Encephalon #76

Welcome to #76 in the fortnightly Encephalon blog carnival series.

• Sandra Kiume's Channel N points us to a fascinating and inspiring talk on blindness, vision science and the brain, from MIT Prof. Pawan Sinha. It's an hour long, but well worth your attention.
• The tale of a Polish violin prodigy whose career was tragically cut short is recounted over at Providentia. Josef Hassid was originally thought to have been suffering from schizophrenia, but was eventually diagnosed with a brain tumour.
• The Neurocritic hits us with a pair of posts about some rather drastic neurological treatments for addiction (one, two), and also reviews a study arguing that neuroscience teaches us that torture doesn't work.
  
• Sharpbrains discusses a pioneering initiative to encourage awareness of dementia in San Francisco.
• Neurophilosophy features a pair of typically lucid posts about associative learning in coma patients and an fMRI study showing that hippocampal activity predicts unconscious memory.
• Zoe Wool over at Neuroanthropology writes about the life of a solider injured in Iraq and the difficulty in separating the "physical" from the "psychological" in such cases.
• Crime and Consequences blogger Steve Erikson alerts us to a provocative new paper of his discussing and criticizing the "neurolaw" movement. Sure to be food for thought.
  
• Brain-inspired "neuromorphic" software may soon be able to recognise text better than current methods, writes Brain Stimulant.
• Neurones may be more energy-efficient than previously believed, according to a paper featured at AK's Rambling Thoughts. He also points out the dangers of taking scientific terminology too seriously.
• Finally, The Mouse Trap discusses the moodiness of entrepreneurs and the near-chaotic nature of the brain.
  

That's it for this time. We're still looking for a host for the next edition, so if you're a neuro/psychology blogger and you'd like to be the next Encephalon editor, please email encephalon dot host at gmail dot com.

Encephalon #76

Welcome to #76 in the fortnightly Encephalon blog carnival series.

• Sandra Kiume's Channel N points us to a fascinating and inspiring talk on blindness, vision science and the brain, from MIT Prof. Pawan Sinha. It's an hour long, but well worth your attention.
• The tale of a Polish violin prodigy whose career was tragically cut short is recounted over at Providentia. Josef Hassid was originally thought to have been suffering from schizophrenia, but was eventually diagnosed with a brain tumour.
• The Neurocritic hits us with a pair of posts about some rather drastic neurological treatments for addiction (one, two), and also reviews a study arguing that neuroscience teaches us that torture doesn't work.
  
• Sharpbrains discusses a pioneering initiative to encourage awareness of dementia in San Francisco.
• Neurophilosophy features a pair of typically lucid posts about associative learning in coma patients and an fMRI study showing that hippocampal activity predicts unconscious memory.
• Zoe Wool over at Neuroanthropology writes about the life of a solider injured in Iraq and the difficulty in separating the "physical" from the "psychological" in such cases.
• Crime and Consequences blogger Steve Erikson alerts us to a provocative new paper of his discussing and criticizing the "neurolaw" movement. Sure to be food for thought.
  
• Brain-inspired "neuromorphic" software may soon be able to recognise text better than current methods, writes Brain Stimulant.
• Neurones may be more energy-efficient than previously believed, according to a paper featured at AK's Rambling Thoughts. He also points out the dangers of taking scientific terminology too seriously.
• Finally, The Mouse Trap discusses the moodiness of entrepreneurs and the near-chaotic nature of the brain.
  

That's it for this time. We're still looking for a host for the next edition, so if you're a neuro/psychology blogger and you'd like to be the next Encephalon editor, please email encephalon dot host at gmail dot com.

Monty Python Meets Quackbusting

Over at Crispian Jago's blog, with this work of genius (based on this older work of genius). Geek humour doesn't get much geekier.

[BPSDB]

Monty Python Meets Quackbusting

Over at Crispian Jago's blog, with this work of genius (based on this older work of genius). Geek humour doesn't get much geekier.

