Neurontic

Let's raise a glass to Alex

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:48:34 -0500

Tonight, I'm holding my own private Irish wake for Alex, the extraordinary parrot. (Pass the Bushmill's, folks. This is going to be a tearjerker.)

Alex, an African Gray parrot, whose linguistic prowess put many-a-kindergartner to shame, is dead at the tender age of 31 of unknown causes. (In case you haven't been studying up on avian lifespan, large parrots can live to be over 80.) If this strikes you as less than tragic than I'm willing to bet that a) you have a heart of stone, or b) you were unaware of Alex's intellectual gifts. If you fall into the latter category, allow me to get you up to speed . . .

Alex was no ordinary parrot. He had a job. He worked with Brandeis Psychology Professor Irene Pepperberg trying to unravel the mysteries of animal cognition. And he managed quite a lot in his short time on earth, including mastering over 100 words. He accomplished so much, in fact, that he earned a spot on Wikipedia. That's more than you can say for most grad students, let alone parrots.

What did he do exactly? I think Temple Grandin tells it best in her book "Animals in Translation:"

[Alex's] achievements are nothing short of revolutionary, because up until Alex came along no one had ever been able to teach birds much of anything at all. It wasn't because they hadn't tried, either. Bird researchers had spent hours and hours trying to teach birds concepts like color, and no bird had even come close . . . Birds seemed like real birdbrains.

So it was a huge shock when Irene Pepperberg succeeded where every single person before her had failed. Not only could Alex learn categories like color and shape . . . once he'd learned categories, he could spontaneously answer questions like 'What color?' and 'What shape?' about brand-new objects he'd never seen before.

And that's not where Alex's talents stopped. He was also a real cut up, as evidenced by the following story:

Not very long ago, Dr. Pepperberg began trying to teach Alex and another gray parrot, Griffin, to sound out phonemes, which are the sounds that letters and letter combinations represent. English has forty phonemes altogether. She and her colleagues wanted to see if the birds understood that words are made out of letters that could be recombined to make other words, so they started training the birds with magnetic refrigerator letters.

One day their corporate sponsors were visiting Dr. Pepperberg's lab, and she and her staff wanted to show off what Alex and Griffin could do. So they put a bunch of colored plastic refrigerator letters on a tray and started asking Alex questions.

"Alex, what sound is blue?"

Alex made the sound "Sssss." That was right; the blue letter was 'S.'

Dr. Pepperberg said, "Good birdie," and Alex said, "Want a nut," because he was supposed to get a nut whenever he gave the right answer. But Dr. Pepperberg didn't want him sitting there eating the nut during the limited time she had with their sponsors, so she told Alex to wait, and then asked, "What sound is green?"

The green example was the letter combination "SH" and Alex said, "Shhhh." He was right again.

Dr. Pepperberg said, "Good parrot," and Alex said, "Want a nut."

But Dr. Pepperberg said, "Alex wait. What sound is orange?"

Alex got that one right, too, and he still didn't get his nut . . . Alex was obviously getting more frustrated by the minute.

Finally, Alex lost patience.

Here's the way Dr. Pepperberg describes it: Alex gets very slitty-eyed and looks at me and states, 'Want a nut. Nnnn, uh, tuh."

Well, Alex, all I can say is thanks for having patience with us hardheaded humans. You will be missed.

And, at the risk of being accused of sappiness, I'd also like to send out my condolences to Dr. Pepperberg. Parrots mate for life and my hunch is that Dr. Pepperberg was Alex's chosen mate. I came to this conclusion after reading about an interchange between the two of them in "123 compute:"

"Calm down," Alex, an African Gray parrot, told Dr. Irene Pepperberg, the scientist at the University of Arizona who owns him. "Don't tell me to calm down," Dr. Pepperberg snapped. Sometimes Dr. Pepperberg and Alex squabble like an old married couple. He even says, "I love you."

That kind of devotion tends to cut both ways. So Dr. Pepperberg, I raise a glass to you too.

