Vagus Nerve Stimulation Can Alleviate Chronic Depression

Vagus Nerve Stimulation
Mild to moderate forms of depression are often amenable to pharmacological or psychological approaches, but severe depression is a different matter. The successful treatment of very deep depression is something of a Holy Grail for many in the mental health field.

This is why invasive procedures such as Deep Brain Stimulation and now Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) are of such interest. VNS involves implanting a kind of pacemaker into the chest that delivers electrical impulses to the mood centres of the brain every five minutes.

This latest research found that around a quarter of patients experienced a complete remission from their symptoms after extended treatment.

University of Texas
Article on VNS as well as some people's treatment experiences.

Help Identify The Genetic Component of Depression

With as many as one in five of us as sufferers at some point in our lives, the battle against depression continues. Depression almost certainly has many causes, some environmental and some genetic. Researchers at the University of Manchester hope to identify the genetic component of depression through online research that you can help with.

New Mood, which stands for new molecules in mood disorders, aims to discover new ways of treating depression. The online questionnaires ask about personality and life experiences as well as offering a chance to win £100. 1 in 4 participants will be asked to go on and complete further tests and be interviewed.
New Mood

Ecopsychology: Nature is Good for Your Mental Health

Tree on a Hill
Urbanisation is often blamed for the poor state of our collective mental health. It makes sense. When you've been stuck in the city for a while and haven't seen clear to the horizon for months, it's as if you can feel hemmed in, ready to blow. The only way to relieve the tension is get out into the countryside - escape symmetry and concrete for a space touched by meandering hedgerows and mushroom curved trees.

Ecopsychology is unapologetically New-Agey. According to http://www.ecopsychology.org:
"At its core, ecopsychology suggests that there is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being; that the needs of the one are relevant to the other."
It's one of these ideas that's difficult to prove, but who cares? I'm happy to take it on trust as, well, what harm can it do? And, perhaps it can help with all that depression knocking about.

The Belfast Telegraph article on Ecopsychology

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Tone Deaf

Sheet Music
Many people claim to be tone-deaf (technically called amusia) although it has been estimated that only about 4% of the population actually have the condition. This disparity between actual and claimed amusia is probably because it's an excellent way of avoiding singing in public - I've used it on many occasions. However, researchers have found the condition to be incredibly specific.

It seems that 'congenital amusics' have no problems in hearing music or other environmental sounds. They generally have no perceptual problems and can, paradoxically, detect pitch changes in speech that they cannot detect in music. Music seems to require a much more fine-grained differentiation of tones than any other form of auditory perception.

Amusia may be similar developmentally to dyslexia. In populations that speak tonal languages like Vietnamese and Cantonese, amusia is almost unknown - perhaps practice at a young age makes perfect. Recent research suggests that children can be trained to discriminate tones but adults are normally stuck with their disability.

However much practice you get at a young age, the skill can be affected by brain damage. Neurologists at the University of Tokyo report the case of a 62 year old professional tango singer who lost her singing ability after a stroke that affected a tiny part of her brain. After a period of recuperation from the stroke she experienced no other deficits in cognitive functions, other than amusia - a cruel fate for a professional singer.

Scientists listen to brain patterns of tone-deafness

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Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy

A couple of years ago there was an email going around that claimed to explain how we read. The email began:
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
Considering how scrambled up the letters are, it seems strangely easy to read. But sadly, before you ditch the dictionary, I have to tell you it's a bit of a con. A psycholinguist working at Cambridge University explains that although we don't read each letter individually, the middle letters still play a big part in reading.

Hardly a surprise I suppose but after reading the text above it's easy to be taken in.

Matt Davis describes the research
Snopes - urban legend reference

Learning The Psychology of Seduction

Leicester Square
Apparently there are some men out there who will stop at nothing to sleep with beautiful women. One of these men has compiled a book containing all the dirty, and downright underhand psychological tricks that can be used for this purpose. I'm shocked! Almost as shocked as I am by the news that the sun rose in the east this morning - again!

