Advances in our understanding of neuroscience have played an important role across the history of awarding the Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine. However, of these Nobel prizes, only a few recognize discoveries that may be considered systems or behavioral level neuroscience. The 2014 award to John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser, “for their discoveries of cell cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain” is one of those rare occurrences, but is it a sign of a coming trend in future of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awards? Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded 105 times to 207 Nobel Laureates. Of these 105 awards, 24 have been awarded to neuroscience discoveries, with only 4 awards, 1949 for the discovery of the leucotomy, 1973 for the discovery of the organization and elicitation of individual and social behavioral patterns, 1981 for the discovery of hemispheric specialization, and 2014 awarded to systems or behavioral level neuroscience (the Nobel Prizes in Economic Sciences awarded in 2002 to Daniel Kahneman and Vernon Smith and 1978 to Herbert Simon could also qualify as a behavioral science award).
While the award to work in systems neuroscience may seem unusual, the wording of the award, physiology or medicine, has left considerable freedom for the Nobel Assembly at Krolinska Institutet to award this particular prize. Even looking at the winners from within neuroscience, the flexibility of this prize has been demonstrated with fields including zoology, diagnostic imaging and genetics.
Looking to the future of neuroscience and the Nobel Prize, does the 2014 award indicate a trend towards awards in systems or behavioral neuroscience? Major funding initiatives in the United States, the BRAIN Initiative and the Human Brian Project (HBP) in the European Union may indicate so. The may help shift the trend of Nobel Prizes in medicine for discoveries in neuroscience towards systems and behavioral level work. The HBP hopes to “simulate the brain” while the BRAIN project aims to discover “how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space” (BrainInitiative, NIH).
Besides funding trends, the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience may very well serve as a bellwether to future Nobel Prizes having already served as a precursor award to three laureates (Thomas Sudhof and James Rothman – 2013 and John O’Keefe – 2014). It is encouraging to see systems neuroscience recognized for its benefit to mankind as complex human behavior often seems impervious to our understanding. Perhaps through new technologies and collaborative work from multiple disciplines we can begin to shed light on a number of other complex cognitive behaviors.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Mental Illness, what's the conversation
 |
| An interesting relationship |
"Those who have become eminence in philosophy, politics, poetry and arts all had tendencies towards melancholia"
Aristotle
Seneca: “No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.”
Seneca
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact.”
Shakespeare
“Great Wits are sure to Madness near ally'd / And thin Partitions do their Bounds divide.”
Dryden
Attempting to answer the questions suffers somewhat from a selection bias. A brief look in to historical figures who were creative in their own ways, captures a "whose who" of celebrities including: Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leo Tostoy, Tennessee Williams, Van Gogh, Issac Newton, Hemingway, Dickens, John Nash, Kurt Cobain, Richard Dryfuss, Catherine Zeta Jones, Ozzy Osbourne, Robin Williams... To put it another way, there are a number of creative people who have mental illness, but there are a number of mentally ill who are not creative.
Depending on the definition of creativity, there appears to be a higher rate and intensity of symptoms in eminent creators than in the general population with depression the most common symptom along with correlates of alcoholism and suicide. A corollary on this finding is that the rate and intensity of symptoms depends on the specific domain of creativity, such as psychopathology which is higher among artistic creators (Andreasen, 1987; Jamison, 1989).
An interesting paper I published a few years ago (Duff et al., 2013), turned attention away from the frontal lobes to another brain structure, the hippocampus that also shows pathology in a number of psychiatric disorders including depression (Sheline et al., 1996) and schizophrenia (Nelson et al., 1998). In our study, patients with hippocampal amnesia demonstrated a deficit in creativity, both verbal and figural as measured by the Torrance Test of Creativity (a divergent thinking test). This function of the hippocampus and its apparent decrease in untreated psychiatric disorders may give shed some light on the relationship between creativity and mental illness.
Another issue depends on when you examine the creativity taking place. Is the creativity taking place when someone is lost in the florid throws of mental illness, or in the times that their symptoms abate? While some may see creativity as a toaster that appears out of nowhere like a gift, others work tirelessly on their craft, producing far more uncreative work than creative work (while still producing masterpieces). Mood-creativity research reveals that people are most creative when they are in a positive mood (Bass, De Dreu, Carsten, & Nijstad, 2008; Davis, 2009).
