Psychology Blog

Several perennially fascinating questions arise in the study of humankind: What makes us so different from other animals? Was there some turning point or specific development that marks the emergence of uniquely human behavior? In other words, how did we become human? A recent workshop at Arizona State University, “Origins of Human Uniqueness and Behavioral [...]

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The making of humanity

Go Cognitive is an awesome free video archive of interviews and discussion that aims to explain some of the core topics in cognitive neuroscience.

It’s a project of the University of Idaho who’ve managed to convince some of the leaders in the science of the brain to talk about their work.

There are videos on fMRI, neuroplasticity, attention and neurological problems to name but a few, and there’s even a talk on psychology and stage magic.

The website also has a demo section that demonstrates some of the principles in action.

My only complaint is that you can’t download the videos, they can only be streamed, but nevertheless they remain a fantastically produced high quality series. Bravo.

Link to Go Cognitive videos (thanks Peter!).

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Go Cognitive guide to the brain

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

Time magazine reports on how darkness can encourage dishonest acts even when anonymity is accounted for.

A study finding a link with aversion to inequality an activity in the ventral striatum is brilliantly covered by The Frontal Cortex.

The Point of Inquiry podcast has an excellent discussion on the psychology of <a href=”Cold reading
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/ian_rowland_the_cold_hard_facts_of_cold_reading/”>cold reading.

A preview of a special journal issue on ‘Neuroscience, power and culture’ is covered by Advances in the History of Psychology.

The Globe and Mail covers a study finding that children highly sensitive to stress can excel given the right support and environment.

Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman discusses judging happiness and the paradox of experience vs memory in a talk for TED.

Neurophilosophy covers two new studies finding that face recognition ability is partly inherited.

“As for the effectiveness of gay conversion, Core’s Dr Davidson acknowledges that there are ‘relapses’”. Damn those Speedos. The Irish Independent has an article on gay conversion therapy in Ireland.

The Neurocritic has a thoughtful response to the recent NYT article on the possible cognitive benefits of depression.

‘Ministrokes‘ may cause more damage than thought, according to research covered by Science News.

The Neuroskeptic has an excellent piece on the decline and fall of the cannabinoid antagonists, a class of drug supposed to be the next big thing in treating obesity.

Research finding that as pornography has increased in availability, sex crimes have either decreased or not increased in every region investigated is discussed in The Scientist.

Dr Petra looks at the background to the recent report on sexualisation and young people from the UK government with more analysis to follow. After reading the report, I can’t help but suggesting someone point out the difference between correlation and causation to its author.

A hay fever medicine that showed early promise as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease does nothing to stave off dementia, a large clinical trial concludes. Coverage from the New Scientist blog.

The Philosopher’s Zone programme from ABC Radio National has a good discussion on perception, sensation and consciousness with Nicholas Humphrey.

There’s a video profile of an ex-narc who catches bent cops framing people for drugs offences over at Boing Boing.

New Scientist discusses whether brain scans could gives us an objective measure of the intensity of pain.

The excellent Addiction Inbox blog contrasts how the media covers harm reduction services (’they promote drug abuse’) and what the scientific studies say (the opposite).

io9 discusses research finding that oxygenated booze gives you less of a hangover. No word on how it affects the beer goggles effect.

UK may end its controversial “dangerous and severe personality disorder” program, according to excellent In The News.

Current Biology has a freely accessible paper on ‘archaeogenetics‘ - the use of genetics to understand human history.

Eric Barker’s Barking Up the Wrong Tree blog is full of fascinating and off-beat psychology snippets.

Mental Nurse blog has a funny post classifying types of annoying psychologists, occupational therapists and the like in mental health.

There’s a video interview with neurophilosophers Pat and Paul Churchland over at The Science Network.

Women with hour-glass figures activate the neural reward centre of the male brain, according to a study covered by the BPS Research Digest. Women with eye-glasses, even better.

BBC News discusses the cult of Omega-3 and why your life’s problems will not be solved by fish oil, despite that the advertisers will tell you.

The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society Dream Films 1926-1972.

When they were drunk, bigger men became especially aggressive when given the opportunity to administer electric shocks to a fictitious opponent in a laboratory contest, according to research covered by Science News

Neuroanthropology links to videos from The Encultured Brain conference which are now available online.

“Only occasionally do studies come out that improve the image of men as more than stubborn, violent and incorrigible beasts with malfunctioning moral compasses. The study I’m about to talk about isn’t one of them.” Neuronarrative on a study of male and female guilt.

