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!
The Joy of Stats
Last night, I discovered the wonderful Professor Hans Rosling (@HansRosling), completely by mistake. I must have had the telly on idly in the background whilst I was working, and then The Joy of Stats came on. Gradually, I was pulled away from my desk and towards the sofa. I set the telly to record – The Joy of Stats really DID make stats a joy.
I have never really had much academic exposure to statistics before now, but as I get myself smothered in the world of psychology, I find myself surrounded by numbers. A few weeks ago it was correlations between personality traits and tendency to plan (or not – procrastinators!), and at the moment I’m researching the belief bias effect. All of this NEEDS stats to work – I can’t support any hypothesis without statistical significance.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people have a mental block when it comes to numbers, especially stats, which is traditionally viewed as being horribly dry. Step in Prof. Rosling.
In this one hour documentary, he had me thoroughly gripped with – dare I say – excitement about stats (and not just because his Swedish accent is really fun!).
The key to making stats exciting and realistically useful (for everyone aside from hardcore statisticians) is application and visualisation. You may not know this, but Florence Nightingale was an enthusiastic statistician (her first “stats” work she produced aged 9). Below is one of her most famous statistical diagrams, showing causes of death for soldiers in the Crimean war. The blue wedges are deaths caused by preventable infections, the red wedges are deaths from war wounds and black wedges deaths from other causes. The visualisation is pretty compelling, really.
We are all bombarded by stats every day, especially in the news. And it’s obvious that certain stats are more clear when presented graphically.
Plus, with emerging technologies, we can have MOVING stats! Really good fun. As a final illustration of how compelling stats can be, watch this clip of Rosling from the documentary. Maybe that will convince you to watch the full 60 mins.
Image credits: dexigner.com, fijincf.com
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.
If I never see your face again…
Most of us recognise people we’ve seen before. We recognise our friends, our family, our enemies, famous faces like politicians and musicians, we recognise the different characters in TV shows and films. Yes, we all have those days when we’re useless at recognising people, and some of us (like Tallulah from Bugsy Malone) are fine with faces, it’s just names we have a problem with. But how confusing would like be if every face we saw was a new face to us: if people we’d met before, or known for years, had an unrecognisable face?
This isn’t science fiction: this is prosopagnosia, or “face blindness”. Prosopagnosia is not new: it’s been researched for many years (some reports go back as far as the 19th century, with case studies from Hughlings Jackson and Charcot), but there has been a surge in studies in recent years.
Usually, prosopagnosia has been observed in people who have had some form of acute brain damage (from localised head injuries such as a bullet wound, or from a virus such as encephalitis), which results in this loss of face recognition. However, a developmental version of the condition has recently been discovered: people who are born without an ability to recognise faces. A recent article that was brought to my attention relates what appears to be this latter form of prosopagnosia.
Prosopagnosia even got a bit of prime-time publicity on BBC’s The One Show when my supervisor (Dr Jansari) talked about David, with whom he works, who suffers from profound face blindness. He simply does not recognise faces at all, no matter how many times he’s seen it before. He has no problems recognising other things, and frequently uses these other cues to recognise people: he can recognise people by their hairstyle, clothes or (once they start talking) their voice. This suggests something that many cognitive psychologists have suspected for a long time: faces are special.
So where do I fit in to all of this? Well, it’s the subject of my dissertation. I know, I know, I previously talked at length about synaesthesia, and that is still a huge interest for me (in fact, I’ve been recruiting synaesthetes for the UEL research team, and I will hopefully be involved in the research process as an extra curricular activity). However, having discussed it with Dr Jansari, we decided the face recognition study would have a greater value for me as an aspiring clinician.
And here we are. On Monday, I met the lady (SE) with whom I shall be working over the next year. It was a purely a meet-and-greet, a discussion over a cup of tea. I’m glad that I’m working with her, as she is lovely, and very enthusiastic about the study. SE is particularly interesting, because she can recognise faces that she has known for a long time (at least 6 months), but won’t recognise people out of context (i.e. if she saw a work colleague in town, she wouldn’t recognise them). However, she did recognise someone as “Mr Angry” – she had never met this man, but had seen his photo in an article about him in a newspaper. So what is it that makes her recognise some faces and not others? Well, hopefully my study can cast some light on the subject. We’ll have to wait and see.
Image credits: http://inboundmarketinghelp.com/, http://thenewsoftoday.com
Books: The Meaning Of It All
The Meaning Of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist
I was a wee bit disappointed by this book. I think Richard P Feynman is brilliant, and therefore maybe I was expecting something utterly ground breaking. Maybe it’s important to remember that this book is actually a transcript of three John Danz lectures which professor Feynman delivered in April 1963 at the University of Washington. As a result, the book tends to be a little fragmentary, a few points are repeated, and a little unfocussed. Perhaps, had Feynman gone back to this and refined it, we would be left with a more comfortable and satisfying read. As it stands, it might benefit from you reading it aloud (as if you were giving it as a lecture, live).
That said, this small work does reflect on some important topics, mainly the use of science to society. What makes for good scientific practice? What is the true value of science? Can scientists really believe in God? And, my personal favourite, why is it, that with the advances of scientific research in the modern world, is there such widespread belief in flying saucers, homeopathy and astrology?
Feynman also discusses scepticism at length, and in the final lecture he explores how science has been abused. Whilst nothing strictly ground-breaking, Feynman is a hugely respected scientist but also a great teacher and philosopher. A nice quick read for anyone interested in science, philosophy, scepticism, and the philosophy of science.
And as another reviewer has pointed out: Yes, it rambles, but then so do scientists!
Christmas: Science
Part two in the Quirky Christmas Gift Guide, and we’re into the lab for some science-related goodies. This is a more general overview of science (sorry if the images I’ve conjured up are a little cliché!) – I realise that last week was also sciencey, but hey, that’s what I go for 
OK, so the ideal science gifts would be a high calibre microscope (if you’re me) or a high calibre telescope (if you’re Ben – does this say anything about out characters?), but that is a weeeee bit out of the old price bracket for normal people. So here are some cute, household items, with a nod to science (in a purely superficial way – sorry!)
Enjoy! And once again – if you have any ideas for a theme (or would like to produce a guest post “Quirky Gift Guide”!) then let me know.
OK, first up: thank you to my friend Louise for directing me on to this. Many of you will remember my Dinosaur and Woodland Critter cookies, so know that I have a penchant for novelty shaped food. So this is beauty in my eyes. Priced at $14.99 (about £9.50) from ThinkGeek:
Labcutter Science Cookie Cutters
Next up, I first saw these at the Science Museum, but had to resist buying them (miserly student that I am). They also do a s&p shaker set, but you have obviously gone out and bought the brains already, and I have a set of bull terriers that give me seasoning, so I won’t overload you with s&p. Available from various sources (sauces, haha) but usually around £20.
Taking a trip back to Etsy (always my wildcard!) I have found… Some amazing finds. Dear god. Hold me back from blowing my whole student budget: I could quite happily BUY Etsy if I had the funds. Here, we have soap, but not just any soap. User bubblegenius makes a variety of soaps on this theme, but this one has to be my favourite. Priced at $7.50 (£4.80), I give you: GLOW IN THE DARK SOAP.
In your element – Uranium – glow in the dark soap
Etsy is crammed full of geeky t-shirts, but to me that’s a little too obvious. I only have the one geek-shirt, and that’s a Hello Kitty one. So instead, I had a hunt around for something science-related but with an everyday use, and found this adorable notepad from nutandbee – and as every student knows, notepads are always useful! Especially cute ones! $4.50, or £2.90 in English money. (warning: browsing her shop may damage your “awwwwww” glands)
OK, because I could damage my bank account if I stay on Etsy too long, let’s move away. Remember, you can always stab words into the search engine and lose half a day. I turn away from Chemistry now (it’s not the only science, you know! Just probably the most obvious for novelty gifts) and towards Natural History - palaeontology to be precise. Christmas is soon. Have you got your decorations? No? Fairy lights even? Hmm. Then your home might be crying out for these beauties, £28 from the Natural History Museum:
Staying with the NHM for my final gift idea – some of you may remember my first ever guest post on someone’s blog, when Angharad kindly offered me a spot on Edible Glitter. There, I suggested you get prints of your favourite images done, rather than picking out production line generic nonsense from Ikea (ARGH the wiggly tree). NHM offers a huge range of wildlife prints, all award winning beauties of nature. Have a browse. Get you favourite animal on a poster and have it framed. It’ll look gorgeous, I promise. I would go for this adorable picture (obviously not going to lift photos like that from NHM website).
Have a browse around their print shop – prices start at as little as £15 for a small poster.
And happy shopping! Stay tuned for the next instalment next Friday
Studying on the run
Phew. OK, my first lab report of the semester is away, out of my hands, done.
