Hippocampal Pathology in California Sea Lions with Domoic Acid-Induced Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
In 1987, over 100 Canadians became ill after eating cultivated mussels from Prince Edward Island. Symptoms included the typical gastrointestinal issues, but serious neurological findings such as disorientation, confusion, and memory loss were also observed (Perl et al., 1990). In the worst cases, the patients developed seizures or went into coma. Three elderly people died. The cognitive changes were persistent, and had not resolved within a two year follow-up.The toxin was identified as domoic acid, which received the well-deserved moniker of Amnesiac Shellfi...
Source: The Neurocritic - March 24, 2014 Category: Neurologists Source Type: blogs
Brains on Film: In the Scanner (featuring Sophie Scott and the Dead Salmon)
Everyone knows the hazards of bringing metal objects into the MRI scanner room (right?). Now we have a lovely musical reminder of why this is such a bad idea...In the Scanner is an entry in the Brains on Film contest, a Brain Awareness Week event sponsored by the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. The film was made by Sophie Meekings, Dana Boebinger and Nadine Lavan. Featuring Lucy's amazing voice, a spoken word introduction by Professor Sophie Scott, and a cameo appearance by none other than the Atlantic salmon — of “oh yes you better do corrections for mult...
Source: The Neurocritic - March 14, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Warning about Ketamine in the American Journal of Psychiatry
The dissociative anesthetic and ravey club drug ketamine has been hailed as a possible “miracle” cure for depression. In contrast to the delayed action of standard antidepressants such as SSRIs, the uplifting effects of Special K are noticeable within an hour. “Experimental Medication Kicks Depression in Hours Instead of Weeks,” says the National Institute of Mental Health. NIMH has been bullish on ketamine for years now. Prominent researchers Duman and Aghajanian called it the “the most important discovery in half a century” in a recent Science review.But in 2010, I pondered whether this use of ...
Source: The Neurocritic - March 5, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
"Love at first sight is a myth," say Chicago researchers
Social Neuroscience power couple, John T. Cacciopo and Stephanie CacciopoThis, my friends, is a belated Valentine's Day tale that went oh so wrong...On Feb 14, Scientific American ran a piece about When Scientists Are Mad about Each Other. The cutesy narrative on the Cacciopos described a wonderful story of love at first sight:He was studying loneliness and isolation. She was studying love and desire. When they found themselves together, they gravitated toward her end of the continuum of social connection.John Cacioppo was living in Chicago and Stephanie Ortigue in Geneva when they met—in Shanghai. .....
Source: The Neurocritic - February 22, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
I Wanna Hold Your Hand (after 23 sessions of Emotionally Focused Therapy)
Can neuroscience illuminate the nature of human relationships? Or does it primarily serve as a prop to sell self-help books? The neurorelationship cottage industry touts the importance of brain research for understanding romance and commitment. But any knowledge of the brain is completely unnecessary for issuing take-home messages like tips on maintaining a successful marriage.In an analogous fashion, we can ask whether successful psychotherapy depends on having detailed knowledge of the mechanisms of “neuroplasticity” (a vague and clichéd term). Obviously not (or else everyone's been doing it wrong). Of course the b...
Source: The Neurocritic - February 9, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Hot Topic: The Myth of Cognitive Decline
We all start to forget things, have word finding problems, and generally slow down cognitively once we get older, right? Wrong, says a recent paper by Ramscar et al. (2014), The Myth of Cognitive Decline: Non-Linear Dynamics of Lifelong Learning [free PDF].Well, the real answer is more like, “it’s complicated,” as the first author explained in a blog post on the the paper. A giant in the field of cognitive aging quickly retorted, oh no it's......“Clever-Silly” comes irresistibly to mind, but this must be inadvertent fall-out from an elderly brain overstuffed by failure to assimilate the vast literature on cogni...
Source: The Neurocritic - February 4, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
The Decline of Neurocriticism
The Brain From Beyond InfinityIn the last post, I celebrated Eight Years of Neurocriticism but wistfully noted that this blog's popularity peaked in 2012. The traffic last year showed a decline to 2009-2010 levels. Why did this happen? And does it matter? No it does not, but it gives me the opportunity to comment on the state of a specialized little corner of science blogging. The sort of piece where people say things like “blogging as a chance to exercise our voices doesn’t seem to be going anywhere” and “the blog is dead.”Except not that. @practiCalfMRI politely suggested it's the quality of visitor that counts...
Source: The Neurocritic - February 2, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Eight Years of Neurocriticism
A Mad Scientist Party Idea, from Party on Purpose.Eight years ago, I started a blog out of sheer frustration. I decided to call it The Neurocritic. I sent out an anonymous e-mail to some of my friends to describe the project.subject: unveiling The NeurocriticI've started a blog to critique the most outrageous claims published in high-profile journals and discussed in the popular press:http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/Because The Neurocritic is not a member of the all-powerful Editorial Boards at Science, Natute, or Neuron, The Neurocritic is published under an assumed identity. Your comments are most welcome.Enjoy...