References
Andreasen, N.C. (1987). Creativity and mental illness: Prevalence rates in writers and their first-degree relatives. American Journal of Psychiatry, 144(10), 1288-1292.
Baas, M., De Dreu, Carsten K. W.; Nijstad, B.A. (2008). A meta-analysis of 25 years of mood-creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus?. Psychological Bulletin, 134(6): 779–806.
Callicott, J., Bertolino, A., Mattay, V., Langheim, J., Duyn, J., Coppola, R., Goldberg, T. & Weinberger, D. (2000). Physiological dysfunction of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia revisited. Cerebral Cortex, 10(11), 1078-1092.
Davis, M.A. (2009). Understanding the relationship between mood and creativity: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 100(1): 25–38.
Duff, M.C., Kurczek, J., Rubin, R., Cohen, N.J.,& Tranel, D. (2013). Hippocampal amnesia disrupts creative thinking. Hippocampus, 23(12), 1143-1149.
Folly, B. & Park, S. (2005). Verbal creativity and schizotypal personality in relation to prefrontal hemispheric laterality: A behavioral and near-infrared optical imaging study. Schizophrenia Research, 80, 271-282.
Hirono, N., Mori, E., Ishii, K., Ikejiri, Y., Imamura, T., Shimomura, T., Hashimoto, M., et al. (1998). Frontal lobe hypometabolism and depression in Alzheimer’s disease. Neurology, 50(2), 380-383.
Jamison, K.R. (1989). Mood disorders and patterns of creativity in British writers and artists. Psychiatry, 52(2), 125-134.
Nakao, T., Radua, J., Rubia, K., & Mataix-Cols, D. (2011). Gray matter volume abnormalities in ADHD: Voxel-based meta-analysis exploring the effects of age and stimulant medication. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 168(11), 1154-1163.
Nelson, M.D., Saykin, A.J., Flashman, L.A., & Riordan, H.J. (1998). Hippocampal volume reduction in schizophrenia as assessed by magnetic resonance imaging: A meta-analytic study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 55(5), 433-440.
Post, F. (1994). Creativity and psychopathology: A study of 291 world- famous men. British Journal of Psychiatry, 165, 22-34.
Seeman, P., Lee, T., Chau-wong, M., & Wong, K. (1976). Antipsychotic drug doses and neuroleptic and neuroleptic/dopamine receptors. Nature, 261(5562), 717-719.
Sheline, Y., Wang, P.W., Gado, M.H., Csernansky, J.G., & Vannier, M.W. (1996). Hippocampal atrophy in recurrent major depression. PNAS, 93(9), 3908-3913.
White, H. & Shah, P. (2006). Uninhibited imaginations: Creativity in adults with attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 40(6), 1121-1131.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Mixing science with community
In days gone by, the only way for a scientist to come to national attention was through an amazing scientific breakthrough, a career of outstanding work (that normally culminated in an award of national prominence) or through a major mistake (e.g., ethics breaches, data fabrication, plagiarism, scientific misconduct). Today scientists can work to make connections with a wider audience than the handful of post-docs and graduate students that comb through esoteric journals through social media. While many scientists have excitedly taken up Twitter, I recently stumbled on this paper
Though on a more serious note, direct communication between scientists and the public is useful, especially when research/topics are controversial or not well understood. However, a recent study from Pew Research Center has indicated in a survey that people with dissenting views (or less popular views) actually participate less in discussions on-line. Interestingly, the study also revealed that people with less education were more likely to speak up. Moving forward, Twitter and other social media are not just for the distillation of science into manageable/understandable bits, so while some researchers may have more followers than they "should", sometimes its nice to just tell jokes.
The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists
Neil HallThe author states that while social media plays an important role in outreach, there is a danger in it gaining too high a value, surpassing traditional measures of scientific value like citation indicies. To me Twitter is more about bringing in information than putting information out. It serves as a great aggregator of up-to-the second news and information as well as longer forms of formal and informal scientific inquiry both within and outside your specific field. Twitter has also proved invaluable at conferences for social networking and socializing.
