465 posts · 268,687 views
Neuroskeptic
440 posts
Neuroskeptic_Discover
25 posts
Sort by Latest Post, Most Popular
View by Condensed, Full
- October 25, 2010
- 05:01 PM
- 539 views
Absolutely Confabulous
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Confabulation is a striking symptom of some kinds of brain damage. Patients tell often fantastic stories about things that have happened to them, or that are going on now. It's a classic sign of Korsakoff's syndrome, a disorder caused by vitamin B1 deficiency due to chronic alcoholism.Korsakoff's was memorably illustrated on House (Season 1 Episode 10, to be exact). Here's a clip; unfortunately, it's overdubbed in Russian, but you can hear the original if you pay attention.Why does confabulation........ Read more »
Turner MS, Cipolotti L, & Shallice T. (2010) Spontaneous confabulation, temporal context confusion and reality monitoring: A study of three patients with anterior communicating artery aneurysms. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS, 1-11. PMID: 20961471
- October 23, 2010
- 09:08 AM
- 559 views
Sex and Money on the Brain
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Back in 1991, Mark Knopfler sang"Sex and money are my major kicksGet me in a fight I like the dirty tricks"Now twenty years later a team of French neuroscientists have followed up on this observation with a neuroimaging study: The Architecture of Reward Value Coding in the Human Orbitofrontal Cortex.Sescousse et al note that people like erotic stimuli, i.e. porn, and they also like money. However, there's a difference: porn is, probably, a more "primitive" kind of rewarding stimulus, given that ........ Read more »
Sescousse G, Redouté J, & Dreher JC. (2010) The architecture of reward value coding in the human orbitofrontal cortex. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 30(39), 13095-104. PMID: 20881127
- October 21, 2010
- 05:30 PM
- 514 views
Shock and Cure - With Magnets
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the oldest treatment in psychiatry that's still in use today. ECT uses a brief electrical current to induce a generalized seizure. No-one knows why, but in many cases this rapidly alleviates depression - amongst other things.The problem with ECT is that it may cause memory loss. It's hotly debated how serious of a problem this is, and most psychiatrists agree that the risk is justified if the alternative is untreatable illness, but it's fair to say that whether........ Read more »
Kayser S, Bewernick BH, Grubert C, Hadrysiewicz BL, Axmacher N, & Schlaepfer TE. (2010) Antidepressant effects, of magnetic seizure therapy and electroconvulsive therapy, in treatment-resistant depression. Journal of psychiatric research. PMID: 20951997
- October 20, 2010
- 05:38 AM
- 714 views
You Read It Here First...Again
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
A couple of months ago I pointed out that a Letter published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, critiquing a certain paper about antidepressants, made very similar points to the ones that I did in my blog post about the paper. The biggest difference was that my post came out 9 months sooner.Well, it's happened again. Except I was only 3 months ahead this time. Remember my post Clever New Scheme, criticizing a study which claimed to have found a brilliant way of deciding which antidepressan........ Read more »
Tsai AC. (2010) Unclear clinical significance of findings on the use of referenced-EEG-guided pharmacotherapy. Journal of psychiatric research. PMID: 20943234
- October 15, 2010
- 07:22 AM
- 522 views
Worst. Antidepressant. Ever.
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Reboxetine is an antidepressant. Except it's not, because it doesn't treat depression.This is the conclusion of a much-publicized article just out in the BMJ: Reboxetine for acute treatment of major depression: systematic review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished placebo and SSRI controlled trials.Reboxetine was introduced to some fanfare, because its mechanism of action is unique - it's a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (NRI), which has no e........ Read more »
Eyding, D., Lelgemann, M., Grouven, U., Harter, M., Kromp, M., Kaiser, T., Kerekes, M., Gerken, M., & Wieseler, B. (2010) Reboxetine for acute treatment of major depression: systematic review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished placebo and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor controlled trials. BMJ, 341(oct12 1). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.c4737
- October 13, 2010
- 08:16 AM
- 492 views
Cannabinoids in Huntington's Disease
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Two recent papers have provided strong evidence that the brain's endocannabinoid system is dysfunctional in Huntington's Disease, paving the way to possible new treatments.Huntington's Disease is a genetic neurological disorder. Symptoms generally appear around age 40, and progress gradually from subtle movement abnormalities to dementia and complete loss of motor control. It's incurable, although medication can mask some of the symptoms. Singer Woodie Guthrie is perhaps the disease's best known........ Read more »
Van Laere K, Casteels C, Dhollander I, Goffin K, Grachev I, Bormans G, & Vandenberghe W. (2010) Widespread decrease of type 1 cannabinoid receptor availability in Huntington disease in vivo. Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine, 51(9), 1413-7. PMID: 20720046
Blázquez C, Chiarlone A, Sagredo O, Aguado T, Pazos MR, Resel E, Palazuelos J, Julien B, Salazar M, Börner C.... (2010) Loss of striatal type 1 cannabinoid receptors is a key pathogenic factor in Huntington's disease. Brain : a journal of neurology. PMID: 20929960
- October 7, 2010
- 08:31 AM
- 380 views
