FINAL Mental Health Forum
Sorry about the distinct lack of posts lately – things have got a bit, well, mad around here over the last few weeks. And it’s not even the dissertation that’s doing it. Ergh.
But:
Are you free this afternoon? Fancy taking part in the LAST instalment of what has been an increasingly successful series of mental health forums?
The fifth and final in the Wax/Owen mental health forums is today! Come along to the Menier Chocolate Factory from 2-4pm to join in the discussion. Here comes the blurb…
Due to overwhelming demand Ruby Wax and Judith Owen’s show ‘Losing It’ will return to theMenier Chocolate Factory on 17th May until 18th June
SANE is delighted to announce that we will be holding a series of mental health forums as part of the latest run.
Download the Press Release.
Each week there will be an opportunity to listen to leading experts from the fields of psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience. Ruby Wax, Judith Owen and Marjorie Wallace founder and chief executive of SANE, will then join the expert for a question and answer session.
The schedule of speakers is as follows:
16th June – Camila Batmanghelidjh, Kids Company
This initiative follows on from the incredible success of Wax and Owen’s piece, ‘Losing It’. Here’s what the celebrities have been saying…
“This show is too important, too funny and thought-provoking, too touching and inspiring to miss. I recommend it wholeheartedly: it’s fabulous.”
Joanna Lumley
“Absolutely marvelous… Judith’s songs are beautiful.”
Ronnie Wood
“It’s ingeniuous and hysterical and blisteringly honest. Ruby Wax and Judith Owen explode the silence on mental illness, go where people have not dared to go before. They tell the tale that most want to pretend they have never experienced. And it’s reaaaaaally funny and you get wise at the same time. And if you are the depressed one, this is up there with Prozac with no known side effects.”
Helena Bonham Carter
Mental Health Forum #4
Are you free this afternoon? Fancy taking part in the next instalment of what has been an increasingly successful series of mental health forums?
The fourth in the Wax/Owen mental health forums is today! Come along to the Menier Chocolate Factory from 2-4pm to join in the discussion. Here comes the blurb…
Due to overwhelming demand Ruby Wax and Judith Owen’s show ‘Losing It’ will return to theMenier Chocolate Factory on 17th May until 18th June
SANE is delighted to announce that we will be holding a series of mental health forums as part of the latest run.
Download the Press Release.
Each week there will be an opportunity to listen to leading experts from the fields of psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience. Ruby Wax, Judith Owen and Marjorie Wallace founder and chief executive of SANE, will then join the expert for a question and answer session.
The schedule of speakers is as follows:
9th June – Professor Mark Williams, Clinical Psychologist, Oxford
16th June – Camila Batmanghelidjh, Kids Company
This initiative follows on from the incredible success of Wax and Owen’s piece, ‘Losing It’. Here’s what the celebrities have been saying…
“This show is too important, too funny and thought-provoking, too touching and inspiring to miss. I recommend it wholeheartedly: it’s fabulous.”
Joanna Lumley
“Absolutely marvelous… Judith’s songs are beautiful.”
Ronnie Wood
“It’s ingeniuous and hysterical and blisteringly honest. Ruby Wax and Judith Owen explode the silence on mental illness, go where people have not dared to go before. They tell the tale that most want to pretend they have never experienced. And it’s reaaaaaally funny and you get wise at the same time. And if you are the depressed one, this is up there with Prozac with no known side effects.”
Helena Bonham Carter
Do I know you?
Dissertation hell. OK, I say hell – it’s not that terrible. I could probably have made it a bit easier on myself by starting work in earnest a bit earlier in the year, but what’s done is done and I might as well just have a long hard slog now.
If you’ve read previous blog posts, then you will be aware that I’m writing my dissertation about a rare brain disorder called prosopagnosia – prosopagnosia is an inability to recognise people’s faces. I’ve been designing a battery of tests to test the extent of my patient’s deficits, including some face recognition tests, but also some voice and semantics tests, to see if her recognition problems run further than faces.
Designing the famous faces tests were fairly straight forward – google image search is a wonderful thing, and I am a dab-hand with photoshop (for cutting out the oval of the face – not for warping anything!). The only thing I struggled with there was actually just thinking up the names of enough famous people. I am useless with names.
Image from KatyB Photography
The semantics test was a little harder, although almost done – for that, the same problem applies, in that I’ve had to think up the names of 48 of each politicians, musicians, actors and sports personalities.
Finally, voice recognition. This is proving a real pain in the neck. Firstly, audio manipulation is not my “bag” – if anyone knows of a simple way to cut out a snippet of a sound clip, please let me know.
The second problem with finding suitable sound clips is the content of those clips – if I wanted the participant to identify a clip of Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking, I would want them to identify him by his VOICE, not by what he’s saying – it might well be that they know his films well, and could recognise the quote “I’ll be back”, but not necessarily by his own unique voice. So I have to be careful of the content of the clip – if I have a clip of Gordon Brown talking about the financial crisis, the participant might deduce “politics – Scottish male speaker – must be Brown”. That’s not the skill I’m looking to identify.
But on the bright side, once my tests are designed, the fun begins (ha ha). I can start running tests – I have one case study to test, and then I need preferably 10 age-matched female controls. In case you’re keen to help me with my research, you need to be between 37-47, female, white British and able to meet me in London for testing some time over the next couple of weeks. No time wasters 
Then the write-up begins, then I submit the draft for marking, then the re-write, then (hopefully!!) I graduate and then…? Then, ladies and gentleman, I likely have a nervous breakdown. Ha ha.
I’ll keep you posted.
Further Reading:
Mental Health Forum #3
Just a quick reminder, as I’m busy baking cakes for…:
The third in the Wax/Owen mental health forums is today! Come along to the Menier Chocolate Factory from 2-4pm to join in the discussion. Here comes the blurb…
Due to overwhelming demand Ruby Wax and Judith Owen’s show ‘Losing It’ will return to theMenier Chocolate Factory on 17th May until 18th June
SANE is delighted to announce that we will be holding a series of mental health forums as part of the latest run.
Download the Press Release.
Each week there will be an opportunity to listen to leading experts from the fields of psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience. Ruby Wax, Judith Owen and Marjorie Wallace founder and chief executive of SANE, will then join the expert for a question and answer session.
