Posts

April 11, 2013

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What is going to change in the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis in the 5th edition of the psychiatry ‘bible’, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? The DSM-5 is to be published in May this year but some … Continue reading →

April 10, 2013

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2:38 PM | Salt: From delicious to disgusting!

Sci is at Neurotic Physiology today, looking at salt. At low doses, salt is tasty! We all need it, and most of us enjoy it. But at high doses, salt gets disgusting. What makes the difference? It’s all in receptors. Head over and check it out.

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3:37 AM | Diabulimia: A Dangerous Duet

Type 1 diabetes (DMT1, or T1DM) is a lifelong disease often diagnosed in children or adolescents. Though causes of DMT1 are complex and not fully understood, it results from the body’s immune system destroying its own insulin-producing cells. This drastically lowers insulin levels and leads to high blood sugar (insulin is crucial for regulating blood sugar). If not managed properly, DMt1 can wreck havoc on the nerves, heart, and retina. The onset of DMT1 often results in dramatic weight […]

April 09, 2013

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8:34 PM | IACC and summary of research advances in autism 2012

I'm very much an outsider looking in when it comes to the goings-on at the US Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). I'm a Limey working here in Blighty (translation: Brit working in the UK) not in the States and as far as I can see we don't have such an agency here in the UK. Yes, we do have the NICE review which is coming to a close shortly but nothing like the IACC which seems to orchestrate many autism-related activities in the States, including research.Annually, the […]

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4:26 PM | In Defence of Pseudonyms in Science: Defending the Right to Write

Fellow pseudonymous neuroblogger Neuroskeptic (to whom I owe a great deal in inspiration) has published a fantastic explainer in Trends in Cognitive Sciences ($) on the benefits to science of anonymity. Last November Neuroskeptic became the first blogger to publish a scientific paper under a ...Read More

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9:28 AM | The autism spectrum and the job interview

I'm very conscious of the fact that I tend to talk quite a lot about biological research on this blog and its potential implications for people on the autism spectrum and beyond. To some, this can seem a little one-sided in terms of how autism is viewed and indeed at the expense of a large proportion of people on the autism spectrum who are not necessarily looking to understand how cytokines or dietary intervention for example, might impact on their signs, symptoms or everyday quality of […]

Strickland DC, Coles CD & Southern LB (2013). JobTIPS: A Transition to Employment Program for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders., Journal of autism and developmental disorders, PMID: 23494559

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April 08, 2013

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4:09 PM | The BRAIN Initiative: BAM or BUST?

In his State of the Union this year, President Obama referred to increasing support for science and technology, and mentioned the “Brain Activity Map”. Of course neuroscientists were instantly atwitter. It was the first we’d all heard of any Brain Activity Map. What is it? What did it mean? After a lot of speculation and [...]

April 07, 2013

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8:55 AM | Asperger syndrome in first-episode psychosis

There are some key 'go-to' peer-reviewed texts which I've found to be useful when talking about the various conditions on the autism spectrum. On the topic of Asperger syndrome, I've always tended to come back to the paper by Tom Berney* (open-access) charting the progression of the condition through childhood into adulthood.The whisper of the Muse @ Wikipedia Despite being published nearly 10 years ago, the paper by Dr Berney weathers well and covers many of the discussions which have […]

Davidson C, Greenwood N, Stansfield A & Wright S (2013). Prevalence of Asperger syndrome among patients of an Early Intervention in Psychosis team., Early intervention in psychiatry, PMID: 23472601

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April 06, 2013

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10:12 PM | The Human Brain Project and Decoding Dreams News Roundup: April 2013 1st Edition

There is an interesting post at ‘Whose Shoes?’ which looks at resilience and aging as well as a closer look at the process of Dementia Research. The risk of urinary tract infections was found to be increased 29 fold in relapse of Schizophrenia compared to healthy controls in this study http://ow.ly/jL11G Dr Oliver Sacks has [...]