It was a tricky one to churn out: not because it was difficult to write, but because I have been rather busy. From Cambridge to Hastings, I have been running around a lot the last few weeks. But no matter – that’s what laptops are for, right?
I love my laptop. It means I can work pretty much everywhere. I have a little HP number (with a missing Alt key, but it’s still my baby). I hear stories of people’s laptops (particularly Macs) breaking down, but I have always used HP and they have never failed me (touch wood!)
I’ve been writing on the tube, in cafés, in museums, in bed. I tend to get a lot of work done “on the run” – I’m sure a lot of students do, even if it’s “just” reading. I always have a book in my bag.
Recently, I’ve adopted the bed for doing work at home, because my desk in the living room is simply too close to the kitchen, and I find myself procrastinating. So, I prop myself up with four pillows, and arm myself with a cup of tea, and get a lot done.
Outside the house, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time at the Wellcome Collection, sitting in their café/restaurant. Not only do they have free wifi, but their caterers, Peyton and Byrne, produce delicious, wholesome food. I finally tried one of their Mainly Frosting cupcakes the other day…. Yum.
But where is your favourite place to get work done? Where do you usually study? What’s the WEIRDEST place you’ve set up in to get your work done? Maybe I’m not the only one who writes lab reports in museums!
Image credits: I took it. ME. MY cake.
Adventures into my brain: TMS
OK, I have to start by bursting your bubble of anticipation and tell you: I did NOT have TMS yesterday. Woe is me, but I am not allowed to have it at the moment, due to meds. Massive disappointment! We were all set and ready to go, did the final screening check and…. Bummer. I was disappointed. Magalena, Manali and Joe were disappointed. I apologised for wasting their time, but they were really lovely and apologised for wasting MY time (as if! I had a wonderful time!)
But all was not lost – I still spent about an hour at UCL with Magdalena and Manali, as they explained the process to me and answered all my questions.
They began with a quick description of how TMS works: as I understand it, a huge electrical current is sent through the figure of eight coil (which, as I mentioned previously, is insulated) – this creates an electromagnetic field, which will stimulate anything within a few centimetres of it (in the case of neuroscientific studies, this would be neurons in specific areas of the brain). Magdalena was allowed to give me a quick demo of how it works by zapping my arm (but not my head) – holding the coil over my right forearm, she set the machine to five short, successive pulses. I kept my hand still. When she turned on the machine, I watched my hand twitch, five times. It was incredibly bizarre.
So, applied to neurons, this stimulation causes neurons to fire, which then means that they’re effectively busy – if you wanted those neurons to do something else, too bad. This is especially interesting as it can help neuroscientists to work out which areas of the brain are involved in what particular cognitive functions. Dr Devlin and his team are currently doing research into language processing, and the involvement of the supramaginal gyrus. The purpose of the initial MRI scan was to pinpoint the location of MY supramarginal gyrus.
And this is where my uncommonly shaped brain becomes a challenge: there are large folds on either side of the brain (damnit, I can’t for the life of me remember the name), and on typical brains, this fold runs backwards and then curves up. My right side does – my left side runs straight backwards (if any of the UCL team are fact checking me, please feel free to set the record straight – I should have taken notes!) Now, this is a problem because locating the supramarginal gyrus usually relies on pinpointing the top of the upwards curve of this fold. But on my left side, there is no upwards curve, and this is the side that they wanted to zap with TMS. Bummer.
However, when I arrived at the lab yesterday, they had pinpointed six possible areas for activation, so were all ready to go. Obviously, we didn’t “go”, but the data is all there if and when I return in the future to have my TMS (I’m hoping early next year).
But that wasn’t all they could show me – they also attached a groovy head strap to me, and pointed me at a camera. Then, using a pointer, Magdalena and Manali were able to map my ears and nose to the ears and nose of my 3D MRI image. Now, when I moved, so did the 3D image on screen; it was fascinating. The TMS coil can interact with the camera system, meaning that if Magdalena were to hold the coil up to my head, the computer would tell her whether or not it was positioned in the right place (with regards to one of those six regions I mentioned earlier).
But enough stalling. I desperately want to show you the images of my brain. I’m very proud of my brain. Joe said that the detail on my cerebellum came out particularly well, so I must have been lying very still indeed. He sent me a high resolution file of all the images, plus a link to the software used to run it, so I played with this all evening yesterday – I can zoom through my 3D brain, through all three planes! Very exciting. Although a little creepy to plunge through my own eyeballs.
Obviously it’s more exciting to see your own brain than someone else’s, but I hope you like these. I have labelled just a couple of areas of interest (my nice frilly cerebellum, and my chunky corpus collosum, the massive connector between the two hemispheres), because I didn’t want to crowd the images (plus, I’m lazy). Enjoy!
Fancy getting up close and personal with your own brain? Dr Devlin and his team are keen to get more eager volunteers for their research. Obvious no-nos are people with metal in their bodies, but they have a screening process, so they will let you know whether or not you’re eligible. Feel free to get in touch with them via Joe, and tell them I sent you!
Image credits: thank you to the Neurobiology of Language lab for taking pictures of my brain, and to Magdalena for letting me pose with the TMS machine! I had a wonderful time, and hope to see you again soon in the not-to-distant future
DISCLAIMER: Views and scientific inaccuracies expressed here are my own. If you want to correct me in any way, please get in touch!
Adventures into my brain: MRI
Yesterday, I had my head examined.
Haha.
Seriously though, after the Packed Lunch at the Wellcome Collection a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been in contact with the charming Dr. Joe Devlin and his assistant Magdalena and (very suddenly) I found myself at UCL, Bedford Way, yesterday afternoon.
Signing in as a visitor, I asked for directions to BUCNI, (the Birkbeck-UCL Centre for Neuroimaging) and was all set to wend my way into unknown territory when I heard my name called. It was Magdalena, and one of her fellow UCL neuroscientists (a lovely MSc student called Manali). Apparently they had seen my picture on this blog, so knew who they were looking for. So if you’re reading, hello! *wave*
We headed down to the basement – lots of codes and locks and passwords – there are warning signs all over MRI suites, “WARNING: no entry for those with pace makers” etc. MRI is essentially a huge magnetic field, so going in their with anything that could be affected by such a field is generally considered a Bad Idea. I had deliberately avoided wearing any jewellery for the event, but I was also asked to remove my belt and, just to be on the sure side, my shoes. And no mobile phones or credit cards please: they will die a horrible, horrible death.
After a screening and information process (and the customary signing of a form), the cheery, friendly trio ushered me into the MRI room. Joe then set me up on the MRI bed, explaining what he was doing and why he was doing it. He gave me lots of cushions to make sure I wouldn’t get too crampy lying in the machine, and a set of headphones too block out some of the noise of the machine (despite these, it was still incredibly noisy).
Joe told me what sort of noises I could expect, and that there would be a 2 second pause halfway through – so don’t worry, it hasn’t broken down, but at least I’d know it was halfway done. He asked that I stay as still as I could, for clarity of the image, and gave me a “squeezy thingy” that I could squeeze to set off an alarm if anything was wrong. I didn’t need to use it at any point, but it was reassuring to know it was there if I did need it. He did mention that people do sometimes fall asleep whilst in the scanner (the scan takes 12 minutes, so just enough time for a power nap) and it was fine if I felt like doing the same. I considered it, but it was so blinkin’ loud, I’m not sure how anyone ever manages to.
The scan itself was quick and painless. Definitely do not go for this if you are claustrophobic though: when you are wheeled in to the machine, that is pretty much it. You, in a big metal tube. Fortunately, I feel quite comforted by enclosed spaces, and I liked to imagine I was in a cocoon.
When the machine starts up, trust me, you know it. A series of loud, pulsing hums, of various speeds, and some undertones of cranking and beeping. Like most repetitive noises (especially when there is more than one layer of sound), my mind liked to rearrange this into some sort of music – it was like being at a new age rave. That, or it was a bit John-Cage-y.
The 2-second pause came, then another 6 minutes of John Cage. And then it was over. I had a bit of pins and needles from lying perfectly still for quarter of an hour (I say perfectly still – I did wiggle my toes once or twice), but that swiftly went. Joe wheeled me out of the machine, asked me how I felt and said, with some sciencey delight, “Do you want to see your brain?”. Of course I did 
And then..? Well, you’ll have to wait and see. I’m hoping to get some jpegs through from Joe soon, so I can share with you the “uncommon” shape of my brain. Pure, unadulterated, geeky joy.
Image credits: UCL Bedford Way building from e-architect.co.uk, MRI scanner from BUCNI’s own website
Christmas: Brains!
OK, I’m going to do a series of posts leading up to Christmas: thematic gift ideas. Today’s theme is: BRAINS!
A bit of an odd one this. Brains aren’t for everyone (in fact, I’ve met many people who have given up on their own entirely), but I for one think brains are cool. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be on the road to neuropsychologydom.