Israel and Palestine are Both Fighting Back...?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
There are three basic schools of thought on the Israel / Palestine thing.Those evil Israelis are out to destroy Palestine, and the Palestinians are just fighting back.Those evil Palestinians are out to destroy Israel, and the Israelis are just fighting back.It's a cycle of violence, where both sides are fighting back against the other.Which one you subscribe to depends mostly on where you were born. I'm not aware of many people who've changed their minds on this issue, perhaps because doing so ........ Read more »
Haushofer J, Biletzki A, & Kanwisher N. (2010) Both sides retaliate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 20921415
- October 5, 2010
- 09:24 AM
- 676 views
Brand New Cortical Neurons
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Are new neurons created in the adult brain?For a long time, everyone thought the answer was "no". Then, about 10 years ago, we learned that neurogenesis does occur in the adult brain, but it was thought to be limited to two very small regions, the dentate gyrus and the sub-ventricular zone. Except in cases of injury, when adult neurogenesis had been reported elsewhere.Now Guo et al look set to overturn this orthodoxy in a new Journal of Neuroscience paper, as they found ongoing neurogenesis in h........ Read more »
Guo F, Maeda Y, Ma J, Xu J, Horiuchi M, Miers L, Vaccarino F, & Pleasure D. (2010) Pyramidal neurons are generated from oligodendroglial progenitor cells in adult piriform cortex. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 30(36), 12036-49. PMID: 20826667
- October 1, 2010
- 05:17 AM
- 531 views
Genes for ADHD, eh?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
The first direct evidence of a genetic link to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder has been found, a study says.Wow! That's the headline. What's the real story?The research was published in The Lancet, and it's brought to you by Wilson et al from Cardiff University: Rare chromosomal deletions and duplications in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.The authors looked at copy-number variations (CNVs) in 410 children with ADHD, compared to 1156 healthy controls. A CNV is simply a catch-al........ Read more »
N. M. Williams et al. (2010) Rare chromosomal deletions and duplications in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a genome-wide analysis. The Lancet. info:/
- September 29, 2010
- 02:06 PM
- 620 views
The Prefrontal Cortex Is Holistic
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
The question of whether the brain is "modular" - whether different parts do different things - has been a neuroscientific talking point since the days of the phrenologists.They were the guys who believed that, not only were there modules, but that you could tell how big they were by measuring the shape of someone's skull, and so learn about their personality.Phrenology made modules unfashionable for a while, but today they're back, and most of fMRI consists in trying to find areas of the brain........ Read more »
Wilson CR, Gaffan D, Browning PG, & Baxter MG. (2010) Functional localization within the prefrontal cortex: missing the forest for the trees?. Trends in neurosciences. PMID: 20864190
- September 26, 2010
- 07:28 AM
- 543 views
Big Pharma Explain How To Pick Cherries
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Here at Neuroskeptic, we see a lot of bad science. Maybe, over the years (all 2 of them) that I've been writing this blog, I've become a bit jaded. Maybe I'm less distressed by it than I used to be. Cynical, even.But this one really takes the biscuit. And then it takes the tin. And relieves itself in it: A New Population-Enrichment Strategy to Improve Efficiency of Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trials of Antidepressant Drugs.Don't worry - it's from a big pharmaceutical company (GlaxoSmithKline), s........ Read more »
Merlo-Pich E, Alexander RC, Fava M, & Gomeni R. (2010) A New Population-Enrichment Strategy to Improve Efficiency of Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trials of Antidepressant Drugs. Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. PMID: 20861834
- September 22, 2010
- 07:11 AM
- 483 views
Sociopathic Dementia
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a tragic, but scientifically fascinating, disease.FTD only accounts for a small fraction of dementias in total (estimates range from 2% to 10%), but it typically strikes people aged in their 50s or 60s, i.e. much earlier than the average for Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia. As a result, FTD accounts for a large proportion of early-onset cases.The symptoms are different to those of Alzheimer's, at least in the early stages. Memory problems a........ Read more »
Mendez MF. (2010) The unique predisposition to criminal violations in frontotemporal dementia. The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38(3), 318-23. PMID: 20852216
- September 17, 2010
- 06:03 AM
- 501 views
A Tale of Two Genes
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
An unusually gripping genetics paper from Biological Psychiatry: Pagnamenta et al.The authors discuss a family where two out of the three children were diagnosed with autism. In 2009, they detected a previously unknown copy number variant mutation in the two affected brothers: a 594 kb deletion knocking out two genes, called DOCK4 and IMMP2L.Yet this mutation was also carried by their non-autistic mother and sister, suggesting that it wasn't responsible for the autism. The mother's side of the f........ Read more »
Pagnamenta, A., Bacchelli, E., de Jonge, M., Mirza, G., Scerri, T., Minopoli, F., Chiocchetti, A., Ludwig, K., Hoffmann, P., & Paracchini, S. (2010) Characterization of a Family with Rare Deletions in CNTNAP5 and DOCK4 Suggests Novel Risk Loci for Autism and Dyslexia. Biological Psychiatry, 68(4), 320-328. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.02.002