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2:42 PM | Writing Your Health Narrative

Dr Mark Cochran gives an instructive talk on health narratives. He talks from his own experience of having illness and how our health can be viewed in terms of narrative. Once the narrative is understood he shows how it can be rewritten. Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You [...]

April 05, 2013

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10:24 PM | Michael Nielsen Talks About Open Science

Physicist Michael Nielsen talks about Open Science in this video and provides very interesting examples including a blogger who collaborated online to solve a mathematical problem. Nielsen also discusses the cultural changes necessary to foster open science. Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World [...]

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5:11 PM | Friday Weird Science: Eyeballin’ the David’s Balls

Sci is at Neurotic Physiology today, checking out the David. And I mean….CHECKING OUT the David. No fig leaf. Why? To see which of his family jewels hangs lower, of course! It’s for art. And for science. Head over and check it out.

April 04, 2013

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10:01 PM | Anatomy in the Digital Age

There is a very interesting TED talk on a virtual dissection table which is well worth checking out. The x-ray reconstruction with superimposed anatomical structures is particularly useful with many applications for clinical education. Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter [...]

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8:47 PM | Binge Eating: When Should We Call It An “Addiction”?

Hello Science of Eating Disorders readers! This is a guest post by Liz. Liz is a PhD Candidate in Psychology at the University of Toronto. You can read more about her research, interests, and eating disorder history on her “About” page. And the usual “disclaimer”: Please keep in mind that I (Tetyana) give as much freedom as possible to guest writers and contributors to write about their own interests and viewpoints. That means that we don’t all necessary agree; there […]

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11:28 AM | Get attention for your online survey

Something new on the blog: Have your online survey posted! The new Surveys page will show current online questionnaires on trauma recovery and related topics. Many thanks to guestblogger Betty Lai for asking me whether I could promote her current … Continue reading →

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9:43 AM | CNV duplication load, hotspots and autism

Viewers here in the UK might remember the catchphrase of one Michael Barrymore on the show 'Strike It Lucky': "What is a hotspot not? A good spot". It is with a rather different kind of hotspot in mind, that I'm posting about today: genomic hotspots and autism with a specific focus on copy number variants.An intriguing paper by Santhosh Girirajan and colleagues* (open-access) popped up on my Twitter radar recently discussing copy number variant (CNV) load in relation to autism spectrum […]

Girirajan S, Johnson RL, Tassone F, Balciuniene J, Katiyar N, Fox K, Baker C, Srikanth A, Yeoh KH, Khoo SJ & Nauth TB (2013). Global increases in both common and rare copy number load associated with autism., Human molecular genetics, PMID: 23535821

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April 03, 2013

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10:04 PM | How to Import Blog Posts into Mendeley: A Look at Mendeley Part 3

Mendeley is an example of Reference Manager Software that is available for a number of platforms. In previous posts in this series I have reviewed some of the features of Mendeley. In part 2 (See Appendix) I noted that the PDF feature could be quite useful. In this post I will briefly look at how [...]

April 02, 2013

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9:32 PM | The Effect of Colour on a Contrast Illusion: Continuing with a Visual Illusion Experiment – Part 8

In a previous post we looked at how to produce the contrast illusion shown above. Simply stated the letters on the right appear lighter than those on the left. They are the same colour. The effect results from the graded background. This possibly results from the electrophysiological properties of the Retinal Ganglion cells. What happens [...]

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8:07 AM | Gastrointestinal comorbidity for World Autism Awareness Day

Today (Tuesday 2 April 2013) is World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD).I don't exactly know how one is supposed to communicate this message ('Happy world autism awareness day' just doesn't roll off the tongue). So I guess all I will say is to reiterate the subtext of this blog on what the spectrum - the very wide spectrum - means: "To some it means a need for life-long support. To others it is part of the varied tapestry of humanity. To all it means a need to foster a welcoming society […]

Horvath K, Papadimitriou JC, Rabsztyn A, Drachenberg C & Tildon JT (1999). Gastrointestinal abnormalities in children with autistic disorder., The Journal of pediatrics, 135 (5) 559-63. PMID: 10547242

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April 01, 2013

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7:06 AM | The Superiority Illusion: where everyone is above average

NOTE: April Fool’s always catches me completely by surprise, and I’m really terrible at practical jokes anyway. So today’s post is not a joke. Real study. Really. Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. Garrison Keillor (Source) Much as we [...]

