The Corpus Callosum

Objective Diagnosis Of PTSD Using Magnetoencephalography

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:08:41 -0500

Objective diagnosis is in some ways the holy grail of medicine. It has been maddeningly elusive in psychiatry. Now comes a paper in which the authors suggest that they may have found this treasure.

The paper details a method of using magnetoencephalography to assess human brain function. They claim that, in a select population, it can correctly identify patients with PTSD with 90% accuracy.

The synchronous neural interactions test as a functional neuromarker for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): a robust classification method based on the bootstrap
A P Georgopoulos et al 2010 J. Neural Eng. 7 016011

Abstract. Traumatic experiences can produce post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which is a debilitating condition and for which no biomarker currently exists (Institute of Medicine (US) 2006 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Diagnosis and Assessment (Washington, DC: National Academies)). Here we show that the synchronous neural interactions (SNI) test which assesses the functional interactions among neural populations derived from magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings (Georgopoulos A P et al 2007 J. Neural Eng. 4 349-55) can successfully differentiate PTSD patients from healthy control subjects. Externally cross-validated, bootstrap-based analyses yielded >90% overall accuracy of classification. In addition, all but one of 18 patients who were not receiving medications for their disease were correctly classified. Altogether, these findings document robust differences in brain function between the PTSD and control groups that can be used for differential diagnosis and which possess the potential for assessing and monitoring disease progression and effects of therapy.

The synchronous neural interactions test is a test that is done by having persons perform a simple task, while the magnetic signals from their brain are being measured. The process is called magnetoencephalography. The resulting record is called a magnetoencephalogram (MEG). It is similar to an electroencephalogram (EEG). The difference is that the EEG measures small electric currents. The MEG measures magnetic impulses. These impulses are only slightly affected by the intervening tissue (skull, skin, etc). Therefore, it is possible to get readings that are more precise. The downside is that it requires a more elaborate device, and a special, magnetically-shielded, room. Very few of these devices exist.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Google Chrome on Opensuse 11.2

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:31:27 -0500

I decided to try using Google Chrome as a web browser. The reason is that it is supposed to be faster, particularly for sites that make heavy use of Flash. It turns out that installing it is a hassle if you do it the obvious way, because Flash does not work without fiddling around. That sort of defeats the purpose.

The easier way is to use the one-click install at:
http://software.opensuse.org/ymp/ope...2/chromium.ymp.

This adds the necessary repositories, downloads the application, and configures it so that flash works right away.

It seems to work pretty well. It remains to be seen, however, if Chrome has any chance of becoming my main browser. After all, the first browser I used was NCSA Mosaic, which morphed into Netscape Navigator, which went through several iterations, then became the basis for Firefox. I just followed along. After 17 years, it might be hard to change.

Read the comments on this post...

Glaxo Patent Giveaway: Charity or "Theft"?

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:23:02 -0500

I saw this headline on Google Fast Flip, and had to read it. I'm always game for an anti-big-pharma story: even though I appreciate their efforts to relieve suffering, I do like to take notice of their shadier practices.

Is Glaxo's Charity Really Theft?
Jan 20 2010, 5:30 pm
by Daniel Indiviglio

Is there a fine line? Corporations have a duty to shareholders to maximize profits. But when they donate to charity -- which is regularly done these days, often through foundations -- this takes money out of shareholders' hands or stifles future growth. It instead provides that money to some cause that management deems appropriate. But Glaxo-SmithKline's recent decision to put thousands of chemical compounds which may cure malaria into the public domain gives this question a new dimension, adding additional complexity...

The story does not go where I expected. It is not talking about some kind of charity scam, in which they get PR karma for doing something that really only benefits themselves. Rather, the story is about the fact that Glaxo is releasing some of the compounds it has developed, into the public domain.

Indiviglio's story is posted on the Atlantic business blog. It is based upon an article in the (UK) Guardian. The Guardian version is reasonably thoughtful, whereas the Atlantic version is frankly offensive.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Why should the city be a concrete desert?

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:17:02 -0500

Susanne Sternthal, a writer based in Moscow, has published an article about the ecology of stray dogs. The article is in Financial Times, of all places. Why is that?

Moscow's stray dogs
By Susanne Sternthal
January 16 2010 00:04

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Comments on the Morphine-for-PTSD Article

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:39:50 -0500

I've been mulling this over for a few days, finally deciding to write about it. There was an article in the NYT on 13 January 2010 about an NEJM article:

Morphine May Help Traumatic Stress
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: January 13, 2010

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

What Hath Geology Wrought?

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:53:29 -0500

The earthquake in Haiti is only the most recent in a series of catastrophes stretching back over two centuries. It was not always like this. Haiti, in fact, was once the most prosperous colony in the New World. When it was a French colony, known as St. Domingue ( also called The Pearl of the Antilles), it generated more wealth that the 13 British colonies that were to become the United States.

Foreign Policy magazine has a timeline of the modern-day disasters that set the stage for the current humanitarian disaster.

