318 posts · 380,569 views
Born in West Virginia in 1980, The Neurocritic embarked upon a roadtrip across America at the age of thirteen with his mother. She abandoned him when they reached San Francisco and The Neurocritic descended into a spiral of drug abuse and prostitution. At fifteen, The Neurocritic's psychiatrist encouraged him to start writing as a form of therapy.
The Neurocritic
318 posts
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- September 1, 2016
- 04:22 AM
- 25 views
Music from Your Brain
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
The journal Brain has a new review on the history of converting the electroencephalogram (EEG) into sound (Lutters & Koehler, 2016). The translation of data into sound, known as sonification, has been applied to brain waves since the 1930s. In addition to early scientific and medical applications, sonification of the EEG has been used in the field of experimental music.In 1965, physicist Edmond Dewan and composer Alvin Lucier collaborated on Music for the Solo Performer:Sitting on a cha........ Read more »
Lutters, B., & Koehler, P. (2016) Brainwaves in concert: the 20th century sonification of the electroencephalogram. Brain. DOI: 10.1093/brain/aww207
- August 28, 2016
- 06:29 PM
- 77 views
Healing Prayer and the Brain: Not a Match Made in Heaven
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Activity of the medial prefrontal cortex after psycho-spiritual healing (Baldwin et al., 2016).Everything we do and feel and experience changes the brain. Psychotherapy, juggling, taxi driving, poverty, reading, drugs, art, music, anger, love. If it didn't we'd be dead. Why should prayer be any different? The trick is to accurately determine the structural or physiological changes that are unique to a specific activity. And when assessing the effectiveness of clinical interventions, how the chan........ Read more »
Baldwin, P., Velasquez, K., Koenig, H., Salas, R., & Boelens, P. (2016) Neural correlates of healing prayers, depression and traumatic memories: A preliminary study. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 123-129. DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2016.07.002
- August 8, 2016
- 06:40 AM
- 225 views
Scientific Study Shows Mediums Are Wrong 46.2% of the Time
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Not a very good showing, eh?Here's our latest study on mediumship: "Prediction of Mortality Based on Facial Characteristics". Available here: https://t.co/jVMHmF07Dj— Dean Radin (@DeanRadin) May 21, 2016In the study,“Participants were asked to press a button if they thought the person in a photo was living or deceased. Overall mean accuracy on this task was 53.8%, where 50% was expected by chance (p < 0.004, two-tail). Statistically significant accuracy was independently obtained in 5 of ........ Read more »
Delorme, A., Pierce, A., Michel, L., & Radin, D. (2016) Prediction of Mortality Based on Facial Characteristics. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00173
- June 7, 2016
- 01:06 AM
- 322 views
Advil Increases Social Pain (if you're male)
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Headache, Guillaume DELEBARRE (Guigui-Lille)A recent neuroessay in the New York Times asked, Can Tylenol Help Heal a Broken Heart?What’s crazy about the pain of a broken heart is that your body perceives it as physical pain.No it does not. Do you feel heartbroken every time you stub your toe?Well... I guess the social pain = physical pain isomorphism is a one way street. Anyway, the author continued:In research published in 2010, scientists found that acetaminophen can reduce physical and neur........ Read more »
Butcher, B., & Carmody, J. (2012) Sex differences in analgesic response to ibuprofen are influenced by expectancy: A randomized, crossover, balanced placebo-designed study. European Journal of Pain, 16(7), 1005-1013. DOI: 10.1002/j.1532-2149.2011.00104.x
Mogil JS, & Bailey AL. (2010) Sex and gender differences in pain and analgesia. Progress in brain research, 141-57. PMID: 21094890
VANGELISTI, A., PENNEBAKER, J., BRODY, N., & GUINN, T. (2014) Reducing social pain: Sex differences in the impact of physical pain relievers. Personal Relationships, 21(2), 349-363. DOI: 10.1111/pere.12036
- May 30, 2016
- 05:36 AM
- 294 views