The schedule of speakers is as follows:
2nd June – Professor Shitij Kapur, Institute of Psychiatry
9th June – Professor Mark Williams, Clinical Psychologist, Oxford
16th June – Camila Batmanghelidjh, Kids Company
This initiative follows on from the incredible success of Wax and Owen’s piece, ‘Losing It’. Here’s what the celebrities have been saying…
“This show is too important, too funny and thought-provoking, too touching and inspiring to miss. I recommend it wholeheartedly: it’s fabulous.”
Joanna Lumley
“Absolutely marvelous… Judith’s songs are beautiful.”
Ronnie Wood
“It’s ingeniuous and hysterical and blisteringly honest. Ruby Wax and Judith Owen explode the silence on mental illness, go where people have not dared to go before. They tell the tale that most want to pretend they have never experienced. And it’s reaaaaaally funny and you get wise at the same time. And if you are the depressed one, this is up there with Prozac with no known side effects.”
Helena Bonham Carter
Mental Health Forum
OK, early start because I have an exam in a few hours, so sorry this post is brief.
I just wanted to remind you all that the second in the Wax/Owen mental health forums is today! Come along to the Menier Chocolate Factory from 2-4pm to join in the discussion. Here comes the blurb…
Due to overwhelming demand Ruby Wax and Judith Owen’s show ‘Losing It’ will return to theMenier Chocolate Factory on 17th May until 18th June
SANE is delighted to announce that we will be holding a series of mental health forums as part of the latest run.
Download the Press Release.
Each week there will be an opportunity to listen to leading experts from the fields of psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience. Ruby Wax, Judith Owen and Marjorie Wallace founder and chief executive of SANE, will then join the expert for a question and answer session.
The schedule of speakers is as follows:
19th May – Dr Mark Collins, Psychiatrist, Priory, Roehampton
26th May – Professor Lewis Wolpert, leading writer on depression
2nd June – Professor Shitij Kapur, Institute of Psychiatry
9th June – Professor Mark Williams, Clinical Psychologist, Oxford
16th June – Camila Batmanghelidjh, Kids Company
This initiative follows on from the incredible success of Wax and Owen’s piece, ‘Losing It’. Here’s what the celebrities have been saying…
“This show is too important, too funny and thought-provoking, too touching and inspiring to miss. I recommend it wholeheartedly: it’s fabulous.”
Joanna Lumley
“Absolutely marvelous… Judith’s songs are beautiful.”
Ronnie Wood
“It’s ingeniuous and hysterical and blisteringly honest. Ruby Wax and Judith Owen explode the silence on mental illness, go where people have not dared to go before. They tell the tale that most want to pretend they have never experienced. And it’s reaaaaaally funny and you get wise at the same time. And if you are the depressed one, this is up there with Prozac with no known side effects.”
Helena Bonham Carter
Waxing Lyrical
Yesterday saw the first in a series of Mental Health forums at the Menier Chocolate Factory, hosted by Ruby Wax, Judith Owens, and the folks from mental health charity SANE (whom I volunteer for).
We weren’t really sure how the afternoon was going to run – we just turned up with promotional materials and rather a lot of cake. After a “set up” (plastering said promotional materials around the theatre’s foyer), Ruby Wax appeared. She is quite full-on (you can gather that from seeing her on TV), but a genuinely friendly person.
The forum itself was preceded by a 30 minute “mingle” in the foyer, which I personally felt we could’ve done without – especially as we weren’t doing tea & cake until after the forum. The foyer before you go in is a little cosy, but with beautiful wooden beams and curios to keep your eyes occupied, you soon forget about any concerns about personal space.I felt like some audience members were just hanging around until the talk started, and maybe felt at a loose end. We’d said the forum would start at 2pm, but we didn’t actually go through to the theatre until 2:30.
The Menier Chocolate Factory is an adorable little theatre – an unusual building, with big wooden doors, it’s not somewhere I’d imagine going to see a performance. However, the theatre itself is an intimate space, allowing performers (or in this case, speakers) to communicate directly to their audience. My only criticism would lie with audience sight lines – something about the lay out of seats makes it very difficult for certain rows to see the stage.
Wax’s intro seemed a little unprepared, but her enthusiasm more than made up for it. The theme of the talk was depression as an ignored illness – the day’s guest speaker, Dr. Mark Collins (Wax’s own psychopharmacologist, or “drug dealer” as she called him), emphasised the fact that many people still deny depression even exists. He gave us a potted history of depression, what might cause it, how there’s no one cause, no one cure… I didn’t agree with everything he said (some stuff about lateralisation of brain function, but we won’t go there), but he was an excellent speaker.
An audience Q&A session followed, where we heard about some people’s own personal experiences of stigma and discrimination. Some was very difficult to hear, but some was actually pretty wonderful (for instance, the gallery owner who was helping one gentleman (suffering from mental illness) to get his artwork exhibited). Audience members also discussed alternative therapies, and the ongoing budget cuts that are crippling people’s lives.
Finally, we filed back out to the foyer for tea and cake, and a chance for people to talk to the SANE representatives about support options. Unfortunately, we didn’t get out to the tea and cake until about 3:35, and we had to be cleared up and gone by 4pm (as the theatre had to set up for that evening’s performance). Hopefully, now we know what the forums will entail, we can re-jig the setup, and make sure that there is plenty of time for refreshments and opportunities to talk to the folks at SANE.
However, if you do want to know more about mental health support in your area (in the UK), please don’t forget that SANE have a wonderful new website, a helpline, an email support service, and an online Support Forum.
There are FOUR more Mental Health Forums coming up over the next four weeks at the Menier Chocolate Factory. They are every Thursday, 2-4pm, and are entirely free to attend. It gives you an opportunity to find out more about mental illness, discuss issues with others, and talk to the guys at SANE, face-to-face. Find out more here.
I didn’t get a chance to go much further than the theatre itself, but the Menier Chocolate Factory also boasts an art gallery and a cute looking restaurant. Maybe next time..
Violent Video Games
As part of my assessment for my MSc, I have been doing a joint poster project with my friend Rebecca surrounding the topic of violent video games. Are violent video games really causing our kids to be more aggressive? I say “our” kids – I don’t have kids. But I WAS a kid. And I played violent video games. So did my brothers. I wouldn’t consider us to be particularly aggressive. Maybe we were boisterous kids, but that was arguably before the games, and plenty of people have boisterous kids.
