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Deconstructing the most sensationalistic recent findings in Human Brain Imaging, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Psychopharmacology
The Neurocritic
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- May 19, 2011
- 03:09 AM
- 801 views
Improving the Physical Health of People With Serious Mental Illness
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Today is the Mental Health Blog Party sponsored by the American Psychological Association as part of Mental Health Month. A widely neglected part of mental health treatment is encouraging and maintaining good physical health. This is extremely difficult when some of the major drugs prescribed for serious mental illnesses (such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) produce substantial weight gain. The "second generation" or atypical antipsychotics can cause obesity and hence diabetes, hypertensi........ Read more »
Chang, C., Hayes, R., Perera, G., Broadbent, M., Fernandes, A., Lee, W., Hotopf, M., & Stewart, R. (2011) Life Expectancy at Birth for People with Serious Mental Illness and Other Major Disorders from a Secondary Mental Health Care Case Register in London. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019590
Daumit, G., Dalcin, A., Jerome, G., Young, D., Charleston, J., Crum, R., Anthony, C., Hayes, J., McCarron, P., Khaykin, E.... (2010) A behavioral weight-loss intervention for persons with serious mental illness in psychiatric rehabilitation centers. International Journal of Obesity. DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2010.224
- May 11, 2011
- 02:59 PM
- 937 views
Revisiting Depression's Cognitive Downside
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Depression, by h.koppdelaneyIs depression actually good for you?Experts now believe that mild to moderate depression may be good for us – and even help us live longer. Rebecca Hardy explains how to reap the benefitsWe constantly hear how depression is blighting our lives, but some experts have an interesting, if controversial, theory: depression can be "good for us", or at least a force for good in our lives.Is this the start of a new Negative Psychology1 movement? Let's all seek out personal........ Read more »
Baune, B., Miller, R., McAfoose, J., Johnson, M., Quirk, F., & Mitchell, D. (2010) The role of cognitive impairment in general functioning in major depression. Psychiatry Research. DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2008.12.001
von Helversen, B., Wilke, A., Johnson, T., Schmid, G., & Klapp, B. (2011) Performance benefits of depression: Sequential decision making in a healthy sample and a clinically depressed sample. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. DOI: 10.1037/a0023238
- April 29, 2011
- 08:44 AM
- 2,075 views
Mental Imagery and the Right Parietal Lobe in OCD
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental illness characterized by unwanted and intrusive thoughts, feelings, or ideas (obsessions), and ritualized behaviors (compulsions) the individual feels driven to perform in order to alleviate the disturbing nature of the obsessions. It is a major anxiety disorder classified in Axis I of the DSM-IV, which can be disabling to those who suffer with it.The specific symptoms of OCD can include fear of contamination (from germs and physical contact with........ Read more »
Koçak, O., Özpolat, A., Atbaşoğlu, C., & Çiçek, M. (2011) Cognitive control of a simple mental image in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder. Brain and Cognition. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2011.03.020
- April 23, 2011
- 05:26 AM
- 946 views
Irresponsible Press Release Gives False Hope to People With Tourette's, OCD, and Schizophrenia
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
A study on electrophysiological recordings from single neurons in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of two monkeys trained to perform a visual target discrimination task (Lennert & Martinez-Trujillo, 2011) has supposedly given new hope to patients with a diverse array of neurological and psychiatric conditions, according to a press release:Filters That Reduce ‘brain Clutter’ IdentifiedScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2011) — Until now, it has been assumed that people with conditions like ADHD, ........ Read more »
Lennert, T., & Martinez-Trujillo, J. (2011) Strength of Response Suppression to Distracter Stimuli Determines Attentional-Filtering Performance in Primate Prefrontal Neurons. Neuron, 70(1), 141-152. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.02.041
- April 13, 2011
- 02:31 PM
- 957 views
Orgasm for Relief of Restless Legs Syndrome: A Case Study
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