Neil Strauss is the author of The Game: Undercover in the Secret Society of Pick-up Artists which is sure to produce disgusted reviews like this one in The Independent. It describes how AFCs - average frustrated chumps - can turn themselves into PUAs - pick up artists. Many of the techniques used are based on neuro-linguistic programming, which, in this context, is perhaps most usefully likened to hypnosis. It's all about influencing another person by learning how to manipulate all their senses to produce a change in their beliefs or behaviours.

If you've ever seen the 'mentalist' Derren Brown in action then you know how powerful some of these techniques can be.

PickupGuide contains many of the techniques.
The Times reports Leicester Square is the best place for PUAs to practice

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Evidence Tanning Is Addictive

Sunitalia Magic 636
If people know that excessive exposure to UV rays causes cancer, why do they still insist on grilling themselves? Health psychologists would love to know the answer so they could help curb the growing rates of skin cancer. The obvious answer is that people think that tanned skin makes them look more attractive, but this is not the whole story.

Research has suggested that UV rays provide a relaxing effect through an endorphin rush. Building on this, new research asks whether tanning might actually be addictive. In questioning 145 beachgoers in the US, researchers used models only slightly modified from those used to describe substance-related disorders like drug addiction.

The study's authors argue that thinking of tanning as a form of addiction may help to design better ways of discouraging excessive tanning.
ScienceDaily

Speed Dating is Survival of the Hottest

Speed dating is huge now, but be careful you know what you're getting into. The latest psychological research suggests your 'great personality' might not get ticks in boxes. So what have psychologists found out so far?

Robert Kurzban and Jason Weeden from the University of Pennsylvania investigated more than 10,000 speed daters in the US. What their research showed was that many of the things that had previously been found to be important in choosing a mate, like education, income or smoking and drinking habits were found to be irrelevant in people's choices.

What is relevant then? You guessed it:
  • 34% of women's desirability was predicted by their physical attractiveness

  • 18.4% of men's desirability was predicted by their physical attractiveness
The research is showing speed dating is focussing people's attention on physical attractiveness to an even greater extent than normal. Three minutes, the standard amount of time each speed date lasts, might well be two minutes and fifty-nine seconds more than you need.

This means that the practical advice when you go to a speed dating event is:
  • Be honest about your own physical attractiveness and,

  • Aim for members of the opposite sex at a similar level
In a longer encounter in the 'real world' you may have a chance with those out of your league, but in speed dating it's survival of the hottest.

HurryDate: Mate preferences in action

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Brain Symmetry Important in Mental Illness

Humans are thought be the only species that have asymmetrical brains. It is this specialisation between the sides of the brain that may have been an important factor in the development of language. Now, one researcher is suggesting that brain symmetry is important in mental illness.

Professor Crow, who works at the Schizophrenia Research Institute, suggests that it is a lack of asymmetry in patients with schizophrenia which is at the root of their mental illness. Psychoses could be a result of information leaking from one part of the brain to another. This may cause, for example, internal thoughts to be experienced as real external voices.

Genetics have a large role to play in brain development and so Professor Crow's research is concentrating on this area for the root causes. Still, while a genetic component will probably be important, other factors such as social and environmental are also going to play their part.
BBC News
Some evidence that non-human primates have asymmetrical brains.

After Bombings Londoner's Stress Levels Rise

London Bombings
A new survey published today in the British Medical Journal has found 'substantial levels of stress' amongst 31% of Londoners as a result of the London bombings. The survey questioned 1,010 people between 11 and 13 days after the London was rocked by terrorists bombings on the 7th July 2005.

Researchers randomly dialled telephone numbers asking Londoners to participate.
Amongst the other findings were:
  • 55% of people felt their lives were in danger from terrorism.

  • 58% felt friends and family were in danger from terrorism.