First up, some neurons. Very, very important little blighters, these. So why not have a cuddly one? OK, the cell-plushies may not be news to some of you, but they are utterly adorable. My favourites at the moment are the “brain cell” and the “nerve cell” – look at their wee faces!!
You can buy these little guys from a variety of places, but notably I saw them in the Natural History Museum only recently. Very cool. Priced at around £7, but they do come in a few different sizes, so shop around.
Still on the subject of neurons, I had a quick search on Etsy for “brains” (you’d be amazed at how much comes up!!) and I found the beautiful creations of toybreaker. Including this gorgeous silk-screened design, priced at $30 (about £19):
Nervous Energy (aka Fried Brains) silkscreened microfibre tie
Staying with Etsy for a moment, there seems to be a craze for vintage anatomical drawings in the crafting community. Fine by me, as they can be made into pretty fridge magnets such as this one from CrowBiz, priced at a mere $6 (about £4):
Here’s a find that went straight on to my Amazon Wish List – a brain colouring book?! Genius!! Get yours quick – it’s only £8.99!
The Human Brain: Colouring Book
Here’s one for the dinner table: brain shaped salt and pepper shakers! I wonder which hemisphere corresponds to what seasoning… It’s on ThinkGeek, and is therefore in dollars, at $9.99. Just over £6.
And finally, probably my personal favourites (because I love novelty shaped things, and I have many ice cube trays to attest to this): BRAIN FREEZE. Brain shaped ice cubes. Would make for the most awesome cocktail party ever. Why do psychology conferences not have these? It’d break the ice at parties (whaaa whaaaaaa… That’s the bad pun trumpet, by the way). I have seen these turn up in a lot of different shops – Hunterian Museum gift shop, the Science Museum shop (do I spend too much time in museum gift shops? Oh well…). They’re available on all sorts of websites, so browse around. The cheapest I could find them was on the website linked below, a mere £4.99.
So concludes the first instalment in my Quirky Christmas Gift Guide. I have a few more ideas for themes lined up, but as always, your feedback is always welcome. Got a theme you want me to explore? Suggest it in comments! And happy shopping 
Baroness Susan Greenfield: The Brain of the Future
Wow. Wow wow wow. Reeling. Having just gotten in from the abovenamed talk, details still fresh in my mind, I thought I’d start drafting this right now. OK, so by the time this has been posted, the lecture will be but another day in the past, but right now… Wow.
OK, maybe I should explain. I spent the day with my lovely friend (and fellow MSc’er) Rebecca – we did “intellectual stuff”, which culminated in a long anticipated BPS talk from the wonderful Baroness Susan Greenfield. The talk was entitled: “The Brain of the Future: The impact of new technology on how we think and feel”. I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect, but that was fine, because Greenfield covered an awful lot in one hour. It helps that she is incredibly charismatic, concise and fast-talking.
She began by telling us that we were in a century of change. Maybe a throwaway idiom, but it set the scene for the lecture. She proceeded to briefly recall her personal experience of holding a human brain whilst she was still a student: I don’t know if it was the first time she had held a brain, but she reflected on her feelings from the time – what if she were not wearing gloves? Would she catch under her nail that part of someone’s memory, someone’s capacity for love, or creativity? The material brain, so fragile, holds host to our own individual minds, our unique, profound experiences.
Greenfield thus illustrated in this way the fundamental uniqueness of human experience – “no one can see the world through your eyes”*.
This is why it is so wonderful to be a human being. But what is it that we do best? We learn, of course. We, with our big, human brains, have a fantastic ability to adapt. The brain is very plastic (able to be moulded, that is): our neuronal connections and the configurations of brain grow as we grow, responding to our experiences and building on rehearsal. The exciting thing is, you don’t need to be physically DOING the actions to forge the connections: imagination is incredibly powerful. Greenfield quoted one of the developers behind L-dopa, “thinking is movement confined to the brain” to highlight this phenomenon.**
Greenfield went on to show what a great impact “enriched environments” can have on neuronal network developments in rats. The difference between these and “isolation” controls was astounding. It’s quite obvious that the development of our brains is incredibly sensitive to our environments. Our personal brain (i.e. our own configuration of neuronal connections) is driven by our unique experiences.
So there appears to be two major “states” – the sensory brain (like that of children, a “booming, buzzing confusion”) and the cognitive brain. A healthy balance of the two is perfect in adults, but it’s obvious that this is not true of everyone: there are people who are overly cognitive, and those of us who get lost in the buzzing confusion again (senility, schizophrenia, drug abuse and so forth).
Greenfield went on to cover the slightly controversial topic of children’s growing “screen time” – is our increasing exposure to and immersion in a virtual world eroding our ability to think cognitively? Research suggests that whilst computer games may help our children’s increasing IQ scores (by helping to practice mental agility, and so forth), this does not equate to knowledge: just because we can perform certain problem solving tasks with ease does not mean that we are “smarter”. Our children are beginning to live in a strongly sensory environment that fosters a short attention span – there is no room for metaphor and abstract concepts. Information processing they can do, but anyone interested in theory of mind will tell you: information processing is not equal to understanding. We need our conceptual framework (a strong argument behind why computers can’t think).
In human communication, words play a limited role: we communicate through body language, physical contact, tone of voice… With the Facebook generation, these skills are falling by the wayside - will our children grow up to be poor communicators? It’s a genuine worry.
Baroness Greenfield covered more ground than I could possibly relay here: our sense of identity, Yaka-Wow, the consequence of our actions, the under-functioning prefrontal cortex, and even one of my favourite topics: cyborgs (she referred to transhumanism, and used the delightful phrase “brains on chips“).
It’s clear that technology is revolutionising our lives, and our brains are able to adapt to accommodate it. We now have a generation of “digital natives”: but what consequences does this have for humans as a social species? Maybe Baroness Greenfield’s book can tell me.
Oh yes. And a final thing:
Oh, the geeky glory
-
Image credits: HAH. They’re mine. MINE. Well, Rebecca kindly took the photo of me and the wonderful Baroness Greenfield. Thank you, Rebecca
*I may have mentioned this before, but this links in to one of the base causes behind my depression: the fundamental loneliness of human experience. No one will EVER know what it is to be you.
** Google tells me that she has used this quote quite frequently in talks. I can see why.
Packed Lunch: Brains
OK, I don’t eat brains for lunch: rather, I spent my lunch time, with Rebecca, at the Wellcome Collection yesterday, being talked to about brains.
The speaker was Dr Joe Devlin, a neuroscientist from UCL (just down the road from the Wellcome Collection), and he had come to talk about transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) – I knew a couple of things about TMS from the BNS conference a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t really know how it worked. Originally, I had written off going to this talk at all (we have lectures on a Wednesday) but thanks to the tube strike, lectures were cancelled!! I have to say a big thank you to the tube strikers for that – I was still able to easily get to Euston due to London’s other fabulous transport connection, the overground.
As we walked into the Forum on the 1st floor, Rebecca and I were delighted to see a faux-picnic set up: the small stage was covered in fake grass, and there were a couple of picnic baskets filled with apples, which we helped ourselves to. We sat ourselves right in the front row, and had our lunch.
Soon, the speaker and host filed in, sat down, and introduced themselves. If someone could remind me of the host’s name, I’d be very grateful… Anyway, we were told the talk was being recorded for their podcast, so the structure (for the first half hour) would be fairly formal.
In the talk, Devlin told us what TMS was, how it works, and what it can be used for. In brief: TMS involves passing a huge (about 2 tesla) electric current through a copper coil (insulated!) which, through electromagnetic induction, generates an electric current and subsequent magnetic field. When the coil is held next to the head, this magnetic field causes brain “interference” by stimulating neurons in the immediate area of contact. TMS is kept to short pulses (within milliseconds).
My physics is not fantastic, so I didn’t completely understand the “how” of TMS, but I did understand the “why” as it were: by creating interference in certain brain regions, and then observing the effects this has on subjects’ ability to complete certain tasks, we can begin to pinpoint what involvement that brain region has in certain brain functions. Devlin’s research has been followed the effect of TMS on our processing of spoken language: by using TMS whilst people listened to different words (and deciding whether they were real or made-up words), Devlin has been able to explore the effect of visualising on our ability to analyse speech. Yes, visualising: when we learn to read, we learn to imagine how words are spelled when we hear them spoken.
This brought up interesting questions during the Q&A session – is TMS dangerous? Can it be used therapeutically? Does it have any similarities with ECT? And my questions: has Devlin tried this TMS test on 1) illiterate subjects or 2) synaesthetes (who have very strong cross-modal connections), and finally 3) is he looking for eager subjects?
That’s right. I would love to experience TMS. I would also love to be in an fMRI scanner, and have EEG and MEG. So, if you are a neuroscientist or neuropsychologist and you want me, I’m your gal.