What is restless legs syndrome?Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a neurological disorder characterized by throbbing, pulling, creeping, or other unpleasant sensations in the legs and an uncontrollable, and sometimes overwhelming, urge to move them. Symptoms occur primarily at night when a person is relaxing or at rest and can increase in severity during the night. Moving the legs relieves the discomfort. Often called paresthesias (abnormal sensations) or dysesthesias (unpleasant abnormal sensation........ Read more »
Marin, L., Felicio, A., & Prado, G. (2011) Sexual intercourse and masturbation: Potential relief factors for restless legs syndrome?. Sleep Medicine, 12(4), 422. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleep.2011.01.001
- April 9, 2011
- 02:36 AM
- 2,035 views
Liberals Are Conflicted and Conservatives Are Afraid
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
This sums up the basic conclusion of a new study on political orientation and brain structure by Ryota Kanai, Tom Feilden, Colin Firth and Geraint Rees in the journal Current Biology. Yes, that Colin Firth...Colin Firth's Speech during the 2011 Academy Awards. Firth won Best Actor for The King's Speech.Why are Colin Firth and Tom Feilden, both listed with BBC Radio 4 affiliations, authors on this paper? Let's go back to Tuesday, 28 December 2010 and two pieces that appeared on the BBC website.Po........ Read more »
Ryota Kanai, Tom Feilden, Colin Firth, Geraint Rees. (2011) Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults. Current Biology. info:/10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.017
- March 30, 2011
- 08:47 AM
- 823 views
Simon Baron-Cohen, Empathy, and the Atrocities in Afghanistan
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
From Rolling Stone MagazineAn excerpt from Simon-Baron Cohen's new book, Zero Degrees of Empathy: a New Theory of Human Cruelty, appeared as The science of empathy in the Guardian. Overall, the writing revealed him to be unempathetic in some respects, particularly with regard to people with borderline personality disorder1 (BPD):Unempathic acts are simply the tail end of a bell curve, found in every population on the planet. If we want to replace the term "evil" with the term "empathy", we h........ Read more »
Fertuck, E., Jekal, A., Song, I., Wyman, B., Morris, M., Wilson, S., Brodsky, B., & Stanley, B. (2009) Enhanced ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ in borderline personality disorder compared to healthy controls. Psychological Medicine, 39(12), 1979. DOI: 10.1017/S003329170900600X
Harari, H., Shamay-Tsoory, S., Ravid, M., & Levkovitz, Y. (2010) Double dissociation between cognitive and affective empathy in borderline personality disorder. Psychiatry Research, 175(3), 277-279. DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2009.03.002
- March 26, 2011
- 07:04 PM
- 921 views
Pharmacological Misinformation Foisted on Unsuspecting Public
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
An article from January is making the rounds again. One in nextgov's exposé-like series on America's Broken Warriors, it highlighted the fact that 20% of U.S. active duty troops are on psychotropic medications. While this may not be a good thing, the article was filled with erroneous information about specific psych meds and general scare-mongering from antipsychiatry "experts" pitching their books. Let's take a look.Military's drug policy threatens troops' health, doctors sayBy Bob Brewin 01/1........ Read more »
Holmes MK, Erickson K, Luckenbaugh DA, Drevets WC, Bain EE, Cannon DM, Snow J, Sahakian BJ, Manji HK, & Zarate CA Jr. (2008) A comparison of cognitive functioning in medicated and unmedicated subjects with bipolar depression. Bipolar disorders, 10(7), 806-15. PMID: 19032712
Incecik F, Akoglu E, Sangün O, Melek I, & Duman T. (2007) Effects of valproic acid on hearing in epileptic patients. International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology, 71(4), 611-4. PMID: 17270285
Thompson PJ, & Trimble MR. (1981) Sodium valproate and cognitive functioning in normal volunteers. British journal of clinical pharmacology, 12(6), 819-24. PMID: 6803819
- March 20, 2011
- 06:30 PM
- 904 views
On M&M'S® and Dog Phobia
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Fun With Behavior Therapy from the 70s, Part 2In our next installment of food-based behavior therapies to treat phobias in adults, we have a case report of combined exposure/M&M treatment (Kroll, 1975). First is a description of the client's fear of dogs:The client was a 22-yr-old female graduate student with a strong fear and avoidance of dogs. She had been told by her parents that a large brown dog had knocked her over when she was a child, but she did not remember the incident nor did she........ Read more »
Kroll, H. (1975) Rapid treatment of dog phobia by a feeding procedure. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 6(4), 325-326. DOI: 10.1016/0005-7916(75)90071-3
- March 15, 2011
- 05:37 AM
- 840 views