Source: The Neurocritic - January 27, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
The Brain Radio
is a long-running French radio program:THE BRAIN are Eva & Pascal Lebrain aka Puyo puyo, they run this radioshow from 1999, it deals with freaky electro, cheesy vintage, dry rock, movie themes and oddities in general. All is stuffed with absurd aphorisms, written by themselves most of the time.The fun archive of playlists dates back to 2003 and includes 91 of the 129 radioshows.The “Brain Radio” is also a deep brain stimulation (DBS) device that “Records and Emits Electrical Pulses,” according to an August 9, 2013 story in the MIT Technology Review:A new brain implant that can record neural activity while it ...
Source: The Neurocritic - January 24, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
BROADEN Trial of DBS for Treatment-Resistant Depression Halted by the FDA
Webpage for the BROADEN™ study formerly run by St. Jude MedicalIt's become mainstream these days to say that psychiatric disorders are neural circuit disorders. You can even read all about it in the New York Times! Cognitive training and neuromodulation (“electroceuticals”) are in, and pharmaceuticals are out, as explained by NIMH Director Dr. Tom Insel in a blog post about the Ten Best of 2013:...if mental disorders are brain circuit disorders, then successful treatments need to tune circuits with precision. Chemicals may be less precise than electrical or cognitive interventions that target specific circuits. On...
Source: The Neurocritic - January 18, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Neurocrap Funded by the Masses: NeuroOn and No More Woof
In conclusion, through great sleep efficiency, Polyphasic sleep can give you an extra 4 hours of free time every day. That’s up to 28 hours (1 day+) a week, 1460 hours a year.That’s right - Your year now has over 420 working days! What is polyphasic sleep? It's the division of sleep into several bouts per day, instead of the usual 8 hours or so at night. This schedule is standard in some mammals and may serve a protective purpose, according to Capellini et al. (2008):The duration of [REM and non-REM] cycles varies extensively across mammalian species. Because the end of a sleep cycle is often followed by brief arou...
Source: The Neurocritic - January 11, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
How Can We Forget?
** This post is meant to be read in tandem with its more complimentary cousin, Electroconvulsive Therapy Impairs Memory Reconsolidation, at The Neurocomplimenter. **spECTrum 5000Q® ECT device (MECTA)Bad memories haunt a significant number of people with serious mental illnesses, such as chronic major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If it were possible to undergo an experimental procedure that selectively impairs your memory for an extremely unpleasant event, would you do it? If this sounds like the plot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you're not alone.A pet peeve of mine is reference to thi...
Source: The Neurocritic - December 31, 2013 Category: Neurologists Source Type: blogs
The Creativity of Denial
Never Forget Srebrenica, by Scott McIntyre. A Bosnian Muslim man makes his way past the caskets of those killed in the Srebrenica genocide of July 1995.Horrible, unspeakable memories will forever haunt the psyches of many survivors of war, genocide, and other atrocities. But what is behind the systematic denial of crimes against humanity?The Science of Hatred What makes humans capable of horrific violence? Why do we deny atrocities in the face of overwhelming evidence? A small group of psychologists say they are moving toward answers. Is anyone listening?By Tom BartlettThe former battery factory on the outskirts of S...
Source: The Neurocritic - December 27, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
When Waking Up Becomes the Nightmare: Hypnopompic Hallucinatory Pain
In conclusion, to our knowledge this is the first report of a NREM parasomnia associated with painful paroxysms, for which we postulate the following underlying pathophysiological mechanism: an internal or external stimulus triggers arousal, facilitating the activation of innate motor pattern generators in the brainstem and activating somatosensory cortical areas to produce hypnopompic hallucinatory pain.So instead of the more typical visual hallucinations, the patient experiences pain hallucinations that originate.... where?? It seems to me that the sleep EEG could be analyzed more thoroughly, beyond merely ruling out sei...
Source: The Neurocritic - December 21, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
BRAIN Initiative Funding Opportunites at NIH
National Institutes of Health (NIH) has finally released detailed descriptions for six separate funding opportunities in support of the BRAIN Initiative. If you're big on cells, circuits, and/or technologies, one of these programs could be for you. NIH hopes to award $40 million by the end of the fiscal year (September 30, 2014). The application deadlines are all in March 2014.In October, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it would spend $70 million over the next five years to develop and improve deep brain stimulation (DBS) techniques. The approaches of the two agencies are quite different, a...
Source: The Neurocritic - December 18, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