The talk really was good fun – I learnt something (well, many things) new, in a really lovely environment, with charismatic and amusing speakers. Plus, the rest of the audience was lovely – very knowledgeable, and chatty after the talk was over (I chatted to one lady about her experiences of ECT). I gave Devlin my details – hopefully I’ll get to experience TMS soon.
Rebecca and I had a brief look around the Wellcome Collection, especially their fantastic book shop – we will be back soon to explore the Collection in more detail.
The Wellcome Collection is just across the road from Euston station. It is completely free, and is open most days (notably not Mondays). They have a nice later opening day on Thursday – 10am-10pm! They also have a lovely looking café – we’ll be trying that next time we’re there.
Image credits: Packed Lunch banner from Wellcome Collection website, the others are my own.
Rowdy kids and their brain activity
I had the privilege of attending another UCL Institute of Clinical Neuroscience seminar on Monday. This time, Prof. Ian Goodyer of the University of Cambridge came to talk to us about the neurobiology of Conduct Disorders.
I must admit, Conduct Disorder (CD) is a new one on me. Part of me wanted to just scoff and say “well, that’s just brattish children”, or maybe to suggest that it’s the early signs of a Personality Disorder (PD): neither is true. CD displays a range of very particular, severely anti-social behaviours, some of which are very similar to some PDs, but CD is particular to the 18-and-unders (children and adolescents). In to adulthood, people with CD may develop an antisocial PD, but it isn’t an accurate predictor: predicting later mental health issues from childhood behaviours is an incredibly difficult thing. Apparently, the greatest predictor of adult depression is NOT childhood depression, but irritability. Hence the need to differentiate between childhood and adult psychopathologies: a lot of brain development goes on as we grow, and our mental layout changes with it.
Psychiatrists also differentiate between two types of CD: Early Onset CD and Adolescent Onset CD. EO-CD presents in children under the age of about 10yrs, but seems to lessen with age. AO-CD on the other hand seems to occur as a learned behaviour, as individuals’ mimicry of already deviant peers: adolescents presenting AO-CD may not have had any sort of disorder when they were younger, but develop this in reaction to peergroups.
We already have evidence that patients presenting EO-CD have neuropsychological impairments, neurophysiological abnormalities and hormone abnormalities such as atypical cortisol levels (ahha! I know about cortisol now!) What Goodyer and his team have been researching is whether this is also true of AO-CD: if AO-CD is truly just mimicking behaviour based on peer-pressure or social affectation, and not based in neurophysiology. If AO-CD is truly distinct from EO-CD in this way, then patients presenting AO-CD should show similar test scores to normal controls on things such as empathy tests and so forth: they should not show the same scores as EO-CD. AO-CD and EO-CD, if truly different, should show distinct neurobiological characteristics.
But Goodyer and his colleagues have not found this: instead, AO and EO-CD both show similar results in empathy tests (i.e. they don’t seem to display much), they show similar responses to stress, both behaviourally and in terms of cortisol levels, and they both show similar problems in recognising facial expressions.
Goodyer has also run MRI scans for both groups and compared them to normal controls (he also had to go back and retest, after realising he would have to covary for ADHD). Again, both CD groups had very similar abnormalities in brain activity.
If EO and AO-CD are so similar in physiology and psychology, then why does AO-CD only emerge in adolescence? Why is it that EO-CD occurs early on, and AO-CD, statistically identical, doesn’t? This is proving a problem for the taxonomic theory. Perhaps something is preventing the onset of AO-CD in early childhood, or the reverse, that something is causing EO-CD to develop early. We’ve looked at the physiology, but perhaps what we need is a longitudinal study of environment – of course, this is fraught with ethical problems, but it looks to be the missing piece. Perhaps children susceptible to either form of CD are always going to be neurobiologically vulnerable, but depending on their upbringing and subsequent peer-groups, they may or may not actually exhibit any symptoms.
Image credits: from UCL website
Books: Musicophilia
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
That’s more like it! After having a rather disappointing time with Daniel Levitin last week, Oliver Sacks delivered. Like his famous The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat (and most of his other books), Musicophilia follows various case studies – this time, evidently, all related to music. Sacks offers us a potted history of each of his patients, with touching personal insight into their plight. It feels to me that Sacks is getting more sensitive with age – he used to be accused of being too detached from the humanity of his patients, treating them as oddities rather than people, but Musicophilia defies this accusation. Sacks connects with his patients, and some of the passages are not only very poignant, but show Sacks’ deep admiration for their ability to overcome adversity, sometimes in ingenious ways.
To give an example, Sacks talks of the famous amnesic, Clive Wearing who, despite not being able to remember anything that has happened more than a minute or so ago, is still able to play the piano and organ with the same fluency and skill as he could before he suffered the brain damage he bears today (as a result of severe encephalitis). This musicality is Clive’s link to his “former self”, as attested to by his wife.
Sacks also relates strange tales of musical hallucinations, of amusia and musical dystonia. He lets us in to the musical world of people with Williams syndrome and of the musical savants. But for me, the most incredible and moving thing of all is the obvious relief that music brings: helping people with Tourettes to channel their energy, giving people with dementia a pathway to their past, giving rhythm and the gateway to movement to people with Parkinsons, and expression to aphasics, who are unable to connect with language in any other way.
I have a couple of very minor issues: firstly, with the fact that Sacks revisits a lot of previously covered cases (ones mentioned already in his other books, which he could then ask you to read as well), and secondly Sacks really over uses footnotes. There was a footnote ever few pages, and some were incredibly long. In fact, some pages were more footnote than main body text. However, as I said: minor issues. These did not detract from the book’s wonderfulness.
It is a beautiful book, tempering science with humanity, and giving us an insight into worlds far detached from our own – some cases may be familiar (the stories touching upon depression were quite uncomfortable for me) but others are other-worldly. It gives a true appreciation of the breadth of human experience, and the wonder of music that connects us all.
A Royal Institution Birthday – Part 2
Welcome back, chaps. I’m writing this is the car, on the way back from a lovely (if sadly cut-short) weekend in Suffolk. But you’ll hear more about that tomorrow. (EDIT: Just brought to my attention: Don’t worry! It’s nothing sinister. Just a lot to get done before the start of a working week meant that we had to leave early in the morning!)
So, where did we get to yesterday? Ah yes, we were at the Royal Institution, we’d just gluttoned ourselves into a sticky toffee stupor, and, looking at the clock, it was time to get moving for the night’s lecture. In fact, no sooner had I asked the waiter for the bill but the bell was rung for the 15 minute warning – we needed to get ourselves seated upstairs in the lecture hall. No time to find our cocktail companions for later – we needed to get moving! Apparently, we passed Angharad and Paul in a blur – they were having a quick pre-talk drink in the Time&Space bar. But it’s all right – they found us on the stairs and so we made our way into the lecture hall together.
My one criticism of the Royal Institution’s lecture theatre is that it is not kind to the tall. Not a problem for me (as I am a short arse) but not so good for Paul or the even taller Ben. But the lads did not complain, bless ‘em (especially as Ben managed to land himself by the aisle, so he could stretch his legs out there).
Before the talk started, I saw Rebecca and her friend Chantal come in and seat themselves at the opposite side of the theatre – I saw Rebecca looking around, and then wave jovially when she caught sight of us. There would be time for introductions and chat in the bar after the talk.
The night’s lecture was the monthly Friday Evening Discourse: an event exclusively for members and their guests (of which I had brought three, hurrah!) Every last-Friday-of-the-month, a guest speaker is invited to talk about their subject for a maximum one hour (it is timed and signalled by a bell), and this is followed by a 15-minute Q&A session, open to the audience. I have been to some fantastic FEDs since I joined the RI at the beginning of the year, including one about the nature/nurture debate, and a presentation about the therapeutic effects of Lithium.
But this month, it was “Rhythms of the Body”, a talk presented by Prof. Stafford Lightman from the University of Bristol He took us through a brief definition of bio-rhythms, and the various different cycles that living creatures follow (annual, seasonal, lunar/tidal, and of course the daily 24-hour cycles shared by so many organisms) – heliotropes, a group of flowering plants, will faithfully follow a 24-hour cycle of blooming and closing, even if kept in complete darkness.
