The Neuromania Antidote

Steven Poole has just been cured. The antidote is called "honesty". It happens to the nicest people. It happened to me. And at some point it will surely happen to you.

Currently researchers have not yet discovered the combination of words that triggers this powerful remedy in victims of neuromania. All we know is that some combination of the words "brain", "nerves", "human nature," "cognition", "fMRI", and "scientists now know" causes a rapid proliferation of neuro-meme-eating white blood cells. We also know that some studies have shown that the words "evolution" and "instinct" have been correlated with the heightened  activity of the BS-enzyme, a catalyst that aids the white blood cells in quickly targeting and destroying vestiges of neurocultural transmission.

Beware that there are immediate side-effects with the onset of the cure. The antidote immediately causes numerous, stereotyped behavioral manifestations. The first is an explosion of indignation and frustration which leads to heightened blood pressure and an outbreak of bodily tremors and shakes as well as secondary feelings of fury. The second manifestation is a burst of energy that leads to either immediate written or verbal communication as the white blood cells crush the underlying causes of neuromania.

In this second stage of the cure, it is common for treatment to produce invective, abuse, and sarcasm. These are aimed usually at the victims of the disease, who - being still very sick - are in no condition to comprehend why their enforced quarantine has suddenly struck the cured patient as a public good. In some instances, the cure leaves people with a lasting and permanent impatience with banality and can even cause reflexive public reactions to other forms of stupidity.

Usually after a matter of months or as long as a year the post-cure effects begin to subside. This subsistence often coincides with the development of a calm, patronizing, some might even say patrician acceptance of those who still suffer from this disease. In very rare instances, however, the cure leads to a prolific and steady production of anti-neuromania manifestos. Researchers now speculate that this is actually a psychological symptom caused by neuromania itself - something akin to a post-traumatic stress disorder.

In still rarer instances, people contract neuromania again. There is often very little that can be done for these individuals. The best known recommendation is to ask departments of philosophy to offer them distinguished visiting professorships.

The Decline of Big Science

In an essay in the New York Review of Books, Stephen Weinberg ends The Decline of Big Science with the rare observation:

We had better not try to defend science by attacking spending on these other needs. We would lose, and would deserve to lose. Some years ago I found myself at dinner with a member of the Appropriations Committee of the Texas House of Representatives. I was impressed when she spoke eloquently about the need to spend money to improve higher education in Texas. What professor at a state university wouldn’t want to hear that? I naively asked what new source of revenue she would propose to tap. She answered, “Oh, no, I don’t want to raise taxes. We can take the money from health care.” This is not a position we should be in.

It seems to me that what is really needed is not more special pleading for one or another particular public good, but for all the people who care about these things to unite in restoring higher and more progressive tax rates, especially on investment income. I am not an economist, but I talk to economists, and I gather that dollar for dollar, government spending stimulates the economy more than tax cuts. It is simply a fallacy to say that we cannot afford increased government spending. But given the anti-tax mania that seems to be gripping the public, views like these are political poison. This is the real crisis, and not just for science.

Yet more on "Hardwired" Politics

Yet another book review in The Guardian repeats that oft made conjecture that our political values are "wired" into our brains. And so we learn:

Although [Jonathan] Haidt [author of The Righteous Mind] glosses over the uncomfortable conclusions of what he is saying on issues such as race and human rights, his core point is simple and well-made: our morality, much of it wired into brains from birth, at the same time binds us together and blinds us to different configurations of morality. Gut feelings drive strategic reasoning, which can make it difficult to connect with those across the gulf, especially for liberals.

In other words, liberals are naturally incapable of understanding "patriotism" and that's because - as the author so ably describes - liberals lack the "taste-buds" for understanding loyalty, authority, and patriotism.  I should know better than to respond to such drivel on Monday morning, but really?