This infographic from katiephd.com does a great job giving insight into the role of twitter in science today
Though on a more serious note, direct communication between scientists and the public is useful, especially when research/topics are controversial or not well understood. However, a recent study from Pew Research Center has indicated in a survey that people with dissenting views (or less popular views) actually participate less in discussions on-line. Interestingly, the study also revealed that people with less education were more likely to speak up. Moving forward, Twitter and other social media are not just for the distillation of science into manageable/understandable bits, so while some researchers may have more followers than they "should", sometimes its nice to just tell jokes.
PhDone
On April 28th I defended my PhD thesis and soon after on June 2nd, I started my post-doc at Baycrest Hospital, Rotman Research Institute and York University. The previous 3 months have been a rush of trying to settle into a new job, in a new city, in a new country. This past Monday marked the first time since I was 5 years old that school started and I wasn't a student.
Raising Awareness and Engagement
The ALS Ice bucket challenge has been hot this summer, but if the number of videos on my Facebook page is any indication, it looks like the social media phenomenon is starting to... cool off. Between July 29th and August 27th, the ALSA has received $94.3 million in donations, or about 35 times as much as the same period last year. In fact that figure is about 4 times as much as the ALSA raised last year.
The goal of the challenge besides raising money for the ALSA organization was to raise awareness about the motor neuron disease. ALS also known as Charcot disease or Lou Gehrig's disease falls into a broad category of neurodegenerative disorders that also includes Huntington's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease. The degeneration of both upper and lower motor motor neurons leads to at first muscle weakness and atrophy which very quickly progresses to complete loss of all voluntary and eventually involuntary motor control. 65% of those diagnosed with ALS will not live longer than 5 years. The ALS ice bucket challenge has been interesting for the attention it has brought to a "orphan disease" and ubiquity of participation from common folk and celebrities alike. However, besides raising money for the ALSA and raising awareness about ALS, this phenomenon has brought up a number of interesting broader issues, including what does "raising awareness" actually accomplish, how should we think about research/charitable giving/what happens in these windfall moments for charities, and finally what role can/will social media play in social movements.
In my experience in community engagement and helping start engagement projects, one of the first goals of every project is to raise awareness. But raising awareness is one of the most nebulous, amorphous goals one can set out to accomplish. How do you measure awareness and at what points in time do you measure it? With the ALS ICB we can measure raised awareness through number of hashtags, videos and dollars given. But are we only going to count those things while the challenge is front page news? Has a large increase in donations or tweets or videos over a month accomplished your goal of awareness? What if we look at the number of donations in six months, in 11 months?
I'm sure with a social media phenomenon this large we'll see a number of news stories that revisit it late next summer and maybe if the ALSA plays their cards right, with the right social media negotiation they can potentially turn the ICB into an annual end of summer event, a la the Movember/No shave November prostate cancer fundraiser. If the ALSA and ICB really hits the jackpot, they may even enter the realm of the Susan G Komen Pink Ribbon campaign. In 30 years since its inception, the Pink Ribbon campaign for Breast Cancer has become one of the most successful and popular charities with over $400 million in annual earnings and over 200 corporate partners (including the NFL who devotes the month of October to Brest Cancer Awareness despite their own public health crisis, traumatic brain injury (I'll save this for another post), and apparent lack of concern for women). It will be interesting to see how the ALSA handles the windfall and what they can do with their new war chest of funds in order to sustain public awareness.
Recently I've seen an infographic posted on-line comparing funding and deaths of various diseases which people are using as a critique of donating to particular diseases. I've also read blog posts and editorials (also here) where people critique giving money to one charity in lieu of another because it either 1) doesn't directly help particular individuals or 2) is "wasted" on research. I'm glad to see a social media phenomenon actually making people think about issues (what did planking, owling, icing, or Tebowing make you think about). How do charities actually spend their money, what effect does each dollar spent actually have on research, awareness or other goals of the charity? There are a number of different charity watchdog organizations that keep track of how charities actually spend their money and should be one of your first stops before handing over a dollar to any organization. I've also been interested in the posts of others who will refuse to donate to the ALSA because of what the research dollars go to fund. While I do not agree with the critiques (see this response), people taking the time to investigate the what and how of a challenge before jumping on the bandwagon is encouraging.