Next, he went on to explain the underlying cortisol fluctuations that keep us human beings in a happy circadian rhythm. It used to generally be accepted that cortisol levels fluctuated evenly throughout the day, linking to energy levels (plotted, the projected cortisol levels resemble the familiar bell-curve). However, scientific analysis has revealed that cortisol levels fluctuate throughout the day, coming in regular pulses (spikes on a graph), with the pulses getting bigger during the main part of the day, then dying down again at night. These cortisol levels pulse due to a delayed response to neural pulses – Lightman helpfully gave the analogy of a cranky old shower (we’ll ignore the fact that he confused Mr Burns and Homer Simpson on his slides). Imagine you’re in the shower: it’s too cold, so you turn the heat up. But there is a delay, so you turn it up again. When the first increase-signal gets through, great, the shower is at the perfect temperature, but soon the second increase-signal gets through and suddenly the shower is too hot. So you turn the heat down a bit. But again, because of the delay, it remains hot, so you turn it down again. Guess what happens – first it’s perfect, but soon it overshoots (you impatient thing) and it’s too cold again. Repeat ad infinitum. Cortisol pulses in a similar way through a hypothalamus-pituatary-adrenal pathway (involving AVP, CRH, ACTH and finally cortisol), giving us the characteristic spikes.
Cortisol is an anticipatory hormone, and so overall it averages out as that bell-curve over a 24-hour cycle. This anticipation prepares you to act in times of stress and situations involving threat – as a mouse without cortisol, you wouldn’t be prepared to run if the cat was looking at you funny. But you can’t be in a sustained state of anticipation: the mathematics of the feedback/feedforward loop forbid this, as with a sustained high level of cortisol, the oscillating effect cannot occur.
This might explain the desensitisation effect observed in those suffering from continual high levels of stress (such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the recently defined Prolonged Duress Stress Disorder) who need stronger stimuli in order to become engaged emotionally and psychologically.
Cortisol also spikes up in response to stress – and since there is a delay, we can feel the effects of cortisol for some time after the stress-inducing event has actually occurred. So hopefully it’s apparent that interruptions to regular cortisol levels will have an impact on our circadian rhythm: I’m sure we’ve all experienced the effects of stress on our sleeping pattern, and the subsequent effect on our energy levels. Eventually, the circadian rhythm will reassert itself, but you won’t feel top notch in the meantime. And I’m sure we all know that chronic stress can lead to serious physical ill health.
So the circadian rhythm is important, and cortisol levels help to regulate that. So why are we so cruel to our circadian rhythms? Shift-work, staying up late… It’s not good for you. Abnormal cortisol patterns are linked to depression and anxiety, chronic fatigue, memory problems, hypertension…
This was probably the shortest talk I’ve ever been too, but that was by no means a bad thing – it meant we had plenty of time for the Q&A sessions. And a lot of interesting questions were asked: about links to depression, about the change in cortisol fluctuations as we age, about whether or not stress is good for us. Even I asked a question, about the circadian rhythm and Seasonal Affective Disorder: if heliotropes can flower in darkness, why do I need a lightbox to see me through the winter months? And are their any flowers with SAD? Rebecca followed with an interesting question about the increase in the occurrence of breast cancer in women who do shift work and therefore work at odd hours (and therefore disrupt their circadian rhythms).
Overall, a thoroughly interesting talk. And how better to follow this up by returning to Time&Space (this time to their bar and lounge) to discuss the talk over cocktails?
We cosied ourselves away on a couple of sofas with Angharad, Paul, Rebecca and Chantal. Time&Space do some fantastic cocktails, so it’s definitely worth a look in, even if you’re not going for a lecture. I managed to get through a Pink Mojito, a Dragon Fly and a Grand Mimosa. Unfortunately, Rebecca and Chantal had to take off around 10:30pm, but Ben and I stayed chatting with Angharad and Paul until we were pretty much asked to leave… We caught a black cab back to Streatham, and crawled into bed, tipsy and content.
A final shout out must go out to Angharad and her wonderful new shoes. That is all I have to say. Yes, they are that good that they need their own mention
Image credits: ultra cute rat from http://www.desicolours.com, Time&Space bar from RIGB website, and lecture hall was my own
A Royal Institution birthday
I would like to report that Ben’s birthday was a complete success. Hurrah! He thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of it, including the fact that he is, at time of writing, still asleep.
Around 4pm, I got dolled up and made my way through town to meet him at his office. I sat and read for a while whilst he got changed into his lovely formal evening wear. I need to quickly mention that Ben is the King of Charity Shop Trawling: the dress I wore for the evening was one of his finds (gorgeous) but so too was his suit. Not only does it fit wonderfully (he is tall and broad shouldered, so finding anything to fit is a bit of a mission), but it only cost about a fiver. I honestly don’t know how he does it.
Anyway, he changed into Dapper Evening Fox, and we made our way towards Green Park, and the Royal Institution. I had booked us a table for two in their Time&Space restaurant, for 6pm, and we had timed it beautifully. We were lead into their gorgeous dining room and seated in a cosy corner by the window.
The Time&Space restaurant is in-keeping with the style of the rest of the Royal Institution: a lot of this is offered by the architecture of the building itself (high ceilings, large rooms) but the decor matched in too (scientific journals lined the bookshelves, and the furniture was simple, smart and dark). The lighting was easy on the eye and befitting a quiet dining room, and I was surprised to noticed absolutely no ambient music. At first this was strange, but I actually really liked it: it added to the beautifully hushed library feel, and I found myself able to hear Ben’s conversation much easier.
As soon as we sat down, we were offered a bottle of water – good call, waiter man. Even the water glasses were cool – like wine glasses without stems. We were a little distracted by discussing the room itself, so the waiter had to come back several times before we’d made food choices (sorry!) – in the meantime I thought I’d treat Ben to a stonkingly good wine, in the form of my favourite, a Pinot Noir. What I actually chose (Chilcas Single Vineyard, 2007, Central Valley, Chile) got substituted with an Alamos Seleccion (2009, Mendoza, Argentina), but it was so good (and a bit cheaper!) that I really didn’t mind. Ben is not much of a wine drinker, so had no idea what to expect, but enthused about its smoothness, and how it was rich but not over-powering. We will have him yet!!
Even the complimentary bread was nice. Usually that’s not worth noting I guess, but it all helps. When we finally got around to ordering, we decided to “risk it” by ordering things when we weren’t entirely sure what they were – maybe that would be my one criticism of Time&Space, is their unnecessary use of little-used terms. You don’t need to use a “posh” version of black pudding (boudin noir? Really?) and, as girolles are not a common thing to find on any menu, it would help your “phillistine” diners if you could supplement it by saying “girolle mushrooms”.
Anyway, after ordering, the starters arrived swiftly, which was great as I was hungry hungry. Ben went for a fried duck egg, sat on a bed of black pudding (call it what it is) and served with some crisp fried new potatoes. The black pudding was not like greasy-spoon black pudding: it was light but rich, with a herby flavour to it. I think it had mushroom in as well, which was a nice touch. I went for those mushrooms I mentioned: Scottish girolles on a bed of whipped (read: mash) potato. It was very, very tasty (the girolles were like yellow Oyster mushrooms, and the mash gorgeously smooth) but a little on the small side. Perhaps for the best though, as for mains…. I went for steak.
Yes, a 10oz Rib Eye beauty, cooked to perfection (flame grilled so it was slightly caramelised on the outside, yet still beautifully rare in the middle) and served with amazing frites and bearnaise sauce in a cute tiny saucepan (hard to describe, they were good). It was all presented on a lovely wooden board (very rustic – love it) but I was a bit confused by the two sun-blushed tomatoes on top of my steak, nice as they were.
Meanwhile, Ben was already tucking in to his braised beef flank, with a herby breadcrumb crust. The beef had been slow-cooked to perfection: very soft, juicy meat, and packed with flavour. It was served on top of a bed of garlic-scented leeks, with sauteed mushrooms and a bone-marrow sauce. I think he got the better deal out of the two of us: whilst I really love a good steak frites (and mine was GOOD) Ben’s beef was just more “special”. It was all presented beautifully, and the portion size was perfect.
How to top it off then? Well Ben, it’s your birthday – let’s go the whole hog and have pudding. Waiter? Two coffees and two sticky toffee puddings please. Oh yes.
The coffees were… well, they were coffees. But the warm milk was a nice touch (didn’t make the coffee tepid!) but the PUDDINGS. My oh my. These weren’t cheap puds, doused within an inch of their lives in sauce – they were soft domes of hot, sweet loveliness (yes, food IS rather erotic), topped with a ball of gently melting vanilla ice cream. The sauce was hot and not overly abundant. The puddings disappeared very swiftly which, despite our already full bellies, gives you an idea of how delicious they were.
OK, all this talk of food is making my lose my ability to be coherent. Plus, I think this post is now long enough. Which means you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the conclusion of Benny’s Royal Institution Birthday Gala! Hold on to your hats, chaps – there’s SAD flowers, geriatric rats, cocktails and gorgeous shoes to look forward to!
Image credits: first one from Mark Whitfield (Daily Telegraph), all the rest are mine
Friday slump
Sorry chaps – a bit of a slow news day today. Maybe it’s because I haven’t actually done much for the past two days except studying and house work (and teasing the rats).
So, maybe I should share with you interesting things I’m looking forward to in the next few months? Would that be dull? Too bad, that’s what I’m doing.