Let me offer a modest proposal: any psychologist, neurologist, moral philosopher, or psychiatrist wishing to neurologize Left-wing misgivings about patriotism, loyalty, and authority must give three public lectures on politics in Bismarck's Germany to an audience of strict conservatives.  

The Neuro End Times

Living in the End Times from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.

Giant Leaps in Autism Research

By Dr. Bonnie Evans

Heterocephalus glaber - the naked mole 

I recently came across some research on naked mole rats which may help to cure autism. Whilst on one level it may seem implausible that such disparate things can be linked together, on another level it all makes perfect sense.  The link is oxytocin, or the ‘love hormone’ as it was referred to in the 1970s, which also acts as a neurotransmitter.  

Oxytocin is produced in large amounts during labour and has been associated with bonding, maternal care and the formation of attachments. Naked mole rats (right) are renowned for their collective organisation as they live in large colonies supporting the offspring of a single female. Research published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology in 2010 showed that oxytocin is abundantly available in the nucleus accumbens of this species. In contrast, cape mole rats (below) live solitary lives with fleeting bouts of copulation and short periods of support for their offspring.  The researchers found that oxytocin and its receptors are absent from the nucleus accumbens of cape mole rats and suggested that oxytocin influences the formation of pro-social behaviours (Kalamatianos et al., 2010).

Georychus capensis - cape mole rat 

An article published in Nature in 2005 claimed that intranasal administration of oxytocin increased trust and social co-operation in humans (Kosfeld et al., 2005).  This stimulated both scientific and public interest into the role of this hormone in the treatment of psychiatric disorders in which it is believed that social abilities are lacking.  

Autism is currently classed as a disorder characterised by problems with relationships and social interactions as well as repetitive and obsessive behaviours.  Eric Hollander, based in New York, has conducted a series of studies on the effects of oxytocin on people diagnosed with autism and autism spectrum disorders and has found that the intranasal and intravenous administration of this hormone provided ‘therapeutic benefits for the treatment of repetitive behaviours and social deficits’ (Bartz and Hollander, 2008).  

Similar studies have shown that oxytocin helps autistic individuals to recognise emotions in the tone of voice and facial expressions of others thus enabling them to build relationships. More recently, researchers in North Carolina have been giving young autistic children, some as young as three-years-old, oxytocin to see whether this encourages social interaction (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01308749). This research is still in its early days.

The use of hormones to alter psychiatric conditions is not new.  In a forthcoming article in the Journal of the History of Behavioural Sciences, I show how hormonal treatments were used to treat psychiatric conditions in Britain in the 1920s (in press – due out Summer/Fall 2012).  The psychiatric use of oxytocin can be traced back to the 1990s but it is only recently that it has been specifically linked to social problems.  Hopes have since grown for the development of new drugs to treat social disorders.  

When neuroscientists talk about society, it is normal that we should prick up our ears and listen to what they say.  ‘The social’ is an amorphous term that encompasses countless variations yet neuroscientists focus on the brain.  In research proposals for neuroscientific research, as in press reports, it is common that giant leaps are made between large concepts such as ‘the social’ and unique neurotransmitters such as oxytocin.  Such giant leaps are also often made between the behaviour of humans and other species.  These leaps encourage intellectual curiosity and research in the neurosciences but they should also encourage similar curiosity amongst social scientists, historians and the general public. There may just be as much work to do in analyzing our ideas about autism and ‘the social’ as there is work to do in analyzing the effects of oxytocin on the brain.

Dr Bonnie Evans is interested in the development of psychology, psychoanalysis and psychiatry in the twentieth century. Her work examines the impact of demographic shifts on the formation of new psychological theories and treatment practices. She has a particular interest in the development of child psychology and psychiatry and in the treatment of female patients.

BARTZ, J. A. & HOLLANDER, E. 2008. Oxytocin and experimental therapeutics in autism spectrum disorders. In: INGA, D. N. & RAINER, L. (eds.) Progress in Brain Research. Elsevier.

