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Deconstructing the most sensationalistic recent findings in Human Brain Imaging, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Psychopharmacology
The Neurocritic
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- October 12, 2009
- 03:44 AM
- 646 views
Neurocinema, Neurocinematics
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Is there a difference?In The Neurocinema Collection™, we established that the term "neurocinema" doesn't really refer to movies with "Neuro" in the title or films about neurology. Instead, neuromarketers have have used the word in the following fashion:Neurocinema is a new filmmaking process that studies a viewer's sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to film stimuli. Researchers use technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure changes in activity in ........ Read more »
Hasson, U. (2004) Intersubject Synchronization of Cortical Activity During Natural Vision. Science, 303(5664), 1634-1640. DOI: 10.1126/science.1089506
- October 3, 2009
- 05:00 PM
- 688 views
It Hurts Less When I Can See It
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Fig. 1 (Longo et al., 2009). The mirror box technique in which the subject has the experience of viewing their right hand, while in fact seeing their left hand reflected in a mirror.Sight modifies somatosensation, by either enhancing or diminishing the subjective intensity of touch (Kennett et al., 2001) and pain (Ramachandran & Altschuler, 2009), respectively. These phenomena provide fascinating and lesser studied examples of crossmodal integration, or how signals from one sensory modality ........ Read more »
Longo, M., Betti, V., Aglioti, S., & Haggard, P. (2009) Visually Induced Analgesia: Seeing the Body Reduces Pain. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(39), 12125-12130. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3072-09.2009
- September 28, 2009
- 01:40 AM
- 646 views
Fact or Fiction? There ten times more glia than neurons in the brain.
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
"We only use 10% of our brains" is one of the most commonly held brain myths. But as the Neuroscience for Kids website tells us,There is no scientific evidence to suggest that we use only 10% of our brains.Neuroscientists, of course, already know that. But are there other false beliefs about the brain? Brain Mythology is a new column in the journal Brain Structure and Function, edited by Laszlo Zaborszky and Karl Zilles. In the first installment, Hilgetag and Barbas (2009) ask the question, Are ........ Read more »
Hilgetag, C., & Barbas, H. (2009) Are there ten times more glia than neurons in the brain?. Brain Structure and Function, 213(4-5), 365-366. DOI: 10.1007/s00429-009-0202-z
- September 22, 2009
- 06:05 AM
- 697 views
Tortured Brains Tell Tall Tales
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
OR: Neuroscience Shows Why Torture Doesn't WorkFormer CIA Agent Speaks Out - The controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding, which the CIA agent says was used on [Abu] Zubaydah [see this Justice Department memo, PDF], occurs when a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex as demonstrated in the picture to the left. (ABC News)With the Obama administration's recent release of the voluminous Bush-era memos authorizing torture, much has been ........ Read more »
Shane O'Mara. (2009) Torturing the Brain: On the folk psychology and folk neurobiology motivating ‘enhanced and coercive interrogation techniques’. Trends in Cognitive Science. info:/
- September 18, 2009
- 05:54 AM
- 675 views
Are Antidepressants UNDERprescribed in Primary Care Settings?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Despite everything else you've heard and read (and watched on ABC) recently, the answer is yes. Or maybe. At least in Scotland. Antidepressants might be UNDERprescribed by General Practitioners, according to a new study published in the British Journal of General Practice (Cameron et al., 2009). The authors conducted a chart review of 898 adults screened for anxiety and depression in a general practice setting. They concluded:Rather than prescribing indiscriminately (as has been widely assumed........ Read more »
Cameron, I., Lawton, K., & Reid, I. (2009) Appropriateness of antidepressant prescribing: an observational study in a Scottish primary-care setting. British Journal of General Practice, 59(566), 644-649. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp09X454061
