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by Vaughan

Two cases of compulsive swearing – in sign language

December 7, 2008 in Blogs, Mind Hacks by Vaughan

The medical journal Movement Disorders reported two case studies of people who were deaf from birth and had the tic disorder Tourettes, leading them to compulsively swear in sign language. Tourettes is often associated with compulsive swearing, although this only happens in a minority of cases. It is more commonly associated with compulsive actions, that can be non-word vocal sounds, or actions that range from eye-blinks to hair-combing like actions. However, in some people compulsive swearing, known as coprolalia, does appear, and in these two cases studies, it seems this can even be expressed through sign in people who have sign language as their first language. This is from a 2001 case study : Here we present a 31-year-old man with prelingual deafness who had motor and vocal tics as well as coprolalia expressed through sign language. He would feel a compulsion to use the sign for “cunt” (see Fig. 1: [top]) in contexts (grammatical and social) that were not appropriate. This is essentially the sign for the medical term “vagina” except that the sign is pushed toward the person at whom it is aimed and accompanied by threatening body language and facial expression. The patient would then feel embarrassed about the compulsion and aim to disguise it as another sign. Commonly, this would be the sign for “petrol pump” (see Fig. 2: [bottom]). This can also be used to symbolise a small watering can. There’s also loads of great guides to sign language on the net, including a guide to swearing and a guide to flirting if ever you find yourself wanting to chat up a hot deaf babe or sexy deaf boy. Link to first case study (vaguely via MeFi ). Link to PubMed entry for same. Link to second case study (mentioned above). Link to PubMed entry for same.

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by PsyBlog

12 Laws of the Emotions

December 3, 2008 in Blogs, PsyBlog by PsyBlog

Explore your feelings, and how they affect your behaviour, with this new series on the psychology of the emotions. We tend to think of our emotions as having laws unto themselves, but one psychological researcher has suggested that our emotions do follow certain general rules. This post begins a new series on the psychology of emotions with Professor Nico Frijda’s twelve laws of the emotions ( Fridja, 2006 ). As for most laws there are exceptions, but these have been synthesised from years of psychological research and hold true much of the time. 1. The Law of Situational Meaning The first law is simply that emotions derive from situations. Generally the same types of situation will elicit the same types of emotional response. Loss makes us grieve, gains make us happy and scary things make us fearful (mostly anyway – see all the other laws). 2. The Law of Concern We feel because we care about something, when we have some interest in what happens, whether it’s to an object, ourselves, or another person. Emotions arise from these particular goals, motivations or concerns. When we are unconcerned we don’t feel anything. 3. The Law of Apparent Reality Whatever seems real to us, can elicit an emotional response. In other words how we appraise or interpret a situation governs the emotion we feel (compare with laws 11 & 12). The reason poor movies, plays or books don’t engage us emotionally is because, in some sense, we fail to detect truth. Similarly it’s difficult to get emotional about things that aren’t obvious, right in front of us. For example grief may not strike when we are told about the death of loved one, but only once it becomes real to us in some way – say when we pick up the phone to call them, forgetting they are gone. 4, 5 & 6. The Laws of Change, Habituation and Comparative Feeling The law of habituation means that in life we get used to our circumstances whatever they are (mostly true, but see laws 7 & 8). The emotions, therefore, respond most readily to change. This means that we are always comparing what is happening to a relatively steady frame of reference (what we are used to). As a result our emotions tend to respond most readily to changes that are relative to this frame of reference. 7. The Law of Hedonic Asymmetry There are certain awful circumstances to which we can never become accustomed. If things are bad enough, it is impossible to escape negative feelings like fear or anxiety. On the other hand positive emotions always fade over time. No matter how much we are in love, how big the lottery win, or how copious the quantities of drugs consumed, positive emotions like pleasure always slip away. 8. The Law of Conservation of Emotional Momentum Time doesn’t heal all wounds – or if it does, it only does so indirectly. Events can retain their emotional power over the years unless we re-experience and re-evaluate them. It’s this re-experiencing and consequent re-definition that reduces the emotional charge of an event. This is why events that haven’t been re-evaluated – say, failing an exam or being rejected by a potential lover – retain their emotional power across the decades. 9. The Law of Closure The way we respond to our emotions tends to be absolute. They often lead immediately to actions of one kind or another, and they will brook no discussion (but see laws 10, 11 & 12). In other words emotional responses are closed to goals other than their own or judgements that can mitigate the response. An emotion seizes us and send us resolutely down one path, until later that is, when a different emotion sends us down the opposite path. 10. The Law of Care for Consequences People naturally consider the consequences of their emotions and modify them accordingly. For example anger may provoke violent feelings towards another, but generally people refrain from stabbing each other willy-nilly. Instead they will shout, hit their head on the wall or just silently fume. Emotions may absolutely dictate a type of response, but people do modulate the size of that response (usually!). 11 & 12. Laws of the Lightest Load and the Greatest Gain The emotional impact of an event or situation depends on its interpretation. Putting a different ‘spin’ on a situation can change the feeling. The law of the lightest load means people are particularly motivated to use re-interpretations to reduce negative emotions. For example we might reduce the fear of the credit crunch by generating the illusion we won’t be affected. The exact reverse is also true: whenever a situation can be reinterpreted for a positive emotional gain, it will be. For example anger can be used to make others back down, grief attracts help and fear may stop us rashly attempting difficult or dangerous tasks. Exploring the emotions You may not agree with all of these ‘laws’, for example this is quite an individually based account of emotion, and tends to downplay the social aspects of emotion. Nevertheless it is an excellent starting point which provides a very useful way of thinking about emotions, and helps pave the way for examining individual emotions. [Image credit: Victor Bezrukov ]