[BPSDB]

Annotated Links #2

In the NY Times, Daphne Merkin writes about her life with recurrent and "treatment-resistant" depression. A Journey Through Darkness is eloquent and honest, but it offers no convincing explanations as to the origin of her bouts of melancholy. Sometimes she is depressed and then eventually the state passes. In Merkin's account, and in my personal experience, being depressed is a brute fact. It is experienced, not understood. To call it a "journey" or anything else which implies some kind of narrative is misleading. And when a depression passes, it goes with a whimper not a bang:

It was about 4:30, the time of day that, by mid-August, brings with it a whiff of summer’s end. I looked up into the startlingly blue sky; one of the dogs was sitting at my side, her warm body against my leg, drying me off after the swim I had recently taken. I could begin to see the curve of fall up ahead. There would be new books to read, new films to see and new restaurants to try. I envisioned myself writing again, and it didn’t seem like a totally preposterous idea. I had things I wanted to say. Everything felt fragile and freshly come upon, but for now, at least, my depression had stepped back, giving me room to move forward. I had forgotten what it was like to be without it, and for a moment I floundered, wondering how I would recognize myself. I knew for certain it would return, sneaking up on me when I wasn’t looking, but meanwhile there were bound to be glimpses of light if only I stayed around and held fast to the long perspective. It was a chance that seemed worth taking.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences issues a welcome statement condemning "lie-detector" peddlers Nemesysco for their attempt to gag two Swedish scientists. (See also Ministry of Truth for an extensive take-down of Nemesysco and all who use their products). Although, given that this happened several months ago, they certainly took their time about it...

Incidents of this kind are a threat to research freedom and, by extension, to the free dissemination of information in society. Threats to sue must not be used to restrict scientific discussion.

Finally, I know I said I don't believe in music reviews, but Neko Case is brilliant.

Annotated Links #2

In the NY Times, Daphne Merkin writes about her life with recurrent and "treatment-resistant" depression. A Journey Through Darkness is eloquent and honest, but it offers no convincing explanations as to the origin of her bouts of melancholy. Sometimes she is depressed and then eventually the state passes. In Merkin's account, and in my personal experience, being depressed is a brute fact. It is experienced, not understood. To call it a "journey" or anything else which implies some kind of narrative is misleading. And when a depression passes, it goes with a whimper not a bang:

It was about 4:30, the time of day that, by mid-August, brings with it a whiff of summer’s end. I looked up into the startlingly blue sky; one of the dogs was sitting at my side, her warm body against my leg, drying me off after the swim I had recently taken. I could begin to see the curve of fall up ahead. There would be new books to read, new films to see and new restaurants to try. I envisioned myself writing again, and it didn’t seem like a totally preposterous idea. I had things I wanted to say. Everything felt fragile and freshly come upon, but for now, at least, my depression had stepped back, giving me room to move forward. I had forgotten what it was like to be without it, and for a moment I floundered, wondering how I would recognize myself. I knew for certain it would return, sneaking up on me when I wasn’t looking, but meanwhile there were bound to be glimpses of light if only I stayed around and held fast to the long perspective. It was a chance that seemed worth taking.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences issues a welcome statement condemning "lie-detector" peddlers Nemesysco for their attempt to gag two Swedish scientists. (See also Ministry of Truth for an extensive take-down of Nemesysco and all who use their products). Although, given that this happened several months ago, they certainly took their time about it...

Incidents of this kind are a threat to research freedom and, by extension, to the free dissemination of information in society. Threats to sue must not be used to restrict scientific discussion.

Finally, I know I said I don't believe in music reviews, but Neko Case is brilliant.

Annotated Links

Sydney Spiesel writes about the myriad claimed treatments for autism in Slate. He's skeptical

If there is any illness for which 100 treatments are available, you can be sure that none of them works.

True. But he doesn't do a great job of addressing why parents swear by such ineffective treatments. His answer is the "Hawthorne Effect". I think there's rather more to it than that. For one thing, Spiesel does not consider the possibility that a treatment might have no effect at all - not even a non-specific "placebo effect" - and still become popular.

