earthquake survivors in Turkey.

One component of psychology treatments for anxiety disorders, including PTSD, involves safely introducing the person to the anxiety-inducing situation in a gradual and controlled manner so they can habituate to the stress.

This is obviously easier for trauma caused by dogs or cars than it is for earthquakes or war, and so researchers are starting to develop novel ways of simulating these conditions.

This is an excerpt from the research paper on how the simulator was used:

The earthquake simulator consisted of a small furnished house based on a shake table that could simulate earthquake tremors on nine intensity levels. The participants controlled the tremors (using a mobile control switch), stopping or starting it whenever they wanted to, and increasing the intensity whenever they felt ready for it. If the participant’s anxiety related more to the tremors, they were asked to focus on this sensation and the sight and sound of the moving objects. If their distress related more to re-experiencing trauma events, they were encouraged to talk about these events to facilitate imaginal exposure. The session was terminated when the survivors felt in complete control of their distress or fear.

What’s great about Basoglu’s method is that it could be easily and cheaply used in areas hit by earthquakes, even if the affected doesn’t have access to high technology.

It is even conceivable that hand operated version of the ‘earthquake’ simulator could be built.

Link to BBC News story “Simulator ‘conquers quake stress'”.
Link to summary of research paper on PubMed.

Autism across cultures

NPR has recently broadcast a short interview with anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker who discusses how autism is understood in different cultures and across the world.

Grinker has written a book called Unstrange Minds (ISBN 0465027636) which was inspired both by his daughter, who has been diagnosed with autism, and his travels across the world to discover how people with autism exist within different cultures.

The book’s website is well worth visiting as it has a number of excerpts as well as some additional material and photos.

Link to NPR page with Grinker interview audio.
Link to website of Unstrange Minds.

Diagnosing and treating childhood

Psychiatrist Edward Hume has created uploaded a spoof paper on the the ‘etiology and treatment of childhood’, satirising the growing enthusiasm for diagnosing children with psychiatric disorders.

The paper was written by Jordan Smoller and published in the humorous book called Oral sadism and the vegetarian personality (ISBN 0345347005).

Childhood is a syndrome which has only recently begun to receive serious attention from clinicians. The syndrome itself, however, is not at all recent. As early as the 8th century, the Persian historian Kidnom made references to “short, noisy creatures,” who may well have been what we now call “children.” The treatment of children, however, was unknown until this century, when so-called “child psychologists” and “child psychiatrists” became common. Despite this history of clinical neglect, it has been estimated that well over half of all Americans alive today have experienced childhood directly (Suess, 1983). In fact, the actual numbers are probably much higher, since these data are based on self-reports which may be subject to social desirability biases and retrospective distortion.

Link to spoof paper (thanks for the correction Blar!).

UK’s Ministry of Defence researching parapsychology

According to BBC News news story, a Ministry of Defence report shows that the UK government agency carried out tests to see if participants could demonstrate the psychic ability of ‘remote viewing‘ in 2002.

The document was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and reportedly outlines experiments to test whether participants could ‘see’ information hidden in envelopes.

During the study, commercial researchers were contracted at a cost of £18,000 to test them to see if psychic ability existed and could be used for defence purposes.

Some 28% of those tested managed a close guess at the contents of the envelopes, which included pictures of a knife, Mother Teresa and an “Asian individual”.

The MOD joins a long list of government agencies from around the world who have reportedly investigated psychic abilities.

The most famous supposedly being the CIA’s remote viewing experiments from the 1970s.

Link to BBC News story ‘MoD defends psychic powers study’.
Link to more from The Scotsman.

The cutting edge of Parkinson’s Disease

BBC Radio 4’s medical programme Case Notes recently had a special on Parkinson’s Disease which explored the condition and the work on the latest treatments – including brain surgery and cell transplants.

Parkinson’s Disease is heavily linked to the loss of dopamine neurons in the nigrostriatal pathway in the brain (there’s a good diagram here).

This causes movements difficulties (including slowness of movement, stiffness and tremor) as well as cognitive difficulties which can impair reasoning, concentration and memory.

Because the disorder is linked to the loss of cells in quite a focused area of the brain, it is been the subject of much interest by medical researchers wanting to ‘replace’ these cells by implanting stem cells into affected brain area with the hope that they’ll turn into new dopamine neurons.

So far, the trials have shown mixed results, although the research is still in the early stages.

Because of the use of stem cells, Parkinson’s Disease has become a political battleground, especially in the USA, where stem cell research is considered much more controversial than in other parts of the world.

Link to Case Notes on Parkinson’s Disease (with audio).
Link to NIH information on Parkinson’s Disease.

