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Deconstructing the most sensationalistic recent findings in Human Brain Imaging, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Psychopharmacology
The Neurocritic
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- December 24, 2011
- 09:07 PM
- 428 views
Orthopedic Surgeons vs. Anesthesiologists
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
from Subramanian et al. 2011 [Image: Clive Featherstone]Every year, BMJ [British Medical Journal] has a special Christmas issue with spoof articles and silly studies. Favorites from the past include:Sword Swallowing And Its Side EffectsSex, aggression, and humour: responses to unicyclingRage Against the Machine Syncope and the Texting SignWhy are the letters "z" and "x" so popular in drug names?The clear winner this year is a revenge piece by a group of orthopaedic surgeons and trainees (Subrama........ Read more »
Subramanian, P., Kantharuban, S., Subramanian, V., Willis-Owen, S., & Willis-Owen, C. (2011) Orthopaedic surgeons: as strong as an ox and almost twice as clever? Multicentre prospective comparative study. BMJ, 343(dec15 1). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.d7506
- December 19, 2011
- 12:56 AM
- 479 views
The Disconnection of Psychopaths
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Functional connectivity between the right amygdala and anterior vmPFC is reduced in psychopaths. From Fig. 2 of Motzkin et al., (2011).The last post discussed the case of a 14 yr old boy with congenital brain abnormalities and severe antisocial behavior said to be "consistent with" psychopathy. This label is quite stigmatizing and the diagnosis is a controversial one (Skeem et al., 2011),1 particularly in children. What is psychopathy, exactly? According to Ermer and colleagues (2011),Psychopat........ Read more »
Sundt Gullhaugen A, & Aage Nøttestad J. (2011) Looking for the hannibal behind the cannibal: current status of case research. International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, 55(3), 350-69. PMID: 20413645
Motzkin JC, Newman JP, Kiehl KA, & Koenigs M. (2011) Reduced prefrontal connectivity in psychopathy. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 31(48), 17348-57. PMID: 22131397
- December 15, 2011
- 12:51 AM
- 2,877 views
Born This Way?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
A group of investigators from the University of Iowa have published a case report about a 14 year old boy with severe antisocial behavior (Boes et al., 2011):He is aggressive, manipulative, and callous; features consistent with psychopathy. Other problems include: egocentricity, impulsivity, hyperactivity, lack of empathy, lack of respect for authority, impaired moral judgment, an inability to plan ahead, and poor frustration tolerance.MRI findings revealed a small congenital malformation in his........ Read more »
Boes, A., Hornaday Grafft, A., Joshi, C., Chuang, N., Nopoulos, P., & Anderson, S. (2011) Behavioral effects of congenital ventromedial prefrontal cortex malformation. BMC Neurology, 11(1), 151. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2377-11-151
- December 2, 2011
- 12:31 AM
- 401 views
Meth Really Isn't That Bad for You? (Part 2)
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Methamphetamine Use and Risk for HIV/AIDS... Methamphetamine is very addictive, it can be injected, and it can increase sexual arousal while reducing inhibitions. Because of these attributes, public health officials are concerned that users may be putting themselves at increased risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV infection―a valid concern, considering that methamphetamine use has been linked with increased numbers of HIV infections in some populations [1]. 1 Meth addiction can cause alterat........ Read more »
Hart, C., Marvin, C., Silver, R., & Smith, E. (2011) Is Cognitive Functioning Impaired in Methamphetamine Users? A Critical Review. Neuropsychopharmacology. DOI: 10.1038/npp.2011.276
Salo, R., Nordahl, T., Galloway, G., Moore, C., Waters, C., & Leamon, M. (2009) Drug abstinence and cognitive control in methamphetamine-dependent individuals. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 37(3), 292-297. DOI: 10.1016/j.jsat.2009.03.004
- November 29, 2011
- 06:28 AM
- 521 views
Meth Really Isn't That Bad for You... Or is it?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Image from All Around The House™We all know that meth is a highly addictive, harmful stimulant drug that rots your teeth and makes you paranoid, stupid, unemployed, and homeless -- thereby ruining your life. So just say NO! to meth. Right, kids?Methamphetamine (meth) and other stimulants are best known for their effects on the dopamine system, and hence for their propensity to be reinforcing and addictive. But meth actually increases the release and blocks the reuptake of all three monoamine ........ Read more »