OK, first things first: today is Ben’s birthday! Hurray Happy birthday, Mr. Fox.
Hurrah I love this man.
I’m not going to tell you what I have planned for his birthday, because that will ruin tomorrow’s blog post. Needless to say, it involves the Royal Institution.
Next up comes Halloween. I’m not hugely in to Halloween, but when I was invited by Vin (with the big house) to a Murder Mystery party, how on earth could I say no? Again, I won’t divulge too much, because that will probably be Sunday’s post… Ahha.
Ongoing are the weekly ICN seminars – these are every Monday at UCL’s ICN building, Queen Square (nearest tube: Russell Square). They’re free and open to the public (a great incentive for Miserly Student) and, whilst quite heavy going, they are incredibly diverse and interesting.
I plan next week to go to the Natural History Museum’s wildlife photographer of the year exhibition with Angharad next Thursday – I didn’t go to last years, but I did browse the winning images online. I regret not going. So, I don’t intend to feel the same regret again. It’s on from 22 October 2010 – 11 March 2011, 10.00 – 17.50 daily, and tickets are: Adult £9, Family £24 (up to 2 adults and up to 3 children), child and concessions £4.50. It is of course free to Members, Patrons and children aged 3 and under.
Very, very importantly: the EAC’s Cambridge concert!! Last week I blogged about our successful Dorking concert, but we’re taking the same programme to St John’s College, Cambridge. The important differences: we will have a full orchestra rather than simply organ, and there are going to be some incredibly important people in the audience. Fingers crossed, but this is going to be a very important concert for us. Fancy coming? PLEASE do. You won’t regret it, I swear.
I do have other concerts coming up, but they are in Sussex, with my double bass I haven’t played poor old bassey for a while, so it will be really lovely to playing again. The concerts I’m playing at are all around the south coast.
- On the 13th November I will be in Hastings, St. Mary-in-the-Castle, for the Hastings Philharmonic Choir’s “Splendour of Baroque” concert
- On the 20th November I will be in Worthing with Boundstone College for their Autumn concert (I haven’t received final details on this yet, so unfortunately can’t link you to anything)
- On the 3rd December, I will be at Roedean School in Brighton for their gala concert – a special of “spooky” classics apparently!
Somewhere in there, I plan to make my way to the Wellcome collection for a day out, to the Freud museum, and a trip back to the Science Museum to see their temporary exhibition all about psychoanalysis. As far as the Wellcome Collection is concerned, I have been browsing through their events calender, and whilst I want to see EVERYTHING, I have had to concede defeat and admit that isn’t possible. However, I will be taking in some of the events, including Describing the Drug Experience (yes, I already have a ticket). Another talk I have already booked for is The Brain of the Future, a BPS hosted lecture given by Baroness Susan Greenfield on 8th November. I imagine tickets for this are already sold out, but if you’re interested, it’s always worth inquiring!
Which brings us hurtling into December. December is going to be busy. It’s busy enough with the whole Christmas thing, but then it’s also my Mum’s big 6-0 and the younger of my two brothers is getting married. Eek. Where did 2010 go?
The Social Network
If you thought I was going to talk about the film, YOU’RE WRONG!! Haha. I have no desire to see said film. So we’ll move on.
I am talking about human social groupings. If you watch QI, then you will have heard Stephen Fry mention this topic last week. Apparently, the maximum functional social network is 150. And who has put this fact forward? Well, Fry told you: it was Prof Robin Dunbar. In fact, it is KNOWN as Dunbar’s Number (lucky git! I want my own number!).
So it was my supreme pleasure to hear the topic talked about from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. On Monday, courtesy of UCL’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN), I was able to attend a lecture given by Dunbar, “New dimensions to the social brain: What comparative analysis and neuroimagine have to tell us”.
Usually, the ICN host their lectures in a seminar room in their building’s basement (above). However, they (rightly) predicted that Dunbar’s lecture would be incredibly popular, so had the forethought to hold it in a larger lecture theatre. It turned out to be the lecture theatre in the Clinical Neuroscience Centre (where the BNS meeting was hosted last week).
Dunbar is a wonderful speaker – knowledgeable, clear, concise and witty. Whilst he had a couple of minor difficulties with his slides, he pressed on admirably.
Mostly, when we consider the social brain, we look at the evolution of social groups and correlate these with evolution of the brain. But there is a broader picture: a big jigsaw puzzle if you will, taking in computational psychology, cognitive psychology, social psychology, evolutionary psychology and even neuropsychology.
Why do primates have big brains, particularly large neocortices? On the whole, brain size seems to correlate to a mean group size: a bigger brain means a larger social group. So why the correlation? Dunbar suggests we need the brain power to cope with our complex social systems. It’s not just the fact that there are lots of people in our groups, but we have to cope with managing many individual relationships within the group.
However, this principle seems only to apply to anthropoid primates. We cannot observe the same pattern in other groups of mammals. With other mammals, the biggest brains are found in long-term pair bonded groups, and not big groups at all. An exception? It seems to be horses: horses have a similar social structure to primates, making them basically big primates with hooves.
Dunbar went on to discuss the roles of bonding and parenting within social groups – primates take the principal behind pair-bonds (to provide consistent care for young) and extend it to other group members. This means that a couple can trust a friend or extended relative to care for their young as their own: something animals lower down the phylogenetic scale seem to have trouble with.
So what does this means for humans? Dunbar’s various studies and thorough meta-analyses show humans to have an average social network of about 150 people. This is consistent with records of Neolithic village sizes, modern-day Amish parishes, even military grouping structures. Trust, obligation, familiarity seems to work best in this sort of group size. Dunbar did go into the fractal periodicity behind mammal social grouping (apparently all mammals’ social networks observe a recurring pattern at a scaling ratio of three) but my brain had obviously gone to get some fresh air at that point. If you’re interested in reading more about the mathematics behind social groupings, I’m afraid you might have to do your own research.
Anyway, Dunbar did touch on some of the obvious: social groups are multi-level, and the quality of relationships deteriorate as you go further out in the layers. I’m sure we’ve all observed this ourselves: we have about five super best pals, then a wider circle of close friends, then a lot of people we’d happily go for a drink with, and then a lot of acquaintances that we’re ok making small talk with. Dunbar says that the phenomenon behind massive Facebook friend groups (we all know someone with 500 friends) is fairly easy to explain: these are NOT FRIENDS. They are voyeurs. We know only about 150 people as “persons” – someone with whom we have history.
So how does this bonding work? Well, primates do it fairly simply: a two way process of grooming and… some cognitive component. We’re not sure what. It might involve levels of intentionality – we’re good up to about 5th order. For humans, this sort of processing is only possible with language as a scaffold. Again, it might be worth doing some background reading about mentalising tasks on levels of intentionality.
But back to grooming: it is pretty certainly a linear function of group size. And why does grooming work? It’s all back to endorphin release. We know this because studies using opiates show a decline in social drive. Use opiate-blockers, the opposite happens (increased social drive – gimme endorphins!)
The problem? If humans used primate techniques for bonding, we would spend about 43% of our day grooming each other…
Does language bridge the gap? We spend about 20% of our time in social contact – so how do we cross the bonding gap?
Dunbar suggests laughter, singing/dancing and the rituals of religion as good endorphin releasers. The music and laughter especially (but not just passively listening to music – get up and actively sing, please!)
Laughter and music are human universals – and studies run on the effects of these show massive endorphin release (particularly if done in a group). Higher endorphin levels correlate to higher pain thresholds. So, measure pain threshold, show the subject a funny movie, then measure pain threshold again. It does work surprisingly well.
Exercise is also a good endorphin releaser. But guess what? It works best in a group again. This time, studies were run on rowing teams: training on their own, or training in synchrony. You guess which was more effective. So, with group activities come better bonding and larger social networks. Perhaps a little common sensicle when you look at it in that one-sentence context, but the underlying psychology is pretty neat.
UCL’s ICN runs a weekly public seminar, held in their building in Queen Square. Want more info? Then head on over to their website
Books: This Is Your Brain On Music
This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding A Human Obsession
This has been on my “to read” list for literally years, but I have to be a honest: I was a little disappointed. It is by no means a bad book: it is a very, very good book. The simple problem is that it was so heavily “talked up” for me – I have had people telling me I have to read this book, it’s amazing, etc. etc. Even on the cover, Classic FM Magazine claims I will “never hear music in the same way again”. Huh.
So… You will excuse me if I found the whole experience a bit of an anticlimactic let down. I fell like I should reiterate my previous disclaimer: This IS a good book. I just did not feel it was ground breaking.
OK, so, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s focus on the positives.
Levitin writes a wonderful, clear and comprehensive guide to musical structure and basic theory. And more: he goes into the science behind how we process sound, and what it is about musical structure, above mere noise, that makes us sit up and listen.
