The Science of Orgasms and Your Brain on Porn
by Maria PopovaInside the complex tangle of biology and behavior that shapes our relationship with and experience of sex.
We’ve already explored the origins of sex, the neurochemistry of heartbreak, and how drugs affect desire. But what, exactly, happens in the brain when the body belts out its ultimate anthem of sexual triumph? Count on creative duo Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown, better known as AsapSCIENCE — who have previously explained how music enchants the brain and what science teaches us about curing hangovers — to break down the body’s response during orgasm:
But what about sexual experiences that don’t involve direct contact with a partner? What happens inside the brain then is arguably even more intriguing. In this talk from TEDxGlasgow, physiology teacher Gary Wilson peels the curtain on the complex scientific processes that accompany, and perpetuate, the world’s addiction to pornography. Specifically, he looks at how the Coolidge effect fuels internet porn:
For more on this ceaselessly fascinating tangle of biology and behavior, see the recently released The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex, and the Science of Attraction by neuroscientist Larry Young and journalist Brian Alexander, who take us inside the living brain to explore how its neurotransmitters, hormones, and circuits shape the very behaviors we find ourselves most invested in.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
The Science of Orgasms and Your Brain on Porn
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Mental illness manual updated to eliminate Aspergers diagnosis
Mental illness manual updated to eliminate Asperger's diagnosis
by Audrey Quinn, m.smartplanet.comMay 4th 2012 1:04 PM
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) isn't just a guidebook for psychiatrists. It determines the drugs researchers pursue, how education money gets spent, which therapies insurance companies cover, and what kinds of behavior society views as "abnormal."
When the DSM-5 comes out next May, it will be the first new edition of the book in almost 20 years, the fifth edition since its debut in 1952.You have to expect such a momentous tome to face some controversy, but for the first time ever, the American Psychiatric Association committee behind the book is bowing to outside criticisms.
Rejected Changes
The committee had originally proposed that both "attenuated psychosis syndrome" and "mixed anxiety depressive disorder" join the DSM-5's list of mental illnesses. They announced Tuesday that neither diagnosis will make the cut.
"Attenuated psychosis syndrome" described youth at risk for schizophrenia, either due to having close family members with the disorder or having suggestive symptoms. Critics argued that only 8% of kids designated as "high risk" for schizophrenia eventually get diagnosed with the disorder. Making "pre-schizophrenia" a clinical syndrome would do more harm that good, DSM-5 committee opponents said, by promoting anti-psychotic prescriptions for kids who only have a slightly heightened chance of developing the disorder.
"Mixed anxiety depressive disorder" was judged an unnecessary duplication of depressive disorders that would also lead to more than necessary prescriptions.
Remaining Changes
A number of controversial changes to the DSM still remain on the table:
- DSM-5 will include bereavement in the definition of depression, meaning that someone emotionally mourning the loss of a loved one could fit under the diagnosis of major depression.
- Asperger's syndrome loses its own diagnosis, it will be included under autism spectrum disorders. Critics argue that this will eliminate services particularly aimed at the unique Asperger's syndrome profile.
- "Substance abuse" and "substance dependence" will be combined into "substance use disorder." It's a less stigmatic name but one that could deter people who have substance problems, but don't feel dependent on substances, from seeking help.
The DSM-5 website has re-opened for comments, which will be accepted through June 15th 2012.
[via TIME.com, Psychology Today Blog]
Photo: El Alvi/Flickr
Original Page: http://m.smartplanet.com/blog/rethinking-healthcare/mental-illness-manual-updated-to-eliminate-aspergers-diagnosis/8717
Shared from Read It Later
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Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals
Chapter 3: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals
As we have seen, the development of federal legislation for government-sponsored research with human subjects arose in part because of institutional and governmental concern and public reaction to perceived abuses and failures by the government. Around the same time that the 1974 National Research Act was enacted, a scandal arose surrounding the discovery of secret Cold War chemical experiments conducted by the CIA and DOD. The review of these experiments led to the rediscovery of the previously secret 1953 Wilson memorandum and later to the first Supreme Court decision in which comment was made, in dissent, on the application of the Nuremberg Code to the conduct of the U.S. government.In December 1974, the New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. That report prompted investigations by both Congress (in the form of the Church Committee) and a presidential commission (known as the Rockefeller Commission) into the domestic activities of the CIA, the FBI, and intelligence-related agencies of the military. In the summer of 1975, congressional hearings and the Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the DOD had conducted experiments on both cognizant and unwitting human subjects as part of an extensive program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs (such as LSD and mescaline) and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject had died after administration of LSD. Frank Olson, an Army scientist, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment and apparently committed suicide a week later.[75] Subsequent reports would show that another person, Harold Blauer, a professional tennis player in New York City, died as a result of a secret Army experiment involving mescaline.[76]
The CIA program, known principally by the codename MKULTRA, began in 1950 and was motivated largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean uses of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. Because most of the MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then-Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms, it is impossible to have a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research projects sponsored by MKULTRA and the related CIA programs.[77] Central Intelligence Agency documents suggest that radiation was part of the MKULTRA program and that the agency considered and explored uses of radiation for these purposes.[78] However, the documents that remain from MKULTRA, at least as currently brought to light, do not show that the CIA itself carried out any of these proposals on human subjects.
