Fox IB Psychology

"In the 1980s, Dr. Lars Olov Bygren, a preventive-health specialist who is now at the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, began to wonder what long-term effects the feast and famine years might have had on children growing up in Norrbotten in the 19th century - and not just on them but on their kids and grandkids as well. So he drew a random sample of 99 individuals born in the Overkalix parish of Norrbotten in 1905 and used historical records to trace their parents and grandparents back to birth. By analyzing meticulous agricultural records, Bygren and two colleagues determined how much food had been available to the parents and grandparents when they were young. Around the time he started collecting the data, Bygren had become fascinated with research showing that conditions in the womb could affect your health not only when you were a fetus but well into adulthood. In 1986, for example, the Lancet published the first of two groundbreaking papers showing that if a pregnant woman ate poorly, her child would be at significantly higher than average risk for cardiovascular disease as an adult. Bygren wondered whether that effect could start even before pregnancy: Could parents' experiences early in their lives somehow change the traits they passed to their offspring? (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2009.) It was a heretical idea. After all, we have had a long-standing deal with biology: whatever choices we make during our lives might ruin our short-term memory or make us fat or hasten death, but they won't change our genes - our actual DNA. Which meant that when we had kids of our own, the genetic slate would be wiped clean. What's more, any such effects of nurture (environment) on a species' nature (genes) were not supposed to happen so quickly. Charles Darwin, whose On the Origin of Species celebrated its 150th anniversary in November, taught us that evolutionary changes take place over many generations and through millions of years of nat

"BARBARA HERBERT, a former council worker living in southern England, discovered after the death of the woman she had thought was her mother that in fact she had been adopted. Among her assumed mother's papers, she found a name and address in Finland. When that produced no answer, she contacted the local newspaper in Finland. A reporter dug up the story. Her real mother had been sent to England, two months pregnant, in 1939. She had given birth, been sent back to Finland, and committed suicide at the age of 24. Mrs Herbert had a feeling the story was not over. She seemed to recall somebody saying, "There was another one." So she contacted Hammersmith Hospital, where she was born; and, sure enough, there had been twins. The Registrar-General refused to help her contact her twin. She took the Registrar-General to court, and won. That is how she found her sister. They met at King's Cross station in London. "We just said 'Hi' and walked off together, leaving our husbands standing there," says Mrs Herbert. "It seemed so natural." Mrs Herbert is a bit fatter than her sister, but she can think of no other important difference between them. Their intelligence quotients (IQs) were one point apart. They were tested again a year later; they scored ten points higher, but still only one point apart. Mrs Herbert and her sister Daphne are gold dust to geneticists. Unlike fraternal twins, who are the product of separate eggs fertilised by different sperm, identical twins are natural clones, produced when a fertilised egg splits in two shortly after conception. Such twins, when separated after birth, are thus a scientific experiment designed jointly by nature and by society. They have the same genes but have been brought up in different environments. These curiosities are getting rarer. Until the 1960s, twins offered for adoption in the West were often separated at birth, on the argument that two babies would be too much for one mother. That no longer happens

"A MOTHER sits in a playroom with her young son. The phone rings. When she picks it up, a researcher watching through a two-way mirror asks her to look into her son's eyes and ''show him, in the way that feels most natural for you, that you love him''. The mother is doing her best to connect, but this little boy won't return her gaze. He looks at her mouth, where the words are coming from, but it's as if he can't understand what she means. Advertisement: Story continues below Robert Thompson and Jon Venables killed UK toddler James Bulger. Robert Thompson and Jon Venables killed UK toddler James Bulger. Mark Dadds says some children literally cannot see the love in their mother's eyes. Professor Dadds, a parenting expert from the University of New South Wales, has just published results of his work in the British Journal of Psychiatry and the Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology that suggest the ability to make eye contact is vital in learning how to love other people. For the past five years, he has been working with children referred to his Sydney clinic for sustained rages, continual aggression, calculated violence and, occasionally, cruelty to animals. These are children with some of the worst behavioural problems, who score highly for ''callous, unemotional'' traits. In his studies in both Sydney and London, it was these children who did not meet their mother's gaze, even when told they were loved. People marvel at the resilience of children who overcome appalling family backgrounds to make good lives. We understand when childhood trauma sends a child off the rails. But we also have to accept that even good parents can have mean children - how else to explain families where only one child seems to be callous and unemotional, while the siblings are not? Dadds distinguishes between children who are emotionally ''hot'' - those who lash out at the world - and the much smaller subset of ''cold'' children - the ones who don't react emotionally, don't car

