Put a neuro on it!

Put a bird on it, is a sketch from Portlandia commenting on the use of something to the point of over saturation. If The Guardian newspaper is any indicator, neuro- prefixed fields and fads have reached bird trend levels. I've posted about neuroeducation (1 and 2) and written satirical ad copy about marketing (1 and 2) before, and two article about neuromarketing and neuroeducation in The Guardian show that the tides are still raising. As with many design trends, like putting a bird on it, many neuro- trends are more flash than substance. Hastily applied neuroscience used to distract lay audiences does nothing to help further the abilities of real scientists attempting to bridge neuroscience with other fields.

Two quotes, one from each article, summarize the issues of these neuro- (mis)applications:

"Much of commercial neuromarketing EEG uses cheap kit, in poorly controlled, poorly designed experiments, that often produces junk data."

"No one should be looking to neuroscience to provide quick fixes or shortcuts to effective learning..."

I'm all for combining neuroscience with other fields, but looking to do so in a way that is appropriate, measured and well-designed. If people keep trying to use colorful brains to make a quick buck, we're going to soon run into a number of problems with shoddy science meets a scientifically tested end.

 

My first experience with socialized medicine

I spent the previous year in Canada and everyone that I already knew or met asked me the same first question, "How's the healthcare?" For most of the year I couldn't say much other than that even I as a visiting American scholar was provided OHIP (the Ontario Health Insurance Program) after just three months of residency. Finally, as I was preparing to move I went to say goodbye to some friends and play basketball one last time.

It was the end of May and I was in the middle of training for a 25K trail race about a month away. So instead of biking to the court as I normally did, I decided to run there, with the 7.2 mile roundtrip giving me another 50 mile week. After I arrived at the court, we were down a few players from normal but luckily there was a man who had brought his sons to the park and was interested in playing with his. Vlado and I teamed up in a two on two game against my friends and everything was going well. Vlado seemed to warm up quickly and was a much better player than I first assumed. About 20 minutes into our first, and only game, disaster struck as I drove for a layup and came down on my defender's foot, twisting my right ankle hard to the outside. In immediate pain, I stumbled around, tried to lay down and put my foot up, and then watched as my ankle quickly swelled and started to spill over my running shoes.

At that point Vlado, the man that we had met just 20 minutes earlier offered to give me a ride to the hospital. Within minutes he left his sons in the care of my friends and had me in the front seat of his car going towards the hospital. However, he didn't really know where the hospital was. We were driving from an elementary school in the Junction towards the east, but neither of us really knew where a hospital was, so we started to ask people on the sidewalks before being directed to Toronto Western near downtown. A few minutes later Vlado was pulling up to a turn around and dropping me off with cash to take a cab ride home. I couldn't believe the kindness and generosity of this almost stranger.

As he left, I began to limp towards the emergency room. About 5 minutes of limping later I was in the emergency room and just two minutes after that I was checked in. Over the next four hours, between bouts of waiting, I had an X-Ray, spoke to a doctor and was released with instructions of how to treat want turned out to be a severely sprained ankle. In those four hours I wasn't thinking about how long it was taking or the fact that I was receiving government subsidized healthcare, I was impressed by the fact that over 30 other people with a range of maladies on one Sunday afternoon in a 4 hour window were receiving government subsidized healthcare. Overall, it was a great experience and definitely showed me the benefits of socialized healthcare.