Compulsive Foreign Language Syndrome: Man Becomes Obsessed With Speaking Fake French
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
You may have seen headlines such as: Florida Man Woke Up In A Motel Room Speaking Only Swedish. Or: Englishman wakes up speaking Welsh after stroke (“Rare brain disorder left English-speaking Alun Morgan only able to communicate in Welsh”). The first case was likely due to a fugue state, a type of dissociative disorder involving loss of personal identity and aimless wandering (Stengel, 1941). The second seems like an unusual example of bilingual aphasia involving loss of the ability to spea........ Read more »
Beschin, N., de Bruin, A., & Della Sala, S. (2016) Compulsive foreign language syndrome: A clinical observation not a mystery. Cortex. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.04.020
- May 18, 2016
- 06:02 AM
- 391 views
Acetaminophen Probably Isn't an "Empathy Killer"
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Left: Belgian physician Dr. Wim Distelmans, a cancer specialist, professor in palliative care and the president of the Belgian federal euthanasia commission. Right: Generic acetaminophen.What (or who) is an “Empathy Killer“? An Angel of Death Kevorkian-type who helps terminal patients with ALS or cancer put an end their excruciating pain? This is a very selfless act that shows extreme empathy for the suffering of others.Or is an “Empathy Killer” a medication that dulls your numerical rat........ Read more »
Mischkowski, D., Crocker, J., & Way, B. (2016) From Painkiller to Empathy Killer: Acetaminophen (Paracetamol) Reduces Empathy for Pain. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsw057
- May 4, 2016
- 09:13 AM
- 378 views
Imagine These Experiments in Aphantasia
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
When you hear the word “apple”, do you picture a Red Delicious apple or a green Granny Smith? Or neither, because you can't conjure up a visual image of an apple (or of anything else, for that matter)? Aphantasia is the inability to generate visual images, which can be a congenital condition or acquired after brain injury (Farah, 1984). The most striking aspect of this variation in mental life is that those of us with imagery assume that everyone else has it, while those without are flabberg........ Read more »
GALTON, F. (1880) I.--STATISTICS OF MENTAL IMAGERY. Mind, os-V(19), 301-318. DOI: 10.1093/mind/os-V.19.301
Zeman, A., Dewar, M., & Della Sala, S. (2015) Lives without imagery – Congenital aphantasia. Cortex, 378-380. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019
- May 1, 2016
- 03:01 AM
- 372 views
The Truth About Cognitive Impairment in Retired NFL Players
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
NINETY-TWO percent of retired National Football League players have decreased cognitive function, according to a new study:“In the NFL group, baseline neuropsychological assessments showed 92% of players had decreased general cognitive proficiency, 86% had decreased information processing speed, 83% had memory loss, 83% had attentional deficits, and 85% had executive function impairment.”The Truth?The study reported on a self-selected sample of 161 current and retired NFL players recruite........ Read more »
Daniel G. Amen, Kristen Willeumier, Bennet Omalu, Andrew Newberg, Cauligi Raghavendra, & Cyrus A. Raji. (2016) Perfusion Neuroimaging Abnormalities Alone Distinguish National Football League Players from a Healthy Population. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. info:/10.3233/JAD-160207
- April 22, 2016
- 06:22 AM
- 381 views
What We Think We Know and Don't Know About tDCS
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
image: Mihály Vöröslakos / University of Szeged “Don't Lose Your Head Over tDCS,” I warned last time. Now the infamous cadaver study has reared its ugly hot-wired head in Science News (Underwood, 2016).The mechanism of action of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) had been called into question by Dr. György Buzsáki during his presentation at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting....Or had it?To recap, my understanding was that an unpublished study of transcranial e........ Read more »