The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that "[p]rior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects."[79]'we have no answer to the moral issue.'" The committee noted that the "experiments sponsored by these researchers . . . call into question the decision by the agencies not to fix guidelines for experiments."[80] (Documents show that the CIA participated in at least two of the DOD committees whose discussions, in 1952, led up to the issuance of the Wilson memorandum.) Following the recommendations of the Church Committee, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities, which, among other things, prohibited "experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject" and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission.[81] Subsequent orders by Presidents Carter and Reagan expanded the directive to apply to any human experimentation.[82]
Following on the heels of the revelations about CIA experiments were similar stories about the Army. In response, in 1975 the secretary of the Army instructed the Army inspector general to conduct an investigation.[83] Among the findings of the inspector general was the existence of the then-still-classified 1953 Secretary of Defense Wilson memorandum. In response to the inspector general's investigation, the Wilson memorandum was declassified in August 1975. The inspector general also found that the requirements of the 1953 memorandum had, at least in regard to Army drug testing, been essentially followed as written. The Army used only "volunteers" for its drug-testing program, with one or two exceptions.[84] However, the inspector general concluded that the "volunteers were not fully informed, as required, prior to their participation; and the methods of procuring their services, in many cases, appeared not to have been in accord with the intent of Department of the Army policies governing use of volunteers in research."[85] The inspector general also noted that "the evidence clearly reflected that every possible medical consideration was observed by the professional investigators at the Medical Research Laboratories."[86] This conclusion, if accurate, is in striking contrast to what took place at the CIA.
The revelations about the CIA and the Army prompted a number of subjects or their survivors to file lawsuits against the federal government for conducting illegal experiments. Although the government aggressively, and sometimes successfully, sought to avoid legal liability, several plaintiffs did receive compensation through court order, out-of-court settlement, or acts of Congress. Previously, the CIA and the Army had actively, and successfully, sought to withhold incriminating information, even as they secretly provided compensation to the families.[87] One subject of Army drug experimentation, James Stanley, an Army sergeant, brought an important, albeit unsuccessful, suit. The government argued that Stanley was barred from suing it under a legal doctrine--known as the Feres doctrine, after a 1950 Supreme Court case, Feres v. United States--that prohibits members of the Armed Forces from suing the government for any harms that were inflicted "incident to service."[88]
In 1987, the Supreme Court affirmed this defense in a 5-4 decision that dismissed Stanley's case.[89] The majority argued that "a test for liability that depends on the extent to which particular suits would call into question military discipline and decision making would itself require judicial inquiry into, and hence intrusion upon, military matters."[90] In dissent, Justice William Brennan argued that the need to preserve military discipline should not protect the government from liability and punishment for serious violations of constitutional rights:
The medical trials at Nuremberg in 1947 deeply impressed upon the world that experimentation with unknowing human subjects is morally and legally unacceptable. The United States Military Tribunal established the Nuremberg Code as a standard against which to judge German scientists who experimented with human subjects. . . . [I]n defiance of this principle, military intelligence officials . . . began surreptitiously testing chemical and biological materials, including LSD.[91]
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing a separate dissent, stated:
No judicially crafted rule should insulate from liability the involuntary and unknowing human experimentation alleged to have occurred in this case. Indeed, as Justice Brennan observes, the United States played an instrumental role in the criminal prosecution of Nazi officials who experimented with human subjects during the Second World War, and the standards that the Nuremberg Military Tribunals developed to judge the behavior of the defendants stated that the 'voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential . . . to satisfy moral, ethical, and legal concepts.' If this principle is violated, the very least that society can do is to see that the victims are compensated, as best they can be, by the perpetrators.[92]
This is the only Supreme Court case to address the application of the Nuremberg Code to experimentation sponsored by the U.S. government.[93] And while the suit was unsuccessful, dissenting opinions put the Army--and by association the entire government--on notice that use of individuals without their consent is unacceptable. The limited application of the Nuremberg Code in U.S. courts does not detract from the power of the principles it espouses, especially in light of stories of failure to follow these principles that appeared in the media and professional literature during the 1960s and 1970s and the policies eventually adopted in the mid-1970s.
http://www.hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap3_4.html
Sunday, March 25, 2012
People with Aspergers are not stupid or uninformed, quite the opposite! We are just too pedantic in speech for neuro-typical to understand (and pretty arrogant and "obnoxious" at time!)
אל
Date: March 23, 2012 13:13:11 CDT
To: Stacey Murphy
Cc: Rusty Lawrence, Scott Wallace
Subject: Re: MSS InfoMemo: Program – The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program will open its waitlist registration process for one week starting Monday, March 26 @ 7:30 a.m. Details in text.