  • 86% felt that another attack was likely - 86% were, sadly, right.

  • Fully one-third of Londoners intended to change their mode of transport as a result.

  • Previous experience of terrorism was linked to lower levels of stress.

  • Inability to contact friends and family linked to higher stress.

  • Higher levels of distress found in non-white and Muslim Londonders.

The researchers acknowledge that a weakness of their study is that those who were unaffected by the bombings may have been less likely to agree to inclusion in the study. Still, 31% is high.

In response the NHS have set up a telephone helpline for those affected which will screen for post-traumatic stress disorder. The phone number is 0845 9502878.

Psychological and behavioural reactions to the bombings in London on 7 July 2005: cross sectional survey of a representative sample of Londoners [Full article, PDF]

Hands-Free Mobiles Impair Driving Ability

A team of psychologists at the University of Illinois have been investigating how driving is affected by simultaneous mobile phone use. Previous research has found the use of hands-free mobiles has a significant detrimental effect on driving. Researchers assumed that speaking is a more complex cognitive function and so the detrimental effect would be greater than listening. But this new research has found that listening causes an equally strong effect.

The psychological research has been backed up by investigations of those involved in road traffic accidents. Recent findings published in the British Medical Journal showed that using a mobile phone up to 10 minutes before a crash was associated with a fourfold increase in likelihood of crashing. This fourfold increase was the same whether the drivers were using a hands-free hand-held mobile.

Banning just hand-held mobile phone use while driving has probably been largely a waste of time - unless it is a stepping stone to a complete ban.
Press Release

Report Claims Men More Intelligent Than Women

Men and Women
In controversial research reported all over the place, Richard Lynn, the emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University claims that, on average, men are more intelligent than women. Let battle commence!

As the research is not yet published there's nothing more to go on than the press reports. The co-author of the study, Dr Irwing, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University, is apologetic about the findings.

In the BBC News report he states that the paper will go on to argue that despite their disadvantage in IQ, there is evidence that women utilise their (lesser!) talents better than men. This simply begs the question of what use IQ tests are if they don't predict anything in the real world.

Wikipedia has a quite technical article on IQ which is worth skimming.

The Brain You Don't Want to Hear From

Did you realise you had two brains? The enteric nervous system, which has control over the gut, is awash with neurotransmitters and surprisingly independent from the central nervous system. It is only recently that the importance of this 'second brain' has been acknowledged and its complexities have begun to be uncovered.

This article from the International Herald Tribune explains some recent findings including the theory that stressful experiences early in life may cause irritable bowel syndrome.
International Herald Tribune

Out of Body Experiences: Real or Imagined?

Out of Body Experience
One in ten of us has had an out of body experience at some point in our lives. This can take the form of feeling like we have floated outside the confines of our bodies and are looking down on ourselves. Understandably, rigorous scientific studies are few and far between, but a few researchers have shown an interest in proving that the mind is able to travel outside the body.

A couple of years ago there was a proposal for a fascinating study to directly test whether people's consciousness can actually leave their bodies. Dr Peter Fenwick of the Institute of Psychiatry wanted to attach a picture near the ceilings of 25 emergency rooms around the UK. Patients who had been near to death were to be interviewed to find out if they had seen the picture.

Unfortunately I can't find any results for the study so perhaps it wasn't carried out or didn't produce positive findings. If anyone knows better then drop me a line.

The interesting thing about out of body experiences - which perhaps explains why there is such a fascination with the subject - is their link to religion and spiritualism. If the mind is able to float free from the body, then perhaps life after death is possible.

Psychologist's explanations of out of body experiences tend to revolve around more prosaic theories. For example these experiences may be the result of the brain's reaction to trying circumstances - such as high levels of stress. Out of body experiences have even been induced in patients by stimulating part of the brain - namely the right angular gyrus.

The University of Manchester is currently examining how out of body experiences are related to bodily self-perception. If you're interested in taking part, the survey is available online.