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Ask a Science Blogger: Are we happier in the summer?

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:10:58 -0500

My gut response after reading this question was: Well, duh--obviously, summer is more conducive to happiness. I mean, you can make a good case for the virtues of spring and fall, but they're really less seasons than they are opening acts. And apart from Christmas and skiing, winter doesn't have a whole lot to recommend it. Nope. If you're ranking seasons, summertime is the clear winner. Summer=hot sun, slow, quiet afternoons, and water-logged family vacations. What more does a human being need to be happy, apart from an air-conditioner and an ample supply of snacks?

Proving my theory seemed simple enough. All I had to do was find out the "happiness ratings" of people lucky enough to live in the handful of politically stable locales that enjoy perpetual summer. It stood to reason that the happiest people on earth would live in places like Hawaii, Belize, and the Bahamas, right?

Not so much, as it turns out. In fact, researchers at the University of Leicester recently performed a meta-analysis of surveys on well-being and satisfaction, and after totaling up 80,000 responses from people across the globe, they found that the four happiest places on earth are: Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and - wait for it - Iceland. Viewed through this lens, it appears that happiness has far less to do with sun than it does with beer consumption and good healthcare.

Now, I'm a fan of both beer and state-subsidized medicine, but this just seems wrong. The sun has to have something to do with well-being, doesn't it? The answer is: Sort of. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that the sun makes people happier--but only if they're depressed to begin with. For instance, exposure to the sun or other sources of light does wonders for people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a syndrome that causes 4 percent to 6 percent of the general population to go into a deep funk in the winter months.

Sidenote: I know what you're thinking. If you buy the argument that a lack of sun contributes to SAD, wouldn't people in places like Switzerland and Denmark be more prone to SAD and therefore-well, you know . . . sadder? Again, the answer is frustratingly inconclusive. If you look at the world as a whole, people at higher latitudes, who experience fewer hours of daylight in winter, do as a rule have higher rates of SAD, but there's a huge amount of variation from country to country.

Denmark, for instance, has a relatively high rate of SAD, 12.4 percent, as do the northern reaches of New York State, 12.5 percent. But the Swiss oddly have a rate of only 2.2 percent and they aren't much lower than Denmark latitude-wise. Iceland, which is extremely far north, has a rate of just 3.6 percent. Scientists speculate that Icelanders have developed a genetic immunity to SAD, but the truth is that no one really knows what the heck is going on. (Want to tie your brain in a knot? Here's the source of these stats.)

The question remains: Why does sunlight, and thus summer, do wonders for some of us? When sunlight hits your skin it triggers the production of Vitamin D. Some scientists speculate that a small portion of the population depends on Vitamin D to stay emotionally afloat, because several studies have shown that a deficit of Vitamin D is correlated with a dip in mood. (See here and here.)

But sunlight's no one-trick pony. In addition to spurring the production of Vitamin D, it also suppresses the production of melatonin, the chemical that regulates our body clocks when the seasons change. (For more on this read SciBlogger Nick Anthis's recent piece " A Sun Ray A Day . . .) Some researchers theorize that in winter months, the lack of sunlight screws with people's internal clocks, compromises their sleep patterns, and leaves them vulnerable to depression.

But that's not all. Still other researchers claim that sunlight ups the amount of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin - for those of you who've managed to blip over the media hype - is the neurotransmitter many scientists believe to be the culprit behind depression. According to this theory, some people's depressive symptoms are alleviated when the sun is out, because their serotonin-manufacturing system kicks into a high gear.

So which is it? At this point, researchers are confident that melatonin plays a role in Seasonal Affective Disorder, but beyond that, we don't know. SAD might be a genetic vulnerability activated by a combination of all of the above. Science is still figuring that out.

In meantime, if you find yourself falling into an emotional morass come winter, it's safe to say a vacation in the tropics won't hurt. As for the rest of you, might I recommend a frosty beer and some socialized medicine?