Some people that may have stopped to think about what they were doing before jumping on the bandwagon were the politicians who were happy to take money out of the NIH's pockets and then pour iced water on their heads for the publicity. Although the NIH budget was doubled in 1998, it has declined by 25% over the last decade with the number of researchers funded by RO1s on a trend downwards. Its quite amazing when social media is used for good, but I wonder to what extent social proofing (Sharif, 1935; Figure 1) can actually be leveraged to do good. A number of commentators, or maybe they're critics, often point to social media causes (e.g., dumping water on your head, posting a picture/video, changing your profile photo, or wearing bracelets or certain colored clothes) as examples of slacktivism at best, or narcissistic self-promotion at worst. Perhaps these minimal efforts displays may serve as a gateway to more engaged and more meaningful participation later. Its great to see something that started so small to raise discussion on a number of related and important issues, but now the question is, what will actually come from these discussions.
Sherif, M. (1935). A study of some social factors in perception. Archives of Psychology, 27(187), 1-60.
The goal of the challenge besides raising money for the ALSA organization was to raise awareness about the motor neuron disease. ALS also known as Charcot disease or Lou Gehrig's disease falls into a broad category of neurodegenerative disorders that also includes Huntington's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease. The degeneration of both upper and lower motor motor neurons leads to at first muscle weakness and atrophy which very quickly progresses to complete loss of all voluntary and eventually involuntary motor control. 65% of those diagnosed with ALS will not live longer than 5 years. The ALS ice bucket challenge has been interesting for the attention it has brought to a "orphan disease" and ubiquity of participation from common folk and celebrities alike. However, besides raising money for the ALSA and raising awareness about ALS, this phenomenon has brought up a number of interesting broader issues, including what does "raising awareness" actually accomplish, how should we think about research/charitable giving/what happens in these windfall moments for charities, and finally what role can/will social media play in social movements.
In my experience in community engagement and helping start engagement projects, one of the first goals of every project is to raise awareness. But raising awareness is one of the most nebulous, amorphous goals one can set out to accomplish. How do you measure awareness and at what points in time do you measure it? With the ALS ICB we can measure raised awareness through number of hashtags, videos and dollars given. But are we only going to count those things while the challenge is front page news? Has a large increase in donations or tweets or videos over a month accomplished your goal of awareness? What if we look at the number of donations in six months, in 11 months?
I'm sure with a social media phenomenon this large we'll see a number of news stories that revisit it late next summer and maybe if the ALSA plays their cards right, with the right social media negotiation they can potentially turn the ICB into an annual end of summer event, a la the Movember/No shave November prostate cancer fundraiser. If the ALSA and ICB really hits the jackpot, they may even enter the realm of the Susan G Komen Pink Ribbon campaign. In 30 years since its inception, the Pink Ribbon campaign for Breast Cancer has become one of the most successful and popular charities with over $400 million in annual earnings and over 200 corporate partners (including the NFL who devotes the month of October to Brest Cancer Awareness despite their own public health crisis, traumatic brain injury (I'll save this for another post), and apparent lack of concern for women). It will be interesting to see how the ALSA handles the windfall and what they can do with their new war chest of funds in order to sustain public awareness.
Recently I've seen an infographic posted on-line comparing funding and deaths of various diseases which people are using as a critique of donating to particular diseases. I've also read blog posts and editorials (also here) where people critique giving money to one charity in lieu of another because it either 1) doesn't directly help particular individuals or 2) is "wasted" on research. I'm glad to see a social media phenomenon actually making people think about issues (what did planking, owling, icing, or Tebowing make you think about). How do charities actually spend their money, what effect does each dollar spent actually have on research, awareness or other goals of the charity? There are a number of different charity watchdog organizations that keep track of how charities actually spend their money and should be one of your first stops before handing over a dollar to any organization. I've also been interested in the posts of others who will refuse to donate to the ALSA because of what the research dollars go to fund. While I do not agree with the critiques (see this response), people taking the time to investigate the what and how of a challenge before jumping on the bandwagon is encouraging.