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by BrainAndBehaviour

The Quantum Leap effect – creating a body-swapping illusion [Not Exactly Rocket Science]

December 2, 2008 in Blogs, Brain & Behaviour by BrainAndBehaviour

A ridiculous number of science-fiction TV series and films have moments where characters exchange minds , from the brilliance of Quantum Leap to the latest season of Heroes. Body-swapping is such a staple of imaginative fiction that it’s tempting to think that it has no place being scientifically investigated. But Valeria Petkova and Henrik Ehrsson beg to differ – while actually exchanging minds is clearly impossible, these two scientists have created an illusion that can make people feel that another body – be it a mannequin or an actual person – is really theirs. The idea that our bodies are part of ourselves is so obvious and permanent that it seems ridiculous to consider any other alternative. But some people do suffer from brain damage that prevents them from accurately recognising their own limbs, or causes them to experience out-of-body experiences. The sense of bodily ownership can even be deceived in normal, healthy people, through the use of illusions. The most famous of these involves a rubber hand – by stroking it at the same time as a person’s real hand (which is hidden from view), you can convince them that the rubber one is actually theirs. The illusion shows that timing is important. So is point-of-view – in a previous experiment , Ehrsson showed that he could induce an out-of-body experiment in the lab by combining the simultaneous stroking of the rubber-hand illusion with virtual reality headsets to show people views of their own backs. Petkova and Ehrsson have now taken these illusions to a new extreme, tricking people into thinking that an entire body, rather than just a mere hand, is their own. The delusion is so powerful that the person can shake hands with their own real body without breaking the spell. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

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The Quantum Leap effect – creating a body-swapping illusion [Not Exactly Rocket Science]

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by BrainAndBehaviour

I See Dead People [The Frontal Cortex]

December 2, 2008 in Blogs, Brain & Behaviour by BrainAndBehaviour

Vaughan Bell, of Mindhacks fame, wrote a really interesting article on “post-bereavement ghosts” over at Mind Matters. I had no idea that such hallucinations were so ubiquitous: Mourning seems to be a time when hallucinations are particularly common, to the point where feeling the presence of the deceased is the norm rather than the exception. One study, by the researcher Agneta Grimby at the University of Goteborg, found that over 80 percent of elderly people experience hallucinations associated with their dead partner one month after bereavement, as if their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved’s passing. As a marker of how vivid such visions can seem, almost a third of the people reported that they spoke in response to their experiences. In other words, these weren’t just peripheral illusions: they could evoke the very essence of the deceased. Occasionally, these hallucinations are heart-rending. A 2002 case report by German researchers described how a middle aged woman, grieving her daughter’s death from a heroin overdose, regularly saw the young girl and sometimes heard her say “Mamma, Mamma!” and “It’s so cold.” Thankfully, these distressing experiences tend to be rare, and most people who experience hallucinations during bereavement find them comforting, as if they were re-connecting with something of the positive from the person’s life. Perhaps this reconnecting is reflected in the fact that the intensity of grief has been found to predict the number of pleasant hallucinations, as has the happiness of the marriage to the person who passed away. In other words, we hallucinate a loved one because the brain can’t bear to let go. It’s like a phantom limb, only the phantom is actually a phantom. William James , a rationalist who cultivated an interest in seances and ghosts, would have had something interesting to say about this. Read the comments on this post…