"SCIENCE confirmed last week what A. J. Jacobs had already feared. "I knew that my testosterone was at a low point when I found myself wearing my wife's polka-dotted breast-feeding pillow strapped around my waist in an attempt to feed a bottle of milk to my infant son," said Mr. Jacobs, a writer who lives in Manhattan with his wife and three young children. He and new fathers everywhere were calibrating the state of their manhood after the release of a much-discussed study of 600 men that indicated that testosterone - the defining hormone of maleness - drops after a man becomes a father. If that were not enough, the study seems to suggest that practice actually makes imperfect when it comes to the hours men spend in rearing children. It found that the more time a man spends each day, say, strapping Crocs onto his toddler's feet or helping her off the monkey bars, the more the hormone flags. In a Mr. Mom era, where society encourages (and family schedules often demand) that men enthusiastically embrace a 50-50 split of every parenting duty short of breast-feeding, the question on many fathers' minds is whether all of their efforts to be the ideal contemporary man are also making them less of one. "

"Brain research is beginning to produce concrete evidence for something that Buddhist practitioners of meditation have maintained for centuries: Mental discipline and meditative practice can change the workings of the brain and allow people to achieve different levels of awareness. Those transformed states have traditionally been understood in transcendent terms, as something outside the world of physical measurement and objective evaluation. But over the past few years, researchers at the University of Wisconsin working with Tibetan monks have been able to translate those mental experiences into the scientific language of high-frequency gamma waves and brain synchrony, or coordination. And they have pinpointed the left prefrontal cortex, an area just behind the left forehead, as the place where brain activity associated with meditation is especially intense. "What we found is that the longtime practitioners showed brain activation on a scale we have never seen before," said Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the university's new $10 million W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior. "Their mental practice is having an effect on the brain in the same way golf or tennis practice will enhance performance." It demonstrates, he said, that the brain is capable of being trained and physically modified in ways few people can imagine. Scientists used to believe the opposite -- that connections among brain nerve cells were fixed early in life and did not change in adulthood. But that assumption was disproved over the past decade with the help of advances in brain imaging and other techniques, and in its place, scientists have embraced the concept of ongoing brain development and "neuroplasticity." "

"Acousticians have been designing concert halls for more than a century, but Dr. Kyriakakis does something different. He shapes the sound of music to conform to the space in which it is played. The goal is what Dr. Kyriakakis calls the "ground truth" - to replicate the original in every respect. "We remove the room," he said, "so the ground truth can be delivered." Dr. Kyriakakis, an electrical engineer at U.S.C. and the founder and chief technical officer of Audyssey Laboratories, a Los Angeles-based audio firm, could not achieve his results without modern sound filters and digital microprocessors. But the basis of his technique is rooted in the science of psychoacoustics, the study of sound perception by the human auditory system. "It's about the human ear and the human brain, and understanding how the human ear perceives sound," Dr. Kyriakakis said. Psychoacoustics has become an invaluable tool in designing hearing aids and cochlear implants, and in the study of hearing generally. "Psychoacoustics is fundamental," said Andrew J. Oxenham, a psychologist and hearing expert at the University of Minnesota. "You need to know how the normally functioning auditory system works - how sound relates to human perception." "

"Exposure to even dim light at night is enough to cause physical changes in the brains of hamsters that may be associated with depression, a new study shows."