Skeptic's Dictionary on out of body experiences.

Jean Charles de Menezes: An Unfamiliar Face

Jean Charles de Menezes
The tragic shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes (left) raises important questions about eyewitness testimony and face recognition. BBC news have an article concentrating on the incredible disparity between different eyewitness reports of the event. But, more importantly for the police and for all our safety, how easy is it to mis-identify an unfamiliar person?

Psychological studies into the difference between how well familiar and unfamiliar faces are recognised shows some surprising results. Early studies found that people were terrible at identifying unfamiliar faces from CCTV footage - barely better than chance. A later study using higher quality video only showed an improvement upto about two-thirds - still a poor rate. In contrast, research consistently finds that people are extremely accurate at identifying familiar faces, even when the video footage is very poor.

Most people are not aware how poor they are at identifying an unfamiliar face. This realisation by the police officers at the centre of the scandal might have meant the difference between life and death.
Wikipedia page on Jean Charles de Menezes

Overestimating The Emotional Impact Of Future Events

New research suggests a way we can correct for a well-established bias in how we imagine our emotional reaction to future events. Just imagine for a moment how you would feel if you won the lottery tomorrow. Alternatively, imagine how would you feel if someone close to you was badly injured in an accident. Chances are that in imagining your own future feelings, you have overestimated their strength - both positive and negative.

Participants in this study were split into two groups and carried out a similar task of imagining their reactions to future events as you've just done. One group were asked to recall their worst experience, while the other group were asked to recall any bad experience.

What they found was that those people who had been asked to recall their worst experience were likely to make more moderate predictions about their future feelings. These more moderate predictions have been shown in previous research to be more accurate. This is because people tend not to experience the extremes of emotions that they often predict for themselves.

This has serious implications for all our decisions about the future. Are there things you need to do that you are avoiding, because you imagine they will be too painful? Research like this shows it's highly likely you are over-estimating the strength of your emotions. A way around this problem is to imagine the worst related thing that has happened to you personally and evaluate the future in this context.

Let me know if it works!
The least likely of times. How remembering the past biases forecasts of the future [via BPS Research Digest]

SSRI Anti-Depressants May Increase Suicide Risk In Adults

Seroxat
New research analysing data that may have been with withheld by drug companies suggests that the widely-used anti-depressant known as Seroxat in the UK, increases the likelihood of suicide.

According to this new analysis the chances that the risk of suicide is increased by taking Seroxat is 90%. This is not the sort of probability level that can be ignored. The results of the studies are clear enough to understand without the use of statistics. In the placebo group containing 550 patients, one suicide attempt was made while in the group of 916 patients taking Seroxat, seven suicide attempts were made. No attempts were completed.

These kinds of results are further blows to the most sophisticated anti-depressants yet developed. A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKine, the manufacturers of Seroxat, executed the standard duck and weave:

  • Platitude: "We take the safety of all our medicines extremely seriously."

  • Cast doubt: "At this stage, it's not clear what method the researchers have used to arrive at these numbers."

  • Head in sand: "...these conclusions in no way reflect the picture that has been built up about the benefits and risks of paroxetine in adults..."
Margaret Edwards of Sane encapsulates the problem more precisely:
"Seventy per cent of those being treated with the new anti-depressants respond well, and the risks of suicide from untreated depression must be borne in mind in balancing the risks and benefits."
The question is, how much risk can be borne?
Suicide attempts in clinical trials with paroxetine randomised against placebo[Research report, PDF]

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ADHD Problems Continue Into Adulthood

ADHD is most often associated with children which is where the research has concentrated up until now. The evidence suggests that many people continue to be haunted by the condition as adults. As a result reserach is starting to address its effects on adults.

