Psychologyresearch.org.uk

Over at Opposing Views, bioethicist Jacob Appel argues that pre-implantation genetic screening for severe disease mutations should be compulsory for parents undergoing IVF . Appell dodges one obvious criticism of this suggestion – that it unacceptably limits parental autonomy – by pointing out that “Western societies have long acknowledged that parental authority cannot undermine the medical interests of a child”. As examples, Appell cites the facts that Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot deny their own children blood transfusions, however strong their religious opposition, and that “American courts consistently compel pediatric cancer therapy, even when parents object”. Given these precedents, Appell argues that allowing children to be brought into the world with a severe genetic disease, when this situation could be easily avoided with large-scale genetic screening, is morally indefensible and analogous to child abuse. I’m wary of any argument that violates parental autonomy – but Appell’s argument certainly seems consistent with emerging Western values weighing child protection above parental choice (so long, of course, as such protection does not extend to embryos). I actually suspect that top-down coercion will not ultimately be required to enforce embryo screening for severe diseases, however – social pressure will be a far more effective tool. Once pre-natal screening for severe disease (both through IVF embryo testing and maternal blood testing) becomes effective and cheap, parents of disabled children will be increasingly viewed by society as being responsible for their child’s disease . Social ostracism will always trump legality as an incentive to change moral values. Whether you see such a world as right or wrong will of course depend on your political and religious beliefs, but I really can’t see how these changes can be avoided; they are an inevitable consequence of advances in genetic technology coupled with human nature. In other words: like it or not, genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy will almost certainly be little more than historical curiosities within a decade or two . I must admit that I find it hard to view this prospect with anything approaching sadness. Subscribe to Genetic Future . Read the comments on this post…

Excerpt from: 
Embryo screening should be mandatory [Genetic Future]

John Halamka reports that Google Health has quietly launched an application for secure sharing of your online medical records: The Google solution, introduced without fanfare, solves many confidentiality issues by putting the patient in control of medical record sharing. Call it “Facebook for Healthcare”. You invite those who you believe should see your medical information and you can disinvite them at anytime. Halamka, as one of the first 10 participants of the audacious Personal Genome Project, knows more than a little about sharing health data: he’s agreed to publish both his medical records and complete genetic data on the PGP’s publicly accessible database. He’s also a major player in the world of electronic health records (and anyone interested in personalised medicine that isn’t reading his blog – you should be). We really do seem to be moving into an era where patients control their own health data, order their own diagnostic tests (e.g. direct-to-consumer genetic tests), and increasingly make their own decisions about their healthcare. Whether this will actually result in better health outcomes remains to be seen; but there is no question that it will seriously disrupt the traditional medical model. Subscribe to Genetic Future . Read the comments on this post…

Read more: 
Google Health: the Facebook of medical records? [Genetic Future]

A few years ago we discussed a fascinating study which appeared to show that the main reason we stop eating at the end of a meal isn’t because we “feel” full. Instead, we simply see that we’ve finished eating the food in front of us, so we stop. We don’t eat more an hour later because we remember we just ate. In that study, led by Paul Rozin, experimenters provided two amnesic patients with two meals separated by just 15 minutes. They both did not recall eating the previous meal due to their medical condition, and each of them ate both meals as if they hadn’t had anything to eat. But maybe amnesia has additional subtle effects. The condition is usually caused by severe brain trauma, so it’s possible that amnesics (or the particular amnesics in the study) have also lost their ability to detect fullness. Could that explain their seemingly bizarre behavior? A team led by Suzanne Higgs identified two new patients who had a similar type of amnesia: They could not form new long-term memories, although their old memories and short-term memory were intact. They repeated Rozin’s multiple-meal study and found the same result: while people with normal memory refused a second lunch, both amnesic patients ate two full meals, consuming nearly 2,000 calories while the others ate only about 700. But in a separate experiment, volunteers (including the two amnesics) were presented with small samples of four different foods (a cookie, potato chips, rice pudding, and sandwiches) for tasting. They were asked to rate each food for taste, texture, and desire to eat. Next they were given a meal-sized portion of the sandwiches and asked to eat as much as they liked. Finally, they rated each item once more on the same scale. Here are the results: Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