"The hormone oxytocin, which is known to be important in trust, may also be involved in a sense of well-being. According to new research, women who show large increases in oxytocin when they are trusted also report being more satisfied with life and less depressed."

"The hormone oxytocin has come under intensive study in light of emerging evidence that its release contributes to the social bonding that occurs between lovers, friends, and colleagues. Oxytocin also plays an important role in birth and maternal behavior, but until now, research had never addressed the involvement of oxytocin in the transition to fatherhood."

"For a hormone, oxytocin is pretty famous. It's the "cuddle chemical" -- the hormone that helps mothers bond with their babies. Salespeople can buy oxytocin spray on the internet, to make their clients trust them. It's known for promoting positive feelings, but more recent research has found that oxytocin can promote negative emotions, too. The authors of a new review article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, takes a look at what oxytocin is really doing."

"A new study carried out at the University of Haifa has found that the hormone oxytocin, the "love hormone," which affects behaviors such as trust, empathy and generosity, also affects opposite behaviors, such as jealousy and gloating. "Subsequent to these findings, we assume that the hormone is an overall trigger for social sentiments: when the person's association is positive, oxytocin bolsters pro-social behaviors; when the association is negative, the hormone increases negative sentiments," explains Simone Shamay-Tsoory who carried out the research."

"Despite memory's obvious benefits, it can also let us down, said Daniel Schacter, PhD, longtime memory researcher and chair of Harvard University's psychology department, at an APA 2003 Annual Convention session honoring the publication of his book, "The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers" (Houghton Mifflin, 2001). "Memory, for all that it does for us every day...for all the feats that can sometimes amaze us, can also be a troublemaker," said Schacter of his book, which describes the seven major categories of memory foibles being investigated by psychologists. However, noted Schacter, the same brain mechanisms account for memory's sins as well as its strengths, so investigating its negatives exposes its positives. "We shouldn't think of these fundamentally as flaws in the architecture of memory," he explained, "but rather as costs we pay for benefits in memory that make it work as well as it does most of the time." At the session, during which Schacter received the APA Div. 1 (Society for General Psychology) William James Book Award, he defined his book's seven sins. The first three are "sins of omission" that involve forgetting, and the second four are "sins of commission" that involve distorted or unwanted recollections."

"Recall a time you said or did something incorrect in front of peers or authority figures. Now think of all the details you can recall associated with that experience. Where you were, who was there, any other things you wouldn't ordinarily remember about distant events such as what you wore, saw, did earlier or later that day. If you have a minute, write down some of these ancillary sensory memories. What you recall now is the result of your dopamine-reward network and your flashbulb memory or event memory system. As the brain evolved for survival of the animal and the species, much of what we humans now do is directed by hard-wired neural networks and neurotransmitters not under conscious control. Actually only about 17% of your brain is capable of responding to your conscious will; the rest is pretty much like that of a lower mammal or newborn baby with reactions to input based on association with imminent danger, risk, or pleasure."

"This week, we talk about Operant Conditioning, and its unfortunate overuse in modern game design."

"The NYT's new-look Sunday Review led this weekend with a big essay by Peter Kramer, the author of Listening to Prozac. But for all its length and detail, it's very hard to read - at many points, doing so feels like listening to one half of a telephone conversation. Which makes sense when you consider Kramer's opening paragraphs: In terms of perception, these are hard times for antidepressants. A number of articles have suggested that the drugs are no more effective than placebos. Last month brought an especially high-profile debunking. In an essay in The New York Review of Books, Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, favorably entertained the premise that "psychoactive drugs are useless." Earlier, a USA Today piece about a study done by the psychologist Robert DeRubeis had the headline, "Antidepressant lift may be all in your head," and shortly after, a Newsweek cover piece discussed research by the psychologist Irving Kirsch arguing that the drugs were no more effective than a placebo. I've included, here, all of the links that Kramer provides. Which is exactly one, to the NYT topic page on antidepressants. If you want to find Angell's article, or the USA Today piece, or the Newsweek cover story, you're on your own: Kramer and the NYT won't help you. And Kramer, clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University, takes care not to even mention part two of Angell's two-part series, where she talks at length about how psychiatry has been captured by drug companies, who "are particularly eager to win over faculty psychiatrists at prestigious academic medical centers". (After reading Angell's second essay, you'll certainly wonder why Kramer doesn't disclose how much income he gets from pharmaceutical companies.)"