2007-02-23 Spike activity

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

Schizophrenia could be ‘evolution of the intellect’ according to genetic study looking at how traits linked to the disorder may be beneficial in some instances.

“Why do men ignore nagging wives? It’s all science”. The sexism is optional it seems.

Cognitive Daily looks at research suggesting that video gamers make better surgeons.

In light of the case of a 4-year-old American girl who died from prescribed psychiatric medication, the Boston Globe questions the trend for diagnosing infants with bipolar disorder.

There’s been some fantastic neuropsychology videos on Channel N recently.

BBC News reports on a recent discovery of new brain cell growth in adult human brains.

The 2007 USA Memory Championships kick off in a couple of weeks.

SciAm reports that the ‘largest ever’ autism study identifies two promising genetic factors in the condition.

Developing Intelligence looks at how children develop prospective memory – the memory for remembering to do things in the future.

The neurochemistry of orgasm

Below is an excerpt from a review, published in this week’s Nature, of the book The Science of Orgasm (ISBN 9780801884900).

The review is by Prof Tim Spector whose work we’ve featured previously on Mind Hacks.

Spector published the results of a study in 2005 on the genetics of female orgasm which generated a range of critical commentaries.

His review tackles a new book which aims to cover the latest research on orgasm from a number of perspectives, but also gives a glimpse into the neuroscience of orgasm itself.

In my view, the best part of the book is the neurochemistry of the orgasm. Studies of paraplegic women clearly show the importance in female orgasm of multiple complex neural pathways such as the vagus nerve.

Functional brain imaging is an exciting area for study and (despite poor-quality pictures) the authors present the latest findings of multiple areas of brain activity during orgasm — which make any simplistic dopamine (stimulatory) – serotonin (inhibitory) mode of action unlikely.

They postulate a central role for areas such as the cingulate cortex, which is also where pain is perceived — linking pain and orgasm as related sensory processes. Orgasms apparently alter pain perception and increase pain thresholds, and this link may explain bizarre reports of women having orgasms during childbirth.

However, just when I was ready for the truth — a clear definition of orgasm and where it arises in the brain — I was told it was not a reflex, only a perception of neural activity and, even worse, probably a form of diffuse consciousness in an as yet undiscovered fifth dimension.

After such a careful, slow build-up of teasing and tantalizing data, I was definitely left frustrated — and wanting more.

Link to Spectors’ review (not freely available unfortunately).
Link to info on the book from the publishers.

A fruit that affects dopamine neurons

The fruit pictured on the right is called a soursop – a reportedly delicious fruit from the French West Indies that contains very small amounts of a substance that kills dopamine neurons.

Two research studies have looked at the substance – annonacin – and found it to kill off dopamine neurons in test tube trials.

Annonacin is only present in small quantities so occasionally eating soursop should be safe.

However, it is thought that the high rates of treatment resistant Parkinson’s disease in the French West Indies may be linked to high levels of soursop consumption.

Parkinson’s disease is caused by the death of dopamine neurons in the nigrostriatal pathway of the brain.

Link to neurotoxicity study on soursop.
Link to study on link with Parkinson’s disease.

Love unlimited

New Scientist has a fascinating news report on the psychology of polyamory – the practice of having multiple partners with the full consent of everyone involved.

Most Western societies have a focus on exclusively committed couples as the main family unit.

In contrast, people who are polyamorous feel themselves capable of more than one loving relationship and are often a part of a network of intimate lovers.

Crucially, lovers may not simply be sexual partners, and someone may be involved in several long-term committed relationships.

The dynamics of these relationships are bound to be different from traditional couples-based relationships, and psychologists are now starting to research how this affects the individuals and the social group.

Opinion is still divided on how successful these relationships might be in different spheres of life, although the field is really lacking in any systematic long-term studies.

So is poly more sustainable than monogamy? “Infidelity in monogamous relationships is estimated at 60 to 70 per cent, so it seems that attraction to more than one person is normal. The question is how we deal with that,” says Meg Barker, a professor of psychology at London South Bank University who presented her research into poly at the 2005 meeting of The British Psychological Society. “The evidence is overwhelming that monogamy isn’t natural,” says evolutionary biologist David Barash of the University of Washington, Seattle. “Lots of people believe that once they find ‘the one’, they’ll never want anyone else. Then they’re blindsided by their own inclinations to desire other attractive individuals. So it’s useful to know that this behaviour is natural.”