Image from GeekWithLaptop.com
Anecdotal evidence, you say? Maybe. But some facts and figures from the US of A -
“According to the FBI in 2009,The arrest rate for juvenile murders has fallen 71.9% between 1995 and 2008. The arrest rate for all juvenile violent crimes has declined 49.3%. In this same period, video game sales have more than quadrupled. The FBI statistics show that video game sales have been on the rise, while all juvenile violent crimes have fallen in the same amount of time.”
From debate.org
OK, but that’s just someone saying a thing on a debating website, I hear you cry. I won’t lie: I’ve made no effort to track down that report from the FBI. It could be made up. This is the internet, afterall. EDIT: Oh look, found it.
You might have read some news articles talking about a correlation between violent video gameplay and subsequent aggressive behaviour in children. Bollocks to that, is what I say. Correlation, as any good scientist knows, does not equate to causation. It might be that children that already have an aggressive disposition are more likely to be drawn to play violent games in the first place. They see violent games as a way of directing their aggression, which surely is no bad thing. We don’t see a correlation between calm kids and violent video gamplay, maybe because calm kids don’t get attracted to play violent video games (they’d much rather play bonkers colourful games like Katarmari Forever or Hamster Ball.)
And what about extraneous variables? Studies that show these correlations tend to ignore the children’s family history, or trait violence. Who knows, these kids might come from abusive homes, and violence is all they know. Oh, and we usually only see the short term effects of violent influences – what about a longitudinal study, please? Do these same kids grow up into violent adults? Or is that a rare thing? Are the majority of violent video game players (i.e. MOST WESTERN TEENAGERS) likely to populate the globe with murderers? I think not. They will probably be accountants, or contestants on Britain’s Got Talent, or some other, (arguably) normal lifetime pursuit.
Perhaps some “more research is needed” – I hate to fall back on that old line, but it’s true. Video games are here to stay, so rather than bitch and moan about the possible influence of young children, and their subsequent development into aggressive teens (view not supported by evidence), maybe it’s high time we started looking into the other factors influencing aggression in young people. Maybe there’s deep-rooted issues. Maybe aggressive children need early-intervention programmes. Maybe we need to teach the negativity of violence to young people. What about anger management strategies for children? Don’t scoff – the naughty step works wonders for Supernanny.
Interested in reading more? Go for it -
An overview of previous research
A positive application of the “desensitisation to violence” effect
Deadlines
I hate deadlines. This is the time of year where lots of people I know are stressing about coursework, essay deadlines, dissertations, and final exams.
I am no different. Luckily my dissertation is not due for several months yet, but that doesn’t mean I’m not busy – I have a project deadline next week, and seen exam questions to plan, as well as general revision for my finals. Oh, and did I mention I have to have a game plan for what lies after my MSc? Hmm. I have a few things in mind, but nothing certain yet, so you’ll have to wait on that front.
Don’t panic, folks – we’ve been working hard for this, and there’s no point losing your head. If you’ve been attending lectures and doing at least SOME reading, then it only takes a bit of knucking down now to make it all pay off.
Set yourself a revision timetable if you’re crap at “finding the time” – that way you’ll have no excuse.
Remember to take breaks – there is no point studying solidly and making yourself miserable.
At the same time, remember when to say “no” – you can’t drop everything every time a friend rings you up and invites you for a drink. This is especially true of your friends who are NOT in full time education – they may have forgotten how important these next few months are for you. Remind them that this studiousness is only temporary, and you’ll catch up another time! It’s not the end of the world.
And finally: it’ll be over soon! Your hard work WILL pay off, I swear. You’ll feel good once it’s all over.
If you’re worried about exams, or are suffering with study stress, take a peek at TheSite.org – they offer some simply and practical advice about looking after yourself over the exam season.
Good luck!
Haven’t we met before..?
At the moment, I am designing various person recognition tests for my dissertation. I’ve almost finished designing a “familiar faces” test (with 20 highly familiar faces, 20 faces of low familiarity, and 20 complete strangers to the participant). And then, it’ll be the harder job of producing a voice recognition test – they’ll have to be famous voices, but not saying something obviously attributable to them (i.e. no Arnie saying “I’ll be back”).
Image from the Sun
This all links in with my research into prosopagnosia and other person recognition deficits.
Fancy testing your own facial recognition skills? This is a pretty neat website.
Sorry to be brief – lots of work to crack on with!
Synaesthesia in Chinese
OK, first of the series of Synaesthesia Conference lectures that I’ll be writing up. Today, I’ll be talking about a four year study conducted by Julia Simner (of University of Edinburgh) and her team. In their study, Simner and her colleagues looked at grapheme-colour synaesthesia, comparing the experiences of English synaesthetes (which are hugely studied) to the experiences of Chinese synaesthetes (who are barely studied at all). 
Where to start? Some general factoids about grapheme-colour synaesthesia. About 1% of the population are estimated to have it. This phenomena is where letters and numbers illicit a colour experience in the synaesthete. These experiences follow non-random rules – the same letters seem to always illicit the same colour experience, like “A” always being green, for example.
As for words, many synaesthetes find that whole words are coloured as a whole, rather than each individual letter being coloured. The way words are coloured seems to vary in three main ways:
- Some synaesthetes simply see each letter coloured individually (as per their own internal consistencies) – for example, “CAT” would be seen as BLUE-GREEN-RED (or whatever)
- Some synaesthetes find words are coloured by their initial letter – e.g. “CAT” would be BLUE, as “C” is blue for them
- Some synaesthetes have their words coloured by their initial vowel – again, “CAT” would be GREEN, as the initial vowel is usually green
There are two main theories as to what influences the colours of different letters and words. One is the semantic influence – this is where the unconscious meaning pinned to words and therefore letters determines what colour the letters will be. For example, we might associate “D” with dogs (A is for apple, B is for bird… I’m sure you were taught the alphabet in a similar fashion). Well, dogs are brown (usually), so maybe this is why some synaesthetes experience D as being brown.
The other theory is the frequency effect – more common letters are more common colours. For example, A is often red or green, whereas X is often something exotic like purple or gold. This isn’t too much of a surprise, either.