Some people that may have stopped to think about what they were doing before jumping on the bandwagon were the politicians who were happy to take money out of the NIH's pockets and then pour iced water on their heads for the publicity. Although the NIH budget was doubled in 1998, it has declined by 25% over the last decade with the number of researchers funded by RO1s on a trend downwards. Its quite amazing when social media is used for good, but I wonder to what extent social proofing (Sharif, 1935; Figure 1) can actually be leveraged to do good. A number of commentators, or maybe they're critics, often point to social media causes (e.g., dumping water on your head, posting a picture/video, changing your profile photo, or wearing bracelets or certain colored clothes) as examples of slacktivism at best, or narcissistic self-promotion at worst. Perhaps these minimal efforts displays may serve as a gateway to more engaged and more meaningful participation later. Its great to see something that started so small to raise discussion on a number of related and important issues, but now the question is, what will actually come from these discussions.
Figure 1. Social Proofing. Note: Substitute ice bucket challenge for line.
Old and new blogs
Just after I graduated from college, I started blogging for the first time. On and off (mostly off) through graduate school, I tried to blog, but it never really caught on. Now that I've graduated, I'm attempting to start blogging again. In order to avoid future embarrassment, I had originally deleted all of my old posts, but thought better of it. While I realize that much of what I had written over 5 years ago is not my best work, I think that it will be helpful for my future students to see the work and the development.
It will also help me practice what I preach. One of the most important messages that I try to communicate in my courses is the importance of connecting your work with the community. For scientists a blog is one of the best vehicles to reach a wider audience (as most of the public doesn't have access to articles held up behind publisher paywalls, though that my be a blog for another time). Many others have talked about the importance of science blogging (here and here for example), with the main message being that blogs help facilitate a discussion and collaboration between the community and scientists.
Even as I start to get into blogging again I know that it will take time to develop the blog and my writing. On my website I set up the blog as a way to informally think through issues related to teaching, research and engagement. If I have time, I'd like to build the blog through multiple venues including twitter for quick thoughts, updates and current research (you can follow me @EngagedBrain; the blog for more thorough explorations of issues related to research teaching and engagement, and as a stretch, a podcast with interviews (its always good to dream big!).
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
2014-2015 Civic Ambassador Call
The Iowa Campus Compact Civic Ambassadors applications for the 2014-2015 Civic Ambassador Network are now available! Please help us spread the word on your campuses and with students that you think would benefit from the program!
Last year was the inaugural year for the program and while there were some bumps and bruises along they way, the program appears to be off to a great start. Six schools from across Iowa had projects that connected campus to community in a number of different ways:
Buena Vista University
Bonnie Keller, Post-trip Service Opportunities for Alternative Break Participants
Sloane Morrow, Adopt-A-Day Service Campaign for Student Groups
Central College
Emily Rouse & Lisa Langenberg, Increase Student Group Involvement in Service
Coe College
Amanda Kohn, Program Development for Children of Promise Mentoring Program
Eastly Johnson, Community Engagement Fair
Cornell College
Caryn Shebowich & Dan Carney, Increase Male Involvement in Service
Simpson College
Taylor Besser & Dylan Anderson, "No More" Students Against Sexual Assault Event
University of Iowa
Bethany Welsh & Jake Kurczek, Civic Summit
Bonnie Keller, Post-trip Service Opportunities for Alternative Break Participants
Sloane Morrow, Adopt-A-Day Service Campaign for Student Groups
Central College
Emily Rouse & Lisa Langenberg, Increase Student Group Involvement in Service
Coe College
Amanda Kohn, Program Development for Children of Promise Mentoring Program
Eastly Johnson, Community Engagement Fair
Cornell College
Caryn Shebowich & Dan Carney, Increase Male Involvement in Service
Simpson College
Taylor Besser & Dylan Anderson, "No More" Students Against Sexual Assault Event
University of Iowa
Bethany Welsh & Jake Kurczek, Civic Summit
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