Thank you! I already have Section 8 but I recently moved and need an "advocate" to help me communicate with someone who has been non responsive and is, in short, incompetent placing my housing in jeopardy.I have Aspergers and some people have difficulty understanding that just because I am differently abled, I am not an idiot!People with Aspergers tend to speak differently and have different body gestures that culturally incompetent people (such as this particular leasing agent) perceive as ???Bottom line,She messed up and asked me NOT to call her boss (Mr. Rusty Lawrence) because he worked with Kenton Dickerson, myself, Scott Wyatt and other Government employees before I developed a tumor in 2008.I now have a 14mm tumor on my spine, that causes neurological symptoms~ But my brain is fully in tact and surgery is too dangerous.Remember Floyd? He needed a speech machine! Pam Townsend needed special voice translation software to use her PC. At times, I do too, however I only have an iPhone and broken computer.People with Aspergers are not stupid or uninformed, quite the opposite! We are just too pedantic in speech for neuro-typical to understand! We're also pretty arrogant and "obnoxious" when people don't ask the right questions.Also, I need to review my file with your agency because it had come to my attention that my SSDI benefits may be incorrect due to an error made by the IRS and Metro Government (I have a pension or something that changes my eligibility status; increases my monthly income from $688 to ????Stacy Youngman has the file and knows about the SSA / IRS situation (very complicated to explain to non-lawyers)See how verbose I am? Just kidding! It's Friday, and I will follow up on Monday.Thank you,Elyssa Durant, Ed.M.אל
On Mar 21, 2012, at 12:54, Stacey Murphy wrote:Hello Elyssa,Tom Hopton gave me your name and information. If you are not on Section 8, they are accepting applications for the first time in years for one week only beginning this coming Monday, March 26, 2012 at 7:30 am. You can see the information below.Our housing coordinator, Emily Hoskins (615) 292-5803 ext. 8624, is out of the office until Monday, 26th, but I will try and give you a call tomorrow morning to see if there is anything beyond housing that I may be able to assist you with. My day looks pretty full today.Look forward to talking to you then,StaceyStacey Murphy, AS, TCPSIndependent Living SpecialistTennessee Certified Peer Specialist(615) 292-5803 ext. 8628Center for Independent Living of Middle Tennessee955 Woodland StreetNashville, TN 37206
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stewart, Lee T (Social Services)
Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:29 AM
Subject: MSS InfoMemo: Program – The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program will open its waitlist registration process for one week starting Monday, March 26 @ 7:30 a.m. Details in text.
To: "Stewart, Lee T (Social Services)"
Cc: "Norman" (Nashville Gov)
<image001.gif>Interest Area: Housing
If you receive multiple copies of this email, our apologies – your address is on more than one distribution list: Faith Community, Food & Nutrition, Adult HCBS, Child HCBS, General HCBS, Housing, Transportation, Workforce Development & Economic Opportunity. If you wish to join or be removed from any of these lists, reply to this email and tell us. Please note new Metro Social Services address below.
<image003.png>
FORWARDED from MDHA:
The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program will open its waitlist registration process for one week starting Monday, March 26 @ 7:30 a.m. until Friday, March 30 @ 4 p.m. On Monday morning, March 26, you will be able to find the application form on MDHA’s website: http://www.nashville-mdha.org/
For the first time, interested people will be able to register online. This type of online application is highly encouraged - AND avoids having to wait in long lines at MDHA Rental Assistance Dept. offices on Dew Street. This online process should take roughly 10 minutes.
Generally, the online process involves completing a registration form with basic information such as an email address, street address, phone number, and Social Security number, etc.
After all the registration forms have been entered into a database individuals will be contacted to schedule an actual appointment.
Showing up early in the week/registering early will not guarantee an earlier appointment, because names from the registration forms will be selected by lottery and not time/date stamped as in the past.
In addition to the online method, applications may be mailed (postmarked by March 31, 2012) or hand-delivered to 620 Dew Street during the registration week. You can print out the online application to complete and submit. A map to 620 Dew Street is attached.
Applications that are emailed or faxed to MDHA will NOT be considered.
<image004.png>
Metropolitan Social Services • Planning & Coordination
Street Address: Clifford Allen Building, 800 2nd Avenue North, 37201
Mailing Address: P. O. Box 196300, Nashville, TN 37219
P&C Director: 862-6494
InfoMemo Editor: 862-6975
http://www.nashville.gov/sservices/planningcoordination/index.asp
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended only for the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this by mistake, please notify the sender as soon as possible, and delete it without disclosing, copying, distributing or using the message or an attachments. Thank you.
<Map to MDHA - Dew St.docx>
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Evening exposure to a light-emitting diodes (LED)-backlit computer screens affects circadian physiology and cognitive performance. [J Appl Physiol. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI
Evening exposure to a light-emitting diodes (LED)-backlit computer screen affects circadian physiology and cognitive performance.