Hmm, what next…? Maybe a bit of info about Chinese languages (assume we’re talking about Mandarin throughout, but the rules probably cross over to Cantonese). Bear with me – my knowledge of Chinese is not great.
Chinese languages are ideographic (well, almost. We won’t get into that argument here) - they don’t have alphabets, so no letter units. They consist of word unit characters. There are two phonetic spelling systems (Pinyin and Bopomo), which Chinese children may be taught, in order to help them to speak the language before learning to write the script (which is intensely complicated). Pinyin uses a combination of Westernised spellings (for pronunciation) and a number (that indicates tone – Chinese languages are tonal, which means, depending how you say a word, it can have multiple meanings. Phew.)
Simner and her team wondered if this Pinyin system could function in a similar way to English in terms of its effects on synaesthetes – does the initial “letter” (or sound) or vowel sound effect the overall consistency in colour experience?
Well, yes and no. Their study showed that if native Chinese speakers were given the Pinyin phonetic spelling of a word character, they would experience the colours in a consistent manner similar to English synaesthetes – words beginning with a “y” sound would all be green, etc. etc. However, if they were given just traditional Chinese characters to look at (with no Pinyin) these consistencies did not carry over. Hmm. Back to square one.
Chinese script itself is made up of morphemes called “radicals”. Each character contains a semantic radical (which conveys meaning) and a phonetic radical (which tells you how the word should be pronounced). These radicals can be on either side of the character, and again, location affects meaning (I think you’re beginning to understand why Chinese script is so hard to learn…)
So, does the semantic or phonetic radical colour the character overall? Or do neither of them do this?
Simner and her colleagues found three variables – hue, saturation and brightness of colour experience. It seems that Chinese synaesthetes have a more subtle colour experience than Western synaesthetes – the radical on the left accounts for the hue, the semantic radical accounts for saturation, and the radical on the right for brightness. Weird.
The frequency effect occurs in Chinese, too – common characters (and radicals) are more common colours.
And that… is about all that I can compute. If you want to know more, please head on over to Julia Simner‘s profile page on Edinburgh Uni’s website, and feel free to send her your questions! 
Homeopathy
What the hell is this I spy down in the basement of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, in London’s Queen Square? @bengoldacre would be displeased…
UKSA 2011 Conference: Overview
Yesterday saw the first day of the annual UK Synaesthesia Association‘s conference, this year hosted by UEL. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend today’s half of the conference (and my Sunday didn’t go to plan anyway, but that’s another story). However, I intend to give you a taster of what I experienced yesterday.
As a foreword: I won’t go into the details of the various talks here. I intend to write up the main ideas of my favourite talks over the next few days, so look out for those. This post is more intended to impart a general overview of the atmosphere of the conference.
Well, to start with: synaesthesia. I’ve done a brief overview of this fascinating neurological anomaly before, but just as a refresher:
Synaesthesia is estimated to affect about 2% of the population. It comes in many different forms, all of them mind bloggling. Synaesthetes have a notoriously hard time explaining or describing their experience of the world to others. And yet, despite all this, there is very limited research done into synaesthesia.
Maybe, simply, because it’s not a problem. It’s really, really interesting, but it needs no cure. In fact, I have had many synaesthetes say to me that they can’t imagine living without it.
Synaesthesia is a crossing of the senses. The most commonly known types are grapheme-colour synaesthesia and sound-colour synaesthesia. To explain: grapheme colour synaesthesia is usually where an individual will experience a certain colour whenever they see a certain colour, letter or word. Read more about it here.
The UKSA conference gave the opportunity for people with an interest in synaesthesia (many of them synaesthetes themselves) to discuss research and network. Throughout the day, poster presentations (summarising studies) were on display in a downstairs room at UEL (pictured above), and a series of talks were given throughout the day. The talks I attended ranged from the very “sciencey” to the more phenomenological discussion of synaesthesia in art.
I can’t speak for others, but I think synaesthesia draws me because it is a wonderfully romantic idea – some unique individuals can see music in colour, taste colour, experience sounds as textured. This is beyond metaphor: this is a very real experience. And it’s not trained association: it’s very much automatic, internally consistent and unconsciously processed.
As always, if you reading this and it sounds familiar, please let me know – I’d love to hear about your own experiences.
Synaesthesia as a window into human nature
Yesterday, the University of East London had the pleasure of welcoming Ed Hubbard from Vanderbilt University, USA to give a talk about synaesthesia. It was a free public lecture, lasting about 90 minutes, and we had a pretty great turn out.
The lecture signalled the start of the annual UK Synaesthesia Association conference (this year hosted by UEL) – whilst the conference is still open to the public, they need to be paying public, so this free lecture was a bit more accessible to armchair psychologists.
Here’s the blurb from the talk:
What do David Hockney, Richard Feynman, Nabokov, Messiaen and Stevie Wonder all have in common? They all experience synaesthesia, a “union of the senses”.
For some synaesthetes, listening to a piece of music may also cause them to see specific colours while for others letters or numbers are always tinged a certain colour. Although synaesthesia has been known about for over 100 years, interest in synaesthesia has undergone resurgence in the past decade. This talk will discuss recent research, showing what synaesthetes already know: synaesthesia is real, and synaesthetes are neither telling stories, nor are they “crazy.”
More information about synaesthesia can be found here: www.uel.ac.uk/psychology/research/synaesthesia
I really enjoyed Ed’s talk – he’s a great speaker, and was very obviously passionate about his area of research. He’s also keen to get all you American synaesthetes involved with his research, so please don’t hesitate to get in contact with him: edhubbard [at] gmail [dot] com
More about synaesthesia to follow tomorrow, as I am, at this moment in time, at the conference. Need to rush off now – lectures to attend. Exciting stuff!
Brain Awareness Day 2011 Wrap-up
Wow! What a night!
Brain Awareness Day 2011 was a roaring success. I had a bit of a rough night’s sleep on Tuesday evening, sweating over the impending event, thinking about all the things that could go wrong. But you know what? I needn’t have worried. It all ran seamlessly. The organisations all arrived, they set up beautiful stalls, my committee and my volunteer stewards were all WONDERFUL and waaaaay more calm than I was.