But that happens. A PLoS ONE paper, From Traditional Medicine to Witchcraft, tries to explain why. Although it features some maths and lots of graphs, the argument is summed up in a sentence

Superstitious treatments and maladaptive practices can spread because their very ineffectiveness results in sick individuals demonstrating the practice for longer than efficacious treatments, leading to more salient demonstration and more converts

In other words, the less well a treatment works, the longer it gets used, and therefore, the more likely it is for other people to see it being used and adopt it. Of course this only holds under when people are completely unable to tell whether treatments used by others work or not. This may be a valid assumption.


Psychology Today interviews rebellious British psychiatrist David Healy about his new book, Mania, which I really need to read. Healy notes that bipolar disorder became a fashionable diagnosis starting in the mid 1990s. A while back I plotted a graph showing how often bipolar disorder was mentioned in the British media. It became much more popular after about 2000 - which sort of makes sense.

Healy's one of the few people who manages to be deeply skeptical of much about modern psychiatric diagnosis and treatment while avoiding Tom Cruiseist anti-psychiatry. His last book was a homage to ECT, ferchrisakes. A lot of people felt actively betrayed by that. But if you still doubt Healy's intellect, his use in the interview of a Buffy metaphor to explain the history of "mood stabilizing drugs" should set you straight. Genius.

Annotated Links

Sydney Spiesel writes about the myriad claimed treatments for autism in Slate. He's skeptical

If there is any illness for which 100 treatments are available, you can be sure that none of them works.

True. But he doesn't do a great job of addressing why parents swear by such ineffective treatments. His answer is the "Hawthorne Effect". I think there's rather more to it than that. For one thing, Spiesel does not consider the possibility that a treatment might have no effect at all - not even a non-specific "placebo effect" - and still become popular.

But that happens. A PLoS ONE paper, From Traditional Medicine to Witchcraft, tries to explain why. Although it features some maths and lots of graphs, the argument is summed up in a sentence

Superstitious treatments and maladaptive practices can spread because their very ineffectiveness results in sick individuals demonstrating the practice for longer than efficacious treatments, leading to more salient demonstration and more converts

In other words, the less well a treatment works, the longer it gets used, and therefore, the more likely it is for other people to see it being used and adopt it. Of course this only holds under when people are completely unable to tell whether treatments used by others work or not. This may be a valid assumption.


Psychology Today interviews rebellious British psychiatrist David Healy about his new book, Mania, which I really need to read. Healy notes that bipolar disorder became a fashionable diagnosis starting in the mid 1990s. A while back I plotted a graph showing how often bipolar disorder was mentioned in the British media. It became much more popular after about 2000 - which sort of makes sense.

Healy's one of the few people who manages to be deeply skeptical of much about modern psychiatric diagnosis and treatment while avoiding Tom Cruiseist anti-psychiatry. His last book was a homage to ECT, ferchrisakes. A lot of people felt actively betrayed by that. But if you still doubt Healy's intellect, his use in the interview of a Buffy metaphor to explain the history of "mood stabilizing drugs" should set you straight. Genius.

A Couple of Links

A couple of neat things I discovered this week:

Just judging by the name, you might think that ScienceWatch was one of those tedious attack sites going under the guise of "watches" (naming no names). But it's actually about "tracking trends and performance in basic research". By analysing citation data and so forth, they claim to be able to identify "hot papers" and, more interesting, hot "fronts" or themes in research. It's a commercial enterprise, but a lot of the material is free. They just mapped out the hot topics in current OCD research (although the results were hardly surprising).

Then there's Pology Magazine, which is a travel magazine, but with an anthropological/social science approach - and lots of extremely pretty pictures. It's well worth a visit.

