FormaLabs: Bringing science to the 99%

FormaLabs are a new “biomaker” space in Cork who describe themselves as aiming to “bring science to the 99%”. I recently attended a really interesting event by Professor Steve Potter, about DIY neuro-hacking, and how the increasing affordability of neuroscience and biomarker technologies will make it possible for non-professional scientists to conduct their own research. He used the interesting analogy of astronomy, where amateur astronomers have made relevant discoveries for years with their home telescopes.

The event included a demonstration of a number of these pieces of equipment, including kit for measuring EEG (albeit with not as many electrode sites as the type one would see in a well-funded lab) as well as heart rate and heart rate variability. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a demo of the most out-there equipment that monitors rapid eye movements in to induce lucid dreams (Prof Potter says he has used this and found it effective-want want want). 

It was great to see a wide variety of attendees, from professional researchers to kids, and the audience contributing so many ideas.

As FormaLabs are still being established, they are always looking for labs/groups etc. to help with setting up workspaces where non-professionals can engage in science. Check them out here:

http://formalabs.org/

https://twitter.com/FormaBiolabs

Book Review: "Black Sheep: The Hidden Benefits of Being Bad" by Richard Stephens

Senior lecturer in psychology at Keele University and fellow blogger Richard Stephens has a new book out. Aimed at a general audience, it concerns the hidden benefits of bad things, from drink to sex to death. To be fair, the review won't be totally unbiased when the author does cite a review paper I published with Andy Smith, but I hope it will be informative.

Stephens has not been one to stay on a single research topic, so the diversity of the book takes in varied subjects Stephens has researched. This includes his Ig Nobel -prize winning research on swearing, which found that swearing increased people's tolerance for pain (particularly people who habitually swear less; save it for a special occasion). He also covers work looking at whether chewing gum can alleviate stress (to be honest the jury's still out on that one-it seems to be better at maintaining alertness). The chapter on alcohol also makes reference to his ongoing interest in hangovers, and how those who are prone to alcoholism are counter-intuitively prone to worse hangovers.

The net does widen to some weird and wonderful stuff that Stephens (to the best of my knowledge) has not been directly involved with, This includes attempts to go beyond retrospective accounts of near-death experiences to prospectively examine a large number of patients with conditions that might lead to a near death experience prior to having one. (Quite a tall order, and one that unsurprisingly hasn't proved successful so far). He also covers classic research on whether inducing a state of (non-romantic) fear makes men more likely to ask someone out on a date, and the intriguing topic of boredom.

For a book teeming with different ideas, at times it feels as though Stephens does have to make an effort to keep things under one overall, unifying theme. It's a good skill to have when one has restless interests, although perhaps it's a bit regrettable in our postmodern age that theses and monographs have to conform to always having their own "grand scheme of things". The breadth of human experience, even within a single aspect of cognition, doesn't always lend itself to a unifying theory.

Despite the tongue-in-cheek "bad to the bone" posturing, this is a prosocial book. Stephens does not only want to create an enthusiasm for science, but also to make it more approachable. This book is also an attempt to defend psychological science in particular, and especially any such science which does not smack of the "harder" science end of psychological research ("but where was the fMRI scan???"). Stephens is careful to bring the non-psychologist along with him whether he is discussing theory or comparing double-blind experiments to short online surveys. If the book gets the broad audience it courts then I'd be surprised if a few of its lay readers don't feel motivated to begin their own pursuit of psychological research.

Related posts:
Book Review: "Predictably Irrational"
The Perks of a Pack of Gum
The Hangover

Exhibition review: "We Do Not Leave Pyramids"

And if you must build pyramids along the way, build them in the knowledge that they will soon crumble and disintegrate, disappearing in the distance as you move onto the next phase.
Chris Clarke, from the program foreword

I try to take in art galleries when I get a chance; I particularly enjoy going to final year exhibition. This review of 2015's final year art exhibition at the Crawford is somewhat belated, but then again maybe it's good to write about these works a little later, if only to show that they are not just vanishing into the ether.