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Please pardon the self promotion, but . . .

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 16:15:39 -0500

I thought Neurontic readers might be interested in this profile I recently did of Radio Lab Host Jad Abumrad.

If you don't know about WNYC's cult "science" show yet, you should take the time to listen to it. Why? Because as Jad says: "The people who listen to Radio Lab like that feeling of thinking that they know something and then suddenly having their perspective just shift." And I'd be willing to bet that describes most of you.

**For the uninitiated, here are links to a couple of my favorite episodes of the show. (Note: Fellow Seed Blogger Jonah Lehrer of The Frontal Cortex is a contributor!):

Who Am I? (Featuring the one, the only: V.S. Ramachandran.)
Emergence (Featuring Stephen Johnson.)

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SILLY SCIENCE THURSDAY

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:31:27 -0500

Late Breaking News

*Orangutans Communicate As If They Were Playing Charades

Hmmm, so let me get this straight. It looks like he's saying: "Give me a banana." But what he's really saying is: "It's Boogie Nights, you f%$#ing moron." Okay, got it.

*Also, you'll be thrilled to know that researchers at the University of Austin have finally done the math and it turns out that there are not 100 . . . not 200 . . . but 237 distinct reasons that people have sex.

Yeah. For reals: 237. It's science, people.

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Yet Another Compelling Reason Not to Work So Hard

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:29:47 -0500

"We saw that the group with high level of leisure activities presented 38% less risk of developing Alzheimer's symptoms."

Dr. Yaakov Stern, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology, at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, New York.

Read this interview with Dr. Stern on Sharp Brains, to learn more about building up your "cognitive reserves."

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Today's Guest Blogger Reviews: The Lucifer Effect

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:38:15 -0500

This week I think we could all use a brief reprieve from me and my opinions, so I'm running a review of Phillip Zimbardo's book The Lucifer Effect, written by the wickedly smart (and just plain wicked) writer Carey Bertolet.

Bio

Kid-friendly version: Carey Bertolet is an avid reader because she enjoys challenging concepts and sitting on her caboose. When not at work, Carey is the host of her own imaginary cooking show as well as the co-producer of "the Boo Radley Show," her miniature pinscher's imaginary late night talk show. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband who is recapturing his youth by wearing edgy t-shirts.

Adult version: Carey Bertolet is the Founding Managing Director of BCG Attorney Search, a legal recruitment agency dedicated to placing attorneys in private law firms. A graduate of Vanderbilt University and Emory Law School, Carey is a frequent speaker and writes often about hiring trends, the New York marketplace, and the life and work styles of private practice attorneys.

*Note: I can personally attest to the fact that both are equally true.

Almost Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Evil and a Whole Lot More
By Carey Bertolet

In the 2006 book The Lucifer Effect, Dr. Philip Zimbardo, designer and "master of ceremonies," of the Stanford Prison Experiment, finally takes pen to paper and describes the ins and outs of his landmark study, which took a group of ostensibly sane Stanford undergraduates, consigned them to a mock prison as inmates and guards, and watched their psyches unravel over the course of their short stay.

Having spent the better part of the last 35 years contemplating the debacle he almost single-handedly engineered, Zimbardo has not shortage of thoughts on the subject. What results is a long-winded, seemingly unedited book that is less a treatise than a jumble of absolutely fascinating stuff. I was resolute in learning everything I could from The Lucifer Effect, but my experience of reading the book was mixed: At the end of the day, it felt a little like eating cheese fries in the middle of a dodge ball tournament. I loved everything I could internalize, but I was too over-stimulated to concentrate.

For the uninitiated, I'll do my best to sum up the purpose and eventual fallout of the Stanford Prison Experiment. The SPE was designed to study the social psychology of individuals in a prison environment. Zimbardo, a Stanford University psychologist, recruited a group of college students to participate in what he and his team hoped would be a 2-week paid experiment. As Zimbardo points out at every opportunity, these students were intelligent, law-abiding young men, who were carefully screened and chosen because they were deemed well-adjusted citizens. After passing their psych evaluations, half of the participants were randomly assigned the role of prisoners; the other half were made guards.