We had an audience of over 300. I was thrilled, as was Ash. The last time he ran this event (two years ago) it was to an audience of about 200.
We began with Ash’s lecture – a whistlestop tour of the brain, and the history of brain research. Cognitive neuropsychology is the love of Ash’s life, and his enthusiasm for the stuff came over wonderfully. We started off with the basic FAQ style fun facts (the brain is 77% water, it weighs only 2.5% of our total body weight but uses 20% of our body’s energy while we’re at rest). Next came a potted history of brain research – from a brief mention in a 3000BC papyrus scroll, through to a sudden flurry of activity at the end of the 19th century.
But the most interesting parts of Ash’s lecture came towards the end, when he discussed brain damage, and subsequent neurological research (i.e. his area of interest). The effects of brain damage can completely alter people’s lives – and this introduction lead us wonderfully into the drinks reception and info stalls.
Downstairs, two rooms had been beautifully set up with promotional materials for our various organisations and charities, as well as drinks and nibbles to keep everyone going. We had wonderful charities turn up: SANE, Encephalitis Society, Epilepsy Action, the Epilepsy Society, UKABIF and Headway East London. We also had some promotional material sent through by the Stroke Association and Mind to put on display and some great goodies from the Dana Foundation to give away – which were much loved by all!
This session allowed members of the public to find out more about the charities, and possibly offer their support by way of donations, or even volunteering. I know from my friends at SANE that they had a great number of people sign up to receive more info about volunteering - so a brilliant night for all those involved.
Finally, we had a great panel discussion, lead by Ash, with three of his study participants (and friends). All three have suffered some form of brain damage (with two of them surviving herpes simplex encephalitis, and one surviving a massive brain hemorrhage), which has completely changed their lives. Whereas Ash’s lecture gave us a clean cut text-book definition of prosopagnosia (or face blindness), here we had a chance to hear firsthand the life experiences of people with severe facial recognition problems. They related beautifully how their experiences had changed their lives, but how it had also changed their outlooks – it made them realise not that life is cruel (described as the “why me, why me” mentally by one of our guests), but more made them be grateful that they were alive. That you have “one life – live it”. An important message for everyone.
All in all, a fantastic, enlightening, thoroughly enjoyable evening.
Now, if you don’t mind, I have some sleep to catch up on…
Did you come to Brain Awareness Day at UEL? What did you think? Please share you thoughts, and photos if you have any! We’d love to hear your feedback.
Synaesthesia
OK, so you know about the Brain Awareness Day at UEL now.
But that is not all I have to share with you, oh no.
UEL will also be hosting a public lecture about synaesthesia this month! You remember synaesthesia – the phenomenon of sense-crossing? I’ve talked about it before, you know… Plus, there’s heaps of info available on the UEL synaesthesia research lab webpage.
Friday 25th March 2011 6pm
Synaesthesia as a window into human nature
by Edward Hubbard
Venue: CC1.01, Stratford Campus
Oh look, a pretty poster!
So, I hope as many of you can make it as possible. It’s set to be a really interesting event (if any of you have ever read any Ramachandran or Sacks before, you’ll know how intriguing synaesthesia is!)
The event has a listed Facebook event if you want to RSVP, and you can find more info at the UEL website.
Brain Awareness Day 2011 – the poster is here!
Ooh, look, shiny official Brain Awareness Day poster!
Brain Awareness Day 2011
As part of International Brain Awareness Week (14-20th March 2011), my supervisor Dr Ashok Jansari will be hosting a Brain Awareness Day at the School of Psychology at our UEL Stratford campus. My part in all this is quite exciting – I get to be his personal assistant in the proceedings. Which means I am figuratively representing the event online!
Well, what’s involved? The event will start with a public lecture entitled ‘The Life of Brian (the Brain)’, giving a tour of the history of our understanding of the brain. This will begin with the first written documentation of the word ‘brain’ in a 3000 year old Egyptian papyrus and move towards how modern neuropsychologists are beginning to unravel the mysteries of an organ that is more complex than the most advanced computer known to man. By using examples from his own work, Dr Jansari will demonstrate how we can understand the devastating consequences of some forms of brain damage but also about the preserved abilities following trauma.
This information can then be used to help understand how the healthy brain functions and then this information can be used to develop rehabilitation to help the lives of the patients. For example, David cannot recognise any faces (including his wife’s), but can tell you what whether someone is happy or sad and whose vision is good enough to look at a football shirt and tell you which premiership team it belongs to. Then there is Nicola, who is so profoundly amnesic that she makes the hero of the classic film Memento look like he has a good memory! However, by capitalising on unconscious forms of memory, Dr Jansari’s team taught Nicola to use a complex Palm Top electronic device to remember to take her medication – despite this remarkable learning, each time she saw the Palm Top, she claimed never to have used it before.
After the public lecture, there will be a reception between 7 and 8pm with information displays by organisations that work with individuals with brain-related issues (e.g. Headway and the Encephalitis Society), posters about research at the School of Psychology and even models of the brain that the audience can take apart. The evening will conclude with Dr Jansari chairing a panel discussion about ‘living with brain damage’ where two of his research patients will discuss both what it means to live with this terrible life-changing event but also that it certainly is not the end of the world…..
Dr Jansari’s Brain Awareness Day’s have been really popular in the past – you don’t need to be an academic to get something out of this. If you are simply just interested in brains and what they do (and who wouldn’t be?!) then come to Stratford and enjoy an evening of exploration.
If you fancy coming along, it’s FREE and open to all – Wednesday 16th of March, 6-9pm, at UEL’s Stratford Campus
You can also find Brain Awareness Day listed on the Dana Foundation’s website.
Books: Phantoms in the Brain
Phantoms in the Brain: Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind
Wow. I honestly don’t want to say too much, because I really think you should go and read this book yourself. All of the reader reviews are right: it’s fascinating, it’s educational and most importantly, it is very very readable.
I’ve seen Ramachandran talk live (at the Royal Institution) and the enthusiasm and showmanship that he presented then really comes through in this book.
I actually got two copies for Christmas – one from Ben and one from my dad. Confusion over Amazon wishlists – Ben obviously doesn’t know how to use them! Bless him. So rather than send the book back, we gave one copy right back to my dad (as he is all about consciousness, phenomenology, and the mystery of the mind).