On the topic of final year exhibitions, I remember severely disliking a series of paintings at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin a few years back. They were were very small drawings that depicted vaguely gross activities, but drawn in the manner of a 9-year-old child. Even though I can enjoy ugly art (Bacon springs to mind) I didn't care about the artist's point, it was just lacking in skill.

One set of images that strikes me is Elaina Walsh O'Reilly's pictures. Although these images may not be pretty, they are the antithesis of that kind of delibrately childish, wilfully shit art that annoyed me at the NCAD exhibition. They have depth and richness that shines through any layer of dark and grot.

They are inspired by melacholy. The deep greens and blacks of these images wash a wave of sadness over the frame. The human figure could be swimming or dancing, but the face seems sucked downwards into the heavy cloth. Walsh O'Reilly describes the figures as trapped in a perimeter that on one level can be easily broken. However, to me the density of these images hint that there is some level of difficulty in moving away from these feelings.

Jennifer Ahern's work is a walk-in spiral wall of collage. It reminds me somewhat of the artwork of "In Utero" by Nirvana, or a less violent version of "Reek of Putrefaction" by Carcass. In fact, with the torn fragments of text this could be like many postmodern album notes for Radiohead, ...Trail of Dead, ZooTV-era U2 etc.

Despite this initial impression of image overload, the focus on the female body, and how our media represent it, means this is not just a (comment on) info saturation. The changing dominant colours of the spiral give it the feeling of a life cycle, However, the spectre of objectification hangs over the collage. The body can be exposed at any point-wherever you go, there you are, and of what use are you?

Two works touching on similar themes also catch the eye. Victoria Callinan looks at the concept of the selfie; composing a particular image of oneself for the online world. Killian O'Dwyer's work is about gender performativity through the lens of "low-brow" culture (you can hear the bassline of "Anaconda" pounding as you approach his installation). Besides the thematic similarity between these two pieces, they both use the installation space to the full, turning artwork into a bedroom. Although O'Dwyer's work seems at some level to be confrontational in its use of pornography and USA hubris, and although the implicit fug of moral panic and cyberbullying hangs over Callinan's, there's a strange homeliness to these voyeuristic and consumerist pieces that suggest they've both caught a little bit of the zeitgeist.


Obviously these are just snapshots of a small minority of the work at the exhibit. As with any of these things, in a few years most of the students won't be working full-time as artists. But a few of these pieces remind me of a snippet of a review on the blurb of Euginedes' debut novel "Virgin Suicides": they are not just "promising"-they have arrived fully formed.

Related posts
Creativity and two modes of thought
I felt a funeral in my brain

Mindfulness update: Weeks 1-4

"Much of the practice is simply a remembering, a reminding yourself to be fully awake" 

Jon Kabat-Zinn

In a previous post I discussed mindfulness. I’m putting my time where my mouth is and doing an 8-week course in mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR). Here’s the story up to half-time:

WEEK 1: At the first class we perform body scan. With our eyes closed, we slowly bring our attention to different parts of the body. If our minds wander off, we are encouraged to bring the focus back to what’s going on with our body. No need to have a go at yourself for letting your mind wander-just bring the focus back to the body scan. After the first meeting we are encouraged to engage in body scan 5-6 times over the coming week.

To have an experience that we can use as a practice of acting mindfully, we very slowly eat a sweet. (I pick up a piece of fudge that’s stuck to another piece of fudge-yuusssss). The activity’s a chance to really focus on the sensation of eating. Our instructor makes the analogy of how many young children act when they eat an ice cream-poring over its texture and appearance as they enjoy it. Probably not something we do every day if we’re in the habit of “grazing”. I know I often nosh a sandwich at my desk while in the midst of swearing at the desktop screen.

Back home, at my first attempt at doing a body scan by myself I have a false start when a funny thought makes me laugh too much. The next few attempts I avoid laughter, but it’s definitely difficult to avoid daydreaming when doing the body scan. As suggested in the classes, I try to picture a spotlight shining on the different parts of my body as I move from the toes upwards.