Once plunked down in the prison, the students quickly started exhibiting--well--let's just say "troubling" behavior. Without being given any direction to speak of, those assigned to the guard role became authoritarian, abusive, and in some instances, extremely creative in their cruelty. The prisoners, in contrast, fell relatively easily into submissive roles, allowing their individual identities to completely disappear into the prisoner "stereotype." (The researchers also got a little too enthusiastic about their roles as administrators and insisted on keeping the prison open even after the behavior inside it qualified as dangerously unhealthy.)

Zimbardo is quick to point out that the subjects were typical, healthy students before entering the SPE. And, in what seems an overly defensive postscript, he points out that these subjects returned to 'normal' once the study was over. (We get it, Dr. Zimbardo, no undergraduates were harmed in the making of the SPE.) But regardless of how transient the moral turpitude was, the SPE got ugly in a hurry. Some of the subjects assigned to the guard role decided on their own in less than a week to run a prison where sleep deprivation, verbal abuse, and solitary confinement were de rigeur. And while some of the guards were uncomfortable with the environment of escalating abuse, no one tried to stop it.

Here's the thing: Sometimes an author just doesn't have the knack for subtlety. Sometimes an author puts on an orange safety vest and jumps up and down until you are forced to acknowledge him. Yes, Dr. Zimbardo? You have something to say?

It's abundantly clear that Zimbardo wants us to be reminded of Nazi Germany and the human race's capacity to sit by silently while atrocities are committed. You know how I know? Because he told me--a lot. This is just like Nazis! he says. And Abu Ghraib! It's eerily like the pictures from Abu Ghraib. These aren't bad apples, Zimardo tells us, they're good apples in bad barrels.

To be clear, Zimbardo isn't linking bad apples and oranges. He argues that the environment created in his mock prison caused otherwise good people to go bad. And he makes a compelling case that the behavior of the SPE participants is not unlike the transgressions of the Abu Ghraib soldiers who have been universally condemned. Zimbardo makes clear that the road to perdition is shorter than we'd like to think. We all come pre-equipped with an EZ pass. Still, even after 500 pages (yeah--500 hundred), I couldn't shake the feeling that there is something too simplistic about creating a laundry list of human atrocities and chalking them all up to "bad barrels."

I picked up The Lucifer Effect because I've always wanted a definitive answer to the question: Can a human being be innately evil or is evil a byproduct of experience? Unfortunately, Zimbardo didn't get me any closer to answering the question. (To be fair, that wasn't his goal.) What he did do is convince me that even the best among us are corruptible given the right set of circumstances.

One of the biggest problems with The Lucifer Effect is that Zimbardo understands how important his work is. He's fully aware that his musings are destined to become a part of the historical record. The result is that he tries to make too many important points too loudly and too often for the casual psychology enthusiast to enjoy the experience of reading his book.

I frankly wish Zimbardo had written several books. The SPE is a worthwhile topic on its own. (I would even buy tickets to a dramatization starring Henry Rollins as the tough talking prison warden, with me in a minor role as an unassuming inmate. But I digress.) And I would dutifully head over to Barnes and Noble to purchase his follow-up book on the parallels between his experiment and Nazi Germany and Abu Ghraib. What I don't want is a book about all of the above and that's what I got.

Still, even though Zimbardo gives us too much, too sloppily in The Lucifer Effect, the book is brimming with truly interesting material. I find myself talking about what I learned all the time. For all the criticism I have of the book, I wouldn't have finished it if Zimbardo hadn't convinced me that he knew something I needed to know.

I'm putting Philip Zimbardo on my list of people I'd invite to my house for dinner. I just hope he gets the hint when it's time to leave.