Source
Centre for Chronobiology, Psychiatric Hospitals of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland. christian.cajochen@upkbs.ch
Abstract
Many people spend an increasing amount of time in front of computer screens equipped with light-emitting diodes (LED) with a short wavelength (blue range). Thus we investigated the repercussions on melatonin (a marker of the circadian clock), alertness, and cognitive performance levels in 13 young male volunteers under controlled laboratory conditions in a balanced crossover design. A 5-h evening exposure to a white LED-backlit screen with more than twice as much 464 nm light emission {irradiance of 0,241 Watt/(steradian × m(2)) [W/(sr × m(2))], 2.1 × 10(13) photons/(cm(2) × s), in the wavelength range of 454 and 474 nm} than a white non-LED-backlit screen [irradiance of 0,099 W/(sr × m(2)), 0.7 × 10(13) photons/(cm(2) × s), in the wavelength range of 454 and 474 nm] elicited a significant suppression of the evening rise in endogenous melatonin and subjective as well as objective sleepiness, as indexed by a reduced incidence of slow eye movements and EEG low-frequency activity (1-7 Hz) in frontal brain regions. Concomitantly, sustained attention, as determined by the GO/NOGO task; working memory/attention, as assessed by "explicit timing"; and declarative memory performance in a word-learning paradigm were significantly enhanced in the LED-backlit screen compared with the non-LED condition. Screen quality and visual comfort were rated the same in both screen conditions, whereas the non-LED screen tended to be considered brighter. Our data indicate that the spectral profile of light emitted by computer screens impacts on circadian physiology, alertness, and cognitive performance levels. The challenge will be to design a computer screen with a spectral profile that can be individually programmed to add timed, essential light information to the circadian system in humans.
- PMID:
- 21415172
- [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
How Light Affects Our Sleep | Circadian Rhythyms and Behavioral Patterns
Most people are at least cursorily familiar with the concept of the circadian rhythm. For those who aren’t, the circadian rhythm refers to our internal, approximately 24-hour cycle of biochemical, physiological, and behavioral processes. Every living thing, from fungus to bacteria to plant to animal, has a circadian rhythm. External cues called zeitgebers (what a great word, huh?) help synchronize or alter our rhythms; they include temperature, nutrition, meal timing, social interactions pharmacological interventions (medicines, drugs), and, most prominently, the light/dark cycle of the earth.
Yes, light, or the lack thereof, plays an enormous role in the regulation of our cycles, especially our sleep cycle. For millions of years, light was an objective, exogenous measure by which organisms established behavioral patterns, hormonal fluctuations, and sleep cycles. Depending on the seasons, the position of the global axes, and the weather, you could pretty much count on light, bright days and deep, dark nights. Nocturnal hunters and scavengers took the lack of light to mean “eatin’ time,” while other animals (including humans) sought shelter and slumber when night fell. Daylight meant activity and safety (since we could, you know, see everything). Fire, then, wasn’t just about cooking and providing warmth; it also allowed humans a small sliver of daylight’s safety and security at night.
Before I go on, I need to make something clear. My regular readers will have already grasped this concept, but I think it’s a good idea to reiterate it. Though it’s tempting to place us humans on another plane of existence, apart from the mindless flora and fauna that share this world, we are animals. Sure, we’re smarter and more complex than the others, but we’re still subject to these exogenous zeitgebers worming their influential fingers into our subconscious and fiddling with our circadian rhythms. Our tendency to get sleepy when night falls isn’t a cultural relic; we didn’t consciously decide to start sleeping at night because it was too dangerous to be out in the dark. The culture of standard bedtimes arose organically, if you can even call it culture. Does the chirping of birds in the morning reflect cultural tendencies? Is “the early bird gets the worm” a standard axiom in avian academia? No – the early bird’s evolutionary niche decrees that it wake up bright and early in order to get food. It’s basic natural selection, and humans are the same way. We don’t decide to get up early. We get up early because of a complex pattern of environmental cues telling us to get up. Throughout our evolutionary development, handling business during the daytime was simply how we survived. We can’t escape nature.
But boy do we try.
The zeitgeber (can’t get enough of that word) with the biggest impact on our sleep cycle is light. Period. And it’s not just natural light that affects our sleep cycle, but also unnatural, manmade lights. That’s kinda how we operate, actually, as instinctual beings who often misinterpret “unnatural” because, well, our physiology isn’t exactly intelligent. It’s not sentient. It’s purely reactive. Blue light from a 10:00 AM sky, blue light from your computer screen at midnight – it makes no difference to our circadian rhythms. It’s all the same to our bodies, because for millions of years blue light meant daylight, not a late night blog comment section or reruns of The Daily Show. And it’s the blue light specifically that appears to monitor our sleep patterns the most.
Like insulin and inflammation, blue light is integral to our health – in the correct amounts. When we’re exposed to levels of anything in excess (or too little) of what we would have experienced for the bulk of our evolutionary history, problems arise. Blue light regulates our secretion of melatonin, the sleep hormone. Exposed to blue light, we limit the production of melatonin, and we stay alert and awake; in the absence of blue light, melatonin production ramps up, and we get sleepy. This system worked quite well for a long time. Reddish light from fire (our formerly primary source of nighttime illumination) has little to no effect on melatonin production, so sleep wasn’t disrupted when we relied on fire. These days, though, we’re subject to a steady barrage of blue light. During the day, blue light (natural or unnatural) isn’t much of a problem because we’re supposed to be awake, but at night, when we’re “supposed” to be getting ready to sleep, we tend to sit in front of blue light-emanating appliances, and our sleep suffers for it.