Hart, C., Gunderson, E., Perez, A., Kirkpatrick, M., Thurmond, A., Comer, S., & Foltin, R. (2007) Acute Physiological and Behavioral Effects of Intranasal Methamphetamine in Humans. Neuropsychopharmacology, 33(8), 1847-1855. DOI: 10.1038/sj.npp.1301578
Hart, C., Marvin, C., Silver, R., & Smith, E. (2011) Is Cognitive Functioning Impaired in Methamphetamine Users? A Critical Review. Neuropsychopharmacology. DOI: 10.1038/npp.2011.276
- November 14, 2011
- 03:08 PM
- 454 views
The Return of Physiognomy
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Physiognomy "is the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face." Although one might think of physiognomy as an outdated pseudoscience, along with its brethren craniometry and phrenology, facial phenotyping has undergone a resurgence of interest. Most recently, a study by Wong et al. (2011) looked at facial width and financial success in male CEOs:Can head shape determine chances of business success?Research suggests that the shape of a chi........ Read more »
Brody, S., & Costa, R. (2011) Vaginal Orgasm Is More Prevalent Among Women with a Prominent Tubercle of the Upper Lip. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 8(10), 2793-2799. DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02331.x
Wong, E., Ormiston, M., & Haselhuhn, M. (2011) A Face Only an Investor Could Love: CEOs' Facial Structure Predicts Their Firms' Financial Performance. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611418838
- October 31, 2011
- 03:45 AM
- 391 views
Buried Alive!
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
The pathological fear of being buried alive is called taphophobia1 [from the Greek taphos, or grave]. Being buried alive seems like a fate worse than death, the stuff of nightmares and horror movies and Edgar Allan Poe short stories. What could be pathological about such a fear? When taken to extremes, it can become a morbid, all-consuming obsession. In 1881, psychiatrist Enrico Morselli wrote about "two hitherto undescribed forms of Insanity" (English translation, 2001):As the result of some ob........ Read more »
Morselli, E., & Jerome, L. (2001) Dysmorphophobia and taphephobia: two hitherto undescribed forms of Insanity with fixed ideas. History of Psychiatry, 12(45), 103-107. DOI: 10.1177/0957154X0101204505
Morselli, E. (2001) Dysmorphophobia and taphephobia: two hitherto undescribed forms of Insanity with fixed ideas. History of Psychiatry, 12(45), 107-114. DOI: 10.1177/0957154X0101204506
- October 23, 2011
- 03:44 AM
- 476 views
Activation of the Hate Circuit While Reading 'Depression Uncouples Brain Hate Circuit'
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
A recent article published in Molecular Psychiatry has the curious title, 'Depression uncouples brain hate circuit' (Tao et al., 2011). Hate circuit, you ask? Is there really any such thing? Is the existence of a distinctive brain circuit for hate so well-established that we ought to go about including it in the title of our papers? And what does it mean for this circuit to be uncoupled in depression? That depressed people no longer have coherent feelings of hatred?The current article refers to ........ Read more »
Tao, H., Guo, S., Ge, T., Kendrick, K., Xue, Z., Liu, Z., & Feng, J. (2011) Depression uncouples brain hate circuit. Molecular Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1038/mp.2011.127
- October 11, 2011
- 06:27 AM
- 387 views
Rising Mortality Rates for People with Serious Mental Illness
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Fig 1 (Hoang et al., 2011). Trend in standardised 365 day all cause mortality ratio for all people discharged from hospital with principal diagnosis of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.The "mortality gap" is the differential between the mortality rates for the general population and for persons with serious mental illness (schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). A new study from England examined hospital records for psychiatric patients discharged between 1999 and 2006, and determined how many had........ Read more »
Hoang, U., Stewart, R., & Goldacre, M. (2011) Mortality after hospital discharge for people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder: retrospective study of linked English hospital episode statistics, 1999-2006. BMJ, 343(sep13 1). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.d5422
- October 6, 2011
- 12:19 PM
- 459 views
New York Times on Addiction and The Insula