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Domestic Goddesses

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:41:51 -0500

Having been raised in California - birthplace of est, vegan bacon, and aerobics - I grew up thinking of life less as an "adventure" than as a relentless self-improvement campaign. Oh, don't get me wrong, I got more than my fair share of personal affirmation at home, but no matter how special my parents insisted I was, the prevailing message of the culture around me was that with a little work I could be "specialer"--or at the very least skinnier, healthier, and more well-adjusted.

I figured out relatively early on that this was a losing battle, but it has still left me with irrational feelings of guilt at failing to meet my "optimum potential," which is why this article - Does self-help breed helplessness? - immediately caught my interest.

The article is an interview with Jennifer Niesslein, an otherwise sane woman who spent two years dutifully following the advice of a smorgasbord of self-professed self-help experts only to come out the other end ten pounds lighter and markedly more jaded. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'll tell you that: a) I haven't read the book, and b) I don't intend to. Not because it doesn't look like an entertaining piece of armchair scholarship, just because the review was enough to clear my conscience. Yet another author has dipped her toe into the self-improvement pond and come away feeling more psychically damaged and exhausted than improved. (See. I was right all along.)

Still, one passage in the article did get me to thinking. I'll quote the section here:

Interviewer: I found it interesting that you mention in both your marriage chapter and your housecleaning and organizing chapter that most of the burden of improvement tends to fall on the woman.

Niesslein: Self-help is very old-school in that way. I think it's changing, in the same way that our culture is changing -- women are moving into the traditional men's realm, but it's taking a lot more time for men to move into the traditional women's realm, into the domestic stuff . . . But housecleaning and relationship advice is still very much targeted to women."

This idea may seem blindingly obvious to the female readers out there, but it isn't one that you see written about very often, and I'm glad to see it finally being introduced into the public discourse. Because it's true: In recent decades, women have successfully moved from the private to the public sphere, but the reverse doesn't seem to be happening as quickly as it should.

Modern men are now perfectly content to see their wives become breadwinners in their own right--but the majority of them seem loath to accept an equal share of responsibility for the "domestic duties," traditionally assigned to women. The result is that most of the professional women I know spend a good chunk of their leisure time trying to motivate the "enlightened" men in their lives to pick up their socks, do the dishes, and take out the garbage. And when they're not haranguing their men about the chores, they're often performing what I call "relationship upkeep duties,"--hounding their partners to talk about their feelings, and address the small resentments building up in the relationship.

Now, call me a militant feminist if you want, but does this sound "leisurely" to you?

When you keep this domestic imbalance in mind, it seems clear why a recent study of married couples, conducted by Iowa State University researchers, found that: "Wives, on average, exhibit greater situational power [at home]."

On its face, this may sound like good news, but I'd argue that it's just more evidence of the fact that the onus for relationships and home life is placed squarely on the shoulders of women. Consider this statement by Assistant Professor Megan Murphy, the woman who spearheaded the research: "Women are responsible for overseeing the relationship -- making sure the relationship runs, that everything gets done, and that everybody's happy."

If this is true, it's no wonder that women tend to "dominate" the home. After all, if they didn't, who would ensure that "everything gets done" and that "everybody's happy?" Hmmm? I'm willing to bet that most women would be more than willing to relinquish this "power" given the opportunity.

I'm not looking to vilify the modern American man here. Hell--I love the modern American man (particularly the one I live with). But I think that this imbalance is taking its toll on women's well-being and I do wonder whether being overburdened is one of the many factors contributing the high rate of depression among women.

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New SciBling: Neurophilosophy

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:55:48 -0500

Check out the latest edition of Encephalon at Neurophilosophy and note his new home! Welcome to the fold, Mo. We're happy to have you.

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Baby Love

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:00:37 -0500

I'm a firm believer in the idea that the world can be broken up into two kinds of people: Those who purchase motivational posters festooned with baby animals and those who laugh at them. I've always placed myself firmly in the latter category. Does this make me a misanthropic killjoy? Maybe. But I'm willing to live with that, which is why I find it so odd that I've become completely and utterly addicted to Cute Overload.