Macdonald, S., Morrison, J., Maxwell, M., Munoz-Arroyo, R., Power, A., Smith, M., Sutton, M., & Wilson, P. (2009) ‘A coal face option’: GPs' perspectives on the rise in antidepressant prescribing. British Journal of General Practice, 59(566), 299-307. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp09X454106
- September 14, 2009
- 08:05 AM
- 738 views
Great and Desperate Cures for Addiction
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
《Chinese Journal of Drug Dependence》1999-04Does anyone know what aerosol bioelectricity is?? And why it might be used to treat heroin addiction? The entire literature seems to be in Chinese. I came across that particular paper while searching for others, specifically reports on ablative psychosurgery1 for the treatment of opiate addiction in China (Gao et al., 2003 is the first in English). Hence, the title of the present post is a reference to the book by Elliot Valenstein, Great and Desp........ Read more »
Gao, G., Wang, X., He, S., Li, W., Wang, Q., Liang, Q., Zhao, Y., Hou, F., Chen, L., & Li, A. (2003) Clinical Study for Alleviating Opiate Drug Psychological Dependence by a Method of Ablating the Nucleus accumbens with Stereotactic Surgery. Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, 81(1-4), 96-104. DOI: 10.1159/000075111
- September 9, 2009
- 01:55 PM
- 909 views
Deep Brain Stimulation for Severe Alcoholism
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment-refractory psychiatric disorders has been gaining in popularity. The procedure involves neurosurgery to implant stimulating electrodes aimed at a target region inside the brain. It works using the same sort of pacemaker-like device used for DBS in Parkinson's disease, which has been remarkably successful at alleviating symptoms. DBS as a treatment for neurological disorders such as Parkinson's, primary generalised dystonia, atypical tremor syndromes, cl........ Read more »
Heinze, H. et al. (2009) Counteracting incentive sensitization in severe alcohol dependence using deep brain stimulation of the Nucleus accumbens: clinical and basic science aspects. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/neuro.09.022.2009
Rabins, P. et al. (2009) Scientific and Ethical Issues Related to Deep Brain Stimulation for Disorders of Mood, Behavior, and Thought . Archives of General Psychiatry, 66(9), 931-937. info:/
- August 23, 2009
- 06:39 PM
- 629 views
Studious Nerds Are Neurotic and Party Animals Are Antisocial
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
From the authors who brought you "Religion is the Xanax of the people" (aka Neural Markers of Religious Conviction) comes the finding that college students with lower grades are similar to religious zealots on a specific neural response to making an error. Meanwhile, students with high GPAs resemble atheists on the same neural marker. However, the new paper by Hirsh and Inzlicht (2009) did not draw a parallel to their previous study (Inzlicht et al., 2009). In fact, the two findings were interpr........ Read more »
Hirsh, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2009) Error-related negativity predicts academic performance. Psychophysiology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2009.00877.x
- August 14, 2009
- 01:04 AM
- 750 views
Eastern vs. Western emoticons
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Asian Smiley Emoticons Plush - Set Of 6In a study of cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions......eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people [were recorded] while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. The faces were standardized according to the so-called Facial Action Coding System (FACS) such that each expression displayed a specific combination of facial m........ Read more »
Jack RE, Blais C, Scheepers C, Schyns PG, Caldara R. (2009) Cultural Confusions Show that Facial Expressions Are Not Universal. Current Biology. info:/
- August 11, 2009
- 12:06 AM
- 746 views
A New Clitoral Homunculus?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Homunculus image from Reinhard Blutner.OK kids, let's start today's lesson by viewing the G-Rated [i.e., genital-less] flash explanation of homunculus.The neuroanatomical definition of homunculus is a "distorted" representation of the sensorimotor body map (and its respective parts) overlaid upon primary somatosensory and primary motor cortices. The above figure illustrates the sensory homunculus, where each body part is placed onto the region of cortex that represents it, and the size of the bo........ Read more »