Research released today at the American Psychological Assocation's convention followed those diagnosed by age 7 with ADHD and followed them into their 20s. They were compared with their neighbours without the disorder.
"Adults who had ADHD as kids started having sex a year earlier than classmates. About a third dropped out of high school, compared with none of the neighbor kids, Fischer says. And 1 out of 3 had become parents by their early 20s vs. 1 in 25 of the classmates. They had less than half the savings of young adults they had grown up with and more debt. Yet researchers don't know whether ADHD alone causes these ill effects."
USA Today

Chimpanzees Conform to Cultural Norms

Chimpanzee Drinking Beer
Conformity. It's everywhere you look in human society. We're all copying each other like crazy all the time, often without realising it. It's well established by researchers - like Solomon Asch in his famous experiment in 1955 - that people will disown the evidence of their own eyes in the struggle to conform with other people. (You can try a simple version of it here - damn it I conformed!)

But what evidence is there from other species? A recent study has shown that chimpanzees conform to each other just like humans - even when they don't need to.

In this study, two different social groupings of chimps were intially taught two different ways of getting food out of container. Both worked equally well and both groups were eventually exposed to both methods. Despite this, and after trying out the competing technique for a short period, each social grouping stuck to its own method in the long-term.

The experimenters argue that this provides a parallel of the way human social groups establish a behavioural 'norm'. For example forming an orderly queue at the post office is a culturally transmitted norm of which we British are strangely proud. I'd like to see chimps form a queue!
Nature
The Guardian

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Workaholics Better in Bed

Here's a thought for you: Ask one hundred men how hard they work and then ask their wives about their orgasms. In this research, reported at the American Psychological Association conference, the high-achievers at work also tended to be the high-achievers in the bedroom.

The spin being put on this by the researcher is that it's good news for workaholics but let's think of a few possible problems with this idea:

  • High achievers are more competitive - is sex a competition?

  • Are wives of high-achievers more likely to lie in a survey of sexual satisfaction?

  • Is guilt about working all hours being compensated for in the bedroom?

  • Can sexual satisfaction really be measured by asking about 'orgasm frequency and intensity' and taking measures on 'intimacy scales'?

  • How long will a relationship revolving around the bedroom last?
Race for the best headline is easily won by The Sun, 'Grafters are best shafters'.

The Times has more sober reporting

Blue Brain: Computer Simulation of the Neocortex

Neocortical ColumnA group of neuroscientists, computer specialists and statisticians, amongst others, are creating the most detailed simulation ever of brain function. The Blue Brain project aims to simulate 8,000 neurons that make up a neocortical column (left) - a fundamental building block of the most complicated part of mammalian brains: the neocortex.

The preparatory work has been going on for the last ten years as Professor Henry Markram and his team have been collecting data about the physiology and communication of neurons in the neocortical column. From the stage they are at now the project's architects expect it to take a further ten years to build their brain simulation.
BBC News
The Economist
New Scientist

Do Violent Computer Games Increase Aggressive Behaviour?

Screenshot from BullyA review of the research on violent computer games published this week claims a link with aggressive behaviour in children. This is convenient for the American Psychological Association (APA) which has been campaigning for some time to regulate the sales of video games in the US. Still, many psychologists are far from convinced that this research is sound.

One of the main criticisms is that most of the studies reviewed use a statistical test called correlation. This test examines whether there is a relationship between one thing and another by analysing whether two factors vary with each other. In this case, a positive correlation would be found if playing more computer games was associated with increased violent tendencies in children.

Correlational research is always open to the criticism that, while two factors are correlated, it does not mean that one factor causes the other. For example it is quite possible that children who already have more violent tendencies, prefer playing violent computer games. This is something the authors admit is a problem with their own research and which the currently available evidence has no way of addressing.

Dr Craig Anderson, the author of the review paper, attempts to counter this criticism, amongst others, on the APA website:
"...correlational studies are routinely used in modern science to test theories that are inherently causal. Whole scientific fields are based on correlational data (e.g., astronomy)."
These arguments boil down to: "This is the way we've always done it," and "Other people do it this way so it must be alright," which are not inherently powerful rebuttals - especially when comparing psychology to astronomy.