Given that the site won this year's Best American Weblog Award, I'm guessing you've heard of it. But perhaps, you (unlike me) have better things to do with your time than croon at the computer screen, so here's the deal: Cute Overload is a clearing house for all things cute, namely puppies, kittens, gamboling lambs, bunnies with floppy ears, thumb print-sized turtles and the like. What do you do there, you ask? You luxuriate in warm, fuzzy feelings, while admiring the unrelenting cuteness of it all, of course.

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8 Things of Absolutely No Consequence to Anybody But Me

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:08:44 -0500

Bora tagged me--and, as we all know, saying no to Bora means courting bad karma. So, we're gonna play a game. I will tell you 8 things about myself likely better left unsaid (see below) and then I will tag 8 other people and try to persuade them to do the same. Why? It's about sharing, people.

Superfluous Information About the Author:

1) I once worked as a Call Box Operator. That person who told you to remain calm and wait for the highway patrol coulda been me. No joke.
2) I will watch any iteration of Pride and Prejudice no matter how stupid. I love it that much.
3) Left to my own devices, I would salt everything. Seriously.
4) I have a tattoo. It means 'light,' just like my name. It's a reminder.
5) Sleeping is one of my favorite things.
6) If "professional reader" was a job, I would totally do it.
7) I sing show tunes almost constantly.
8) When I was seven I ran away from home and left my mother this note:

To Mom,
I am not coming home I hope you liked me when I was there. I have
two pets now and they are my freinds I have a freid at the shop I
like very mech and I have all your money I hope you don't miss me
at all but if you do thats all right to.

I'm convinced I will one day pay for this.

I tag:
Alvaro at Sharp Brains
Johan at The Phineas Gage Fan Club
MC at Neurophilosophy
Orac at Respectful Insolence
Lizzie at Madam Fathom
Jonah at The Frontal Cortex
Steve at Omni Brain
Sandeep at The Mousetrap

The Rules:

1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been
tagged.

Yes . . . it is a glorified chain letter . . . but that doesn't mean it can't be good times!

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Time for a little TED

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 16:19:54 -0500

I know, I know--you're tired of looking at my toast. I'm sorry. What can I say? I just started a new job at MarketWatch - yes, Dow Jones' MarketWatch - the electronic financial broadsheet many predict will soon be owned and operated by the man Americans love to hate almost as much as W. and his henchmen: Rupert Murdoch.

I can't say I'm proud that my checks may soon be signed by the man responsible for keeping Bill O'Reilly in bread and butter. But, in my defense, when I accepted the job, it really looked like the Bancroft's were going to tell the media tyrant to buzz off. Now - well - not so much. Oy.

On the flip side, I am working for a consummate professional - one of the lions of financial journalism and an old school gentleman to boot - Marshall Loeb. Among other things, Marshall was the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journalism Review and the head of Fortune. These days, he's a senior columnist for the folks at MarketWatch. But that's just part of his job. Every six months or so he picks a new mentee. This time he picked me. Color me stunned.

Marshall's been keeping me so busy for the last couple of weeks, I haven't had as much time to devote to the blog--hence the sorry lack of content . . . and the toast.

What does this have to do with neuroscience and psychology, you ask? Quite frankly, not very much, so let's get on with it already.

The TED archives: Fun with experts

For the uninitiated, the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Conference is a semi-annual get together for "remarkable people that gather to exchange ideas of incalculable value." Yes, I'm aware that sounds off-puttingly pretentious, but try not to let it get in your way. TED speakers are generally the best and the brightest in their fields--and their fields are wide ranging. The all-star list includes thinkers as diverse as Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Malcolm Gladwell, Robert Wright and Stephen Levitt (the funniest economist I've ever encountered).

For a long time, this intellectual orgy was member-only, meaning you had to pay a staggering fee to attend. Now, many of the TED talks are available on line for free, and it's worth taking the time to watch some of them.