It’s obvious that Levitin knows his stuff: as a music producer turned neuropsychologist, you would hope so. Unlike some music/science researchers, he uses practical, real-world examples, and offers to let you listen along on his website. This definitely brings Levitin’s sometimes theory-heavy text to life: I worry that without these working examples, he would lose the interest of the impatient lay-person.
Interestingly, Levitin doesn’t focus solely on music 100% of the time. He draws parallels with other human-specific phenomena, particularly language and art – I found this especially reassuring, because it makes the overall concepts of the book more accessible to non-musicians.
Levitin also touches upon many interesting neurological and developmental cases – amnesia, Williams syndrome, Aspergers. But he only touches. Not enough to satisfy. I find the same frustration that I felt with Pinker’s “Language Instinct”.
But one thing that Levitin returns to, several times throughout the book? p. 127 “As reported by Oliver Sacks…”, p. 243 “as Oliver Sacks describes it…”, p. 260 “…in a movie narrated by Oliver Sacks…”. Strangely, Sacks finds the book “Endlessly stimulating”, which the publishers chose to emblazon on the back cover.
A good, comprehensive and engaging read. But I don’t feel I learnt anything brand-spanking new.
I have a strange urge to read Oliver Sacks next…
Astrid and Rebecca’s adventures in the side streets of London
After a rather intense few days at the BNS conference, Rebecca (my charming colleague from UEL) and I decided to wind down slowly, by having a brief traipse around the Hunterian Museum. My previous visit to Hunter’s collection I blogged about only recently, so I see no reason to comment to heavily on it here, only to say that Rebecca fully intends to revisit, to view it with more scrutiny. Oh, and I want brain ice-cube trays. We very quickly found ourselves at 5o’clock, and the museum’s closing time, so we headed out for a quick coffee. And then? Rebecca needed to kill time until 6pm, so we decided to have a directionless meander (some of the most interesting things are found by mistake).
We headed up past the Royal College of Surgeons, in the direction of some interesting looking buildings (we had NO idea of the area, so couldn’t guess what they were). After asking a passing postman, we discovered that we had stumbled upon New Square, a quite exclusive and up-market solicitors district. When I told this to Ben in the evening, he expressed surprise that we even managed to stumble in, unchallenged by anyone. Maybe we looked like adorable European tourists.
How fabulous are Rebecca’s boots?!
Definitely a lovely end to an amazing couple of days, so my thanks to Rebecca for being my adventuring companion, aimlessly wandering the side streets near Holborn station. Oh, and a shout out to the solicitor who grinned at us from his office. You work in a gorgeous building, and I’m hideously jealous.
When the brains of brain brains get together
Well, who’s been a busy little bunny? That’s right: ME
Where have I been?
What do you mean, it looks like a clinic? Well it’s not. It’s the Clinical Neuroscience Centre! Oh yes.
I have been at the British Neuropsychological Society (BNS)’s autumn conference. Dr Ashok Jansari is the BNS’s new treasurer, and he was looking for some assistants to help him man the registration desk. I leapt at the chance: we would be getting free entry to the conference, and Ash would take us along to the Wednesday evening drinks reception, to meet leaders in the field of neuropsychology. In the space of a week, everything would become Very Real.
On Wednesday morning, I braved rush-hour on the tube, and made my way nervously to Queens Square (nearest tube: Russell Square): I had already visited Queens Square on Monday to see a UCL ICN talk, so luckily I knew were I was going. Grabbing a coffee from the local Pret, I headed on in the the Centre, and down the stairs to the lecture hall foyer.
Ash wasn’t there yet, but the lovely Dana Samson (from Brussels) received me and my fellow UEL volunteer assistants – we’d be manning the desk in the foyer, signing people in a taking money where necessary. Soon, Ash’s American research assistant arrived, with member name badges, and bags of energy. And last of all, Ash turned up! A little flustered (he is still fighting off a lingering cough) but ready to face the crowds.
We set up – we were each given a member list to keep track of who was and wasn’t a member (and therefore who needed to pay for the day – members can come to the conferences for free). At this point, I got stupidly excited: on the list were Prof Elizabeth Warrington, Prof Alan Baddeley, and Dr Paul Broks. Unfortunately, no sign of Baddeley or Broks over the two days of the conference, but Warrington did come on both days, and made us all feel quite giddy with the geeky equivalent of star-stuck.
As there were a handful of us helping out on the desk, as well as some assistant psychologists from UCLH, we were able to take it in turns sitting in on the conference’s lectures. I would give comments on all the lectures I saw, but this post would end up being obscenely long. Instead, I will comment on just one, which I felt was probably my favourite of all (not just because I found it the most realistically applicable research, but it was the one which I fully “got” – a lot of the talks did contain information that passed me by without introducing itself).
So, “Neural Correlates Of The Urge For Action”, presented by Stephen Jackson. Maybe it’s worth giving the abstract, as presented in the programme -
Objectives: Our objective was to investigate the neural correlates of the urges that may precede some forms of action. A number of psychiatric and neurological disorders, particularly those with a neurodevelopmental origin (e.g., ADHD, OCD, Tourette Syndrome), are characterised by the presence of unwanted and involuntary thoughts and actions that are difficult to suppress. Individuals with Tourette syndrome perceive a relatively constant demand to suppress their tics in social situations and while involuntary suppression of tics is possible, many individuals report that it can be uncomfortable and stressful to suppress tics and that the urge to tic becomes uncontrollable after a period of suppression. This suggests that tics may be executed to remove the unpleasant sensations associated with the urge to tic.
Methods: We used quantitative meta-analytical techniques, along with new investigations using ultra high field functional MRI, to examine the neural correlates of urges that precede action in both healthy individuals and those with Tourette syndrome. We also carried out functional connectivity analyses on our new data to investigate the patterns of inter-connectivity between brain areas identified in the meta-analyses.
Results: Our data indicate that a network of brain areas including: cingulate cortex, insular cortex, and several thalamic nuclei are particularly involved in the urges associated with involuntary action.
Conclusions: These results are discussed with reference to the suggestion that the insular cortex plays a key role in body representation, and that the anterior insular cortex (AIC) in particular is important for the conscious representation of subjective feelings through the integration of the body’s visceral states with emotional signals.
The difficulty suppressing urges is not restricted to those suffering with tics, such as the TS, OCD and ADHD cases discussed: as Jackson pointed out, we all suffer with unwanted yawn urges, and suppressing yawns does not make the urge to yawn go away. During the questions at the end of the talk, I asked if Jackson had performed any similar studies into the urge the scratch an itch: my mum used to tell me that if you ignore an itch, the urge to scratch it will go away by itself, but if it bears any relation to yawning urges, then my mum was simply wrong (YES! Victory). As with cases of chicken pox, psoriasis etc. where scratching the itch only makes things worse (spreading infection, exacerbating inflammation), it would be interesting to know what causes this urge to scratch, and if there is any therapeutic application for Jackson’s research: to get rid of that itch without scratching.
I hope that’s given you food for thought: I wish I could comment further, but my brain is pretty fried for thinking solidly, quite out of my depth, for two entire days.
For me, the highlight of the conference was being able to talk to leaders in my future field (argh, what a frightening though), and being Ash’s assistant gave me this amazing opportunity. It meant I had to skip an evening of lectures, but as I can catch up with studies in my own time, but can’t relive the BNS drinks-reception experience, I think it was quite a fair trade off. All of the other volunteer assistants decided to go to the lectures, which pretty much left me traipsing along behind Ash like a lovestruck nerd all evening. At the end of the talks, we reconvened just down the road in National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery’s Old Boardroom, for drinks and further neuro-chat.
I was able to talk at leisure with fellow post-grad students, Ewan (from Orkney) and his colleague Simona (from Germany), as we sipped the gloriously free wine. However, as we relaxed in to things, we broke out of our safe circle, and took the plunge, talking to our elder, better, wiser heroes. I managed to corner Dr Jamie Ward, a synaesthesia researcher from the University of Sussex (whose book, The Frog Who Croaked Blue, has been on my Amazing wishlist for quite a while now), to talk about cross-modal technology, as well as discussing ecological validity with Ash. I tried not to plague Ash with questions, but it was tricky – he’s knowledgeable AND charismatic, so easy to talk to.
After a couple of hours steady wine quaffing, Ash was trying to corral people in the direction of dinner – he had invited anyone who had the rest of the evening free to join him for a meal and further chat. He asked me if I was coming. I could have cried with glee. I calmly and coolly replied “oh sure, absolutely”. Inside I was squealing.
And then… Well, that’s for tomorrow’s blog post. After all, a restaurant experience deserves a post all its own.
Oh, and I’m now an Associate Member of the BNS. What a delightful mix of exciting and utterly terrifying.
I’ll be keeping this. Forever. Eeeee.
Dirty Rotten Cheapskate!
