This new ad for Australian Marriage Equality highlights growing statistics in favor of marriage equality there.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Why Brain Scanners Make Your Head Spin
Here at Neuroskeptic we see a lot of dizzyingly bad (and sometimes even good) neuroscience, but did you know that brain scanners can literally send your head into a spin? A new paper explains why, with implications for all MRI researchers.
MRI scanners rely on extremely powerful magnetic fields. This is why you can't take metal objects into the scanner room, as they'd be pulled into it. Yet the fields can also exert other kinds of effects on the body.
I'd always been told that static, unchanging magnetic fields are biologically inert. But moving through the field too quickly can cause side effects. When an object moves through a magnetic field, induction happens - electrical currents are produced.
In the case of the human body, these small currents can activate nerve cells. Depending on which cells they hit this can cause you to feel dizzy, see flashes of light, experience tingling sensations, and so on. Or so I thought.
However, a new paper from Dale Roberts et al of Johns Hopkins shows that just being in a powerful magnetic field can cause dizziness and vertigo - with no movement required. They noticed that lying still in or near an MRI scanner causes nystagmus, abnormal horizontal eye movements, and that the amount of eye movement is directly correlated with the angle at which the head is positioned relative to the field.
The nystagmus was caused by an automatic reflex in response to effects in the vestibular ("balance") system of the ear. Roberts et al realized that the static magnetic field causes electrical currents that activate vestibular cells, even when the head is perfectly still. It happens because there's a natural flow of electrically charged ions into these cells in a part of the ear called the semicircular canal. The magnetic field interacts with this ion current, in what's called a Lorentz force.
The semicircular canals normally allow us to sense when our head is moving. Our eyes automatically compensate for head movement to keep us looking in the same direction. The MRI magnet fooled the ear into thinking the head was rotating, and the eyes produced nystagmus as a result.
Two patients who had suffered damage to their semicircular canals were immune to the effect.
This has important implications for functional MRI studies of brain function. Many people are interesting in measuring eye movements during MRI scans. This finding suggests that these movements may be unusual, compared to normal eye movements outside the scanner. Worst, the vestibular stimulation could alter brain activity:
Roberts, D., Marcelli, V., Gillen, J., Carey, J., Della Santina, C., & Zee, D. (2011). MRI Magnetic Field Stimulates Rotational Sensors of the Brain Current Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.08.029
MRI scanners rely on extremely powerful magnetic fields. This is why you can't take metal objects into the scanner room, as they'd be pulled into it. Yet the fields can also exert other kinds of effects on the body.
I'd always been told that static, unchanging magnetic fields are biologically inert. But moving through the field too quickly can cause side effects. When an object moves through a magnetic field, induction happens - electrical currents are produced.
In the case of the human body, these small currents can activate nerve cells. Depending on which cells they hit this can cause you to feel dizzy, see flashes of light, experience tingling sensations, and so on. Or so I thought.
However, a new paper from Dale Roberts et al of Johns Hopkins shows that just being in a powerful magnetic field can cause dizziness and vertigo - with no movement required. They noticed that lying still in or near an MRI scanner causes nystagmus, abnormal horizontal eye movements, and that the amount of eye movement is directly correlated with the angle at which the head is positioned relative to the field.
The nystagmus was caused by an automatic reflex in response to effects in the vestibular ("balance") system of the ear. Roberts et al realized that the static magnetic field causes electrical currents that activate vestibular cells, even when the head is perfectly still. It happens because there's a natural flow of electrically charged ions into these cells in a part of the ear called the semicircular canal. The magnetic field interacts with this ion current, in what's called a Lorentz force.
The semicircular canals normally allow us to sense when our head is moving. Our eyes automatically compensate for head movement to keep us looking in the same direction. The MRI magnet fooled the ear into thinking the head was rotating, and the eyes produced nystagmus as a result.
Two patients who had suffered damage to their semicircular canals were immune to the effect.
This has important implications for functional MRI studies of brain function. Many people are interesting in measuring eye movements during MRI scans. This finding suggests that these movements may be unusual, compared to normal eye movements outside the scanner. Worst, the vestibular stimulation could alter brain activity:
Vestibular stimulation induced by the magnetic field in healthy subjects simply lying in the bore could activate many brain areas related to vision, eye movements, and the perception of the position and motion of the body.
Roberts, D., Marcelli, V., Gillen, J., Carey, J., Della Santina, C., & Zee, D. (2011). MRI Magnetic Field Stimulates Rotational Sensors of the Brain Current Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.08.029
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Schizophrenia And The Developing World Revisited
A major international study threatens to overturn what we thought we knew about schizophrenia.
People with schizophrenia are more likely to get better if they live in poor countries: that's been known for about 25 years. In the 1980s, a series of pioneering World Health Organization (WHO) studies looked at the prognosis for people diagnosed with schizophrenia around the world.
All of the data showed that people in developed countries were less likely to recover than those from poorer areas.
This paradoxical finding sparked no end of debate. What is it about these countries that makes them a better place to get schizophrenia? Patients in richer countries tend to have access to more and "better" psychiatric care, the latest drugs, and so on. Does this mean that those treatments are useless - worse, harmful? That's been the interpretation of some people.
But is it true? Not always, says a new study, W-SOHO. It's out in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
The authors compared schizophrenia outcomes in 37 countries. They recruited outpatients who were starting, or changing, antipsychotic medication. They found that in terms of "clinical" remission - i.e. improvement in the delusions, hallucinations, and other symptoms of schizophrenia - people in the developing world did indeed fare better than those from rich countries.