(An interesting note on how we respond to blue light. For years, scientists assumed circadian rhythm was set by sight (of light) alone. Person sees sky/LCD screen and the same visual system that allows colored vision determines the hormonal, behavioral, or other physical reactions to the light. It makes sense, but that’s not how it works. It turns out that there exists a second, more dominant system responsible for setting circadian rhythm based on light input. If a person’s sleep cycle depended purely on traditional color vision, we’d expect the blind to universally suffer from disrupted sleep. They do not, however, and this is explained by optical cells that express a photopigment called melanopsin. Unlike the standard rod and cone opsins, melanopsin doesn’t help us see. Instead, it reacts most strongly to blue light, and scientists think it’s the primary regulator of the biological clock and production of melatonin. In otherwise blind patients with intact melanopsin systems, blue light has a strong effect on their sleep cycles.)
Blue light has its place, of course. A British study found that blue light-enhanced white lights in the workplace improved alertness, performance, and even nighttime sleep quality in employees. That’s during the day, though, when blue light exposure is normal and expected. Nighttime exposure to blue light disrupts our sleep hormones. Television, computer screens, even digital clocks with blue numbers – they’re all common sources of late night blue light that can affect our production of melatonin.
Is blue light the only issue? It certainly appears to be the primary driver of circadian rhythm, but it’s not the only one. In a recent study, researchers found that while monochromatic blue light suppressed melatonin production via melanopsin stimulation, polychromatic white light (which includes blue light) stimulated melanopsin equally while suppressing melatonin to an even greater degree. Clearly, it’s not just blue light’s effect on melanopsin affecting our sleep cycles.
Still, blue light is the low-hanging fruit, and there are some simple steps you can take to mitigate its late-night effect on your sleep.
- Keep electronics usage to a minimum or completely eliminate blue light (alarms, TVs, laptops) after dark.
- Go to sleep earlier.
- Use candlelight (read how a fellow MDA reader gave this a try for 30-days).
- Keep your room as dark as possible and your sleeping quarters pitch black.
- Install F.lux (totally free) on your computer to cut down on blue light emissions.
- If you want to try a somewhat extreme experiment you could even wear orange safety glasses at night.
(Thanks to this thread on PaleoHacks for the last two tips.) Also, don’t forget to expose yourself to blue light during the day so that your cycle normalizes – it goes both ways, you know.
Does anyone have experience cutting out blue light exposure to great effect? Let the world know in the comments.
Monday, November 28, 2011
'People-person' brain area found
'People-person' brain area found
The researchers noted differences in two brain regionsScientists say they have located the brain areas that may determine how sociable a person is.
Warm, sentimental people tend to have more brain tissue in the outer strip of the brain just above the eyes and in a structure deep in the brain's centre.
These are the same zones that allow us to enjoy chocolate and sex, the Cambridge University experts report in the European Journal of Neuroscience.
The work suggests that some people may get a similar buzz from being sociable.
It could also lead to new insights into psychiatric disorders where difficulties in social interaction are prominent, such as autism or schizophrenia.
For some people, socializing is an intrinsic reward, just like chocolate or cannabis
Professor Simon Baron Cohen, of the Autism Research Centre in CambridgeThe brain scan study was carried out on 41 healthy male volunteers.
The men who scored higher on questionnaire-based ratings of emotional warmth and sociability had more grey matter in two brain areas - the orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum.
The researchers say it is not clear whether the men were born with these brain differences or whether the brain regions in question grew in response to personal experiences.
Pleasure zones
Experts already know that the striatum becomes activated by receiving compliments and the orbitofrontal cortex is activated by attractive faces and smiling.
Lead researcher Dr Graham Murray said: "Sociability and emotional warmth are very complex features of our personality.
"This research helps us understand at a biological level why people differ in the degrees to which we express those traits.
"It's interesting that the degree to which we find social interaction rewarding relates to the structure of our brains in regions that are important for very simple biological drives such as food, sweet liquids and sex.
"Perhaps this gives us a clue to how complex features like sentimentality and affection evolved from structures that in lower animals originally were only important for basic biological survival processes."
Professor Simon Baron Cohen, of the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, said: "This is an important study in showing that the degree to which we find socializing rewarding is correlated with differences in brain structure.
"It reminds us that for some people, socializing is an intrinsic reward, just like chocolate or cannabis. And that what you find rewarding depends on differences in the brain.
"This research teaches us about individual differences in a typical sample, but has implications for our understanding of clinical conditions like autism, where socializing may be less rewarding."
NOT HERE! LOL! NEXT?
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
A Point of View: The advantages of pessimism
A Point of View: The advantages of pessimism
Incompatibility between our big aspirations and the reality of life is bound to disappoint unless we learn to be a bit more gloomy, says Alain de Botton.
Today I want to advance the unusual idea that we'd be a great deal more cheerful if we learnt to be a little more pessimistic.
And, from a completely secular point of view, I'd like to suggest that in the passages before they go on to promise us salvation, religions are rather good at being pessimistic. For example, Christianity has spent much of its history emphasising the darker side of earthly existence.
Yet even within this sombre tradition, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal stands out for the exceptionally merciless nature of his pessimism. In his book the Pensees, Pascal misses no opportunities to confront his readers with evidence of mankind's resolutely deviant, pitiful and unworthy nature.