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
In Clue to Addiction, Brain Injury Halts SmokingBy BENEDICT CAREYPublished: January 26, 2007Scientists studying stroke patients are reporting today that an injury to a specific part of the brain, near the ear, can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit. People with the injury who stopped smoking found that their bodies, as one man put it, “forgot the urge to smoke.”The finding, which appears in the journal Science, is based on a small study [Naqvi et al., 2007]. But experts say it i........ Read more »
Naqvi, N., Rudrauf, D., Damasio, H., & Bechara, A. (2007) Damage to the Insula Disrupts Addiction to Cigarette Smoking. Science, 315(5811), 531-534. DOI: 10.1126/science.1135926
- September 25, 2011
- 05:40 AM
- 429 views
The Neurophysiology of Pain During REM Sleep
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
In the last post, we learned about The Phenomenology of Pain During REM Sleep. Real life pain can intrude into dreams, as was shown for experimentally induced pain (Nielsen et al., 1993) and in hospitalized burn patients (Raymond et al., 2002). In this post we'll hear about a fascinating experiment that recorded laser evoked potentials directly from the brains of epilepsy patients who were being surgically monitored for seizures (Bastuji et al. 2011). Only under rare circumstances can intracran........ Read more »
Bastuji, H., Mazza, S., Perchet, C., Frot, M., Mauguière, F., Magnin, M., & Garcia-Larrea, L. (2011) Filtering the reality: Functional dissociation of lateral and medial pain systems during sleep in humans. Human Brain Mapping. DOI: 10.1002/hbm.21390
- September 18, 2011
- 05:26 AM
- 731 views
The Phenomenology of Pain During REM Sleep
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Coarse — Pain in DreamsHave you ever felt pain in dreams? I have. Once I dreamed I was lying on my stomach, getting a tattoo on my calf against my will. Because it was a particularly malevolent tattoo studio, I cried out in the dream. When I woke up, I felt no pain at all. It was false, a figment of the Pain Matrix. Another time a monkey bit me on the arm. Once again, the pain vanished upon awakening.I think these examples of what I'll call "fake pain" are unusual. More common are instances wh........ Read more »
Nielsen TA, McGregor DL, Zadra A, Ilnicki D, & Ouellet L. (1993) Pain in dreams. Sleep, 16(5), 490-8. PMID: 7690981
- September 7, 2011
- 07:07 AM
- 766 views
Chronic Ketamine for Depression: An Unethical Case Study?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
A year ago, Ketamine for Depression: Yay or Neigh? covered acute administration of the club drug (and dissociative anesthetic) ketamine for rapid (albeit transient) relief of major depression. That post was part of a blog focus on hallucinogenic drugs in medicine and mental health, organized by Nature editor Noah Gray following publication of a review article on The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders. At the time, I wrote:Although the immediate on........ Read more »
Messer M, Haller IV (2010). Maintenance Ketamine Treatment Produces Long-term Recovery from Depression. (2010) Maintenance Ketamine Treatment Produces Long-term Recovery from Depression. Primary Psychiatry, 48-50. info:/
- August 28, 2011
- 04:21 AM
- 775 views
Drug Trials in 'At Risk' Youth
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Is it ethical to medicate healthy teenagers "at risk" of developing psychosis to prevent a symptom that may not occur? One such clinical trial in Australia was recently stopped before it could even begin:
Drug trial scrapped amid outcryJill Stark
August 21, 2011
FORMER Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry has aborted a controversial trial of antipsychotic drugs on children as young as 15 who are "at risk" of psychosis, amid complaints the study was unethical.The Sunday Age can reveal ........ Read more »
Mechelli, A., Riecher-Rossler, A., Meisenzahl, E., Tognin, S., Wood, S., Borgwardt, S., Koutsouleris, N., Yung, A., Stone, J., Phillips, L.... (2011) Neuroanatomical Abnormalities That Predate the Onset of Psychosis: A Multicenter Study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 68(5), 489-495. DOI: 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.42
- August 5, 2011
- 06:51 PM
- 823 views
A New Sexual Femunculus?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Figure 3A (adapted from Komisaruk et al., 2011). Group-based composite view of the clitoral, vaginal, and cervical activation sites, all in the medial paracentral lobule, but regionally differentiated. We interpret this as due to the differential sensory innervation of these genital structures, i.e., clitoris: pudendal nerve, vagina: pelvic nerve,1 and cervix: hypogastric and vagus nerves."Femunulus" is a neologism for "female homuculus" The neuroanatomical definition of homunculus is a "di........ Read more »