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by BrainAndBehaviour

The body swap illusion [Neurophilosophy]

December 2, 2008 in Blogs, Brain & Behaviour by BrainAndBehaviour

Body ownership – the sense that one’s body belongs to one’s self – is central to self-awareness, and yet is something that most of us take completely for granted. We experience our bodies as being an integral part of ourselves, without ever questioning how we know that our hands belong to us, or how we can distinguish our body from its surroundings. These issues have long intrigued philosophers and psychologists, but had not been investigated by neuroscientists until recently. Now researchers from the Karolinska Institute report that they have induced a “body-swap” illusion, whereby subjects perceived the body of another person as belonging to themselves. Their findings are published today in the open access journal PLoS One . Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

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New and Exciting in PLoS this week [A Blog Around The Clock]

December 1, 2008 in Blogs, Brain & Behaviour by BrainAndBehaviour

Let’s see what is new in PLoS Medicine , PLoS Biology and PLoS ONE today: Time-of-Day-Dependent Enhancement of Adult Neurogenesis in the Hippocampus : Adult neurogenesis occurs in specific regions of the mammalian brain such as the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. In the neurogenic region, neural progenitor cells continuously divide and give birth to new neurons. Although biological properties of neurons and glia in the hippocampus have been demonstrated to fluctuate depending on specific times of the day, it is unclear if neural progenitors and neurogenesis in the adult brain are temporally controlled within the day. Here we demonstrate that in the dentate gyrus of the adult mouse hippocampus, the number of M-phase cells shows a day/night variation throughout the day, with a significant increase during the nighttime. The M-phase cell number is constant throughout the day in the subventricular zone of the forebrain, another site of adult neurogenesis, indicating the daily rhythm of progenitor mitosis is region-specific. Importantly, the nighttime enhancement of hippocampal progenitor mitosis is accompanied by a nighttime increase of newborn neurons. These results indicate that neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus occurs in a time-of-day-dependent fashion, which may dictate daily modifications of dentate gyrus physiology. Mutualistic Interactions Drive Ecological Niche Convergence in a Diverse Butterfly Community : What governs the composition of communities of species? Competition promotes divergence in behavior and habitat, allowing species to co-exist. But the effects of other interactions, such as mutualism, are less well understood. We examined the interplay between mutualistic interactions, common ancestry and competition in mimetic butterflies, one of the best studied examples of mutualism, in which species converge in wing pattern to advertize their toxicity to predators. We showed that mutualism drives convergence in flight height and forest habitat, and that these effects outweigh common ancestry (which should lead related species to be more similar) and competition (which promotes ecological divergence). Our findings imply that species that benefit from one another might evolve to form more tightly knit local communities, suggesting that adaptation is a more important process affecting community composition than is commonly suspected. Our results also support the idea that mimicry can cause speciation, through its multiple cascading effects on species’ biology. The Prevalence of Mental Disorders among the Homeless in Western Countries: Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis : There are well over a million homeless people in Western Europe and North America, but reliable estimates of the prevalence of major mental disorders among this population are lacking. We undertook a systematic review of surveys of such disorders in homeless people. We searched for surveys of the prevalence of psychotic illness, major depression, alcohol and drug dependence, and personality disorder that were based on interviews of samples of unselected homeless people. We searched bibliographic indexes, scanned reference lists, and corresponded with authors. We explored potential sources of any observed heterogeneity in the estimates by meta-regression analysis, including geographical region, sample size, and diagnostic method. Twenty-nine eligible surveys provided estimates obtained from 5,684 homeless individuals from seven countries. Substantial heterogeneity was observed in prevalence estimates for mental disorders among the studies (all Cochran’s χ2 significant at p 85%). The most common mental disorders were alcohol dependence, which ranged from 8.1% to 58.5%, and drug dependence, which ranged from 4.5% to 54.2%. For psychotic illness, the prevalence ranged from 2.8% to 42.3%, with similar findings for major depression. The prevalence of alcohol dependence was found to have increased over recent decades. Homeless people in Western countries are substantially more likely to have alcohol and drug dependence than the age-matched general population in those countries, and the prevalences of psychotic illnesses and personality disorders are higher. Models of psychiatric and social care that can best meet these mental health needs requires further investigation. Read the comments on this post…

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by Psychology Today

Are Women Dying In The War On Love?