Over a 3 year period, 80-85% of patients from East Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America who started off ill, showed clinical remission, compared to 60-65% in Europe. That's not new: it confirms what the old WHO data showed.
But the new study also looked at "functional" remission - essentially, being able to participate in society:
This is a very important finding if it's true. Is it solid?
First off, were Northern European patients just less ill to start with? Not really. They had the highest rates of suicide attempts. They tended to be older, and to have been diagnosed at a later age, which was correlated with worse functional remission. Regression analyses confirmed that region was a predictor of remission controlling for all the other variables.
However, Northern European patients did tend to have better function at baseline. They were more likely to be employed, living independently, and socially active when they entered the study. 63% were living independently which is much higher than anywhere else: it was 24% in Middle East and Latin America. 23% had a paid job compared to 17-19% in developing countries.
That's not a flaw in the study as such but it does suggest that the differences, whatever they are, are already in place before people get treated.
One concern I have is that the definition of "functional remission" may be North Europe-centric. "Living independently" is something we aspire to but in other places, with a strong tradition of the extended family household, the idea that it would be a bad thing for someone with schizophrenia to be living with their family might seem silly. If that means they'll be cared for and supported, what's wrong with it?
And in terms of paid employment, Northern Europe just has a stronger economy than most other places (erm... well, it did back in 2000 when these data were collected), so maybe it's no surprise that people with schizophrenia were more likely to have paid jobs.
In terms of the study itself, it was extremely large with over 17,000 patients enrolled. But here's the thing: this study was run by Lilly, the drug company who make olanzapine, an antipsychotic used in schizophrenia. Three of the authors on the paper are Lilly employees, and the lead author was a consultant for them. The study deliberately sampled lots of people taking olanzapine, presumably in order to find out whether they did better.
None of this necessarily means that the data aren't valid, but I'm just not sure I trust Lilly over the WHO.
Haro JM, Novick D, Bertsch J, Karagianis J, Dossenbach M, & Jones PB (2011). Cross-national clinical and functional remission rates: Worldwide Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes (W-SOHO) study. The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 199, 194-201 PMID: 21881098
People with schizophrenia are more likely to get better if they live in poor countries: that's been known for about 25 years. In the 1980s, a series of pioneering World Health Organization (WHO) studies looked at the prognosis for people diagnosed with schizophrenia around the world.
All of the data showed that people in developed countries were less likely to recover than those from poorer areas.
This paradoxical finding sparked no end of debate. What is it about these countries that makes them a better place to get schizophrenia? Patients in richer countries tend to have access to more and "better" psychiatric care, the latest drugs, and so on. Does this mean that those treatments are useless - worse, harmful? That's been the interpretation of some people.
But is it true? Not always, says a new study, W-SOHO. It's out in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
The authors compared schizophrenia outcomes in 37 countries. They recruited outpatients who were starting, or changing, antipsychotic medication. They found that in terms of "clinical" remission - i.e. improvement in the delusions, hallucinations, and other symptoms of schizophrenia - people in the developing world did indeed fare better than those from rich countries.
Over a 3 year period, 80-85% of patients from East Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America who started off ill, showed clinical remission, compared to 60-65% in Europe. That's not new: it confirms what the old WHO data showed.
But the new study also looked at "functional" remission - essentially, being able to participate in society:
having good social functioning for a period of 6 months. Good social functioning included those participants who had: (a) a positive occupational/vocational status, i.e. paid or unpaid full- or part-time employment, being an active student in university or housewife; (b) independent living; and (c) active social interactions, i.e. having more than one social contact during the past 4 weeks or having a spouse or partner.For functional remission, Northern Europe (e.g. the UK, France, Germany) was the best place to get sick, with 35% achieving it. Not a very high figure, but better than elsewhere: it was just 18% in the Middle East and 25% in East Asia, despite these areas having the highest chances of clinical remission. Latin America did pretty well, however, at 29%.
This is a very important finding if it's true. Is it solid?
First off, were Northern European patients just less ill to start with? Not really. They had the highest rates of suicide attempts. They tended to be older, and to have been diagnosed at a later age, which was correlated with worse functional remission. Regression analyses confirmed that region was a predictor of remission controlling for all the other variables.
However, Northern European patients did tend to have better function at baseline. They were more likely to be employed, living independently, and socially active when they entered the study. 63% were living independently which is much higher than anywhere else: it was 24% in Middle East and Latin America. 23% had a paid job compared to 17-19% in developing countries.
That's not a flaw in the study as such but it does suggest that the differences, whatever they are, are already in place before people get treated.
One concern I have is that the definition of "functional remission" may be North Europe-centric. "Living independently" is something we aspire to but in other places, with a strong tradition of the extended family household, the idea that it would be a bad thing for someone with schizophrenia to be living with their family might seem silly. If that means they'll be cared for and supported, what's wrong with it?
And in terms of paid employment, Northern Europe just has a stronger economy than most other places (erm... well, it did back in 2000 when these data were collected), so maybe it's no surprise that people with schizophrenia were more likely to have paid jobs.
In terms of the study itself, it was extremely large with over 17,000 patients enrolled. But here's the thing: this study was run by Lilly, the drug company who make olanzapine, an antipsychotic used in schizophrenia. Three of the authors on the paper are Lilly employees, and the lead author was a consultant for them. The study deliberately sampled lots of people taking olanzapine, presumably in order to find out whether they did better.
None of this necessarily means that the data aren't valid, but I'm just not sure I trust Lilly over the WHO.