Ozen, S., Sirota, A., Belluscio, M., Anastassiou, C., Stark, E., Koch, C., & Buzsaki, G. (2010) Transcranial Electric Stimulation Entrains Cortical Neuronal Populations in Rats. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(34), 11476-11485. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5252-09.2010
Underwood, E. (2016) Cadaver study challenges brain stimulation methods. Science, 352(6284), 397-397. DOI: 10.1126/science.352.6284.397
- April 14, 2016
- 07:02 AM
- 449 views
Don't Lose Your Head Over tDCS
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Recent studies of transcranial electrical stimulation in human cadaver heads showed a 90% loss of current when delivered through the skin (Buzsáki, 2016 CNS meeting).Siren SongBy Margaret AtwoodThis is the one song everyone would like to learn: the songthat is irresistible:the song that forces mento leap overboard in squadronseven though they see the beached skullsthe song nobody knowsbecause anyone who has heard itis dead, and the others can't remember.Better living through electricity. The l........ Read more »
Fertonani A, & Miniussi C. (2016) Transcranial Electrical Stimulation: What We Know and Do Not Know About Mechanisms. The Neuroscientist. PMID: 26873962
Monai H, Ohkura M, Tanaka M, Oe Y, Konno A, Hirai H, Mikoshiba K, Itohara S, Nakai J, Iwai Y.... (2016) Calcium imaging reveals glial involvement in transcranial direct current stimulation-induced plasticity in mouse brain. Nature communications, 11100. PMID: 27000523
- March 31, 2016
- 04:46 AM
- 358 views
Sleep Doctoring: Fatigue Amnesia in Physicians
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
New in the journal journal Cortex: four shocking cases of practicing medicine while exhausted (Dharia & Zeman, 2016). The authors called this newly discovered syndrome “fatigue amnesia.” Why this is is any different from countless other examples of not remembering things you did while exhausted — I do not know. Except amnesia for performing a complex medical procedure is a lot more disturbing than forgetting you did the dishes the night before.Here are the cases in brief:Case 1:&........ Read more »
Dharia, S., & Zeman, A. (2016) Fatigue amnesia. Cortex. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.03.001
- March 27, 2016
- 09:03 PM
- 448 views
Everybody Loves Dopamine
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Dopamine is love. Dopamine is reward. Dopamine is addiction.Neuroscientists have a love/hate relationship with how this monoamine neurotransmitter is portrayed in the popular press.wwlp.comthestranger.com[The claim of vagus nerve-stimulating headphones is worth a post in its own right.]observer.com“You can fold your laundry, but you can’t fold your dopamine.”- James Cole Abrams, M.A. (in Contemplative Psychotherapy)The word dopamine has become a shorthand for positive reinforcement, whethe........ Read more »
Zalocusky, K., Ramakrishnan, C., Lerner, T., Davidson, T., Knutson, B., & Deisseroth, K. (2016) Nucleus accumbens D2R cells signal prior outcomes and control risky decision-making. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature17400
- March 20, 2016
- 08:06 AM
- 523 views
A Detached Sense of Self Associated with Altered Neural Responses to Mirror Touch
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Our bodily sense of self contributes to our personal feelings of awareness as a conscious being. How we see our bodies and move through space and feel touched by loved ones are integral parts of our identity. What happens when this sense of self breaks down? One form of dissolution is Depersonalization Disorder (DPD).1 Individuals with DPD feel estranged or disconnected from themselves, as if their bodies belong to someone else, and “they” are merely a detached observer. Or the self feel........ Read more »
Adler, J., Schabinger, N., Michal, M., Beutel, M., & Gillmeister, H. (2016) Is that me in the mirror? Depersonalisation modulates tactile mirroring mechanisms. Neuropsychologia. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.03.009
Lenggenhager, B., Pazzaglia, M., Scivoletto, G., Molinari, M., & Aglioti, S. (2012) The Sense of the Body in Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury. PLoS ONE, 7(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0050757
- March 7, 2016
- 06:26 AM
- 473 views
Writing-Induced Fugue State