I particularly enjoyed Harvard Psychologist Daniel Gilbert's presentation on his bestseller Stumbling on Happiness. I, like virtually everyone else in the country, bought Gilbert's book, read the first 50 pages, got distracted and forgot about it. (I blame it on self-diagnosed adult onset ADD.) If you want to get a sense of Gilbert's work, without going through the effort of actually reading, I'd highly recommend watching this.

**Gilbert gets extra bonus points for citing a brilliant quote by Adam Smith (the father of modern capitalism), a man who is not noted in the history books for his psychological insight, far as I know:

The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to arise for over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Some of these situations may no doubt deserve to be preferred to others, but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly or by the remorse for the horror of our own injustice.

Okay, it's not exactly poetical, but it is insightful.

And this demonstration by Software Architect Blaise Aguera will make all you Sci-Fi junkies out there think you've died and gone to heaven. (Hang in there. It take a couple of minutes to get to the really good stuff.)

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Apropos of Nothing At All

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 11:42:39 -0500

Question 1
What do the toaster companies have against rye bread?

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

Question 2:
How does The Times Magazine's in-house interviewer Deborah Solomon continue to land interviews with the newsworthy and notable?

Case in point: An excerpt from this week's Q&A with the creator of HBO's Entourage.

DS: I assume your milieu was less flashy than the one in "Entourage."

Doug Ellin: My father is an accountant. Growing up on Long Island, I'd have one basketball for seven years. There was no grip left on this basketball. I don't want to sound like I had a cheap father. He was not cheap, but he was very against waste.

DS: What advantage did that give you?

Doug Ellin: None.

DS: Great. Tell that to your analyst.
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Love is 'On the Air'

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 08:25:55 -0500

Just a quick note to let all you fellow Brooklynites know about a "singles mixer" (those are ironic quotes) being put on by the brilliant minds behind Radio Lab "the science show for people who think they don't like science."

The formula behind the festivities? "Chemistry + Biology + Radio = Love...or something like it." Sounds good, no?

The evening will be emceed by Radio Lab host Jad Abumrad who promises to:

[combine] the latest lab results from the leading edge of neurological research with breathtaking tales of surprising romance . . . And to help your biological drives out a little [by setting] up a few fun and easy ways to get singles meeting and mingling."

The event will be held tomorrow night, June 7, at the Brooklyn Brewery at 7:00pm. Tickets are $40 at the door and include *free beer* and nibbles.

This thing promises to put speed dating to shame! Who knows, Regular Radio Lab contributor Jonah Lehrer of the Frontal Cortex may even make a cameo.

For more info, call (212) 669-3333.

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In Search of Synergy

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 12:59:38 -0500

Charlie Rose recently ran a show billed as "A discussion about the legacy of Sigmund Freud." I'd urge anyone interested in the impact of neuroscience on psychotherapeutic practice to take the time to watch it.

The title is a bit misleading. It's less a discussion of Freud's contributions than it is a free wheeling conversation about how the fields of neuroscience and psychotherapy are beginning to overlap--and, perhaps more importantly, how understanding the biology of the brain promises to revolutionize the practice of psychotherapy.

The participants are seriously heavy hitters: There's Nobel prize winning neurologist Eric Kandel, Aaron Beck, the inventor of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Steven Roose, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia (who is valiantly trying bring our increased biological knowledge of the brain to bear in the actual treatment of patients), and Peter Fonagy, Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis at University College London.

Those familiar with Kandel's work know him as a pioneer in the physiological study of memory. What you may not know is that Kandel started his career as a psychoanalyst and didn't find his way into a lab until he grew interested in locating "the id, ego, and super ego" in the brain. Once there, he discovered just how far away science was from achieving this goal, but it didn't matter. He was already hooked.

These days, Kandel is a scientist through and through, and is quick to dismiss his credentials as a psychoanalyst. None the less, he is one of the few neuroscientists I know of whose journey began in the therapeutic arena, and he has a high regard for its practitioners--having once been one himself.