Haro JM, Novick D, Bertsch J, Karagianis J, Dossenbach M, & Jones PB (2011). Cross-national clinical and functional remission rates: Worldwide Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes (W-SOHO) study. The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 199, 194-201 PMID: 21881098
Monday, September 26, 2011
Turn “I want” to “I have” with My Data Plan
Our new My Data Plan packages offer 4 great options for mobile broadband.
Including higher data allowance, unlimited overnight downloads, free USB modem and huge discounts on the latest tablets, high speed USB modems and wireless routers.
Amazing tablets discounted by over 50% with My Data Plan
With the My Data Plan Ultra package you can stay connected for work and play wherever you are using the latest Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 or the Motorola Xoom. These super portable tablets are just AED899 and AED699 when you subscribe to My Data Plan Ultra so you can enjoy the superfast Etisalat network on an amazing screen whether you are at home, at work, on the road or relaxing with family and friends.
Free USB modem to keep you connected on the move
If you need the extra flexibility of mobile broadband on your laptop you can chose one of our USB modems for free on any of our My Data Plan packages. You can even choose a high speed modem on the Extra and Ultra packages or Plus package on a 12 month contract for FREE.
Freedom to enjoy more games, movies, music, apps and the best of the web on the move
With the new data packages you can experience the ultimate in digital entertainment and communications wherever you are. Plus with Etisalat’s advanced 4G network soon to be available your My Data Plan will take you to a whole new level of rich, high quality content, downloaded and ready in an instant.
Unlimited downloads with My Data Plan Plus, Extra and Ultra packages
Customers who subscribe to My Data Plan Plus, Extra and Ultra packages can also use 3 hours of unlimited data from 12:00am to 3:00am every night. It does not matter how much data you use during these three hours because it will not be deducted from the allowance for your data package.
Club Ultra for our MyPlan Ultra customers
If you are also subscribed to MyPlan or My Business Plan Ultra your My Data Plan subscription will be discounted by AED100.
- You will enjoy the discount as long as you are subscribed on both packages.
- You will lose the discount if you cancel your MyPlan or My Business Plan Ultra Package
- You can be subscribed to MyPlan or My Business Plan with or without contract but you will only be able to subscribe to My Data Plan without contract to enjoy the discount
No Data billing surprises with My Plan Data
Our new SMS data advisory service lets you know how much data you have used. You can also chose to enable soft and hard caps (data use limits) on your My Plan Data account so you never have to worry about an unexpected bill for extra (out of bundle) data.
How to Subscribe
To subscribe to My Data Plan Package, please visit your nearest Etisalat Business Center or outlet. Full subscription details are listed on our website at etisalat.ae/MyDataPlan
Is it 5 O'Clock yet?
Wasel Homeland Plan offers you unbeatable off-peak rates
Our Wasel Homeland Plan is now better than ever with per second and per minute billing to suit your needs. Its free to subscribe with great off-peak rates on Calls to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Philippines. You pay less for calls so you can talk for longer - from as early as 5pm on weekdays and all day on Fridays and public holidays.
Subscribe to the service for free and choose from:
- Per second billing to pay as little as 2 fils per second or
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Get the Wasel Homeland Plan today and start calling home even earlier.
How to subscribe
If you have unsubscribed from Wasel Homeland per second or per minute plans you can subscribe again at any time, but a charge of AED 10 will apply. If you are currently on Etisalat’s Super Off-Peak (SOP), Favourite Country (FCP), or Global Friends and Family (GFF) plans, your subscription will automatically get cancelled once you subscribe to the Wasel Homeland Plan.
Our new Wasel Homeland plan is just one more way Wasel gives you value you can trust. You can combine Wasel Homeland with our free credit offer for even better savings, and remember, if you use your Wasel service at least once every 3 months you will never have to renew your account. Ever.
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Saturday, September 24, 2011
The Real "Contagion" Virus
Seen Contagion yet?
It's pretty scary. A new epidemic disease comes out of nowhere and starts killing everyone. It infects the brain - victims suffer seizures, or fall into a coma, and die. It spreads like wildfire. Humanity's only hope lies in Lawrence Fishburne and Kate Winslet.
Luckily, that's fiction. But only just.
In the movie, the killer bug is called "MEV-1", but it might as well have been called the Nipah virus, because it was closely based on a real disease of the same name. So much so that this post about Nipah contains movie spoilers.
The Nipah Virus came to the world's attention in late 1998. There was an outbreak of a severe fever accompanied in many cases by encephalitis (viral infection of the brain) in Malaysia and Singapore. 276 patients were recorded. 40% of them died.
In the initial outbreak, there was probably no person-to-person transmission of the virus. Rather, only people who came into contact with Malaysian pigs - mainly farmers and butchers - caught the disease. Over a million pigs were culled in 1999 to try and contain the outbreak, and this seemed to be effective.
But since then, there have been several other smaller Nipah outbreaks in Asia, one almost every year in fact. In some of these, person to person transmission has been detected, notably in Bangladesh and India. The fatality rate in these more recent outbreaks has also been higher (70-90%). Luckily, unlike in the movie, it doesn't seem to be very contagious - so far. Most years have seen only 10 or 12 cases. But who knows what the future holds?
The virus is distantly related to measles, but is much more severe. Symptoms can begin anywhere from 4 days to 2 months after infection, but generally within 1 to 2 weeks. More recent outbreaks seem to have a shorter incubation period. The symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting, seizures, muscular jerks, and altered consciousness (confusion, coma).
Even after the initial infection is over, a minority of patients (4-8%) later suffer a relapse encephalitis. The virus seems able to remain dormant in the body before re-emerging to infect the brain again. Survivors may suffer neurological problems such as epilepsy, movement disorders, fatigue, and others. This is especially common following relapse encephalitis.