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Who is this, wandering around the crowded street, afraid of everything, trusting no one? “There must be something wrong, somewhere.”But maybe I’m safer since I look disheveled. Who are these people? Where is this place?Did I write that? When did that happen? I don’t remember. I can’t stop writing. I can’t stop walking, either, which is a problem because it’s hard to write and walk at the same time.In the early 1940s, Austrian Psychiatrist Dr. Erwin Stengel wrote a pair of papers........ Read more »
Stengel, E. (1941) On the Aetiology of the Fugue States. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 87(369), 572-599. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.87.369.572
Stengel, E. (1943) Further Studies on Pathological Wandering (Fugues with the Impulse to Wander). The British Journal of Psychiatry, 89(375), 224-241. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.89.375.224
- January 22, 2016
- 08:30 AM
- 548 views
This Neuroimaging Method Has 100% Diagnostic Accuracy (or your money back)
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129659.g003Did you know that SPECT imaging can diagnose PTSD with 100% accuracy (Amen et al., 2015)? Not only that, out of a sample of 397 patients from the Amen Clinic in Newport Beach, SPECT was able to distinguish between four different groups with 100% accuracy! That's right, the scans of (1) healthy participants, and patients with (2) classic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), (3) classic traumatic brain injury (TBI), and (4) both disorders..... were all classi........ Read more »
Amen, D., Raji, C., Willeumier, K., Taylor, D., Tarzwell, R., Newberg, A., & Henderson, T. (2015) Functional Neuroimaging Distinguishes Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from Traumatic Brain Injury in Focused and Large Community Datasets. PLOS ONE, 10(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129659
- January 8, 2016
- 07:47 AM
- 689 views
Opioid Drugs for Mental Anguish: Basic Research and Clinical Trials
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
The prescription opioid crisis of overdosing and overprescribing has reached epic proportions, according to the North American media. Just last week, we learned that 91% of patients who survive opioid overdose are prescribed more opioids! The CDC calls it an epidemic, and notes there's been “a 200% increase in the rate of overdose deaths involving opioid pain relievers and heroin.” A recent paper in the Annual Review of Public Health labels it a “public health crisis” and proposes “int........ Read more »
Panksepp, J., & Yovell, Y. (2014) Preclinical Modeling of Primal Emotional Affects (SEEKING, PANIC and PLAY): Gateways to the Development of New Treatments for Depression. Psychopathology, 47(6), 383-393. DOI: 10.1159/000366208
Tenore, P. (2008) Psychotherapeutic Benefits of Opioid Agonist Therapy. Journal of Addictive Diseases, 27(3), 49-65. DOI: 10.1080/10550880802122646
Watt, D., & Panksepp, J. (2009) Depression: An Evolutionarily Conserved Mechanism to Terminate Separation Distress? A Review of Aminergic, Peptidergic, and Neural Network Perspectives. Neuropsychoanalysis, 11(1), 7-51. DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2009.10773593
Yovell, Y., Bar, G., Mashiah, M., Baruch, Y., Briskman, I., Asherov, J., Lotan, A., Rigbi, A., & Panksepp, J. (2015) Ultra-Low-Dose Buprenorphine as a Time-Limited Treatment for Severe Suicidal Ideation: A Randomized Controlled Trial. American Journal of Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.15040535
- December 29, 2015
- 07:04 AM
- 830 views
Social Pain Revisited: Opioids for Severe Suicidal Ideation
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Does the pain of mental anguish rely on the same neural machinery as physical pain? Can we treat these dreaded ailments with the same medications? These issues have come to the fore in the field of social/cognitive/affective neuroscience.As many readers know, Lieberman and Eisenberger (2015) recently published a controversial paper claiming that a brain region called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC, shown above) is “selective” for pain.1 This finding fits with their long-time narr........ Read more »
Panksepp, J., & Yovell, Y. (2014) Preclinical Modeling of Primal Emotional Affects (SEEKING, PANIC and PLAY): Gateways to the Development of New Treatments for Depression. Psychopathology, 47(6), 383-393. DOI: 10.1159/000366208