Exposure Therapy for Hungry Elevator Phobics
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Fun With Behavior Therapy from the 70s, Part 1In 1973, Bryntwick and Solyom published a paper on a new method of behavior therapy for elevator phobia, which involved depriving their clients of food and water for 24 hours. The rationale for their unorthodox approach was as follows:Fear habits in the animal laboratory have been diminished by first depriving the subject of food and then rewarding him with it in the fear provoking situation (Masserman, 1943; Wolpe, 1958). To apply this technique to ........ Read more »
Bryntwick, S. (1973) A brief treatment of elevator phobia. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 4(4), 355-356. DOI: 10.1016/0005-7916(73)90008-6
Rosen, G. (1974) A critical comment on the use of food deprivation in the “Brief treatment of elevator phobia”. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 5(3-4), 313. DOI: 10.1016/0005-7916(74)90087-1
- March 4, 2011
- 03:56 AM
- 792 views
Polka Music and Semantic Dementia: Not Such a Barrel of Fun
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Semantic dementia is a neurodegenerative disorder in the general class of frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Atrophy occurs bilaterally in the anterior temporal lobes, with the left hemisphere affected to a greater extent (Lambon Ralph & Patterson, 2008). Patients gradually lose semantic memory abilities (e.g., memory for word meanings and conceptual knowledge). Alterations in personality, interests, and tastes can be observed in some patients. A unique case study documented an increasing i........ Read more »
Boeve BF, & Geda YE. (2001) Polka music and semantic dementia. Neurology, 57(8), 1485. PMID: 11673594
- February 20, 2011
- 10:30 PM
- 921 views
Is Romantic Love a Western, Heterosexual Construct?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
ROMANTIC LOVE WAS INVENTED TO MANIPULATE WOMEN-Jenny Holzer, TruismsDoes romantic love manipulate women into providing free domestic labor and sexual favors for men? Some feminist views of romantic love [and the institution of marriage] portray it as controlling and oppressive (Burns, 2000):‘STOP HUMAN SACRIFICE. END MARRIAGE NOW.’ ‘IT STARTS WHEN YOU SINK IN HIS ARMS AND ENDS WITH YOUR ARMS IN HIS SINK.’ From a feminist perspective, romantic love was, and is, seen to obscure or disguis........ Read more »
Xu, X., Aron, A., Brown, L., Cao, G., Feng, T., & Weng, X. (2011) Reward and motivation systems: A brain mapping study of early-stage intense romantic love in Chinese participants. Human Brain Mapping, 32(2), 249-257. DOI: 10.1002/hbm.21017
Zeki, S., & Romaya, J. (2010) The Brain Reaction to Viewing Faces of Opposite- and Same-Sex Romantic Partners. PLoS ONE, 5(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015802
- February 14, 2011
- 07:09 PM
- 861 views
Posterior Hippocampus and Sexual Frequency
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Fig. 2D (Acevedo et al., 2011). Image and scatter plot illustrating greater response to the Partner (vs. a highly familiar acquaintance) in the region of the posterior hippocampus is associated with higher sexual frequency.Now there's an unexpected correlation suitable for Valentine's Day. How romantic! Actually, it is romantic because the neuroimaging study by Acevedo et al. (2011) is entitled "Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love." How do you quantify long-term intense romantic........ Read more »
Acevedo BP, Aron A, Fisher HE, & Brown LL. (2011) Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience. PMID: 21208991
- February 10, 2011
- 08:54 AM
- 534 views
Phrenology, Then and Now
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
In the November 2010 issue of Perspectives in Psychological Sciences, a Special Section on "Neuroimaging: Voodoo, New Phrenology, or Scientific Breakthrough?" (Diener, 2010) looks back at the infamous paper by Vul et al. (2009) and forward into the future. In one of the articles, an extended analogy is made between modern neuroimaging and the phrenology of yore (Poldrack, 2010):Imagine that fMRI had been invented in the 1860s rather than the 1990s. Instead of being based on modern cognitive p........ Read more »
Poldrack, R. (2010) Mapping Mental Function to Brain Structure: How Can Cognitive Neuroimaging Succeed?. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(6), 753-761. DOI: 10.1177/1745691610388777
- January 28, 2011
- 07:23 PM
- 1,817 views
White Matter Differences in Pre-Op Transsexuals Should NOT be the Basis for Childhood Interventions