November 28, 2008 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

The phrase "There’s a war on…" has been so overused by some sensationalist news coverage in recent years that I loathe to even go there in looking at an alarming new research finding. Yet, there is nothing else to call it. It’s inescapable. The common teachings in my training program years said that single men were in a more precarious health position as compared with their married peers, and that women generally were more protected against completed suicide than men, especially those married and with children. Well, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the recent article finding a massive rise in suicide among middle-aged women (Source: MSNBC )  Having seen thousands of women both in clinical mental health treatment and in the live coaching programs I put on for both men and women out on the town – to show them the latest techniques and tactics in effective dating – many at first view their dating lives as a mere hobby, a casual thing in the face of more important career strivings in the recent economic environment. Meanwhile they also express significant discontent about the state of love and dating today – even going so far as to suspect most of their troubles are due to the strange and annoying habits and instincts of the other gender. "Men can’t commit, and all they want is the sex," I hear. Are they really an enemy of committed love? "Women don’t seem to appreciate me, and they nag me," I hear. Are they really an enemy of male contentedness? Well, one quote I sometimes paraphrase from DH Lawrence in these trainings is that "the future of the world will not be determined by nations, but in the relations between men and women." WASHINGTON – U.S. suicide rates appear to be on the rise, driven mostly by middle-aged white women, researchers reported on Tuesday. They found a disturbing increase in suicides between 1999 and 2005 and said the pattern had changed in an unmistakable way – although the reasons behind the change are not clear. The overall suicide rate rose 0.7 percent during this time, but the rate for white men aged 40 to 64 rose 2.7 percent and for middle-aged women 3.9 percent, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found. "The biggest increase that we have seen between 1999 and 2005 was the increase in poisoning suicide in women – that went up by 57 percent," said Susan Baker, a professor in injury prevention with a special expertise in suicide. If we compare this alarming change in danger to women to some of the observations from Lancet, 2000 . We see that suicide by poisoning among women was still high, but the demographic more at risk was women under 30, with unemployment previously offset my more women entering the workforce, and protected against by having offspring to care for: These possibilities are not mutually exclusive, and examples of each are apparent in the links between suicide and unemployment, divorce, and misuse of alcohol and drugs. Increases in the prevalence of these factors may have contributed to the rise in suicide rates among men in recent years and the widening gap between the sexes.5 Alcohol and drug misuse has also risen among women, although rates remain lower than among men. By definition divorce happens as commonly among men as among women, but the experience is often different. In particular, women are more likely to retain responsibility for the care of young children, a factor that seems to be protective against suicide.6 Although population unemployment rates may be associated with suicide in both sexes, the effect of rising unemployment rates among men in the 1980s on the socioeconomic circumstances of women, and therefore their risk of suicide, may have been offset by the increasing entry of women into the job market, another possible protective factor. Today, we are not only under excessive economic strain, but as compared to years and decades past, there are also far less middle-aged women with children – that protective factor against suicide. In fact, in the age groups 40-44, double the rate of childlessness from thirty years ago. (Source: USA Today ) Meanwhile, that protective effect of marriage on men they taught us about in medical school years ago has begun to deteriorate . New research by Hui Liu and Debra Umberson published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, suggests this story may be changing. Liu and Umberson looked at self-reported health data obtained as part of a huge US survey from over 1 million participants. They were interested in seeing how the relationship between marital status and health had changed between 1972 and 2003. What they found was that the health gap between married men and men who had never been married narrowed in this 30-year period. By 2003 there was very little difference in health status between unmarried and married men. It seems that marriage no longer confers the same health benefits on men that it once did. If we scan these four articles, they don’t directly, irrefutably prove that a lack of love, a "War on Love" is directly killing more women than ever – ironically the most likely gender to actually seek out mental healthcare, be motivated to get treatment, and yet possibly still the greatest current "casualties of war." However, they really do open up a lot of questions that we need to be very concerned about – to view dating and the mate selection process not just as a pastime, hobby, or casual "add-on" to our career strivings in an economic downturn, but a major educational need and a major public health crisis. Are men leaving commitments to marriage and children, or forgoing them entirely in part because the institution no longer benefits not only their mental well-being, but even their physical health? Are middle-aged women depressed and even dying because of a lack of mutual understanding between the genders, effectiveness at dating and mate selection, and a decrease in childbirth? With a wealth of formal studies on committed relationships and marriage, and a relative lack of them on early dating and the details of mate selection placed in educational formats for practical application, is our lack of knowledge on this subject not only causing a loveless discontent, but literally killing women? The articles don’t directly address this, but clearly we, as a society, need to know. If there is a "War on Love", then the enemy is not men or women as genders, but our lack of effective dating strategies for men and women individually, with a practical application of the findings. "On the street," thousands of men have told me face to face that they really, truly desire a commitment, but just have not found a person they are both attracted to, yet also feel a real, true commitment back from. Many say that they don’t feel valued and appreciated by women in general. Just as many women tell me that they haven’t had a real, proper date in a long time, and feel adrift in the sea of popularity of "hook-ups" and "hang-outs." Undefined, no-rules dating, rather than a true, thoughtful effort on the part of men to get to know them slowly, over time, and at a level that is more than just feeling the "sexual chemistry." All of which to my mind sounds like a desperate societal need for what was once, long ago, called "courtship" – a slow, thoughtful, wise process of getting to know another person intimately, before diving in headlong into a lifetime commitment. Friends, family, and entire villages were once involved in assisting it… …and while courtships ended in disappointment due to incompatibility at times, there wasn’t a "War on Love" itself, or so many potentially true and permanent casualties. We need to act. The cost of letting this study become a forgotten headline is far too great. © 2008 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.