KALAMATIANOS, T., FAULKES, C. G., OOSTHUIZEN, M. K., POORUN, R., BENNETT, N. C. & COEN, C. W. 2010. Telencephalic binding sites for oxytocin and social organization: A comparative study of eusocial naked mole-rats and solitary cape mole-rats. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 518, 1792-1813.

KOSFELD, M., HEINRICHS, M., ZAK, P. J., FISCHBACHER, U. & FEHR, E. 2005. Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature, 435, 673-676.

E. O. Wilson's Advice to Young Students

The Atlantic has a nice little piece on what E. O. Wilson thinks young scientists should do. I especially like this proposal:

Step away from the blackboard.
"In science and all its applications, what is crucial is not technical ability, but it is imagination -- the ability to form concepts with images of entities and processes pictured by intuition. I found out that advances in science rarely come upstream, from an ability to stand at a blackboard and conjure images from unfolding mathematical propositions and equations. They are instead the product of downstream imagination leading to hard work, during which mathematical reasoning may or may not prove to be relevant."

I Don't Have a Jennifer Aniston Neuron...But You Do

NPR describes studies that argue that single neurons store information about famous people. 

A few years ago, a UCLA neurosurgeon named Itzhak Fried, while operating on patients who suffer from debilitating epileptic seizures, discovered what he now calls the "Jennifer Aniston Neuron." 

The Problem with Medical Journals

Richard Smith, formerly an editor of the BMJ, is like a human howitzer rightly aimed at medical journals:

The premise for my book was that medical journals were over-influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, too fond of the mass media, and yet neglectful of patients. The research they contained was hard to interpret and prone to bias, while peer review, the process at the heart of journals and all of science, was deeply flawed. Many of the studies journals contained were fraudulent, and yet the scientific community had not responded adequately to the problem of fraud. Editors themselves also misbehaved. The authors of the studies in journals often had little to do with the work they were reporting and many had conflicts of interest that were not declared. And the whole business of medical journals was corrupt because owners were making money from restricting access to important research, most of it funded by public money. All this matters to everybody because medical journals have a strong influence on their healthcare and lives.

Technique, Technology, & Therapy in the Brain and Mind Sciences, 1850-2012

Clarkson University, 4-5 May 2012. Scholars wishing to attend this event should send inquires to Stephen T. Casper.

Invited Speakers

Jesse F. Ballenger (The Penn State University) “The Development of Transgenic Mouse Models of Alzheimer's Disease”

Jeremy Blatter (Harvard University) “Psychotherapy Before the Age of Freud”

Brian Casey (Office of NIH History) “Somatizing the Psyche: the National Institute of Mental Health and the shift towards Biological Psychiatry”

Joseph Duemer (Clarkson University) “Affect & Character: The Emergence of the Modernist Self”

Rachel Fulton (Clarkson University) “What is Technique?”

Justin Garson (Hunter College, CUNY) “The Rise and Fall of the Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia”

Katja Guenther (Princeton University) “Paul Schilder and the Body Image, Or How to Do Psychoanalysis without the Unconscious”

Heidi Knoblaugh (Yale University) “The Paris School, Oliver Wendell Holmes and the Stereoscope”

Kenton Kroker & Francesco Rodriguez (York University) “Configuring Epidemic Encephalitis at the Transnational, International, and Local Levels, 1917-39”

Susan Lamb (McGill University) ”Psychoanalytic Techniques at the Phipps Clinic in Baltimore”

Scott Phelps (Harvard University) “Dream Images of Agnosia in the Poetzl Phenomenon (or How to See with Mind-Blindness)”

Rebecca Schilling & Stephen T. Casper (Clarkson University) “Of Psychometric Means: Starke R. Hathaway and the Popularization of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory”

Tobias Rees (McGill University) “Developmental Diseases – an Introduction to the Neurological Human (in Motion)”

Nicholas Whitfield (McGill University) “Minding Donors: Vasomotor Phenomena and the Search for the Altruistic Spirit”