"A small new study provides more evidence that, on average, antidepressants may be little more effective than a sugar pill in most patients who take them. "I think we've made decisions (about how to treat depression) more difficult," says co-author Robert DeRubeis, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings are published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. "I hope we have.""

"Although the year is young, it has already brought my first moral dilemma. In early January a friend mentioned that his New Year's resolution was to beat his chronic depression once and for all. Over the years he had tried a medicine chest's worth of antidepressants, but none had really helped in any enduring way, and when the side effects became so unpleasant that he stopped taking them, the withdrawal symptoms (cramps, dizziness, headaches) were torture. Did I know of any research that might help him decide whether a new antidepressant his doctor recommended might finally lift his chronic darkness at noon? The moral dilemma was this: oh, yes, I knew of 20-plus years of research on antidepressants, from the old tricyclics to the newer selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that target serotonin (Zoloft, Paxil, and the granddaddy of them all, Prozac, as well as their generic descendants) to even newer ones that also target norepinephrine (Effexor, Wellbutrin). The research had shown that antidepressants help about three quarters of people with depression who take them, a consistent finding that serves as the basis for the oft-repeated mantra "There is no question that the safety and efficacy of antidepressants rest on solid scientific evidence," as psychiatry professor Richard Friedman of Weill Cornell Medical College recently wrote in The New York Times. But ever since a seminal study in 1998, whose findings were reinforced by landmark research in The Journal of the American Medical Association last month, that evidence has come with a big asterisk. Yes, the drugs are effective, in that they lift depression in most patients. But that benefit is hardly more than what patients get when they, unknowingly and as part of a study, take a dummy pill-a placebo. As more and more scientists who study depression and the drugs that treat it are concluding, that suggests that antidepressants are basically expensive Tic Tacs. Hence the moral dilemma. The placebo ef

"Listen to Slate's show about the latest debate over antidepressants."

"In my article in the last issue, I focused mainly on the recent books by psychologist Irving Kirsch and journalist Robert Whitaker, and what they tell us about the epidemic of mental illness and the drugs used to treat it.1 Here I discuss the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-often referred to as the bible of psychiatry, and now heading for its fifth edition-and its extraordinary influence within American society. I also examine Unhinged, the recent book by Daniel Carlat, a psychiatrist, who provides a disillusioned insider's view of the psychiatric profession. And I discuss the widespread use of psychoactive drugs in children, and the baleful influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the practice of psychiatry. One of the leaders of modern psychiatry, Leon Eisenberg, a professor at Johns Hopkins and then Harvard Medical School, who was among the first to study the effects of stimulants on attention deficit disorder in children, wrote that American psychiatry in the late twentieth century moved from a state of "brainlessness" to one of "mindlessness."2 By that he meant that before psychoactive drugs (drugs that affect the mental state) were introduced, the profession had little interest in neurotransmitters or any other aspect of the physical brain. Instead, it subscribed to the Freudian view that mental illness had its roots in unconscious conflicts, usually originating in childhood, that affected the mind as though it were separate from the brain. But with the introduction of psychoactive drugs in the 1950s, and sharply accelerating in the 1980s, the focus shifted to the brain. Psychiatrists began to refer to themselves as psychopharmacologists, and they had less and less interest in exploring the life stories of their patients. Their main concern was to eliminate or reduce symptoms by treating sufferers with drugs that would alter brain function. An early advocate of this biological