Scientific advances make us optimistic
In seductive classical French, he informs us that happiness is an illusion. "Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself," he says. Misery is the norm, he states: "If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it." And we have to face the desperate facts of our situation head on. "Man's greatness," he writes, "comes from knowing he is wretched."
Given the tone, it comes as something of a surprise to discover that reading Pascal is not at all the depressing experience one might have presumed. The work is consoling, heartwarming and even, at times, hilarious.
For those teetering on the verge of despair, there can paradoxically be no finer book to turn to than one which seeks to grind man's every last hope into the dust. The Pensees - far more than any saccharine volume touting inner beauty, positive thinking or the realisation of hidden potential - has the power to coax the suicidal off the ledge of a high parapet.
If Pascal's pessimism can effectively console us, it may be because we are usually cast into gloom not so much by negativity as by hope. It is hope - with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians and our planet - that is primarily to blame for angering and embittering us.
Nurture and educate
The incompatibility between the grandeur of our aspirations and the mean reality of our condition generates the violent disappointments which rack our days and etch themselves in lines of acrimony across our faces. Hence the relief, which can explode into bursts of laughter, when we finally come across an author generous enough to confirm that our very worst insights, far from being unique, are part of the common, inevitable reality of mankind.
Our dread that we might be the only ones to feel anxious, bored, jealous, perverse and narcissistic turns out to be gloriously unfounded, opening up unexpected opportunities for communion around our dark realities.
Continue reading the main storyFIND OUT MORE
- A Point of View, with Alain de Botton, is on Fridays on Radio 4 at 2050 BST and repeated Sundays, 0850 BST
We should honour Pascal, and the long line of pessimistic writers to which he belongs, for doing us the incalculably great favour of publicly and elegantly rehearsing the facts of our sinful and pitiful state. This is not a stance with which the modern world betrays much sympathy, for one of its dominant characteristics and - in my opinion - its greatest flaw is its optimism.
Despite occasional moments of panic, most often connected to market crises, wars or pandemics, the secular contemporary world maintains an all but irrational devotion to a narrative of improvement, based on a quasi-messianic faith in the three great drivers of change - science, technology and commerce.
Material improvements since the mid-18th Century have been so remarkable and have so exponentially increased our comfort, safety, wealth and power, as to deal an almost fatal blow to our capacity to remain pessimistic - and therefore, crucially, to our ability to stay sane and content.
It has been impossible to hold on to a balanced assessment of what life is likely to provide for us when we have witnessed the cracking of the genetic code, the invention of the mobile phone, the opening of Western-style supermarkets in remote corners of China and the launch of the Hubble telescope.
Naivety and credulousness
Yet while it is undeniable that the scientific and economic trajectories of mankind have been pointed firmly in an upward direction for several centuries, you and I do not comprise mankind. None of us as individuals can dwell exclusively amidst the ground-breaking developments in genetics or telecommunications that lend our age its distinctive and buoyant prejudices.
Continue reading the main story“Start Quote
End QuoteA pessimistic world view does not have to entail a life stripped of joy”
We may derive some benefit from the availability of hot baths and computer chips, but our lives are no less subject to accident, frustrated ambition, heartbreak, jealousy, anxiety or death than were those of our medieval forebears. But at least our ancestors had the advantage of living in a religious era which never made the mistake of promising its population that happiness could ever make a permanent home for itself on this earth.
The secular are at this moment in history a great deal more optimistic than the religious - something of an irony given the frequency with which the religious have been derided by the non religious for their apparent naivety and credulousness. It is the secular whose longing for perfection has grown so intense as to lead them to imagine that paradise might be realised on this earth after just a few more years of financial growth and medical research.
With no evident awareness of the contradiction they may, in the same breath, gruffly dismiss a belief in angels while sincerely trusting that the combined powers of the IMF, the medical research establishment, Silicon Valley and democratic politics will together cure the ills of mankind.
The benefits of a philosophy of pessimism are to be seen in relation to love. Christianity and Judaism present marriage not as a union inspired and governed by subjective enthusiasm but rather, and more modestly, as a mechanism by which individuals can assume an adult position in society and thence, with the help of a close friend, undertake to nurture and educate the next generation under divine guidance.
Capacity for appreciation
These limited expectations tend to forestall the suspicion, so familiar to secular partners, that there might have been more intense, angelic or less fraught alternatives available elsewhere. Within the religious ideal friction, disputes and boredom are signs not of error, but of life proceeding according to plan.
These religions do recognise our desire to adore passionately. They know of our need to believe in others, to worship and serve them and to find in them a perfection which eludes us in ourselves. They simply insist that these objects of adoration should always be divine rather than human.
Increased wealth makes us less pessimistic
Therefore they assign us eternally youthful, attractive and virtuous deities to shepherd us through life while reminding us on a daily basis that human beings are comparatively humdrum and flawed creations worthy of forgiveness and patience, a detail which is apt to elude our notice in the heat of marital squabbling.
Why can't you be more perfect? This is the incensed question that lurks beneath a majority of secular arguments. In their effort to keep us from hurling our curdled dreams at one another, religions have the good sense to provide us with angels to worship and lovers to tolerate.