WEEK 2: At the class we describe the steps and sensations involved in making a cup of tea. With our eyes closed, we take turns in describing a different step involved in the whole process. Must say that I’m tempted to shout out something silly like “and then I make the tea and drink the tea and then go for a walk with my granny”, but maintain my composure. The avoiding judgment thing is probably even harder when other people are involved in one’s mindfulness-I can’t help but think some people are jumping too far ahead in the tea-making process to allow the rest of the group enough material to work on. I'd like to bring more maturity to my mindfulness, but then again, I should withhold judging myself too harshly. 

After a whopping 7-8 days, my initial enthusiasm for homework practice wanes slightly. With a lot going on at work I'm not doing quite as much mindfulness practice as I did before. So much for not judging myself as well! 

WEEK 3: At the classes we are expressing frustration about need being able to sustain attention to the present when we do things like body scan, but the instructor reminds us that what is key is our intention to become more mindful, and our the adaptation of a non-judgemental approach to our own thoughts (including judgement about whether or not they are "mindful enough").

We're starting into mindful yoga, a gentle form of yoga. Essentially it involves gentle stretching of the limbs. Like the body scan, you try to keep the attention on your body and its sensations.

Outside class, toothache strikes, bringing my attention forcefully back to my present bodily sensations on a regular basis. With my the rest of my body bringing the brain’s attention to it, as opposed to my brain deciding to focus on the rest of my body, I’m reminded to do the mindful yoga most days.  

As I'm getting more into watching the recommended videos, I'm learning about non-striving, an attitude related to not trying to get anything out of one's awareness of the current moment (perhaps tricky when most people want to get something out of mindfulness).

WEEK 4: One thing I note one or two other people at the class saying is that they want to have an “emptier” mind when doing meditation. I don’t think that’s really what mindfulness is about. Your attention still has content, it’s simply that you adopt a different attitude towards it.

A 4-day weekend knocks my mindfulness schedule off somewhat, although I work some body scan into moments between awakening and getting out of bed. I also do more of the “informal practice”. Part of our informal practice is to note unpleasant experiences. One particular moment was an email I received that induced a mix of annoyance at myself and the person sending it. My heart rate probably increased, although with hindsight I doubt I noticed as much when it actually happened, wrapped up as I was in the possible implications of what was being said to me. However, after the initial wave of negative feeling I decided to focus on how I felt at that moment, and then what I could do step-by-step to respond. Whether or not my thoughts were “mindful enough”, a little bit of focus on the actual present killed of the perils of an imaginary future.

Stay tuned next month for the second half of my Mindfulness Odyssey!

For an intro to the ideas behind mindfulness-based stress reduction, you could check out the following resource: 

http://palousemindfulness.com/selfguidedMBSR.html

Related posts:

Mindfulness and the mind

Conference review: CINP Thematic Meeting 2015

Early June. I am back where I first studied psychology, Trinity College Dublin. Crossing the historical front square for the unapologetically brutalist architecture of the Arts Block. It’s the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CINP)’s thematic meeting, and the theme of the meeting is stress, inflammation and depression.

The charm of a thematic meeting is that one knows that there’s going to be a lot of work that’s of interest to you. I make no secret of the fact that I’m not a big fan of enormous, “GloboConference” type meetings. I can recall a least one occasion when I was presenting in a session where the theme was clearly “a bunch of studies that have nothing to do with each other, but couldn’t be matched up with anything else on this day”. Ah well, maybe I’m just bitter because a 1,000-strong poster session can confront you with your own insignificance as a little researcher star in the vast galaxies of Science.

When I heard my poster number was to be P001 I was nervous that this meeting would have the opposite problem: a lack of other posters. However, these nerves were unjustified. There’s an active session of over 100 posters, with topics of interest to me such as depression, ketamine and probiotics being covered.  

With a keen focus to the meeting there is a risk of repetition at the talks. However, although some introductions do cover some common ground, this is a complex enough topic for there to be plenty to cover, and each researcher brings something different to the party. NB: they also (generally) skip through stuff that previous speakers have covered already in their earlier intros-let that be a warning not to spend an entire conference prior to your own talk locked in your hotel room practicing your PowerPoint! The speakers often differ in their presentation style, but all are accomplished researchers with plenty to show.