But as a mating strategy, poly may not be any better than monogamy; a person’s reproductive success may diminish if there is less pressure to be exclusive. “Jealousy is probably fitness enhancing,” Barash says. A more jealous male is likely to stick closer to his mate and prevent her from getting impregnated by other males. “A good look at human biology does not support polyamory any more than it supports monogamy,” he says. Biologist Joan Roughgarden, at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, goes further. “Polyamory won’t last. The likelihood of being able to successfully raise children in that context is very limited. My guess is that it’s not an evolutionary advance, but a liability.”

Link to NewSci article ‘Love Unlimited: The polyamorists’.

The iris is the window to the soul

A fascinating paper just released online suggests that patterns in the iris of the eye can give an indication of personality.

The research has been led by psychologist Mats Larsson and looks at relationship between measures of personality and the ‘crypts, pigment dots, and contraction furrows’ of the iris.

BBC News covers the research, as does a post on the Living the Scientific Life blog. There’s also some excellent background material to the research on a page from Larsson himself.

The paper itself is only available to subscribers to Biological Psychology. It seems the free summary isn’t available online yet, but this is an interesting excerpt from the introduction of the paper on previous studies:

The idea that personality differences are related to iris characteristics is not new. In 1965, Cattell observed differences in cognitive styles between blue and brown eyed subjects (Cattell, 1965) and since then eye color has been found to be related to a great variety of physiological and behavioral characteristics. Dark eyed people have on average higher scores on extraversion, neuroticism (Gentry et al., 1985), ease of emotional arousal (Markle, 1976) and sociability (Gary and Glover, 1976). However, there are a number of studies that fail to replicate the personality findings, typically because the effect tends to fade after early childhood. For instance, Rubin and Both (1989) found that blue-eyed children in kindergarten and Grade 2 were overrepresented in groups of extremely withdrawn youngsters, whereas no association could be found in Grade 4 or between eye color and extreme sociability in any grade.

According to Larsson’s more recent research, a gene called Pax6 is involved in both the development of the eye, and the development of an area of the frontal lobe called the anterior cingulate cortex or ACC.

The ACC is known to be involved in attention and inhibiting automatic responses, and there’s plenty of evidence to link it to personality-relevant traits like empathy and self-control.

Larsson found that ‘crypts’ were significantly associated with five personality characteristics (Feelings, Tendermindedness, Warmth, Trust and Positive Emotions) whereas ‘contraction furrows’ were associated with Impulsiveness.

I can’t say I’m entirely clear what ‘crypts’ and ‘contraction furrows’ look like, but there’s a description on Wikipedia and you can click here to see the diagram from Larsson’s paper in a popup window.

If it comes as a surprise that the same gene could influence both the eye and brain development, it’s actually not that strange an idea based on what we already know.

The retina, like the brain, is part of the central nervous system, so genes that code for the eye could also be associated with brain development.

Furthermore, the face develops from some of the same cells as the brain during the early stages of embryo growth.

This is why disorders that cause learning disabilities are sometimes associated with distinctive facial features (e.g. Down syndrome, Williams syndrome).

One other recent development worthy of note is that governments and businesses are now set on storing iris information to use as ID.

For example, the UK government wants to encode iris information on passports and keep copies on database to use in iris recognition systems in a system that is being trialled at the moment.

This might mean that personality profiles could be generated from biometric data.

How accurate they might be remains another question, but as with any centralised population sample, the concern is that those with unusual results may be scrutinised more closely using other methods, or deemed to be ‘risky’.

Link to BBC News story “How irises ‘reveal personalities'”.
Link to Living the Scientific Life post.
Link to Larsson’s page on his research.

Virtual reality to treat combat trauma

BBC News is reporting on a AAAS presentation on how virtual reality is being used to treat soldiers who have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after combat.

Symptoms of PTSD include intrusive memories, pathological avoidance of things related or loosely-related to the trauma, and persistent arousal.

Cognitive behaviour therapy or CBT is one of the most effective treatments for PTSD.

Among its key methods is to slowly reintroduce the person to things associated with the trauma, while dealing with the negative thoughts that are triggered by the situation.

This is relatively straightforward if the person was traumatised by a car crash, as cars, roads and traffic are readily available.

If the person was traumatised by war, however, it is not always feasible to expose the person to ‘low level’ combat conditions as it may be too dangerous, or the person may have been taken out of the combat zone already.

Virtual reality is a possible way of doing this without putting the soldier at risk, while being realistic enough to treat the condition.

This research is part of a project led by Dr Albert Rizzo, which was the subject of a 2005 NPR radio programme which explored the treatment and its benefits.

While the project has been running for a while, the AAAS presentation contained the latest results, which reportedly suggest a promising outcome for soldiers treated with this method.

Link to BBC News story ‘Virtual treatment for US troops’.
Link to NPR programme ‘Virtual Reality Therapy for Combat Stress’ (with audio and video).