Nearing the end of a very productive career, Kandel has found a new mission. He wants to promote cross-disciplinary collaboration between neuroscientists and therapists. And he appears to have assembled this group of thinkers (and instigated the show) in order to diffuse his message.

Here are some of the questions they explore:

*How has psychoanalytic theory held up? How has it changed? How has it evolved?

*How did Freud revolutionize our understanding of the human brain? And what did he get flat out wrong?

*Can neuroscience allow therapeutic practitioners to sort through the competing "psychoanalytic theories of mind," throw out the trash, and determine empirically what works?

*What makes cognitive behavioral therapy so different?

*How long will we have to wait for the psychoanalytic gatekeepers to embrace the idea that the scientific method can help them achieve better results?

If you, like me, came to the study of neuroscience only after becoming frustrated with the fuzzy thinking behind many therapeutic models, you're bound to enjoy this program.

I, for one, fully support Kandel's vision. I'd love to live long enough to see the "marriage of psychoanalysis and neuroscience." But I realize that it's a long way off. At the moment, the two fields are just "dating," as Fonagy says. Here's hoping they find true love.

(Hat tip to Mind Hacks.)

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Dear Neurontic

Sat, 19 May 2007 06:15:15 -0500

I'm told I went out last night and that many beers were consumed, but I have no memory of the event. Why does too much hooch make us forget? And does the fact that I "blacked out" mean I should reserve a place in rehab?

Sincerely,
Chastened Boozehound

Dear Boozehound,

You probably never thought you'd have anything in common with the main character from Memento, but, guess what? Now you do. See, Leonard was suffering from a condition known as anterograde amnesia brought on by severe head trauma, which kept him from transferring new experiences into long-term memories. His memories of everything that happened prior to his brain injury remained in tact, but that's where time stopped for Leonard. He carried on living, but none of his new experiences made it into the proverbial hard drive. Leonard woke up each morning as the same person he was the day of his attack.

Blackouts can be understood as temporary bouts of anterograde amnesia--they are hiccups in your personal chronology brought on by excessive drinking. They come in two flavors: fragmentary and en bloc. Fragmentary blackouts result in the loss of slices of time, as the name suggests. Like a television with bad reception, your ability to retain memories weaves in and out, leaving you with a spotty recollection of events. An en bloc blackout -- the kind you experienced -- is characterized by the failure to retain any information about a particular block of time. You, like Leonard, woke up this morning with a significant gap in your personal history.

Blackouts are often confused with "passing out," but there's a key difference. Passing out results in a loss of consciousness, whereas when you black out, you appear totally cognizant. People are often highly functional when blacked out and can even accomplish cognitively demanding tasks, like driving (though I fervently hope you won't try this at home), they just won't recollect anything they've done.

At present, scientists believe that alcohol compromises memory formation by interrupting normal processing in the hippocampus. Recent studies have shown that ethanol suppresses "the activity of pyramidal cells," in the region of the hippocampus known as CA1, and disrupts long-term potentiation, the biochemical process responsible for creating memories. As scary as this sounds, the deficit in function is temporary and blackouts haven't been correlated with long-term cognitive problems. The amount of alcohol required to bring about a blackout varies from person to person, which makes it impossible to come up with an "anti-blackout formula." But blackouts appear to be triggered by a rapid increase in "blood-alcohol concentration," so try to avoid drinking cocktails in large gulps or in quick succession.

As for whether last night's debauchery destines you for a stint at Betty Ford, the answer is: Not unless this type of behavior becomes customary. Blackouts have long been associated with alcoholism, but recent research indicates that the correlation may be circumstantial. Many alcoholics do blackout, but blacking out doesn't necessarily mean you are an alcoholic. Scientists now believe that susceptibility to blackouts may be genetic. Of course, this doesn't give us unreformed drinkers free license to imbibe at will. Let's face it, no one wants to be like Leonard, even for a short time.

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