Now, it took me three weeks to read this. It took my dad one flight back to Dubai. He reads insanely fast! But he says he couldn’t put it down. He’s a very brain-modular sort of person, and his favourite chapters were towards the end, when Ramachandran discusses qualia, and the source and purpose of consciousness.
Personally, I’m all about the earlier chapters, when Ramachandran looks at a variety of different neurological phenomena. He presents us with a variety of case studies, each with very particular forms of brain damage, leading to very unusual problems. There are his famous “phantom limb” patients – people who, following an amputation, can still feel sensation in their absent limb. Later, he returns to the subject of phantoms, by discussing the mindboggling (but increasingly rare) phenomenon of pseudocyesis, or false pregnancy.
But I don’t want to discuss this book at length – I feel it would detract from your own experience when reading it.
If you like Oliver Sacks, you will love this. If you like “unusualness” and maybe even mystery stories, this is for you. Go get it. There are even some optical illusions you can play with (just don’t do them on the train – you’ll look like an idiot).
Don’t fancy reading? Ramachandran has also presented his cases in a two-part BBC4 documentary.
Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams
I promise promise PROMISE to write some intelligent, sciencey (sort of) posts SOON. But not right now. I am swamped at the moment, so you will just have to make do with an English National Treasure: the great Ralph Vaughan Williams.
I have loved Vaughan Williams for a long time. I think I was about 13 when I first performed his spellbinding Five Variations on Dives and Lazarus, and I was hooked straight away. It is an oft-cited hypothesis that Mozart is good for the developing brain because the phrasing and patterns in his music match brain-wave patterns (or some other vague quasi-neuroscientific tosh). But I feel far more drawn in by the patterns and “waves” in Vaughan Williams, in particular the aforementioned Dives & Lazarus.
Most people know Vaughan Williams for the Lark Ascending, or for Fantasia on Greensleeves. I know him for this. Enjoy:
Mental Floss #1
Ever feel like there is just too damn much going on, and your head feels like it’ll pop? I get it every now and then. I’ll be going along just fine, making plans, keeping busy, meeting people, doing things – LOTS of things – and then suddenly, out of the blue, I’ll feel the overwhelming sense of dread, that I Can’t Cope.
At the moment, I’m blaming the exams that I’m currently sitting. Yesterday was the first, and a lot better than I was expecting (on Monday night, I was – for some reason – convinced that all the questions were going to be on topics I hadn’t revised. This nearly led to meltdown) but I still have two more to go, and they will be harder.
I am slowly learning how to deal with mental meltdown, but it is certainly an ongoing thing. I think the best thing you can do when faced with the overwhelming threat of failure/embarrassment/painful reality is to take some time out, to step back and get some perspective, and most importantly, do something that reminds you how to have fun. This is what I like to call my Mental Floss (oh, aren’t I witty?).
You see, this is where my New Year’s Resolution #7 comes in – to forgive myself. You know what? You don’t need to be doing something practical and productive 24/7. It is OK to take some “you time” to muck about for the sheer hell of it.
From now on, when I feel the pressure mounting up, I’ll be on here, drafting a Mental Floss post: I’ll be naming 5 different things that are keeping me grounded at the moment: some ways that I’m keeping my mental health in good shape.
So, without further delay:
1) My Wii. As a New Year’s gift to myself, I finally got a Wii, and Wii Fit Plus to go with it. Yes, that is my Body Test result for yesterday, and yes, I do currently weigh in at a mighty 12 stone. I don’t regret it – the festive binge felt amazing, and I do love food. However, I am well aware that I am not in the healthiest of places right now, and as a long-time supporter of the British Heart Foundation, this is not good and it’s not right. Before you start: yes I KNOW Wii Fit doesn’t really come close to proper exercise, but the yoga and muscle exercises I find really focussing and relaxing. And that’s why it’s Mental Floss.
2) Talking of supporting charities, I can’t wait to get back to SANE on Thursday – I haven’t been in to volunteer for a couple of weeks now (due to holiday), and I’ve really missed it. They do wonderful work, and it’s really life-affirming to know that I’m a part of it. That’s there brand new website, by the way – went live only yesterday.
3) My dear, dear books. Whilst I haven’t yet finished reading my first book of 2011, I’ve been reading bits and pieces where and when I can. Obviously, my priority reading is revision for exams, but it’s nice to escape with a non-curriculum book once in a while…
4) The Oatmeal. Discovered this the other day, and it has been making me chuckle heartily. Very similar to Hyperbole and a Half (in terms of whimsical drawing style vs. cynical text), which certainly tickles my funny bone.
5) Staying indoors. It may be no surprise to you (or maybe it is?) that I’m a bit sociophobic. I love to leave the house when it means going for a walk in the countryside, but when it means enduring the bustle of thousands of London strangers, most days I’d just rather not. And at the moment, I have no reason (aside from exams) to leave the house. That is just dandy by me. I know it’s unhealthy in the long term, but for a few days, I think it’s fine to keep your own company.
Books: The 2010 Round-up
Well, at the start of 2010, I resolved to read more. And I think I’ve done pretty damn well. Here, as we stand at the edge of the abyss, and the last dregs of 2010 filter away, I can happily say that I have read quite a few books this year.