Komisaruk, B., Wise, N., Frangos, E., Liu, W., Allen, K., & Brody, S. (2011) Women's Clitoris, Vagina, and Cervix Mapped on the Sensory Cortex: fMRI Evidence. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02388.x
- August 2, 2011
- 05:00 AM
- 798 views
The Man Who Mistook a Harmonica for a Cash Register
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
One of the most famous books written by Oliver Sacks, popular author and beloved behavioral neurologist, is The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. One of the chapters describes the case of a patient with visual agnosia, or the inability to recognize objects.Below is a conversation between Sacks and Dr. P, the patient with visual agnosia.I showed him the cover [of a National Geographic Magazine], an unbroken expanse of Sahara dunes.'What do you see here?' I asked.'I see a river,' he said. 'And a........ Read more »
Konen, C., Behrmann, M., Nishimura, M., & Kastner, S. (2011) The Functional Neuroanatomy of Object Agnosia: A Case Study. Neuron, 71(1), 49-60. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.05.030
- July 23, 2011
- 07:37 PM
- 1,018 views
Neuro Bliss and Neuro Codeine
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Lindsay Lohan drinking Neuro Bliss.NEUROBRANDS®, LLC is a company that markets a series of colorful and attractively designed "nutritional drinks", known as Neuro® Drinks.Neuro Gasm Is Part Of The New Neuro CultureFor a company that has great product placement (with many celebrity endorsements), carefully crafted packaging, and regularly issued press releases, they sure are modest about their marketing efforts:"Neuro Drinks® offer consumers an alternative to products that perpetuate our self........ Read more »
Gomez-Ramirez, M., Kelly, S., Montesi, J., & Foxe, J. (2008) The Effects of l-theanine on Alpha-Band Oscillatory Brain Activity During a Visuo-Spatial Attention Task. Brain Topography, 22(1), 44-51. DOI: 10.1007/s10548-008-0068-z
- July 17, 2011
- 11:27 AM
- 788 views
The Google Stroop Effect?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
The Google logo.Notice the logo is multi-colored (as pointed out by Neurobonkers). Seeing "Google" printed in a solid color (or in any other font, for that matter) would likely result in a Stroop effect, or a slower response time in identifying the color of the font, relative to that of a neutral word.Is Google making us stupid?That question, and its original exposition in The Atlantic, has been furthering the career of Nicholas G. Carr. His subsequent book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Do........ Read more »
Sparrow, B., Liu, J., & Wegner, D. (2011) Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1207745
- July 11, 2011
- 06:23 PM
- 770 views
Underwear Models and Low Libido
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Erotic or not? (from Hot Chicks with Douchebags)Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) is a controversial diagnosis given to women who have a low (or nonexistent) libido and are distressed about it. The International Definitions Committee (a panel of 13 experts in female sexual dysfunction) from the 2nd International Consultation on Sexual Medicine in Paris defined HSDD, which has also been called Women's Sexual Interest/Desire Disorder (Basson et al., 2004), in the following fashion:There ........ Read more »
Bianchi-Demicheli, F., Cojan, Y., Waber, L., Recordon, N., Vuilleumier, P., & Ortigue, S. (2011) Neural Bases of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Women: An Event-Related fMRI Study. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02376.x
- June 28, 2011
- 06:16 PM
- 861 views
JAMA on 60s Psychedelic Drug Culture
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
An amusing semi-anthropological study was published in JAMA by Ludwig and Levine in 1965. It was based on extensive interviews with 27 "postnarcotic drug addict inpatients" who were treated at a hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. The specific drugs of interest included peyote (from the peyotl cactus plant), mescaline, LSD, and psilocybin. The current availability of each drug, most popular methods of intake, slang terms, psychoactive properties, and subcultural norms were discussed. Hallucinogens ........ Read more »
LUDWIG AM, & LEVINE J. (1965) PATTERNS OF HALLUCINOGENIC DRUG ABUSE. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association, 92-6. PMID: 14233246
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