The Unluckiest Country
The second-oldest republic in the Western Hemisphere has been wracked by coups, dictators, and foreign interventions throughout nearly its entire history. But you don't have to agree with Pat Robertson to agree that even by Haitian standards, the last few decades have been particularly tragic.
BY JOSHUA KEATING | JANUARY 14, 2010

The FP chronology describes: the Duvalier dictatorship, which was backed by the USA because of Duvalier's staunch anti-communist stance; the Aristide fiasco, also orchestrated by the USA; the 2004 floods, which the USA had no role in causing; the food riots of 2008, which arguably were partly due to USA policies; and the 2008 hurricanes.

What they do not mention, however, is the deeper background. How did Haiti get to be so poor, so lacking in wealth and resilience?

Anthropology Works gives an introduction:

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Possible New Nonaddictive Anti-Anxiety Drug

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:41:10 -0500

Those of us who watch the drug development pipeline have been pining for a nonaddictive anti-anxiety drug. Occasionally there are glimmers of hope. One candidate is emapunil, aka XBD-173 or AC-5216. In 2004, there was an article in the British Journal of Pharmacology about this. That article described promising findings, in rats and mice. Now, there is an article in Science that finally show some findings in humans.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Lawsuit Against Ca Science Center...

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:12:01 -0500

...for canceling the showing of a creationist film, Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record. The background is on Greg Laden's Blog, Los Angeles Venue Cancels Intelligent Design Film:

You'll recall that it was recently reported that the California Science Center, which is loosely affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, had planned a screening of "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record" which is apparently a creationist documentary.

Well, now, the venue has cancelled the showing and the ID people are all lathered up about it.

There is some dispute about the reason for the cancellation. Whatever the reason, the cancellation has spurred a lawsuit by the American Freedom Alliance against the California Science Center. The AFA issued a press release lauding themselves for their action. It's available in a PDF here.

As far as I can tell, the press release was not picked up by any serious news organizations, but it is out there on the Internet and on a few religious sites.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Happy Birthday, Linus

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:44:57 -0500

Today is the birthday of Linus Torvalds. That is all.

Read the comments on this post...

Digital Reconstruction: Color Images of Russian Empire

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:25:28 -0500

Thanks to a tip from a reader, for this one.

A photographer named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) made glass negatives in the early 1900's that could be used to create color images. He did this by inventing a camera that would take three different frames of the same scene, with different color filters (red, green blue) for each. He displayed the pictures via projection, using the same filters. Even though the negatives were only grayscale images, the result was comparable to that obtained using a color slide film, such as Kodachrome. As a result, we are able to see full-color images of an historical period that otherwise would be seen only in black-and-white.

He was not he first to do this. James Clerk Maxwell had developed the technique around 1861, but the results were not very good. Frederick Ives developed a commercially available version (the Kromogram) around 1897. The results were marginal: interesting, but hardly exciting. Below is an image produced in 1999 from a Kromogram.

In 1904 the Lumière Brothers came up with a way to produce color photographs using a single negative, with a complex emulsion. They called it the Autochrome. The problem with the Autochrome process was that the pixels were bulky, and the color definition was not very good.

Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii improved on prior art. His photos are reasonably sharp, even by modern standards, with what appears to be decent color rendition.

The original equipment is no longer available, and even if it were, it would not lend itself to presentation via the Internet. However, it was possible to reconstruct the images using digital technology.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Gone Hiking

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:24:25 -0500

Visiting with Kevin, went hiking in Soledad Canyon. The light was crazy, alterating between awful for photography, and interesting, but always challenging. When it stopped snowing and the wind wasn't blowing me around, I was able to get some decent pictures.

Read the comments on this post...

How To Save Electricity on Christmas

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:24:18 -0500

Nicely illustrated in this photo:

Thanks to Jim R., who doesn't have a blog to link.

Read the comments on this post...

A Wright Christmas

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:31:59 -0500

From Shorpy (Always Something Wonderful), this is a photo of the Christmas tree at the home of Wilbur and Orville Wright, in the year 1900.

Read the comments on this post...

When Trucks Stop, Hospitals Stop

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:49:40 -0500

One of the more enlightening and worrisome articles I read recently was The Perils of Efficiency, by James Surowiecki. The article was a discussion of the practical effects of the mathematical concept, that you can only optimize one variable in an complex system. So if you optimize for lowest cost per unit of production, you have to sacrifice something else. One of the things you sacrifice, is resilience.

Most managers of systems with a supply chain have adopted what is called just-in-time supply. That is, they only stock enough stuff to last until the next shipment is supposed to arrive. This lowers the cost of maintaining inventory. But it leaves the system vulnerable to disruptions of the supply chain.

The American Trucking Associations released a report a while back, When Trucks Stop, America Stops (HT: The Survival Mom). I understand that this is a promotional piece. The Trucking Associations want us to be on their side, in whatever lobbying and promotional efforts they may undertake. But it does highlight some serious concerns.

This matter was nearly tested a couple of years ago, when hurricanes significantly reduced the refining capacity in the Gulf of Mexico. We still had a lot of oil sitting around, but with a reduction in the ability to turn oil into diesel fuel and gasoline, shortages developed. It was not catastrophic, but a small deviation in the course of one of the hurricanes could have led to serious problems.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Felix the Cat

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:16:59 -0500

Today is the 90th anniversary of the first Felix the Cat cartoon.

1919-Felix The Cat - Feline Follies
Uploaded by iToons. - Watch more comedy videos and sitcoms.

Needless to say, it changed a lot over the years. In the 1960's, it was my favorite.

Read the comments on this post...