- September 14, 2010
- 11:06 AM
- 530 views
Stopping Antidepressants: Not So Fast
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
People who quit antidepressants slowly, by gradually decreasing the dose, are much less likely to suffer a relapse, according to Baldessarini et al. in the American Journal of Psychiatry.They describe a large sample (400) of patients from Sardinia, Italy, who had responded well to antidepressants, and then stopped taking them. The antidepressants had been prescribed for either depression, or panic attacks.People who quit suddenly (over 1-7 days) were more likely to relapse, and relapsed sooner, ........ Read more »
Baldessarini RJ, Tondo L, Ghiani C, & Lepri B. (2010) Illness risk following rapid versus gradual discontinuation of antidepressants. The American journal of psychiatry, 167(8), 934-41. PMID: 20478876
- September 13, 2010
- 10:52 AM
- 587 views
Shotgun Psychiatry
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
There's a paradox at the heart of modern psychiatry, according to an important new paper by Dr Charles E. Dean, Psychopharmacology: A house divided.It's a long and slightly rambling article, but Dean's central point is pretty simple. The medical/biological model of psychiatry assumes that there are such things as psychiatric diseases. Something biological goes wrong, presumably in the brain, and this causes certain symptoms. Different pathologies cause different symptoms - in other words, there ........ Read more »
Dean CE. (2010) Psychopharmacology: A house divided. Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology . PMID: 20828593
- September 12, 2010
- 09:33 AM
- 590 views
You're (Brain Is) So Immature
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
How mature are you? Have you ever wanted to find out, with a 5 minute brain scan? Of course you have. And now you can, thanks to a new Science paper, Prediction of Individual Brain Maturity Using fMRI.This is another clever application of the support vector machine (SVM) method, which I've written about previously, most recently regarding "the brain scan to diagnose autism". An SVM is a machine learning algorithm: give it a bunch of data, and it'll find patterns in it.In this case, the input dat........ Read more »
Dosenbach NU, Nardos B, Cohen AL, Fair DA, Power JD, Church JA, Nelson SM, Wig GS, Vogel AC, Lessov-Schlaggar CN.... (2010) Prediction of individual brain maturity using fMRI. Science (New York, N.Y.), 329(5997), 1358-61. PMID: 20829489
- September 8, 2010
- 08:54 AM
- 706 views
Autistic Toddlers Like Screensavers
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Young children with autism prefer looking at geometric patterns over looking at other people. At least, some of them do. That's according to a new study - Preference for Geometric Patterns Early in Life As a Risk Factor for Autism.Pierce et al took 110 toddlers (age 14 to 42 months). Some of them had autism, some had "developmental delay" but not autism, and some were normally developing.The kids were shown a one-minute video clip. One half of the screen showed some kids doing yoga, while the ot........ Read more »
Pierce K, Conant D, Hazin R, Stoner R, & Desmond J. (2010) Preference for Geometric Patterns Early in Life As a Risk Factor for Autism. Archives of general psychiatry. PMID: 20819977
- September 4, 2010
- 09:11 AM
- 465 views
Normal? You're Weird - Psychiatrists
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Almost everyone is pretty screwed up. That's not my opinion, that's official - according to a new paper in the latest British Journal of Psychiatry.Make sure you're sitting down for this. No less than 48% of the population have "personality difficulties", 21% have a full blown "personality disorder", and 7% have it even worse with "complex" or "severe" personality disorders.That's quite a lot of people. Indeed it only leaves an elite 22.5% with no personality disturbances whatsoever. You're as l........ Read more »
Yang M, Coid J, & Tyrer P. (2010) Personality pathology recorded by severity: national survey. The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 193-9. PMID: 20807963
- September 3, 2010
- 11:13 AM
- 577 views
Are "Antipsychotics" Antipsychotics?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
This is the question asked by Tilman Steinert & Martin Jandl in a letter to the journal Psychopharmacology.They point out that in the past 20 years, the word "antipsychotic" has exploded in popularity. Less than 100 academic papers were published with that word in the title in 1990, but now it's over 600.The older term for the same drugs was "neuroleptics". This terminology, however, has slowly but surely fallen into disuse over the same time period.To illustrate this they have a nice graph ........ Read more »
Tilman Steinert and Martin Jandl. (2010) Are antipsychotics antipsychotics? . Psychopharmacology. DOI: 10.1007/s00213-010-1927-3
- August 30, 2010
- 01:01 PM
- 473 views
Serotonin, Psychedelics and Depression
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Note: This post is part of a Nature Blog Focus on hallucinogenic drugs in medicine and mental health, inspired by a recent Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper, The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders, by Franz Vollenweider & Michael Kometer. That article will be available, open-access, until September 23. For more information on this Blog Focus, including a Table of Contents, please visit The Great Beyond.Neurophilosophy is covering the history o........ Read more »
Vollenweider FX, & Kometer M. (2010) The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 11(9), 642-51. PMID: 20717121
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