See the original post here: 
How do we know we’re hungry? (Take two) [Cognitive Daily]

A few years ago we discussed a fascinating study which appeared to show that the main reason we stop eating at the end of a meal isn’t because we “feel” full. Instead, we simply see that we’ve finished eating the food in front of us, so we stop. We don’t eat more an hour later because we remember we just ate. In that study, led by Paul Rozin, experimenters provided two amnesic patients with two meals separated by just 15 minutes. They both did not recall eating the previous meal due to their medical condition, and each of them ate both meals as if they hadn’t had anything to eat. But maybe amnesia has additional subtle effects. The condition is usually caused by severe brain trauma, so it’s possible that amnesics (or the particular amnesics in the study) have also lost their ability to detect fullness. Could that explain their seemingly bizarre behavior? A team led by Suzanne Higgs identified two new patients who had a similar type of amnesia: They could not form new long-term memories, although their old memories and short-term memory were intact. They repeated Rozin’s multiple-meal study and found the same result: while people with normal memory refused a second lunch, both amnesic patients ate two full meals, consuming nearly 2,000 calories while the others ate only about 700. But in a separate experiment, volunteers (including the two amnesics) were presented with small samples of four different foods (a cookie, potato chips, rice pudding, and sandwiches) for tasting. They were asked to rate each food for taste, texture, and desire to eat. Next they were given a meal-sized portion of the sandwiches and asked to eat as much as they liked. Finally, they rated each item once more on the same scale. Here are the results: Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

See more here: 
How do we know we’re hungry? (Take two)

Neural Markers of Religious Conviction : Many people derive peace of mind and purpose in life from their belief in God. For others, however, religion provides unsatisfying answers. Are there brain differences between believers and nonbelievers? Here we show that religious conviction is marked by reduced reactivity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a cortical system that is involved in the experience of anxiety and is important for self-regulation. In two studies, we recorded electroencephalographic neural reactivity in the ACC as participants completed a Stroop task. Results showed that stronger religious zeal and greater belief in God were associated with less firing of the ACC in response to error and with commission of fewer errors. These correlations remained strong even after we controlled for personality and cognitive ability. These results suggest that religious conviction provides a framework for understanding and acting within one’s environment, thereby acting as a buffer against anxiety and minimizing the experience of error. ScienceDaily has more: Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

Here is the original:
God makes you chill [Gene Expression]

I just found this interesting paper in the medical journal Anesthesiology on fear of imminent death or the delusion that death has actually occurred, both linked to anaesthetic intoxication. Despite our repeated explanations that she had suffered a local anesthetic-induced complication, the patient remained convinced that she had died and come back to life. This patient had been a non-practicing Christian who believed in an afterlife. She had not had any previous experience of this kind or know of others who had had. She had had no fear of death in the preoperative period. The article notes that the delusional belief that one has died has been linked to complications with the use of lidocaine, procainamide, and procaine. As with the drugs used in the Anesthesiology case study, all of these are local anaesthetics. They are just intended to numb a specific area, so the patient is not ‘put under’ with globally conscious altering substances. It’s also interesting because the delusion that one has died is also known in the psychiatric literature, usually in the context of diagnoses such as schizophrenia or after brain injury. In these cases it is known as the Cotard delusion which is usually explained , rather unsatisfactorily, as being caused by a general emotional disconnection from the world, interpreted by the patient’s faulty reasoning system as being convincing evidence that they are dead. The case studies from the anaesthesiology literature suggest that these beliefs can be triggered in other ways, although the exact process still remains a mystery. If you’re put off by academic journals, give this article a try. It’s well written, short and fascinating. Link to Anesthesiology article on death delusions.