You might know that I’m a little bit tight with my money. This comes from being a perpetual student. The up side is that I have a reasonable savings account. The down side is that I LIKE TO HAVE THINGS.
Compromise? Buy cheap things. You get more for your money with Cheap.
Now, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I do not always go for the cheap option. I love expensive food. I positively went out of my way to get hold of that expensive Henry Holland fox jumper. Text books can cost £50+. These things are unavoidable, and cannot be substituted (man, I love that jumper).
But there are some cheap options, one of which I indulged in with Angharad (of Edible Glitter fame) yesterday. Down Streatham High Road, there are a variety of charity shops, but my favourite of them all is the British Heart Foundation book shop. I worked with the BHF for more than two years, so I love being able to continue supporting them, whilst getting cheap books. The shop on Streatham High Road is exclusively for books, films and music, but mostly books. I now get the majority of my books there. You might argue, “yes, but there’s no guarantee that the book I want/need will be in there”, and fair enough, there is no guarantee. But you would be surprised what you DO find. Yesterday, Angharad bought four books, and I got five, and out of those, we each had one book useful for our respective dissertations. Handy much?
So, five books (and two Christmas raffle tickets) cost me the princely sum of £12.90. Backtrack to Sunday when I was visiting the British Library with Becky: in their bookshop, I saw a book I wanted that was £12.99 NEW. You do the maths, and report back to me which is the most bargainously amazing deal. Plus, rather than pumping more money into the publishers (sorry to those of my friends that WORK in publishing…Ahha) I am also giving to charity by doing this. I love the fact that miserly student me can get my book fodder and also help a worthy cause, all at the same time. Plus, someone else’s unwanted books find a loving home! Hurrah.
What did I pick up? We’ll start with the dissertation fodder:
Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks. I have wanted this book long time – The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat was a blast, and this one is about MUSIC. What’s not to love? I will be starting this once I’ve finished my current read.
The remaining four books comprised of two non-fiction (Darwin’s Worms by Adam Phillips and The Meaning of it All by Richard Feynman) and two fiction (The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins and The Business by Iain Banks). Once again, I have bolstered my library with more books than I can reasonably read – I’m sure that if my books in London joined forces with my books in Sussex, they could overpower me and take over the world.
But it by no means stops at books – I am a royal cheapskate with clothes, too (well, aside from the Henry Holland incident). I occasionally buy clothes from eBay, but as I’m a tricky shape, I like to be able to try my clothes before I buy. So, Primarni is an obvious cheap clothes shop. A lot of my favourite clothes actually come from charity shops, and (heaven forfend) supermarkets. In fact, last night (whilst hunting down the ridiculous 2for£3 offer on Ben&Jerry’s) at Asda, I found THE perfect t-shirt for me:
Ah, bliss. And a bargain at £4. I love being a cheapskate.
Toasted cheese-on-toast cheese bagel
A bit of a cop-out comedy post today, simply because I’m about to set off for the day to galavant about town with one of my old school friends (who I haven’t seen for about 3 years!)
So, what’s this? Ben and his dinner last night?
He looks way too happy. What is that? It can’t be healthy if he’s that pleased. And he made it himself…
That’s right folks. It’s cheese on toast, in a bagel. Ben will eat anything in a sandwich. Even if it’s another sandwich. Scratch that, ESPECIALLY if it’s another sandwich.
It’s so wrong. So very wrong.
But it does look tasty…
Whose Genome Is It Anyway?
It’s yours, apparently.
Fairly intuitive, you might say. It’s all my DNA, mapped out. Why should it belong to anyone but me?
But with genome mapping projects really gathering speed now, many people are beginning to worry about a new scale of identity theft.
This was the topic touched upon last night at the Royal Institution of Great Britain: why map the human genome? Who owns this genetic information? What are the risks?
Guest curator Mark Henderson facilitated the discussion, between Dr Daniel MacArthur, Dr Caroline Wright and Professor Sir Mark Walport (director of the Wellcome Trust). The speakers held quite different stances on how genetics should and shouldn’t be handled, which naturally made for a far more interesting discussion (no one likes a discussion that consists of a lot of “yes, I agree”. Far better is the: “I’m just going to stop you there…”)
We began with Dr MacArthur, outlining the new Genomes Unzipped program. This is an online program where MacArthur and 11 colleagues have publicly released parts of their sequenced genomes online, for all of us to peruse. Not just that, but that show them in a variety of “easy to read” formats, with some explanations of what we’re looking at. He and the team are trying to help inform the public, and help them to analyse their own data without having to disclose it to anyone else. MacArthur states that he and his colleagues are doing this to open up the discussion about genetics: he argues that at the moment, everyone has a very anxious attitude towards genetic information, but that this fear is without reason.
In fact, he argues that genetic information is very useful – it can tell us a lot about ourselves, about our history, and about the history of the entire species. Genetic tests are now available directly to consumers (in the form of such companies as 23&me, GeneTrack and many others), which means we could receive “personalised medicine” – just by looking at our genetic sequence, we can tell what drugs may be effective for us. This technique is already being used in some cancer treatments.
Dr Wright then backed up his claims (she too is a part of the Genomes Unzipped project), and tried to answer the question “how will it change clinical practice?”. She argued that some sweeping claims have been made in the past about the future of genomics – that, once perfected, everyone will have their genome sequenced at birth, and that this will replace the current infant screening process for illness and defect. But Wright says the genome should be used more selectively – after all, even genes cannot predict the future with certainty, as environment plays a huge role as to how we will develop. Genome sequencing should be used for clinical testing rather than a screening process. Screening looks at everyone, even relatively “healthy” people, whereas clinical testing looks at people who may be at risk from genetically inherited diseases such as cancer – by mapping genes in these select cases, we can see what is driving the illness and develop personalised medicines to treat them.
Screening healthy people is fraught with risks and problems – there are bound to be errors, or we may see problems where there are none. Plenty of people live their lives with “defects” they never knew they had, because they simple don’t cause a problem. A lot of lumps and bumps are benign, but genome sequencing will reveal them, and then doctors seem to have this urge to remove it, instantly. And who wants an invasive surgical procedure if they don’t need one? It’s traumatic and unnecessary. We need to balance out the risks and benefits of genomics.
And then there is the issue of informed consent – we need freedom from coercion and deception. I think one of the great issues surrounding genome mapping is that everyone assumes that the government will, one day, force us to all have our DNA on file. No plans for the immediate future. But what if we decide to sequence our genome anyway, voluntarily? The Genomes Unzipped team obviously have, and have been very public about it. Fine for them, but what about their blood relatives? Remember, you share 50% of your DNA with your 1st degree relatives (parents, siblings, children…) so if you decide to share your genetic information online, you’re also sharing a lot of your family’s information as well. And what if your genome reveals something you didn’t previously know, or didn’t want to know? It can have sensitive implications: what if you find out that you have a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia, or Huntington’s? Your children possibly do too. Then what? Do we have a Duty of Care? Yes, we can’t predict the future, we’re just “at risk”, but this new information does amount to something.
And what about data storage? Who is allowed to see it? Family? Doctors? Police? Researchers? In the case of Genomes Unzipped: everyone? Sir Walport stepped up to the mark to alert us to this. And it’s not just the mad conspiracy theorists either – what if insurance companies get hold of our genetic data? We could get higher insurance rates (or even denied insurance) if our genes suggest we are particularly susceptible to an illness. He showed explicit disbelief at the behaviour of the “Facebook Generation”, sharing very personal information with all and sundry – and once it’s online, it’s too late. What genomes can tell us might be a nasty shock. We might learn something we didn’t want to know, and certainly didn’t want to tell anyone else! This really confuses the ethical debate.
Fingerprints are a form of individual identification, but they tell you nothing ABOUT the person they belong too – they don’t tell you age, height, hair colour, socioeconomic background… But now? The informational content of DNA is going up, and sharply. An anonymised database, says Walport, is fine, but as soon as you attach a name to a sequence, there is bound to be discrimination.
As far as the Insurance Company question goes, Walport seemed to be undecided: remember, insurance is part of a two-way form of public protection, as it works on a basis of pooled risk. If you claim, the payout comes from the pool. There has been a genetic bias in insurance for a long time, not just since the dawn of genome sequence: we may have a family history of cancer, Huntington’s, and so forth, and we have a duty to disclose that to the insurance company. But, as Walport argues, we can pool genetic information without having to put namebadges in the mix.
Tricky stuff. Then followed some questions by Mark Henderson, and an open Q&A with the audience. I wanted to ask those taking part in Genomes Unzipped, “are you not scared, publicising this information online? You realise that it is now too late. If that information reveals, later on, something that you don’t wish everyone else to know, that you can’t “take it back”. That’s the beauty of the internet. Someone’s already downloaded it.” but I didn’t. Nevermind. Something for the rest of us to ponder, perhaps.