A Couple of Links

A couple of neat things I discovered this week:

Just judging by the name, you might think that ScienceWatch was one of those tedious attack sites going under the guise of "watches" (naming no names). But it's actually about "tracking trends and performance in basic research". By analysing citation data and so forth, they claim to be able to identify "hot papers" and, more interesting, hot "fronts" or themes in research. It's a commercial enterprise, but a lot of the material is free. They just mapped out the hot topics in current OCD research (although the results were hardly surprising).

Then there's Pology Magazine, which is a travel magazine, but with an anthropological/social science approach - and lots of extremely pretty pictures. It's well worth a visit.

The Entirely Legitimate Encephalon #67

(Updated! New post from Channel N -see below.) Welcome to the 67th edition of Encephalon, the regular neuroscience and psychology blog roundup. In honor of the recently revealed hilarious petty corruption in British politics, I demanded a hefty bribe to do this post... Wait, did you just read that? I'll give you £50 if you keep quiet about it. Ok, £100. I've got a reputation to uphold.
Anyway, in no particular order - certainly not in the order of the sum they paid me - here are your links for this edition:

• New! Channel N features a talk by MacArthur Genius and neuro-robotics pioneer Yoky Matsuoka. If you ever want a bionic limb, she's the person to call.
  
• In honour of old St Paddy, PodBlack Cat deals with the psychology of "luck", superstition, and Irish movies. Apparantly, there are now breeds of clovers which always have four leaves - where's the fun in that?
  
• Neurophilosophy's Mo writes about a pair of fascinating neuroimaging studies about limb amputation and the brain's construction of the body image.
  
• Ward Plunet of BrainHealthHacks has three recent posts looking at possible links between obesity and cognitive ability - could be controversial.
• Ouroboros discusses an interesting discovery which reveals another piece of the puzzle about the genetics of familial Alzheimer's disease.
• Hesitant Iconoclast of the NeuroWhoa! blog presents a well thought out two-part post about the search for the brain's "God Spot", and what it might mean if there isn't one.
• The Neurocritic is, as ever, critical, about lie detection and about the latest potential weight loss pills.
  
• SharpBrains, the homeland of Encephalon, has a useful set of links to the best brain health articles from the past month, and also discusses the deeply unhealthy goings-on at JAMA regarding conflicts of interests, an antidepressant trial, and some impressive academic fisticuffs.
• Neuronarrative discusses two fMRI studies which are rather topical in the current economic climate. One is about what happens when we take expert's advice when making decisions and the other about the "money illusion". Finally, there's a post featuring four expert responses to the Susan Greenfield Facebook-destroys-the-brain controversy (which I wrote about previously) which are rather enlightening.
• BrainBlogger provides a typically accessible write-up of a small but exciting study about the possible utility of lithium in Lou Gherig's disease, and a large study of the possible cognitive consequences of the metabolic syndrome.
• Finally, The Mouse Trap's Sandeep has an extensive and very thought provoking two part series of thoughts on the psychology of pleasure, pain and bipolar disorder, and to round out this issue, discusses an imaging study about how we know the difference between reality and fiction. Did I really accept bribes to produce this issue?

That's it for this issue! The next Encephalon is slated to be hosted over at Ouroboros, so get writing and e-mail submissions to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com by April 13th.

The Entirely Legitimate Encephalon #67

(Updated! New post from Channel N -see below.) Welcome to the 67th edition of Encephalon, the regular neuroscience and psychology blog roundup. In honor of the recently revealed hilarious petty corruption in British politics, I demanded a hefty bribe to do this post... Wait, did you just read that? I'll give you £50 if you keep quiet about it. Ok, £100. I've got a reputation to uphold.
Anyway, in no particular order - certainly not in the order of the sum they paid me - here are your links for this edition:

• New! Channel N features a talk by MacArthur Genius and neuro-robotics pioneer Yoky Matsuoka. If you ever want a bionic limb, she's the person to call.
  
• In honour of old St Paddy, PodBlack Cat deals with the psychology of "luck", superstition, and Irish movies. Apparantly, there are now breeds of clovers which always have four leaves - where's the fun in that?
  