Michels, L., Mehnert, U., Boy, S., Schurch, B., & Kollias, S. (2009) The somatosensory representation of the human clitoris: An fMRI study. NeuroImage. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.07.024
- August 1, 2009
- 02:58 AM
- 790 views
The "Golem" Syndrome
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Actor and Director Paul Wegener in The Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920), a German Expressionist masterpiece.Last week, we learned about the Zombie, the Nymphomaniac, and the Emotional Immaturity Masculine Protest Syndrome (Bierer, 1976a). In the second and final installment of the strange diagnoses of Austrian psychiatrist Joshua Bierer, M.D., F.R.C.PSYCH., D.ECON. & SOC.SC. (VIENNA), DIP.INDIV.PSYCH., we have the "Golem" syndrome:This is a man, who as a child has neither experienced........ Read more »
Bierer, J. (1976) Love--Making--An Act of Murder: The "Golem" Syndrome (G.S.). International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 22(3), 197-199. DOI: 10.1177/002076407602200305
- July 24, 2009
- 04:11 AM
- 708 views
Emotional Immaturity Masculine Protest Syndrome
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
I have just discovered a treasure trove of surprising stupefying psychoanalytic articles that appeared in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry from 1976-1980. They were written by Austrian psychiatrist Joshua Bierer, M.D., F.R.C.PSYCH., D.ECON. & SOC.SC. (VIENNA), DIP.INDIV.PSYCH.... Read more »
Bierer, J. (1976) Zombie. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 22(3), 200-201. DOI: 10.1177/002076407602200306
- July 20, 2009
- 04:52 AM
- 776 views
Neurological Injuries from Car Surfin' USA
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Car surfing (for those who don't know) is......a form of acrobatics (or an illegal stunt if performed in public traffic) in which passengers of moving vehicles perform various stunts, including hanging out of the car or 'surfing' on the hood, trunk or on the roof of the vehicle while it is in motion. Car surfing has caused several people to be killed during the course of such stunts. The 1985 movie Teen Wolf was one movie which inspired many young people to try car surfing.[citation needed]The U........ Read more »
Wang A, Cohen AR, Robinson S. (2009) Neurological injuries from car surfing. Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics. DOI: http://thejns.org/doi/full/10.3171/2009.4.PEDS08474
- July 13, 2009
- 03:26 AM
- 743 views
I Just Finished the Boston Marathon! (but I can't remember your name)
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Third place finisher Ryan Hall at the 2009 Boston Marathon. Photo courtesy of Martin Checkoway.Running a 26.2 mile marathon is an exhausting endeavor for anyone, from the top Ethiopian and Kenyan runners to the astounding 75 year old Jim Schleisman (who finished in 3:45:33) to the back of the pack casual joggers. Two psychologists from Columbia university reckoned that the physical stress of marathon running might result in cognitive impairments (Eich & Metcalfe, 2009). Although the benefits........ Read more »
Eich, T., & Metcalfe, J. (2009) Effects of the stress of marathon running on implicit and explicit memory. Psychonomic Bulletin , 16(3), 475-479. DOI: 10.3758/PBR.16.3.475
- July 3, 2009
- 10:00 PM
- 966 views
Is CBT Worthless?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
According to a new meta-analysis in Psychological Medicine (Lynch et al., 2009), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is not helpful for those with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and any improvements seen in major depression are rather small:Conclusions: CBT is no better than non-specific control interventions in the treatment of schizophrenia and does not reduce relapse rates. It is effective in major depression but the size of the effect is small in treatment studies. On present evidence CB........ Read more »
Lynch, D., Laws, K., & McKenna, P. (2009) Cognitive behavioural therapy for major psychiatric disorder: does it really work? A meta-analytical review of well-controlled trials. Psychological Medicine, 1. DOI: 10.1017/S003329170900590X
- June 29, 2009
- 01:51 AM
- 773 views