Woo CW, Koban L, Kross E, Lindquist MA, Banich MT, Ruzic L, Andrews-Hanna JR, & Wager TD. (2014) Separate neural representations for physical pain and social rejection. Nature communications, 5380. PMID: 25400102
Yovell, Y., Bar, G., Mashiah, M., Baruch, Y., Briskman, I., Asherov, J., Lotan, A., Rigbi, A., & Panksepp, J. (2015) Ultra-Low-Dose Buprenorphine as a Time-Limited Treatment for Severe Suicidal Ideation: A Randomized Controlled Trial. American Journal of Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.15040535
- December 12, 2015
- 05:47 PM
- 646 views
This Week in Neuroblunders: Optogenetics Edition
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Recent technological developments in neuroscience have enabled rapid advances in our knowledge of how neural circuits function in awake behaving animals. Highly targeted and reversible manipulations using light (optogenetics) or drugs have allowed scientists to demonstrate that activating a tiny population of neurons can evoke specific memories or induce insatiable feeding.But this week we learned these popular and precise brain stimulation and inactivation methods may produce spurious links to ........ Read more »
Althaus J. (1876) A Lecture on the Prognosis of Cerebral Haemorrhage. British medical journal, 2(812), 101-4. PMID: 20748269
Otchy, T., Wolff, S., Rhee, J., Pehlevan, C., Kawai, R., Kempf, A., Gobes, S., & Ölveczky, B. (2015) Acute off-target effects of neural circuit manipulations. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature16442
Reardon, S. (2015) Brain-manipulation studies may produce spurious links to behaviour. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature.2015.19003
Südhof, T. (2015) Reproducibility: Experimental mismatch in neural circuits. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature16323
- November 30, 2015
- 01:34 AM
- 671 views
Carving Up Brain Disorders
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Neurology and Psychiatry are two distinct specialties within medicine, both of which treat disorders of the brain. It's completely uncontroversial to say that neurologists treat patients with brain disorders like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. These two diseases produce distinct patterns of neurodegeneration that are visible on brain scans. For example, Parkinson's disease (PD) is a movement disorder caused by the loss of dopamine neurons in the midbrain.Fig. 3 (modified from Golds........ Read more »
Crossley, N., Scott, J., Ellison-Wright, I., & Mechelli, A. (2015) Neuroimaging distinction between neurological and psychiatric disorders. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 207(5), 429-434. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.154393
David, A., & Nicholson, T. (2015) Are neurological and psychiatric disorders different?. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 207(5), 373-374. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.158550
Insel TR, & Quirion R. (2005) Psychiatry as a clinical neuroscience discipline. JAMA, 294(17), 2221-4. PMID: 16264165
- November 23, 2015
- 12:58 AM
- 854 views
Happiness Is a Large Precuneus
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
What is happiness, and how do we find it? There are 93,290 books on happiness at Amazon.com. Happiness is Life's Most Important Skill, an Advantage and a Project and a Hypothesis that we can Stumble On and Hard-Wire in 21 Days.The Pursuit of Happiness is an Unalienable Right granted to all human beings, but it also generates billions of dollars for the self-help industry.And now the search for happiness is over! Scientists have determined that happiness is located in a small region of your righ........ Read more »
Habel, U., Klein, M., Kellermann, T., Shah, N., & Schneider, F. (2005) Same or different? Neural correlates of happy and sad mood in healthy males. NeuroImage, 26(1), 206-214. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.01.014
Sato, W., Kochiyama, T., Uono, S., Kubota, Y., Sawada, R., Yoshimura, S., & Toichi, M. (2015) The structural neural substrate of subjective happiness. Scientific Reports, 16891. DOI: 10.1038/srep16891
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