Where did it come from? It turns out that various strains of Nipah-like viruses are common in certain bats that inhabit various Asian countries, specifically fruit bats of the Pteropus genus, aka "flying foxes". The bats don't get sick, but infected bats are highly contagious, excreting the virus in their urine.
The virus seems to have made the leap into humans not once but several times, from different kinds of bats. Each outbreak could represent a new crossover event. Often there was an intermediate animal host, such as the domestic pigs in Malaysia .
Nipah is a classic zoonotic disease - it jumps from animals to humans. Zoonoses are scary for two reasons. They're new to humans, so humans haven't had a chance to develop immunity. And they may be especially deadly, because they haven't evolved not to be deadly to us.
Viruses and bacteria don't actually want to kill you. They want you alive, so that you can keeping breathing, walking, having sex, and otherwise spreading them. So pathogens tend to evolve to be less lethal to their primary hosts. Unfortunately, that's only good news if you are the primary host, and in the case of zoonoses, we're not. Bats don't get sick, but we do.
Lo, M., & Rota, P. (2008). The emergence of Nipah virus, a highly pathogenic paramyxovirus Journal of Clinical Virology, 43 (4), 396-400 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcv.2008.08.007
It's pretty scary. A new epidemic disease comes out of nowhere and starts killing everyone. It infects the brain - victims suffer seizures, or fall into a coma, and die. It spreads like wildfire. Humanity's only hope lies in Lawrence Fishburne and Kate Winslet.
Luckily, that's fiction. But only just.
In the movie, the killer bug is called "MEV-1", but it might as well have been called the Nipah virus, because it was closely based on a real disease of the same name. So much so that this post about Nipah contains movie spoilers.
The Nipah Virus came to the world's attention in late 1998. There was an outbreak of a severe fever accompanied in many cases by encephalitis (viral infection of the brain) in Malaysia and Singapore. 276 patients were recorded. 40% of them died.
In the initial outbreak, there was probably no person-to-person transmission of the virus. Rather, only people who came into contact with Malaysian pigs - mainly farmers and butchers - caught the disease. Over a million pigs were culled in 1999 to try and contain the outbreak, and this seemed to be effective.
But since then, there have been several other smaller Nipah outbreaks in Asia, one almost every year in fact. In some of these, person to person transmission has been detected, notably in Bangladesh and India. The fatality rate in these more recent outbreaks has also been higher (70-90%). Luckily, unlike in the movie, it doesn't seem to be very contagious - so far. Most years have seen only 10 or 12 cases. But who knows what the future holds?
The virus is distantly related to measles, but is much more severe. Symptoms can begin anywhere from 4 days to 2 months after infection, but generally within 1 to 2 weeks. More recent outbreaks seem to have a shorter incubation period. The symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting, seizures, muscular jerks, and altered consciousness (confusion, coma).
Even after the initial infection is over, a minority of patients (4-8%) later suffer a relapse encephalitis. The virus seems able to remain dormant in the body before re-emerging to infect the brain again. Survivors may suffer neurological problems such as epilepsy, movement disorders, fatigue, and others. This is especially common following relapse encephalitis.
Where did it come from? It turns out that various strains of Nipah-like viruses are common in certain bats that inhabit various Asian countries, specifically fruit bats of the Pteropus genus, aka "flying foxes". The bats don't get sick, but infected bats are highly contagious, excreting the virus in their urine.
The virus seems to have made the leap into humans not once but several times, from different kinds of bats. Each outbreak could represent a new crossover event. Often there was an intermediate animal host, such as the domestic pigs in Malaysia .
Nipah is a classic zoonotic disease - it jumps from animals to humans. Zoonoses are scary for two reasons. They're new to humans, so humans haven't had a chance to develop immunity. And they may be especially deadly, because they haven't evolved not to be deadly to us.
Viruses and bacteria don't actually want to kill you. They want you alive, so that you can keeping breathing, walking, having sex, and otherwise spreading them. So pathogens tend to evolve to be less lethal to their primary hosts. Unfortunately, that's only good news if you are the primary host, and in the case of zoonoses, we're not. Bats don't get sick, but we do.
Lo, M., & Rota, P. (2008). The emergence of Nipah virus, a highly pathogenic paramyxovirus Journal of Clinical Virology, 43 (4), 396-400 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcv.2008.08.007
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Alice In Wonderland Syndrome
So sang Jefferson Airplane in their psychedelic classic White Rabbit. While this song seems sure to have been inspired by the use of certain unapproved medications, don't have to be dropping acid to feel ten feet tall.One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall
A new paper from Germany reports on a case of "Alice In Wonderland Syndrome" associated with topiramate, an anti-epileptic drug also used to prevent migraines:
Alice In Wonderland Syndrome - the feeling that parts of the body have changed in size or shape - is a symptom known to be associated with various brain disorders, although it's not clear why it happens. It can occur in migraines. However in this case, the patient had never experienced such symptoms before she started on an anti-migraine drug.A 17-year-old girl presented with a 7-year history of migraine... she was put on 50 mg topiramate at night... after 4 months the dose was further increased to 75 mg/day, as she was still having three to four headache days/month.She then reported previously unknown intermittent nocturnal distortions of her body image only on those occasions when she did not directly fall asleep after taking topiramate. She described that either her head would grow bigger and the rest of the body would shrink, or that her hand resting comfortably on her chest would increase in size and become heavier, while the remaining arm would become smaller. The patient denied any hallucinatory character of these perceptions and insisted on their unpleasant but unreal nature...After reduction of topiramate to 50 mg/day, the nocturnal phenomena ceased within 2 weeks. The neurological and psychiatric examination was normal... We agreed with the patient to a rechallenge and increased the daily dose to 75 mg/day. Two weeks later the distortions reappeared again and the patient decided to discontinue the drug.