It’s been tricky, too: throwing myself into a scientific discipline at the last minute (shut up, physicists: psychology so is a science. It has ology and everything) meant that I faced a lot of academic reading, in the form of text books and journal articles. But in between all of that, I have managed a grand total of 39 books this year – 23 non-fiction, and 16 fiction (where I’ve listed text books, that’s where I have actually read them, cover to cover). And this is what they were:
- 30.01.10 – Nicky Hayes – A First Course in Psychology (nf)
- 09.02.10 – Matt Ridley – Nature Via Nurture (nf)
- 01.03.10 – James Hogg – The Three Perils of Man (f)
- 07.03.10 – Adam Phillips – Monogamy (nf)
- 22.03.10 – John Marzillier & John Hall – What is clinical psychology? (nf)
- 24.03.10 – Aldous Huxley – Brave New World (f)
- 30.03.10 – Terry Pratchett – Nation (f)
- 22.04.10 – Walter J. Freeman – How Brains Make Up Their Minds (nf)
- 15.05.10 – G. K. Chesterton – Father Brown Stories (f)
- 19.05.10 – Russell L. Ackoff, Herbert J. Addison & Sally Bibb – Management f-Laws (nf)
- 20.05.10 – Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (f)
- 26.05.10 – Siri Hustvedt – The Shaking Woman or A History Of My Nerves (nf)
- 29.05.10 – Terry Pratchett – Thud! (f)
- 02.06.10 – Oliver Sacks – The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat (nf)
- 23.06.10 – Wilkie Collins – The Woman in White (f)
- 29.06.10 – Joseph Conrad – Heart Of Darkness (f)
- 02.07.10 – David Hume – On Suicide (nf)
- 05.07.10 – *Iain Banks – Complicity (f)
- 22.07.10 – Jonathan Weiner – Time, Love, Memory (nf)
- 26.07.10 – Christopher Fowler – Spanky (f)
- 14.08.10 – Robert Winston – Human Instinct (nf)
- 22.08.10 – Iain M. Banks – Consider Phlebas (f)
- 28.08.10 – American Psychological Association – Concise Rules of APA Style (nf)
- 08.09.10 – Andy Field & Graham Hole – How to Design and Report Experiments (nf)
- 13.09.10 – Nick Braisby (ed.) – Cognitive Psychology: A Methods Companion (nf)
- 20.09.10 – Ken Kesey – One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (f)
- 07.10.10 – Steven Pinker – The Language Instinct (nf)
- 12.10.10 – *Paul Broks – Into The Silent Land (nf)
- 21.10.10 – Daniel Levitin – This Is Your Brain On Music (nf)
- 31.10.10 – Oliver Sacks – Musicophilia (nf)
- 07.11.10 – The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (f)
- 10.11.10 – Alain de Botton – Status Anxiety (nf)
- 11.11.10 – Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (f)
- 14.11.10 – Richard P. Feynman – The Meaning of it All (nf)
- 29.11.10 – *Andrew Solomon – The Noonday Demon (nf)
- 04.12.10 – Iain Banks – The Bridge (f)
- 26.12.10 – Axel Scheffler – How to Keep a Pet Squirrel (f)
- 27.12.10 – Dr Liz Miller – Mood Mapping (nf)
- 29.12.10 – Michael S. Gazzaniga – Nature’s Mind (nf)
And I’ve just started the first one for 2011. How about you? Did you chomp through some good reads this year? Which were your favourites? I’ve put an asterisk by my three absolute favourites this year, and massively recommend them.
Books: Mood Mapping
Mood Mapping: Plot your way to emotional health and happiness
I should probably start by saying I did not like this book. In fact, there are no significant redeeming features, in my honest opinion. So, if you have read this book, use this book or like this book for whatever reason, then please give this review a miss. Because I didn’t like it, this review will mainly concentrate on WHY I didn’t like it. These opinions, being opinions, are not debatable.
Where to start? Probably at the beginning, is best. When this book was first released, I read an interesting review of it in the Guardian. So, when I saw this book in my local BHF book shop, I thought “what the hell” and thought I’d give it a go. I have never read a self-help style book in my life, and now I know why.
Dr Liz Miller is an ex-neurosurgeon, and so you would expect her to be a sensible woman of science. She’s not: she is full of absolute crap. I was willing to sit through her sad stories of struggling through her breakdowns (she says in the text that she is bipolar, but she doesn’t specify what type. I suspect cyclothymia), and to start with, her advice is pretty sound. However, it is also common sense: keep a mood diary so that you can try and see patterns in mood vs. time of day, events, foods, etc.
Anything that didn’t fall under this header of “common sense advice” was not useful at all, and in fact made me rather angry. One of my common gripes is preachy, self-righteous types: Miller is one of these. Her favourite thing to preach about, it would seem, is food. I knew this would be a problem from the Introduction, where she gently declares a war on meat, alcohol, and processed food. Later in the book, she all but blames mood disorders solely on what we eat.
Let me get one thing straight: PROCESSED FOOD WILL NOT MAKE YOU DROP DEAD. You do not need to be on a “raw food diet” to be happy. Let’s look at the evidence: you know plenty of people who eat microwave meals, take aways and stuff from tins on an almost daily basis, and yet they are functioning perfectly. And then there is “Doctor” Gillian McKeith. I’m sure you’ve all been forwarded a copy of the McKeith vs. Nigella email (they’re both 50, and yet…) She doesn’t look like a happy bunny. She looks fucking miserable.
Fair enough, we’re all sensitive to different foods in different ways – I’m not all that susceptible to caffeine, but I am more careful about alcohol nowadays. And I think that’s the key: you do NOT have to give up everything fun or delicious to live well. You need to know your own body. And that’s where Mood Mapping MIGHT be useful: just for finding patterns in your mood in response to external stimuli. But you do NOT NEED TO BUY THIS BOOK (RRP: £12.99) to be able to do that. Food is not the root to aaaaaall your problems.
On a housekeeping note: Miller needs to get hold of a better proofreader. Even my casual, half-attentive reading of this book (often accompanied by a background of Christmas TV and the sound of family members reading articles from the newspaper outloud) spotted a whole menagerie of errors. Most hilarious IMHO was pp. 237-8, and the supposed “Causes of bipolar”…
“…Bipolar disorder can also start after head injury, treatment with anti-malarial drugs, particularly mefloquinine, head injury, childhood abuse, drug abuse…”
And later on in this ridiculous list of madness and repetition: post-traumatic stress disorder. WHAT?! PTSD is a mental illness in its own right, not a “cause” of bipolar. I think she’s getting confused: violent mood swings are not the only characteristic feature of bipolar. They are a symptom. And guess what? They just so happen to be quite a significant symptom of PTSD, too. Just because someone is having severe mood swings does not mean they have suddenly “come down with” bipolar disorder.
I’m trying to keep this short, so here’s the last and most important reason why I hate this book:
“…what my research and experience did prove is that mood and its associated chemicals respond more to the five keys to mood than they do to drugs. By physically managing your mood, it is often possible to dispense with drugs entirely.” (p. 233)
My, that’s a sweeping statement. And, “prove”? Really? Please, tell this to anyone suffering from psychosis, or chronic, major depression. Some people simply cannot function without medication. Some people can’t even cope WITH medication, it’s that bad. MY research and experience INDICATES this. Read a far better and more realistic account of mood disorder.