A highlight is getting a chance to meet and hear from Ron Duman, an influential figure in the idea that neurotrophic factors in the brain might be implicated in depression. At his talk he discusses new pathways linking inflammation to depression that he is interested in. Like most researchers at the event he turns out to be a very approachable person too, as we find out at the social evening in Temple Bar. (The touristy trad band at the venue wind up some of the indigenous crew, but what are you gonna do? Better that than the wave of Weatherspoon’s about to descend upon our poor capital.)

Another talk of interest is by Phil Burnet of Oxford. He discusses recent findings that prebiotics (fibres that help the growth of friendly bacteria) can lead to a reduction in cortisol output, as well as changes in processing of emotional stimuli. These findings chime nicely with some results that Timothy Dinan presents, indicating that probiotics can lead to a subtle reductions in stress. Speaking of senior figures from our group, the mighty John Cryan also gives a highly engaging talk covering broad ground, taking in stress as well as hunger-related hormone ghrelin.

Future thematic meetings from CINP will be worth watching out for people interesting in neuropsychology and mental disorder, although be warned that the talks can have a heavy focus on molecular pathways and preclinical work. If you want the "globo" equivalent, than check out next year's World Congress. 


Related Posts:

Conference Review: ECNP Congress 2014

I felt a funeral, in my brain

"I just didn't want it to hurt any more"
Mark Henick, mental health advocate who attempted suicide


Suicide is the leading cause of death in young males in Ireland. Not everyone who experiences major depression will attempt suicide, and indeed not everyone who attempts suicide is depressed. Nonetheless, the spectre of suicide hangs over major depression. Even where major depression is not so extreme, it takes a terrible toll; a WHO report has identified it as the world's leading cause of disability.

In our discourse on depression, one sometimes sees an attitude that people need to snap out of it, sometimes even that depression doesn't exist. Without wanting to pander to the view that mental disorder is just the fictitious cousin of physical illness, we can counter the non-existence argument by simply pointing out how depression has pervasive effects on the body.

A biological marker of biomarker can be decribed as a "an indicator of a physiological or pathological state that can be objectively measured and evaluated" (Spiller, 2011). A biomarker may reach the status of surrogate endpoint if it can be used as a substitute for more direct clinical outcomes (e.g. reduced quality of life or worsened apathy in depression). We're probably a long way off identifying a surrogate endpoint for depression. Depression is still identified using the person's self-report, although for various reasons people may deny or minimise their experience of depression if questioned about it. Nonetheless, a number of physiological variables do seem to be affected by major depression.

Brain derived neurotrophic factor is one example. It is a protein that is associated with the development of neurons, and with learning and memory. There is increasing evidence that BDNF levels in the blood are lowered in depression, and successful antidepressant treatment can restore BDNF levels. Not only is circulating BDNF reduced, but there is post mortem evidence from suicide victims that BDNF is indeed reduced in the central nervous system (although this finding did not appear to be specific to depression). Not surprising then that there's evidence that depression can have a negative effect on cognition, with worse severity of depression being associated with worse episodic memory and executive function.

So it seems depression is bad for the brain, but it is also bad for the rest of the body. Major depression can also have an impact on the immune system. It can increase inflammatory cytokines-these moderate the immune system by increasing its defences. This is useful for fighting infection, but may not be so hot if it is occurring chronically in the absence of infection. Furthermore, these cytokines can also moderate neurochemical signalling in the central nervous system, potentially exacerbating the depressive state. The immune system may be involved in the development of depression-chronic stress is associated with the development of depression, and stress can activate the types of immune system activity involved in depression.