The authors conclude that while topiramate is an "excellent" drug, it can cause unusual side effects and they say that "The prescribing physician should be aware that it has the ability to induce various adverse effects and should encourage patients to report them - even if they initially appear awkward to them."
Jürgens TP, Ihle K, Stork JH, & May A (2011). "Alice in Wonderland syndrome" associated with topiramate for migraine prevention. Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry, 82 (2), 228-9 PMID: 20571045
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
This is so strange!
Have you seen this monument? It is so strange! It is located in northeastern Georgia and appears to be a post-apocalyptic set of instructions. No one knows who commissioned the object, or why, but it also flawlessly tracks the sun. You can read about it here.
It looks a little like Stonehenge.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Antidepressants In The UK
Antidepressant sales have been rising for many years in Western countries, as regular Neuroskeptic readers will remember.
Most of the studies on antidepressant use come from the USA and the UK, although the pattern also seems to hold for other European countries. The rapid rise of antidepressants from niche drugs to mega-sellers is perhaps the single biggest change in the way medicine treats mental illness since the invention of psychiatric drugs.
But while a rise in sales has been observed in many countries, that doesn't mean the same causes were at work in every case. For example, in the USA, there is good evidence that more people have started taking antidepressants over the past 15 years.
In the UK, however, it's a bit more tricky. Antidepressant prescriptions have certainly risen. However, a large 2009 study revealed that, between 1993 and 2005, there was not any significant rise in people starting on antidepressants for depression. Rather, the rise in prescriptions was caused by patients getting more prescriptions each. The same number of users were using more antidepressants.
Now a new paper has looked at antidepressant use over much the same period (1995-2007), but using a different set of data. Pauline Lockhart and Bruce Guthrie looked at pharmacy records of drugs actually dispensed, not just prescribed, and their data only covers a specific region, Tayside in Scotland. The 2009 study was nationwide.
So what happened?
The new paper confirmed the 2009 survey's finding of a strong increase in the number of antidepressant prescriptions per patient.
However, unlike the old study, this one found an increase in the number of people who used antidepressants each year. It went up from 8% of the population in 1995, to 13% in 2007 - an extremely high figure, higher even than the USA.
In other words, more people took them, and they took more of them on average - adding up to a threefold increase in antidepressants actually sold. The increase was seen across men and women of all ages and social classes.
There's no good evidence of an increase in mental illness in Britain in this period, by the way.
But why did the 2009 paper report no change in antidepressant users, while this one did? It could be that the increase was localized to the Tayside area. Another possibility is that there was an increase nationwide, but it wasn't about people with depression.
The 2009 study only looked at people with a diagnosis of depression. Yet modern antidepressants are widely used for other things as well - like anxiety, insomnia, pain, premature ejaculation. Maybe this non-depression-based use of antidepressants is what's on the rise.
Lockhart, P. and Guthrie, B. (2011). Trends in primary care antidepressantprescribing 1995–2007 British Journal of General Practice
Most of the studies on antidepressant use come from the USA and the UK, although the pattern also seems to hold for other European countries. The rapid rise of antidepressants from niche drugs to mega-sellers is perhaps the single biggest change in the way medicine treats mental illness since the invention of psychiatric drugs.
But while a rise in sales has been observed in many countries, that doesn't mean the same causes were at work in every case. For example, in the USA, there is good evidence that more people have started taking antidepressants over the past 15 years.
In the UK, however, it's a bit more tricky. Antidepressant prescriptions have certainly risen. However, a large 2009 study revealed that, between 1993 and 2005, there was not any significant rise in people starting on antidepressants for depression. Rather, the rise in prescriptions was caused by patients getting more prescriptions each. The same number of users were using more antidepressants.
Now a new paper has looked at antidepressant use over much the same period (1995-2007), but using a different set of data. Pauline Lockhart and Bruce Guthrie looked at pharmacy records of drugs actually dispensed, not just prescribed, and their data only covers a specific region, Tayside in Scotland. The 2009 study was nationwide.
So what happened?
The new paper confirmed the 2009 survey's finding of a strong increase in the number of antidepressant prescriptions per patient.
However, unlike the old study, this one found an increase in the number of people who used antidepressants each year. It went up from 8% of the population in 1995, to 13% in 2007 - an extremely high figure, higher even than the USA.
In other words, more people took them, and they took more of them on average - adding up to a threefold increase in antidepressants actually sold. The increase was seen across men and women of all ages and social classes.
There's no good evidence of an increase in mental illness in Britain in this period, by the way.
But why did the 2009 paper report no change in antidepressant users, while this one did? It could be that the increase was localized to the Tayside area. Another possibility is that there was an increase nationwide, but it wasn't about people with depression.
The 2009 study only looked at people with a diagnosis of depression. Yet modern antidepressants are widely used for other things as well - like anxiety, insomnia, pain, premature ejaculation. Maybe this non-depression-based use of antidepressants is what's on the rise.