By all means, I am not poo-pooing Miller’s personal trauma and experience of the mental health system, but that is what it is: a personal trauma. She found something that works for her. Good. She has no right to prescribe it to others.
100!
I made it. This is officially my 100th blog post. I have managed to blog every day since mid-September, and nearly all my posts have been useful or interesting (yes? No?)
This has come at a perfect time as well, because today I need to concentrate all my efforts on finishing a lab report that I have barely started – so I thought today’s post could be a good excuse to do a bit of a round up of the last few months. And share some pretty pictures, yay!
Well, on the topic of my lab report: the most obvious milestone for me in the last few months has been starting my Psychology MSc. Since then, it has been non-stop – most of it fun, a lot of it stressful but all of it fascinating.
Unfortunately, starting my MSc has meant that I’ve had to leave some things behind, such as my beloved Horniman museum, but I still get a chance to go back and visit. And of course, there are little reminders of the Horniman all around me…
I haven’t lost all my fun though: I still sing quite frequently, and even got a couple of double bass concerts in this season (although one had to be cancelled last week due to snow). I managed to go clubbing once or twice, did a lot of cooking and baking, and had several wonderful meals out (including finally trying out Time&Space for Ben’s birthday).
I have to interrupt myself briefly, just to say that doing this round up is making me realise that I have actually been quite busy over the last few months, which is reassuring and also quite emotional. Ignore me.
I have been to visit friends, I have had friends come to stay with me, I have been to soooo many extra-curricular lectures, and had wonderful cultural days out. I even had a silly day out sledding with Ben when the snow hit.
In amongst all the shenannagins of having my brain scanned but not zapped, all the cocktails and the pottery painting, and even my first trek to IKEA via public transport, I have still managed to sit back and relax.
I have read a huge amount (by my usual standards) of books this year (so far! I aim to read a few more before 2010 is out) – 37 is the count so far, and that’s excluding all the text books and journal articles I’ve had to read for uni. I’ve dabbled with Kesey, Banks, Parker, a very special seagull, and then a whole bunch of NON-fiction (madness!) – Music from Sacks and Levitin, Language with Pinker, Neuropsych with Broks and a mammoth book on depression.
I’ve been busy, you’ve been busy – we’ve all been busy bunnies. Maybe it’s time to chill out and enjoy the holiday season? I have a wedding to go to this weekend (my eldest brother got married in August, and now it’s my other brother’s turn!), and that pretty much heralds the time for festivities. I best get this lab report out of the way, then…
Thanks for indulging me – it’s been a fun 100 posts. Here’s to many more!
Books: The Noonday Demon
The Noonday Demon: An Anatomy of Depression
This book took me a long time to read. I had to put a lot of effort in to reading it. Usually, that is a sign that I am finding the book boring, or a chore. That is not true in this case: the sheer effort involved here was to overcome the deep sense of sadness held within the pages.
Andrew Solomon’s comprehensive masterpiece on depression is an incredibly painful read, especially if the experiences described are familiar to you. I’m fairly certain that everyone knows someone who has at some time suffered from clinical depression (whether mild or major), and it is still even now treated with some awkwardness, to say the least. As Solomon points out, “our society has little room in it for moping” – a common phrase thrown at depressives is “pull yourself together”. Solomon relates an incredibly provocative life event (which lead to his third breakdown) in which he dislocated his shoulder pretty badly: knowing his own body and how he reacts to prolonged physical pain (they are a large cause of his depressive episodes) he calmly asked the doctors at A&E to look up his psychiatric history in order to hurry along pain relief. He knew that without pain control, he was likely to plunge into a deep depression. Rather than listen to their patient, and be sympathetic to his suffering by offering a psychiatric consult, doctors told him: “Pull yourself together and stop feeling sorry for yourself”. He was also accused of being “uncooperative” and “childish”. Solomon later lapsed into suicidal ideation and later ended up having a minor breakdown.
Solomon bases this book around his own experiences of major depression (including three breakdowns, thousands of dollars worth of therapy and a rainbow of medications) but this is by no means a self-indulgent, autobiographical look-in. He relates stories from many cultures and classes, from people of all walks of life, all sharing a terrible common ground. Solomon shows us the world of self-help groups, animistic rituals to cure depression in Senegal (the ndeup ritual, in case you want to pursue further reading), the quiet world of Greenlandic depression and the ignored population suffering below the poverty line. All are fascinating. All are equally distressing. Much of it made me angry. All of it moved me deeply.
You know what you’re getting in to from the first page of the first chapter: Solomon tells us, truthfully, that “no matter what we do, we will in the end die”. It does not get any cheerier, even when Solomon devotes a chapter to statistics. But it is illuminating: within the first ten pages, I was already thinking that this should be essential reading for anyone working with depressives, be they psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, helpline volunteers… It explains an awful lot, and does so without fear and without apology.
Solomon mentions in the foreword that he is not a doctor or a psychologist, and this is a purely personal book, with interpretations only, and is not a substitute for appropriate treatment. However, early on, he throws away common misconceptions about depression: for example, that it is “just chemical”. Well, if you want to be accurate, EVERYTHING is “just chemical”, but that doesn’t make it any less personal or painful.
Depression isn’t intrinsically linked to suicide, but a lot of depressives do think suicidal thoughts (even if they do not enact suicidal acts). It’s incredibly sad to consider the logic behind suicide: the pain so great that you wish everything could just go away, forever. Solomon includes a beautifully poignant quote from one of my old favourites, G. K. Chesterton:
The man who kills a man kills a man.
The man who kills himself kills all men.
As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.
But it is not all doom and gloom (hah!). Solomon also shares with us his journey towards managing his depression, as well as the stories of others, and how their lives were turned around by patience and treatment. The final chapter of the book is lovingly titled “Hope”, and Solomon ends his work beautifully, asking us to “Hold on to time; don’t wish your life away. Even the minutes when you feel you are going to explode are minutes of your life, and you will never get those minutes again”.
In his foreword, Solomon warns us that he is “not a doctor or a psychologist or even a philosopher”. I disagree with the last part, and I urge you to read this book.