The rest is here:
On believing you died during the operation

I’ve just read a fascinating article on the wonderfully named Christina the Astonishing , a 12th century saint who died during an epileptic seizure, rose from the ‘dead’, and according to some accounts, levitated to the roof of the church. The paper, published in the medical journal Neurology , discusses her case because while various people have suggested that the supernatural experiences of the saints can be nowadays explained as epilepsy, Christina was thought to both be holy and have epilepsy by her contemporaries. However, the paper begins with this fascinating bit about the history of the relationship between saints and the long mythologised condition: In 1930, Kanner catalogued no less than 37 saints associated with “the falling sickness” and the eventful lives of many of these are illuminated in Murphy’s excellent paper “The saints of epilepsy.” While many made their name casting out demons and curing epilepsy, Pope Benedict XIV tightened up the rules relating to miraculous cures of seizures in 1743, particularly in relation to a relapse of the condition. No one has been canonized on the basis of a miraculous cure of epilepsy since. Other saints have a more oblique connection to the condition. For example, St. Albanaus of Mainz (400 AD) was decapitated and the subsequent writhing of his headless body apparently resembled a convulsion, hence his connection. St. Sebastian, who survived being shot by arrows only to be later clubbed to death, is invoked as his initial recovery from near death represents the recovery from a seizure, which at first may seem fatal. The three wise men of nativity fame, who bestowed gifts on the infant Christ, are also sometimes invoked against epilepsy as they “fell down” before the infant when they found him. In the 14th century, it was thought to be beneficial to whisper the names of these saintly wise men into the ears of people as they convulsed to stop the seizure. A number of the saints of epilepsy are thought to have suffered seizures themselves, including those from the very highest echelons — see St. Paul. While these diagnoses remain speculative and can often only be inferred from minimal fragments of information, some have gone to considerable lengths to examine their hypotheses, including the investigation of the original court manuscripts in the case of St. Joan of Arc and the examination of a 600-year-old skull in the case of St. Birgitta. Christina’s case is fascinating in itself and the article is well worth a read. Link to article. Link to PubMed entry for same.

Read more here:
Christina the Astonishing and the saints of epilepsy

An interesting if dubious Twitter phenomenon: a $200 an hour online therapist website is spamming people who express distress in their twitter bulletins with a reply advertising their service. The service is called AskAnAlly and the Twitter spam has really pissed a number people off. Like many of the other people, I can’t help reading the name as AskAnally, which I shall be charitable and assume is a reference to Freudian psychotherapy. It seems life imitates Web Therapy . Thanks for Mind Hacks reader Rachel for letting me know.

View original post here:
Distress targeted Twitter spam

Yasmin L. Hurd, Ph.D. is Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics as well as Psychiatry at Mt. Sinai Medical Center ( PubMed ; Hurd Lab ; Department ; Research Crossroads ) . As is overviewed on the “research” tab of her webpage, Professor Hurd has longstanding interests in mesocorticolimbic areas that are affected by drugs of abuse. Her areas of concentration include the in vivo neurochemical responses to drugs, the influence of drugs on fetal brain development and the molecular and biochemical changes that might be associated with dependence. Professor Hurd obtained her doctorate in 1989 from the Karolinska…Okay, right there your brain should go ‘ click ‘. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

More: 
Faces of Drug Abuse Research: Yasmin L Hurd, Ph.D. [DrugMonkey]

Here’s a very interesting piece from the New York Times’ Review of Books: "Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption." The basic story is that whereas only a few decades ago physicians generally lacked any lucrative ties to pharmaceutical companies, these days such conflicts of interest permeate the field, and debase it. Take the example of Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, the psychiatry department chair at Emory University. He received a NIMH grant to study drugs made by GlaxoSmithKline AND at the same time he also got $500,000 in fees from GlaxoSmithKline. Talk about a conflict of interest! That’s not the only egregious case – there are many. As it turns out a recent survey found that about two thirds of academic medical centers hold equity interest in companies that sponsor research within the same institution… And here is another one: Of the 170 contributors to the most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), ninety-five had financial ties to drug companies. The top dogs aside, many physicians accept hefty salaries to consult for drug companies, and most accept pharmaceutical gifts like pens and free lunches. So the medical profession is teeming with conflicts of interest – but it doesn’t stop there. Look at politics, wall street, consulting – it is everywhere and I worry that unless we understand just how big this problem is, we are not going to deal with it.   © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

View original post here:
Doctors and Drug Companies