Other reviews of the evidence, such as that reported in The Guardian, find that playing computer games has a number of benefits for children including increased hand-eye co-ordination and spatial thinking as well as refuting the link to aggressive behaviour.

The outcry against violent games is, to a certain degree, counter-productive. Games producers now rely on the controversy of their title to do part of their marketing for them. Rockstar Games are a case in point, their titles including Grand Theft Auto the content of which would have a Viking blushing, and, most recently Bully, in which play centres around bullying.
Yahoo! News

Big Brother and Psychologists on TV

Big Brother
"Racial tension, sexual harassment, masturbation with a bottle - this year's Big Brother has plunged to new depths in reality television. From self-loathing gay hairdresser Craig groping drunken geordie Anthony, to wannabe footballer's wife Saskia telling Zimbabwean nurse Makosi her Afro hairdo looked like "a fucking wig". All of which prompts the question: just what are the programme's psychologists doing?"
They're making a bit of money and getting their mugs on TV, that's what they're doing.

And with so many programmes on TV that involve psychologists there is more opportunity than ever before for professionals to engage with a huge audience. This article in The Guardian questions whether psychologists should be involved at all.
The Guardian

The Man Who Shocked The World

Stanley MilgramReview of the new biography of Stanley Milgram - architect of one of the most famous experiments in social psychology - by Raj Persaud in the British Medical Journal:
"The late Stanley Milgram fairly lays claim to be one of the greatest behavioural scientists of the 20th century. He derives his renown from of a series of experiments on obedience to authority, which he conducted at Yale University in 1961-2. Milgram found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks - up to 450 volts - to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific, lab coated authority commanded them to, and despite the fact that the victim did nothing to deserve such punishment. The victim was, in reality, a good actor who did not actually receive shocks, a fact that was revealed to the subjects at the end of the experiment."
Review of The Man Who Shocked The World
Description of the experiment that 'shocked the world'

Healthy Scepticism Towards Research Pays Off

Don't believe everything you read - even if it has been published in a reputable scientific journal:
"Dr John Ioannidis of the University of Ioannina in Greece, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, recently analysed 45 well publicised studies from leading journals appearing between 1990 and 2003. His conclusion: the results of approximately one third of these studies were flatly contradicted or significantly weakened by later work."
The Guardian

Cognitive Therapy Reduces Repeat Suicide Attempts by 50 Percent

"Each year in the U.S., 25,000 adults commit suicide. People who have attempted suicide are at high risk for another suicide attempt. Researchers wanted to know how to reduce that risk. They may have found their answer in a particular kind of psychotherapy, which appears to cut that risk by half."
According to Mind, suicide is the leading cause of death for men aged between 15 and 44. In the UK there were 5,910 deaths by suicide in 2001.
Press Release
News Austin have a video covering the story

Implanting False Memories May Help Dieters

Professor LoftusHere's a study that's guaranteed to set psychologists' minds a-spinning with ethical issues. Professor Loftus (left) at the University of California managed to put participants off strawberry ice cream, pickles and hard-boiled eggs by implanting false childhood memories:
"In the strawberry ice cream experiment a group of students were asked to fill out forms about their food experiences and preferences. Some of the subjects were then given a computer analysis which falsely said they had become sick from eating strawberry ice cream as children. Almost 20% later agreed in a questionnaire that strawberry ice cream had made them sick and that they intended to avoid it in the future."
Future studies plan to implant positive memories of fresh vegetables.
Press Release
The Guardian

How Culture Shapes Illness

Mind Hacks have a good entry on how mental illness is shaped by culture:
"Media analysis magazine Stay Free! has an interview with medical historian Edward Shorter on how psychiatric symptoms have changed over the years, showing, he claims, how we subconsciously express culturally acceptable distress."
Mind Hacks