Lockhart, P. and Guthrie, B. (2011). Trends in primary care antidepressantprescribing 1995–2007 British Journal of General Practice
New Stats on LGBT Affluents
Some new stats were released last week on LGBT Affluents - that is, members of the LGBT community with household incomes of $100K+. The data, which comes from the 2011 Ipsos Mendelsohn Affluent Survey, shows that LGBT affluents have household incomes that are 25% higher than those of heterosexual affluents. Here are the full stats:
New Photos of The Out NYC
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Ancients
I just got back from a holiday in Greece - hence the lack of posts these past two weeks. Normal service will now resume.
Greece, of course, is rich in history (if not money, at the moment) and the National Archaeological Museum is predictably impressive. One of the most striking artefacts I remember was a kind of miniature suit made out of pure gold leaf, complete with a little face mask with tiny eye holes. It was the death mask of an infant from Mycenae, buried about 3000 years ago and dug up in the 19th century.
That's fascinating of course. When you think about it, it's also tragic. This was someone's baby son or daughter. However, it's hard to feel sad over it. If that baby died in front of you, or even if it happened yesterday and you read about it on the news, it would be sad.
You'd even feel sad if it were an entirely fictional baby that "died" in a movie. But being so old, it's not sad, it's just interesting, which is why these things have ended up in museums.
Most of the best exhibits are grave goods, placed in tombs with the dead, in the belief that the deceased would be able to use them in the next world. One Mycenaean warrior was buried with his sword, the blade specially bent so as to "kill" it, and ensure that it would travel to the afterlife with him.
That's fascinating, and also rather weird. Killing a sword so its dead owner could use the ghost of it in heaven? Those crazy ancients!
When you think about it, that's a horrible thing to think. That guy was probably a war hero and that grave was the most solemn memorial his culture could erect to his memory. That was the Arlington, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, of his day. We could have let it rest in peace. But we put it in a museum.
My point here is not that we ought to stop doing archaeology because it's offending the memory of the dead. What's interesting is the fact that no-one would even consider that. We just don't care about the dead of 3000 years ago, except as historical data. Yet there'd be outrage if someone went into a churchyard and starting digging up the dead of 300 years ago. You wouldn't even stuck some chewing gum to a gravestone or use it as a seat.
So there are two categories of the dead. There's the alive dead, who are felt to be with us, in the sense that they have a right to respect. Then there are the dead dead, the ancients, who are of purely historical interest. The alive dead still have power - wars are fought over their memories, honour, property rights.
Eventually, though, even the dead die, and that's generally a good thing. The Hungarians, so far as I know, don't dislike the Mongolians because of the Mongol Invasion of 1237, although the Hungarians who died then would probably have wanted them to.
Fortunately for modern international relations, they're dead.
Greece, of course, is rich in history (if not money, at the moment) and the National Archaeological Museum is predictably impressive. One of the most striking artefacts I remember was a kind of miniature suit made out of pure gold leaf, complete with a little face mask with tiny eye holes. It was the death mask of an infant from Mycenae, buried about 3000 years ago and dug up in the 19th century.
That's fascinating of course. When you think about it, it's also tragic. This was someone's baby son or daughter. However, it's hard to feel sad over it. If that baby died in front of you, or even if it happened yesterday and you read about it on the news, it would be sad.
You'd even feel sad if it were an entirely fictional baby that "died" in a movie. But being so old, it's not sad, it's just interesting, which is why these things have ended up in museums.
Most of the best exhibits are grave goods, placed in tombs with the dead, in the belief that the deceased would be able to use them in the next world. One Mycenaean warrior was buried with his sword, the blade specially bent so as to "kill" it, and ensure that it would travel to the afterlife with him.
That's fascinating, and also rather weird. Killing a sword so its dead owner could use the ghost of it in heaven? Those crazy ancients!
When you think about it, that's a horrible thing to think. That guy was probably a war hero and that grave was the most solemn memorial his culture could erect to his memory. That was the Arlington, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, of his day. We could have let it rest in peace. But we put it in a museum.
My point here is not that we ought to stop doing archaeology because it's offending the memory of the dead. What's interesting is the fact that no-one would even consider that. We just don't care about the dead of 3000 years ago, except as historical data. Yet there'd be outrage if someone went into a churchyard and starting digging up the dead of 300 years ago. You wouldn't even stuck some chewing gum to a gravestone or use it as a seat.
So there are two categories of the dead. There's the alive dead, who are felt to be with us, in the sense that they have a right to respect. Then there are the dead dead, the ancients, who are of purely historical interest. The alive dead still have power - wars are fought over their memories, honour, property rights.
Eventually, though, even the dead die, and that's generally a good thing. The Hungarians, so far as I know, don't dislike the Mongolians because of the Mongol Invasion of 1237, although the Hungarians who died then would probably have wanted them to.
Fortunately for modern international relations, they're dead.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Biology
I think Dr. Bruce Lipton is one of the true geniuses of our time. He has the ability to take complex material and make it easy to understand. I have his book, Biology of Belief , on my I-Pad but have not read it, as yet. However, I found this interview with Lilou where he talks about the body's ability to change spontaneously. We are literally so powerful that we are able to change our genetics by changing our thoughts.
He also discusses the reason so many of us are incapable of changing the things in our lives that we would like to change - because we are running our subconscious about 95% of the time - which was programmed by the time we were six. We literally run on about 5% of our consciousness that we program. He believes we are not victims of anything more than our belief.
I found so many things about this talk interesting - not the least of which is his view, again through the study of science, that we are actually in heaven, not hell. We are here to experience what it feels like to taste chocolate, to fall in love, to feel heartbreak, to know what it is like to feel happiness. In other words, we are an expression of the Divine Source, (God), experiencing what it feels like to feel.