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by Psychology Today

Thanksgrieving: Cheer up ’cause it’s downhill from here (a musical op-ed)

November 25, 2008 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

When we’re down, people sometimes try to cheer us up with reminders that other people are much worse off than we are. Comparing misfortune to good effect also applies to our future selves. We should all cheer up because compared to who we’ll be in our declining years we’re doing great. Along with AARP cards, one perk senior citizens get is the occasional amusement of consoling some youngster who is distressed to be growing so old. I wrote this song after just such an experience, me at 51 consoling a 36 year old who was distressed about aging. Enjoying the happiness we get depends upon our ability to manage our interpretation of wellbeing as either a complement to, or substitute for future happiness. If my happiness today is a complement to happiness tomorrow–if it sets up an expectation that I’ll be happy then because I’m happy now-then unhappiness tomorrow will be disappointing. If my happiness today is a substitute for happiness tomorrow–if it sets up an expectation that I might not be happy tomorrow then I won’t be as disappointed. Happy today I like to remind myself that when I’m old I’ll be able to look back and say, "I had my turn." Buddha is often interpreted as saying that you should work to have no expectations, which, to me makes no sense. Expectations are absolutely essential to life. It’s all about expectation management. So here’s my Thanksgrieving gift (see last years at loving ingratitude) an uplifting ditty for us, the temporarily-abled. Here I sing it and play a seven-string fretless bass solo along with my four piece virtual jazz combo: http://www.mindreadersdictionary.com/downhillfromhere.mp3 Downhill from here Sure your things are sagging You can see you’re in decline A glimpse into the mirror shows The ravages of time Just remember that compared to now the future’s looking sour And looking back in decades this will have been the finer hour. At the rate that things are going yes our future looks austere Cheer up ‘cause it’s downhill from here. If you notice your ability To jump and skip is slipping And much of your agility Is going, don’t be trippin’ Compared to 20 years from now You’re agile and you’re well Viewed from future wheelchairs Today you’re a gazelle. At the rate that things are going Yes, our future looks austere Cheer up ‘cause it’s downhill from here. I’m a forward thinking pessimist It makes my days much brighter Tomorrow will be heavier today is therefore lighter Life’s decline is certain Of what’s left this time’s the best Enjoy it now it’s bound to be much better than the rest If the crowd is suffocating you in the rat race to success and your edge is always slipping and you cannot take the stress Just remember that the pile of product’s only getting deeper And your grandkid’s competition will certainly be steeper. At the rate that things are going our futures looks austere Cheer up ‘cause it’s downhill from here.   © 2008 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.