But one shouldn't make the scenario seem simpler than it is. Part of the difficulty in identifying biomarkers if that, of course, depression hits differently for different people. Although every person's experience is unique, there are some consistencies in diversity. Melancholic depression is associated with anhedonia (a lack of enjoyment or positive response to things that used to cheer one up), early waking time, feeling worse in the morning, weight loss and agitation. There is evidence that the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis) is more highly activated in people suffering from melancholic depression, compared to those with non-melancholic depression. In the HPA axis, the hypothalamus (a region of the brain) initiates a chain reaction of neurochemical processes, resulting in the release of cortisol from the adrenal gland. Cortisol is a hormone released in response to stress, helping to mobilise the body for the so-called "fight or flight" response. It can permeate to tissues throughout the body, so whatever affects cortisol release can have pervasive effects on our physiology, including the immune system.

So, different sub-types of depression can guide the study of its biological effects. In the future, it may be the case that the search for biological changes in major depression will lead to depression being broken down into further sub-categories. If these categories don't line up with some aspect of the depressive experience, they will have to be evaluated against some other yardstick, such as predicting effectiveness of treatment for depression. Genetic and neurological technologies are developing all the time-perhaps the data sometimes comes in too fast for researchers to analyse and understand in its full depth. For the foreseeable future we will probably still be relying on the person's experience to identify depression and what goes with it. It's important as individuals and communities that we encourage people to seek help if they need it.

If you are or think you may be suffering from depression, whether or not you are suicidal, please do seek help. You could speak to family/friends, to a counsellor/your GP, or get in touch with the Samaritans by phone at 116123 (Republic of Ireland) or by email at jo@samaritans.org.

The hangover

The brother was over for a visit to my current home city of Cork. At a certain craft-beer establishment I partook of a few imperial stouts. Although not overly drunk when I returned home, on waking the next day I found it unusually difficult to keep anything in my stomach. Thankfully it was a Sunday, so there was no need to drag my sorry carcass into the workplace. The most complex thing I could handle was gawking at a movie with the brother. ("Reincarnated", the moving tale of Snoop Dogg's transition to Snoop Lion-truly the "Citizen Kane" of hip-hip to raggae crossover movies). Had I been that bad on a Monday morning I've little doubt my performance would have suffered.

The full economic cost of hangover is difficult to estimate-although sickies will lead to obvious losses, when asked to think of an example of presenteeism (turning up for work when you're not capable of working to your usual capacity) many of us will think of a hangover incident.

But what's the hard evidence for hangover effects? An interesting review by Richard Stephens and colleagues has discussed the impact of hangover on cognition. A majority of studies in this area have NOT shown an effect of hangover on cognitive performance, although Stephens contends this may sometimes be due to the use of insensitive measures. One study that did show an effect administered alcohol or placebo in the evening, and the next morning found worse delayed recall for a word list during hangover, despite an absence of an effect on a vigilance task, suggesting the memory effect was not simply due to fatigue. The other study found that psychomotor speed was slowed in addition to memory performance, suggesting sluggishness might have been at least part of the problem. This latter study used the more naturalistic approach of studying people after a normal night's drinking.

Stephens et al. suggest that the spectre of demand characteristics may hang over (heh heh) this research area. As mentioned above, one may study hangover in a controlled manner by giving a fixed amount of alcohol in a hangover condition. However, one may instead get some participants to come into the lab when they are hungover (after a night's drinking in a pub) and some to come in when they are not hungover. This second approach appears to more successful in demonstrating cognitive effects of hangovers. However, if invited to take part in such a study, one is essentially taking part in an "open-label" investigation. One may perform worse on cognitive tests during hangover, simply because this is what the experimental situation suggests to you.

However, Stephens et al. suggest an ingenious way around this. One can schedule some students to take part in your study on a morning after a popular drinking evening, and other students on a day when they are less likely to be drunk on the job. With enough numbers, you are likely to have a substantial proportion of the study participants attending while hungover (although perhaps the more severe cases will stay at home).

Even where performance is relatively preserved, the nauseous and draining subjective impact of heavy hangover does beg the question of whether we owe our future selves a lighter night's drinking. In many cases, I dare say a good behavioural medicine would be learning how to be a little less socially inhibited without having to resort to a few too many bevvies.

Stephens, R.; Ling, J.; Heffernan, T.M.; Heather, N. & Jones, K. (2008). A review on the cognitive effects of alcohol hangover. Alcohol & Alcoholism, 43(2), 163-170.