A pessimistic world view does not have to entail a life stripped of joy. Pessimists can have a far greater capacity for appreciation than their opposite numbers, for they never expect things to turn out well and so may be amazed by the modest successes which occasionally break out across their darkened horizons.
expect nothing, and you won't be disappointed. #nuffsaid
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Harvard University Durant Fellowship in Refugee Medicine
Haiti: Sustaining the Response
WHEN
Thu., June 24, 2010, 2 – 4 p.m.
WHERE
O'Keefe Auditorium, Blake Building, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION
Health Sciences, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR
Center for Global Health
Massachusetts General Hospital
SPEAKER(S)
David Henderson, Division of Global Psychiatry, MGH; Laurence Ronan
Durant Fellowship in Refugee Medicine, MGH
CONTACT INFO
jason_harlow@harvard.edu
http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/globalhealth/
------------------------------------
I MISSED THE DEADLINE. NOT THAT I TRUST MGH. NOT FOR ONE MINUTE. #oops
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Synesthesia - Dr. Hugo Heyrman ( ( (Motions of the Mind) ) )
Belgian Synesthesia Association
extending the synesthetic code
- Intro: Welcome to the 'Art and Synesthesia' site of Dr. Hugo Heyrman, Ph.D. in Art Sciences. Are synesthetes people of the future? —to answer this question, and as a consequence of my scientific and artistic passion for Art and Synesthesia, I created this portal on Synesthesia, online since 1995 —to present relevant sources on the art & mind connection, theory, experiments and research on the future of the senses. Homepage of the 'Belgian Synesthesia Association' (BSA).
- Mission: To explore the multisensory interactions of synesthesia. To connect synesthetes and their synesthetic experience with interested non-synesthetes worldwide. To develop a synesthesia culture by connecting art and synesthesia. To promote study, research and understanding of synesthesia in educational, social, cultural and artistic contexts.
Synaesthesia associations
German Synaesthesia Association/Deutsche Synästhesie-Gesellschaft e.V. (in German).
Synaesthesia researchers- Synesthesia FAQ Veronica Gross, project at Boston University's Vision and Cognition Laboratory.
Art and synesthesia- Sinestesia y Arte Arte Città, Spain.
- Synesthésie a virtual revue on contemporary art, Paris.
- Synesthesia-Artforum Timothy B Layden.
Theory and research on synaesthesiaSinestesia - Neurociencia Cognitiva Juan Lupiáñez Castillo, Alicia Callejas Sevilla, Grupo de Investigación de la Universidad de Granada. Synästhesie-Forschung an der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover Dr. med. Markus Zedler. Synaesthesia the site is in both English and Chinese, Julia Simner, University of Edinburgh, UK. синестезия The Russian Synaesthesia Community’s site, maintained by Anton V. Sidoroff-Dorso, Associate Professor/Reader of Moscow State Pedagogical University.
Reports and articlesThe Hidden Sense: On Becoming Aware of Synesthesia. In: TECCOGS 2009, vol. 1, pp. 1-13.
Lenguaje Del Color: Sinestesia cromática en poesía y arte visual by Juan Carlos Sanz, Profesor de Theoría de la imagen, de Diseño y de Comunicación audiovisual. Madrid, España. Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience edited by Lynn Robertson and Noam Sagiv. Farbe - Licht - Musik Synästhesie und Farblichtmusik by Jörg Jewanski / Natalia Sidler (written in German). Tussen zinnen. Synesthesie of hoe de zintuigen samenwerken The new Dutch book on synesthesia by Crétien van Campen. The Hidden Sense. Synesthesia in Art and Science The new English book on synesthesia by Crétien van Campen.
Transcripts and streaming audio versions of radio programs and symposiaHalo Radio: Patricia Lynne Duffy Halo Radio hosted by Jesse Dylan, January 12, 2003, interview with Patricia Lynne Duffy.
The Health Report: Synesthesia Australian Broadcasting Corporation, July 8, 1996, interview with Richard E. Cytowic.
The synesthetic experience
Synaesthesia tests, surveys and experiments onlineThe Synesthesia Battery This battery of tests provides a standard battery of questions, tests and scoring. This test is available to the whole community of researchers and synesthetes for their use in making scientific progress. Developed in Dr. David Eagleman's laboratory. Synesthesia-Test Only those who percieve consciously can recognize their synaesthesia. Synaesthesia in Children Jennifer Green, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Color of Sound - Concrete the Studio an informal experiment to test the color of sound, Emily Flippin Maruna. Mirror Touch Synaesthesia Study a 'Survey Vista' by Naomi Hillman, MSC student at the University of East London in the UK.
connecting resources and ideas
Lecture added to the Synesthesia portal!
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What's new?Lecture added to the Synesthesia portal!
- Extending the Synesthetic Code: connecting synesthesia, memory and art lecture by Dr. Hugo Heyrman, March 2007.
- Art and Synesthesia: in search of the synesthetic experience lecture by Dr. Hugo Heyrman, presented at the 'Primer congreso internacional sobre arte y sinestesia / First International Conference on Art and Synesthesia in Europe', University of Almería, the International Foundation Artecittà, and Cuevas de Almanzora, Spain, 25-28 July 2005.