The media has not jumped on this idea because it goes against the corporate desire to have us doing what they want us to do. If we believe we are in control of our health, why would we buy all those pharmaceuticals, for instance?
This hour is well worth your time.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Fame Friday
Accredited online colleges offer political science classes for those who aspire to be like Colin Powell.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Combine your bills with eBill and chose whether to receive them by email or by post
Want to speed up paying your bills? With Etisalat online Services you can do just that, and our new, improved process to set up eBill means it has never been easier!
Why eBill? It is more convenient for you to pay your bills online and it benefits the environment. With our new eBill service you can receive your bills online, direct to your email inbox, reducing paper wastage and ensuring you never miss a payment. This new initiative is in line with our environmental objectives, helping us to reduce our carbon footprint while improving services for you.
eBill also helps you combine your separate accounts into one single bill, making payments quicker and easier. For instance, you can combine your postpaid mobile bill with your eLife bill.
So, how to sign up to this time-saving system? The online form is here. Enter your mobile number. You will receive an SMS to your mobile with a unique ID which proves that the phone is yours. Enter the ID online to validate your service set-up and you are ready to go!
To find out more go to etisalat.ae or chat with us on Twitter @etisalatUAE
Monday, September 12, 2011
Big Gay Ice Cream Shop Opens in NYC
Here is a resource www.onlinecookingclasses.org for those of you who also love food and cooking and want to learn new skills.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Neuroscience Fails Stats 101?
According to a new paper, a full half of neuroscience papers that try to do a (very simple) statistical comparison are getting it wrong: Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: a problem of significance.
Here's the problem. Suppose you want to know whether a certain 'treatment' has an affect on a certain variable. The treatment could be a drug, an environmental change, a genetic variant, whatever. The target population could be animals, humans, brain cells, or anything else.
So you give the treatment to some targets and give a control treatment to others. You measure the outcome variable. You use a t-test of significance to see whether the effect is large enough that it wouldn't have happened by chance. You find that it was significant.
That's fine. Then you try a different treatment, and it doesn't cause a significant effect against the control. Does that mean the first treatment was more powerful than the second?
No. It just doesn't. The only way to find that out would be to compare the two treatments directly - and that would be very easy to do, because you have all the data to hand. If you just compare the two treatments to control you might end up with this scenario:
Both treatments are very similar but one (B) is slightly better so it's significantly different from control, while A isn't. But they're basically the same. It's probably just fluke that B did slightly better than A. If you compared A and B directly you'd find they were not significantly different.
An analogy: Passing a significance test is like winning a prize. You can only do it if you're much better than the average. But that doesn't mean you're much better than everyone who didn't win the prize, because some of them will have almost been good enough.
Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world (when he's not false-starting himself out of races). Much faster than me. But he's not much faster than the second fastest man in the world.
Nieuwenhuis S, Forstmann BU, & Wagenmakers EJ (2011). Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: a problem of significance. Nature neuroscience, 14 (9), 1105-7 PMID: 21878926
Here's the problem. Suppose you want to know whether a certain 'treatment' has an affect on a certain variable. The treatment could be a drug, an environmental change, a genetic variant, whatever. The target population could be animals, humans, brain cells, or anything else.
So you give the treatment to some targets and give a control treatment to others. You measure the outcome variable. You use a t-test of significance to see whether the effect is large enough that it wouldn't have happened by chance. You find that it was significant.
That's fine. Then you try a different treatment, and it doesn't cause a significant effect against the control. Does that mean the first treatment was more powerful than the second?
No. It just doesn't. The only way to find that out would be to compare the two treatments directly - and that would be very easy to do, because you have all the data to hand. If you just compare the two treatments to control you might end up with this scenario:
An analogy: Passing a significance test is like winning a prize. You can only do it if you're much better than the average. But that doesn't mean you're much better than everyone who didn't win the prize, because some of them will have almost been good enough.
Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world (when he's not false-starting himself out of races). Much faster than me. But he's not much faster than the second fastest man in the world.
Nieuwenhuis S, Forstmann BU, & Wagenmakers EJ (2011). Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: a problem of significance. Nature neuroscience, 14 (9), 1105-7 PMID: 21878926
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Hotspots: Where will you log in?
We all love wireless internet access (Wi-Fi). It means that we can work and play on our computers from anywhere in our homes. Did you know that elife and Al Shamil subscribers can also use our public Wi-Fi hotspots for free. Etisalat customers can use up to 16 hours of complimentary Wi-Fi access every month at our hotspots so you can use the internet for free at locations across the Emirates in many of our city shopping malls, cafes, offices and hotels.
Al Shamil customers with packages up to 4Mb can enjoy up to 4 hours of free Wi-Fi access and subscribers with packages over 4Mb can access 8 hours of free Wi-Fi in a month. Etisalat elife customers with the starter package (1Mb) are eligible for 4 hours of free access using Wi-Fi hotspots, while subscribers with packages above 8Mbps can enjoy 8 hours of free Wi-Fi internet.
Hotspots are easy to use. Just enter your elife or Al Shamil username and password to log in. This is part of your subscription – there is no extra cost, it’s completely free. We have a dedicated support page on our website if you have more questions about using hotspots.
Wi-Fi Hotspot service is also available to our other customers and visitors. Simply connect to the Wi-Fi network and make a quick, easy payment through your mobile phone or credit card. If you need to use a Hotspot regularly you can subscribe. AED 95 gives you 12 hours of Hotspot access per month using one of our via Wi-Fi packages. You can also pick up Prepaid Wi-Fi Hotspot Cards at your local Etisalat Outlet..