Picasso or Prosopometamorphopsia?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Olga Khokhlova, as painted by her husband, Pablo PicassoThe Left Side of Your Face Looks Distorted!The rare syndrome of unilateral left prosopometamorphopsia -- in which the left half of well-known and unfamiliar faces looks distorted -- was reported by Trojano et al. (2009) in a neuropsychological case study:D.G., a 24-year-old right-handed housewife with 8 years of formal education, suddenly developed severe migraine, confusional state, and blurred vision, mainly in her right visual hemifield,........ Read more »
Trojano, L., Conson, M., Salzano, S., Manzo, V., & Grossi, D. (2009) Unilateral left prosopometamorphopsia: A neuropsychological case study. Neuropsychologia, 47(3), 942-948. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.12.015
- June 18, 2009
- 03:41 PM
- 789 views
Myth of the Depression Gene
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
There never was a single "depression gene", and those patting themselves on the back because of the ceremonial defenestration of that straw man are fooling themselves.Yes, a new meta-analysis in JAMA (Risch et al., 2009) found that a variant of the serotonin transporter gene (the 5-HTTLPR polymorphic region) is not linked to an increased risk of depression, either alone or in combination with stressful life events. This study examined 14 prior papers, including the now-maligned article by Caspi ........ Read more »
Risch N, Herrell R, Lehner T, Liang KY, Eaves L, Hoh J, Griem A, Kovacs M, Ott J, Merikangas KR. (2009) nteraction between the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR), stressful life events, and risk of depression: a meta-analysis. JAMA, 301(23), 2462-2471.
- June 13, 2009
- 05:04 PM
- 788 views
More Moronic "Mental"
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Chris Vance as the unorthodox psychiatrist, Dr. Jack Gallagher and Annabella Sciorra1as his boss (and ex), Dr. Nora Skoff.The late David Carradine made a surprise guest appearance Tuesday night on Fox's much maligned new show Mental, playing the main mental patient. His character, Gideon Graham, was a professor ["a national treasure"]2 and author of the books Anti-wisdom and the [heavy-handed plot device] Book of Judges. His diagnosis: treatment-refractory catatonia of neuropsychiatric origin f........ Read more »
Grisaru N, Chudakov B, Yaroslavsky Y, Belmaker RH. (1998) Catatonia treated with transcranial magnetic stimulation. Am J Psychiatry. DOI: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/155/11/1626g
Saba G, Rocamora JF, Kalalou K, Benadhira R, Plaze M, Aubriot-Delmas B, Januel D. (2002) Catatonia and transcranial magnetic stimulation. Am J Psychiatry. DOI: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/159/10/1794
- May 24, 2009
- 09:05 PM
- 783 views
I'm a People Person!
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Or I would be if I had greater gray matter density in my left and right inferior temporal lobes, my orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum (collapsed into one big region of interest), and my left putamen and pallidum. Plus lower gray matter density in my left and right cerebellum (Lebreton et al., 2009).click figure for larger viewFig. 1 (from Lebreton et al., 2009). Regions in which gray matter density (GMD) is associated with reward dependence. Mean gray matter density was extracted from ea........ Read more »
Lebreton, M., Barnes, A., Miettunen, J., Peltonen, L., Ridler, K., Veijola, J., Tanskanen, P., Suckling, J., Jarvelin, M., Jones, P.... (2009) The brain structural disposition to social interaction. European Journal of Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06782.x
- May 14, 2009
- 08:40 PM
- 826 views
Suicide Rates in Greenland Are Highest During the Summer
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
by: crdagainSeasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a cyclical depressive disorder that typically recurs every year during the shorter days and longer nights of late fall-early winter. Much of the research on SAD has focused on changes in the photoperiod and the accompanying effects on circadian rhythms during winter. So it might come as a surprise that in Greenland, the suicide rate peaks during the summer months of continuous sun (especially at the highest latitudes). However, the rate of homici........ Read more »
Bjorksten, K., Kripke, D., & Bjerregaard, P. (2009) Accentuation of suicides but not homicides with rising latitudes of Greenland in the sunny months. BMC Psychiatry, 9(1), 20. DOI: 10.1186/1471-244X-9-20
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