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Diagram showing principal systems of association fibers in the human brain. The superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) is labeled at the center top (marked by purple arrows).New Scientist covered two journal articles by Rametti and colleagues (2010, 2011), a group of Spanish researchers and clinicians affiliated with Unidad Trastorno Identidad de Género [Gender Identity Disorder Unit]. Using the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) method, they initially wanted to identify any sex differences in the ........ Read more »
Rametti, G., Carrillo, B., Gómez-Gil, E., Junque, C., Segovia, S., Gomez, �., & Guillamon, A. (2011) White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 45(2), 199-204. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006
Rametti, G., Carrillo, B., Gómez-Gil, E., Junque, C., Zubiarre-Elorza, L., Segovia, S., Gomez, �., & Guillamon, A. (2010) The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A DTI study. Journal of Psychiatric Research. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.11.007
- January 6, 2011
- 07:33 AM
- 638 views
More Friends on Facebook Does NOT Equal a Larger Amygdala
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Bottom image adapted from Fig. 2 of Schumann et al. (2010). Neuroanatomy of the human amygdala postmortem. Nissl-stained section of amygdala nuclei.The amygdala is a subcortical structure located within the medial temporal lobes. It consists of a number of different nuclei, or collections of neurons delineated by commonalities in morphology and connectivity. The amygdala is best known for major roles in fear conditioning (Paré et al., 2004) and responding to emotional stimuli more generally (Ph........ Read more »
Bickart, K., Wright, C., Dautoff, R., Dickerson, B., & Barrett, L. (2010) Amygdala volume and social network size in humans. Nature Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2724
- December 27, 2010
- 07:37 PM
- 588 views
Why are the letters "z" and "x" so popular in drug names?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Freelance medical and science writer Rob Stepney noticed the rapid growth of "x" and "z"-named products included in the British National Formulary (BNF). So for the Christmas 2010 issue of BMJ (Stepney, 2010), he investigated this phenomenon:Of 1436 products added to the BNF between 1986 and 2005, more than a fifth had names that began with z or x or contained a prominent x or z within them. In 1986, only 19 branded drugs began with one of these letters. Over the next two decades, the numbe........ Read more »
Stepney, R. (2010) A dose by any other name would not sell as sweet. BMJ, 341(dec15 2). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.c6895
- December 21, 2010
- 02:07 PM
- 699 views
Neuroradiology as Art
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Crucifixion, by Francis Bacon (1933).Crucifixion (1933) (oil on canvas) was subsequently purchased by Sir Michael Sadler (who, other than friends or relations, was the first to buy a painting), and who also commissioned a second version, Crucifixion (1933) (chalk, gouache and pencil), and sent Bacon an x-ray photograph of his own skull, with a request that he paint a portrait from it. Bacon duly incorporated the x-ray directly into The Crucifixion (1933).A paper by an interdisciplinary team of S........ Read more »
Marinkovic, S., Stošic-Opincal, T., Štrbac, M., Tomic, I., Tomic, O., & Djordjevic, D. (2010) Neuroradiology and Art: A Review and Personal Contribution. The Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine, 222(4), 297-302. DOI: 10.1620/tjem.222.297
- December 14, 2010
- 06:30 PM
- 435 views
“Bob the Builder” Goggles in Ophthalmology
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Case Report: novel treatment initiated by the patient to treat her symptoms of ocular neuromyotonia, or spontaneous spasms of the extraocular muscles.
As part of the Christmas 2010 issue of BMJ, Weston et al. (2010) reported the case of a 68 yr old woman with intermittent diplopia, or double vision. A cataract on her left eye was removed, which improved her vision.... Read more »
Weston, K., Bush, K., Afshar, F., & Rowley, S. (2010) Can he fix it? Yes, he can!. BMJ, 341(dec08 3). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.c6645
- December 11, 2010
- 01:16 PM
- 3,412 views
Perspectives on Psychological Science: Blogs Don't Exist
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience ExplanationsThe previous post, Voodoo Correlations: Two Years Later, was a retrospective on the neuroimaging methods paper that was widely discussed in the blogosphere before it was considered "officially" published (Vul et al., 2009). The article, a controversial critique of the statistical analyses used by fMRI investigators in social neuroscience, made its initial appearance on Ed Vul's website once it was accepted by Perspectives in Psychological Sciences........ Read more »
Beck, D. (2010) The Appeal of the Brain in the Popular Press. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(6), 762-766. DOI: 10.1177/1745691610388779
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