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by Psychology Today

To know me is to like me III: Subliminal advertising

November 24, 2008 in Blogs, Psychology Today by Psychology Today

When you travel for work, you end up on a lot of airplanes. Often, that means some polite conversation with the person sitting next to you. As a psychologist, that conversation is a dangerous one, because eventually I get asked what I do. When I say that I’m a psychologist, people’s initial reaction is that I have somehow been analyzing all of their deepest problems, or perhaps that I have been looking into their soul. They are relieved (and perhaps a little disappointed) when I tell them that I study the way people think. But quickly, they find other questions about thinking that have always puzzled them. One of the most common questions centers on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising. Something about subliminal advertising captures our imagination. The prospect that a flash on a screen could drive us to do something without knowing why seems to scare us. So, it is worth talking a bit about subliminal advertising in the context of the topic of the last post on accessibility. (If you haven’t read the previous post yet, go back and read it first. I’ll wait…) Ok. First of all, subliminal advertising shouldn’t frighten you. There are all sorts of things in the world that affect your decisions, even though you are not aware of them. However, these things that affect your behavior without awareness all do it by changing the accessibility of concepts in your environment. And that is basically how subliminal advertising can affect you. Subliminal means "below the threshold." Basically, subliminal things are items that you sense (with your eyes, nose, mouth, ears, or skin), but you are not aware of. The main influence that subliminally perceived items can have on you is to increase the accessibility of concepts relating to those items. So, think about the classic example of subliminal perception. You are sitting in a dark movie theater, and suddenly a single frame of the movie shows an ice-cold Coca Cola. Movies flash by at 24 frames per second. That is too fast for you to identify anything you have seen in a single frame. What can that ice cold Coke do to you? Well, imagine first that you have never heard of Coca Cola or seen a Coke ad. In that case, the flashed Coke will do nothing to you. You don’t have a concept to activate. If you have heard of Coke (and sadly, most of us have), then it will make the concept of Coke easier to think about. For most of us, most of the time, that will have little effect on our behavior. We often see Coke ads on TV, in magazines and at sporting events. Often, we’re not even that aware of the ads, because we try not to pay attention to them. That means that the situation created by subliminal advertising in a movie actually happens to us all the time. And most of the time, we do not slavishly go out and buy a Coke. When can subliminal advertising affect your behavior? A few things have to happen. First, you must be in a situation where you need to drink already. The flashed ice-cold Coke may then raise the idea of drinking a soda to the level that you notice you need a drink. At that point, you may decide to get a drink. That won’t be driven by the subliminal ad so much as whether you feel like getting up and drinking. If you do, then you’ll order a drink. You might be somewhat more likely to order a soda than usual having decided to get a drink. However, there are so many things in your environment between the subliminal ad and the point where you can get a drink that you probably won’t be much more likely to buy a Coke than you normally are when you decide to get a drink at the theater. So, really, subliminal advertising isn’t so interesting. What is potentially more interesting (at least to me) is why people believe that subliminal advertising could work. But that is a subject for the next post.   © 2008 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.

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To know me is to like me III: Subliminal advertising

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Neuroscience In Our Time

November 13, 2008 in Blogs, Mind Hacks by Vaughan

BBC Radio 4′s excellent discussion programme In Our Time just had an interesting edition on neuroscience – what it does, how it does it, and what it’s telling us about the function of the mind and brain. It’s generally a very interesting discussion, although does get a bit confused towards the end during a discussion of conscious – largely due to a misunderstanding of a famous study. The discussion touches on neuroscientist Adrian Owen’s study where they wanted to find out whether a patient in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) was conscious by asking them to imagine things and then using fMRI to see if the relevant parts of the brain were active – in other words, if the person was able to consciously hear, understand and carry out the request. Famously, the patient could – demonstrating that it is possible to be diagnosed with PVS and still be conscious. However, the guests on the programme discuss the study as if the patient was unconscious and was in a coma, and suggest that this shows the brain can do remarkable things when someone is unconscious which is exactly what it didn’t show. Otherwise, a fascinating discussion as we’d expect from In Our Time . Link to programme webpage and audio.

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Neuroscience In Our Time

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