The Research Blogging Awards finalists have been announced and there’s much mind and brain goodness inside. I had the pleasure of judging the the English and Spanish language entries.

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2010-03-05 Spike activity

When I introduce the psychological disorders unit in both intro psych and biopsych, I spend quite a bit of time discussing what we mean in psychology by the term “abnormal.” This sometimes seemed like overkill–the students were always anxious to get into the meat of the material. After reading Allen Frances’ commentary on DSM V in the Los Angeles Times, though, I am more than ever convinced that the time spent in the discussion of “abnormal” is time well spent.

If you’re not familiar with Professor Frances, he is an emeritus professor and former department chair in psychiatry at Duke University, and he headed up the DSM IV task force in 1994. Those credentials suggest to me that when he has something to say about DSM V, we should all listen carefully.

I am not a clinician, and I have often been troubled by the DSM’s couching what seems to be very typical behavior to me in terms of disorder. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. “Often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework)” from the criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Do we know anybody who doesn’t do this?
2. “Often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected.” Another gem from the ADHD criteria. Instead of making this a symptom of a mental disorder, why don’t we consider our expectations for young children remaining seated? After all, with current rates of childhood obesity, maybe we shouldn’t let them sit down at all.
3. “Often initiates physical fights” from the DSM criteria for Conduct Disorder, which is the psychologists’ equivalent of juvenile delinquency. I’m not saying physical fights are ideal behavior, but this is what boys do. I attended a very prissy school system, and most of my classmates are college graduates and successful professionals, and I distinctly recall the boys getting about a block away from our elementary school and starting to punch each other. And what about “mean girl” behavior that doesn’t involve physical fighting? There aren’t too many more vicious creatures on the planet than a pack of 7th grade girls, yet the DSM seems to think that relational aggression is just dandy….

But let’s get back to Dr. Frances, who has some stern things to say about the upcoming DSM V. Here are some of my favorite quotes from his article:

1. Our panel tried hard to be conservative and careful but inadvertently contributed to three false “epidemics” — attention deficit disorder, autism and childhood bipolar disorder.
2. This wholesale medical imperialization of normality could potentially create tens of millions of innocent bystanders who would be mislabeled as having a mental disorder. The pharmaceutical industry would have a field day — despite the lack of solid evidence of any effective treatments for these newly proposed diagnoses.
3. …many misidentified teenagers would receive medications that can cause enormous weight gain, diabetes and shortened life expectancy.
4. Defining the elusive line between mental disorder and normality is not simply a scientific question that can be left in the hands of the experts.
5. This is a societal issue that transcends psychiatry. It is not too late to save normality from DSM-V if the greater public interest is factored into the necessary risk/benefit analyses.

The last two points Dr. Frances makes are consistent with continuing to emphasize a general education at the university level, not just career training. We need citizens educated in history, philosophy, ethics, and social sciences to help make wise decisions for how the science we produce is used. I hope the current DSM task force pays attention to Dr. Frances’ comments, or we soon won’t have any normal people left on the planet.

Original post:

Today was the beginning of week 9 for us dinosaurs still on the quarter system, and you can feel the growing tension as finals week approaches. Everybody could use some anti-anxiety advice right about now. So a recent article about exercise and anxiety caught my attention.

While I typically bring up the issue of exercise in my discussions of depression, I usually do not discuss it in the context of depression’s relatives, the anxiety disorders. However, in a large meta-analysis of over 40 studies and 3000 participants, a University of Georgia team reported that exercise appears to have a very beneficial role in reducing anxiety [1].

What I especially liked about this analysis is that the researchers used real randomized experiments, not correlational studies. It would be too easy to say that anxiety is lowest among exercising adults, but not be able to comment on the causal nature of exercise in these cases. Instead, these experimental studies showed that exercise does in fact reduce anxiety an average of 20 percent in patients with a variety of symptoms, including heart disease, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and chronic arthritis pain.

As the authors point out, exercise is about as low-cost as a “medical” treatment can get. I find it interesting to see how the current discussion of health care costs has spawned a whole new interest in low-cost and preventive approaches. Wellness has always been preferable to having to fix something, and it’s nice to see the medical community go this route.

1.  Matthew P. Herring; Patrick J. O’Connor; Rodney K. Dishman
The Effect of Exercise Training on Anxiety Symptoms Among Patients: A Systematic Review
Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(4):321-331.  

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