- Tele-Synaesthesia: the telematic future of the senses lecture by Dr. Hugo Heyrman, published in the 'Encyclopedia of Postmodernism', London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
- Say-Synaesthesia What is Synaesthesia? Are Synesthetes people of the future? Dr. Hugo Heyrman.
- The Senses overview of receptors: rod and cone cells, Dr. Hugo Heyrman.
- Synesthesia and Fuzzy Functions Dr. Hugo Heyrman.
- Synesthesia and Intersenses: Intermedia Dick Higgins with an Appendix by Hannah Higgins.
- David Hockney - The Colors of Music a film by Maryte Kavaliauskas and Seth Schneidman.
- Future Media Research Automated Synaesthesia, Nicholas Gaffney and Maja Kuzmanovic (FOAM).
- Synesthesia: role and meaning Zvi Rosenstein.
- Creativity and Sensation: the case for synaesthetic media John A. Waterworth.
- Eyes 'N Ears: a system for attentive teleconferencing Bill Kapralos, Centre for Vision Research, York University, North York.
- Edge The Reality Club, Third Culture, Digerati...
Tele-synaesthesia and new media art
- Fuzzy Dreamz a net.art project by Dr. Hugo. Explore the telematics of the mind, from fear to fun and the poetic power of a sense of wonder. A syntax of cinematic montage in relation to synaesthetic dream experiences.
- Sinnich Steffi Lindner created a wonderful website, inspired by Dr. Hugo's 'tele-synaesthesia'. You will learn more about synaesthesia by playing with your senses, anologies and associations.
- Foreign Correspondence is an ongoing project exploring arbitrary and absolute links between sound and light/image, liveness and playback by Rob Flint.
- Synaesthesia Movies exploring the possible relationships between sound and color & sound and form, Gerard Leckey, Concordia University, Montreal.
- Visual Poetry & Interactive Poems by Dr. Hugo.
- The Library, Multi: Multiple-user Laser Table Interface system to support a collaborative interactive synesthetic experience, by Nancy Paterson.
Synesthesia in poems and poetry
- The Wild Flower Song William Blake
- June Nights Victor Hugo
- Alone Edgar Allen Poe
- Correspondances Charles Baudelaire
- Dying Emily Dickinson
- À Rebours Joris-Karl Huysmans
- Voyelles Arthur Rimbaud
- The Tobacconist's Fernando Pessoa
- In Dream Anna Akhmatova
- Chapter Heading Ernest Hemingway
- Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov
- Poetry Pablo Neruda
- A Song Joseph Brodsky
- Hear me with your eyes Juana Inés de la Cruz
Synesthetes online
- Synaesthesia Sean A. Day
- Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their World Patricia Lynne Duffy
- Optimnem official site of Daniel Tammet, a high-functioning autistic savant
- Synesthesia at Lunarium.net Ariannel's Syn
- Synaesthesia Elizabeth A. Pector, M.D.
- Letter-Color Synesthesia Cassidy Curtis
- Synesthete perspectives Carol Steen
- Retroglobe -- Synaesthesia Christian Liljeberg
- Synesthete perspectives Karen Chenausky
- Synesthesia - Really Deep Thoughts Leanne Meschwitz
- Synesthesia Rob Schurko
- Synaesthesia Sarah's Syn Site
- Mate Space: Synaesthesia Jennifer Maite
- Welcome to the world of synaesthesia James Wannerton
- Synaesthesia txilar
- Synäesthesieforum Regina Pautzke
- Synesthesia: the inter-relationships between the Arts, and future project Mª José de Córdoba
- New Age Harlot - how harlotry healed me a Blog by Mellisa Moon
- Synaesthesia Dianne Collier
- Synesthesia and photography Marcia Smilack, Reflectionist
- Synaesthete.com a site for people gifted with synaesthesia - a blending of sensual perception
- Synaesthesie.ch Marc J. Mächler
- I confess--I have synesthesia--do you? Holly Phaneuf
- My Special Synaesthesia Site Eckhard Freuwört
- Sinestesia – Italia Luana Donetti, a social network for italian synaesthetes.
Synesthesia, letters, numbers and colours
- Trends in colored letter synesthesia Sean A. Day.
- Synesthesia and Number/Letter Color Imagery Tony De Caprio.
Synesthesia, sound, music and colour- A Brief History of Synaesthesia and Music Sean A. Day.
- The Colour Museum Britain's one and only museum of colour.
- Synaesthesia a music visualization program, Paul Harrison.
- The dream of color music, and machines that make it possible William Moritz.
- Kristinn R Thorisson's Synthetic Synesthesia system Geometric Sound Mixer (GSM).
Synesthesia, new media and software
- u & i software MetaSynth.
- Rhythmic Light Fred Collopy.
- Synesthesia, Multimedia & the Caves of Altamira Rich Young.
Neuroscience, neuroesthetics and ethics- Institute of Neuroesthetics Prof. Semir Zeki, University College London & Berkeley, California.
Dr. Hugo Heyrman, life and works- Biography
- The paintings, a chronology
- Personal exhibitions
- Selected group exhibitions & online art projects
- Mobile Museum of Modern Media
- Artworker Foundation
- Artworker Star
- Happenings in Belgium
- Collections
- Selected Bibliography
- Wikipedia Entry