For more information contact our dedicated customer support line at 101, talk to us on twitter or take a look at our website.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
New Data on Brands that Support LGBT Nonprofits/Causes
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Men, Women and Spatial Intelligence
Do men and women differ in their cognitive capacities? It's been a popular topic of conversation since as far back as we have records of what people were talking about.
While it's now (almost) generally accepted that men and women are at most only very slightly different in average IQ, there are still a couple of lines of evidence in favor of a gender difference.
First, there's the idea that men are more variable in their intelligence, so there are more very smart men, and also more very stupid ones. This averages out so the mean is the same.
Second, there's the theory that men are on average better at some things, notably "spatial" stuff involving the ability to mentally process shapes, patterns and images, while women are better at social, emotional and perhaps verbal tasks. Again, this averages out overall.
According to proponents, these differences explain why men continue to dominate the upper echelons of things like mathematics, physics, and chess. These all tap spatial processing and since men are more variable, there'll be more extremely high achievers - Nobel Prizes, grandmasters. (There are also presumably more men who are rubbish at these things, but we don't notice them.)
The male spatial advantage has been reported in many parts of the world, but is it "innate", something to do with the male brain? A new PNAS study says - probably not, it's to do with culture. But I'm not convinced.
The authors went to India and studied two tribes, the Khasi and the Karbi. Both live right next to other in the hills of Northeastern India and genetically, they're closely related. Culturally though, the Karbi are patrilineal - property and status is passed down from father to son, with women owning no land of their own. The Khasi are matrilineal, with men forbidden to own land. Moreover, Khasi women also get just as much education as the men, while Karbi ones get much less.
The authors took about 1200 people from 8 villages - 4 per culture - and got them to do a jigsaw puzzle. The quicker you do it, the better your spatial ability. Here were the results. I added the gender-stereotypical colours.
In the patrilineal group, women did substantially worse on average (remember that more time means worse). In the matrilineal society, they performed as well as men. Well, a tiny bit worse, but it wasn't significant. Differences in education explained some of the effect, but only a small part of it.
OK.
This was a large study, and the results are statistically very strong. However, there's a curious result that the authors don't discuss in the paper - the matrilineal group just did much better overall. Looking at the men, they were 10 seconds faster in the matrilineal culture. That's nearly as big as the gender difference in the patrilineal group (15 seconds)!
The individual variability was also much higher in the patrilineal society, for both genders.
Now, maybe, this is a real effect. Maybe being in a patrilineal society makes everyone less spatially aware, not just women; that seems a bit of a stretch, though.
There's also the problem that this study essentially only has two datapoints. One society is matrilineal and has low gender difference in visuospatial processing. One is patrilineal and has a high difference. But that's just not enough data to conclude that there's a correlation between the two things, let alone a causal relationship; you would need to study lots of societies to do that.
Personally, I have no idea what drives the difference, but this study is a reminder of how difficult the question is.
Hoffman M, Gneezy U, List JA (2011). Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America PMID: 21876159
While it's now (almost) generally accepted that men and women are at most only very slightly different in average IQ, there are still a couple of lines of evidence in favor of a gender difference.
First, there's the idea that men are more variable in their intelligence, so there are more very smart men, and also more very stupid ones. This averages out so the mean is the same.
Second, there's the theory that men are on average better at some things, notably "spatial" stuff involving the ability to mentally process shapes, patterns and images, while women are better at social, emotional and perhaps verbal tasks. Again, this averages out overall.
According to proponents, these differences explain why men continue to dominate the upper echelons of things like mathematics, physics, and chess. These all tap spatial processing and since men are more variable, there'll be more extremely high achievers - Nobel Prizes, grandmasters. (There are also presumably more men who are rubbish at these things, but we don't notice them.)
The male spatial advantage has been reported in many parts of the world, but is it "innate", something to do with the male brain? A new PNAS study says - probably not, it's to do with culture. But I'm not convinced.
The authors went to India and studied two tribes, the Khasi and the Karbi. Both live right next to other in the hills of Northeastern India and genetically, they're closely related. Culturally though, the Karbi are patrilineal - property and status is passed down from father to son, with women owning no land of their own. The Khasi are matrilineal, with men forbidden to own land. Moreover, Khasi women also get just as much education as the men, while Karbi ones get much less.
The authors took about 1200 people from 8 villages - 4 per culture - and got them to do a jigsaw puzzle. The quicker you do it, the better your spatial ability. Here were the results. I added the gender-stereotypical colours.
In the patrilineal group, women did substantially worse on average (remember that more time means worse). In the matrilineal society, they performed as well as men. Well, a tiny bit worse, but it wasn't significant. Differences in education explained some of the effect, but only a small part of it.
OK.
This was a large study, and the results are statistically very strong. However, there's a curious result that the authors don't discuss in the paper - the matrilineal group just did much better overall. Looking at the men, they were 10 seconds faster in the matrilineal culture. That's nearly as big as the gender difference in the patrilineal group (15 seconds)!
The individual variability was also much higher in the patrilineal society, for both genders.
Now, maybe, this is a real effect. Maybe being in a patrilineal society makes everyone less spatially aware, not just women; that seems a bit of a stretch, though.
There's also the problem that this study essentially only has two datapoints. One society is matrilineal and has low gender difference in visuospatial processing. One is patrilineal and has a high difference. But that's just not enough data to conclude that there's a correlation between the two things, let alone a causal relationship; you would need to study lots of societies to do that.
Personally, I have no idea what drives the difference, but this study is a reminder of how difficult the question is.
Hoffman M, Gneezy U, List JA (2011). Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America PMID: 21876159
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