• Neurophilosophy's Mo writes about a pair of fascinating neuroimaging studies about limb amputation and the brain's construction of the body image.
  
• Ward Plunet of BrainHealthHacks has three recent posts looking at possible links between obesity and cognitive ability - could be controversial.
• Ouroboros discusses an interesting discovery which reveals another piece of the puzzle about the genetics of familial Alzheimer's disease.
• Hesitant Iconoclast of the NeuroWhoa! blog presents a well thought out two-part post about the search for the brain's "God Spot", and what it might mean if there isn't one.
• The Neurocritic is, as ever, critical, about lie detection and about the latest potential weight loss pills.
  
• SharpBrains, the homeland of Encephalon, has a useful set of links to the best brain health articles from the past month, and also discusses the deeply unhealthy goings-on at JAMA regarding conflicts of interests, an antidepressant trial, and some impressive academic fisticuffs.
• Neuronarrative discusses two fMRI studies which are rather topical in the current economic climate. One is about what happens when we take expert's advice when making decisions and the other about the "money illusion". Finally, there's a post featuring four expert responses to the Susan Greenfield Facebook-destroys-the-brain controversy (which I wrote about previously) which are rather enlightening.
• BrainBlogger provides a typically accessible write-up of a small but exciting study about the possible utility of lithium in Lou Gherig's disease, and a large study of the possible cognitive consequences of the metabolic syndrome.
• Finally, The Mouse Trap's Sandeep has an extensive and very thought provoking two part series of thoughts on the psychology of pleasure, pain and bipolar disorder, and to round out this issue, discusses an imaging study about how we know the difference between reality and fiction. Did I really accept bribes to produce this issue?

That's it for this issue! The next Encephalon is slated to be hosted over at Ouroboros, so get writing and e-mail submissions to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com by April 13th.

More on Voodoo Correlations

I just want to draw your attention to Brad Buchsbaum's blog, where he has two truly excellent posts(1,2) on the Vul et. al. (2009) Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience paper.Here's hoping there will be plenty more to follow...

My take on this paper is here.

More on Voodoo Correlations

I just want to draw your attention to Brad Buchsbaum's blog, where he has two truly excellent posts(1,2) on the Vul et. al. (2009) Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience paper.Here's hoping there will be plenty more to follow...

My take on this paper is here.

Encephalon #63 is up

At Of Two Minds.

Encephalon #63 is up

At Of Two Minds.

Special issue on the Neuropsychology of Faces

Just a tip-off: if you liked my discussion of the brain and faces, you'll love the latest issue of the Journal of Neuropsychology.

Special issue on the Neuropsychology of Faces

Just a tip-off: if you liked my discussion of the brain and faces, you'll love the latest issue of the Journal of Neuropsychology.

Links You Might Like #2, and a note on Powerwatch

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a must-read piece about the integration of sociology and behavioral genetics. In it we learn that the American Journal of Sociology has just run a special issue devoted to that theme - wow. Looks fascinating (I haven't read it yet). As John Hawks notes, however, the traditional feuding between biological and social theorists of behaviour doesn't seem to be over yet...

There was an interesting discussion of the psychology of philosophy over at The Garden of Forking Paths.

Finally, Powerwatch UK have, very decently, included a link to my December 21st criticisms of a paper about leukemia and power lines, in their coverage of that study.

Links You Might Like #2, and a note on Powerwatch

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a must-read piece about the integration of sociology and behavioral genetics. In it we learn that the American Journal of Sociology has just run a special issue devoted to that theme - wow. Looks fascinating (I haven't read it yet). As John Hawks notes, however, the traditional feuding between biological and social theorists of behaviour doesn't seem to be over yet...

There was an interesting discussion of the psychology of philosophy over at The Garden of Forking Paths.

Finally, Powerwatch UK have, very decently, included a link to my December 21st criticisms of a paper about leukemia and power lines, in their coverage of that study.