March 30, 2013

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1:38 PM | Eating Disorders in the Elderly

The first published case of a late-onset eating disorder (at the age of 40) was in 1930 by John M. Berkman. In 1936, John A. Ryle published a case study of an eating disorder in a 59-year-old woman. Just how common are eating disorders in late middle-age or elderly individuals? There aren’t a lot of studies on this topic, but the the above figures illustrate that there’s a significant minority of elderly individuals who struggle with eating disorders or disordered eating. What […]

March 29, 2013

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9:30 PM | Antigen content exposure and autism: no link

I'm hopefully not setting myself up for a fall by discussing the study published by Frank DeStefano and colleagues* (open-access) suggesting no link between the 'too many too soon' argument of vaccination and risk of autism. As probably would be expected with such study results, there has been a flurry of interest on this paper (see here and here for example) and so once again I'm not going to add too much to the details which have already been reported.The basics:Based on a final […]

Frank DeStefano, Cristofer S. Price & Eric S. Weintraub (2013). Increasing Exposure to Antibody-Stimulating Proteins and Polysaccharides in Vaccines Is Not Associated with Risk of Autism, The Journal of Pediatrics, Other: Link

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5:57 PM | Friday Weird Science: Manliness tastes really goaty.

Sci is at Neurotic Physiology today, talking about a study I borrowed from the bibliography of Mary Roach’s fabulous new book, Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal. And this study? What makes goat milk taste goaty (when it usually doesn’t)? Blame the male’s chemicals, and the urine it takes to get them where they need [...]

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2:25 AM | Learning Psychopathology At the Movies and a New Model of Emotions News Roundup: March 2013 5th Edition

The Journal ‘Academic Psychiatry’ March 2013 edition is published here. There are papers about learning psychopathology through the analysis of horror films and developing a research program in an older adult mental health services. Dr Aronson has a piece on Journals that accept stories and short essays by physicians. There is a write-up of a [...]

March 28, 2013

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11:00 PM | NICE on managing autism in children & young people: draft

A very quick post to direct readers to the draft version of the final strand of guidance from NICE (National Institute for Health & Care Excellence) on managing autism in children and young people here in Blighty. The guidance documents can be found here and include the rather sizeable draft version of the full guidance (here) alongside a more condensed summary version (here).These are draft documents (at the time of this post) so there may yet be some movement in some of the […]

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5:19 PM | How will the UK ban on doctors using social media anonymously affect patients?

First things first - I’m not a doctor, but the surprise new rules issued by the GMC (the British regulator for doctors) still worry me. Not just because I might perhaps one day be a doctor, but because I certainly will one day be a patient. The benefits I receive from writing anonymously allow me ...Read More

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1:45 PM | Modern day, real life demonstration of the lost letter technique exposes discrimination against atheism in the US Postal Service

In the 1960's Stanley Milgram introduced the lost letter technique which had a notable impact on the field of social psychology (unfortunately the original paper is still paywalled even though it is now two decades after his death). One of the greatest inherent problems with social psychology is ...Read More

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9:46 AM | Inflammation, oxidative stress and autism: Saudi style

Saudi Arabia and autism research appearing on this blog? Regular readers know that this can mean only one thing: Laila Al-Ayadhi and special guests - in this case Afaf El-Ansary - and their fairly recent paper* (open-access) on plasma lipid mediators in autism.Kingdom Tower @ Wikipedia You might already know that I'm a bit of a fan of the Saudi autism research group which also on occasion includes Gehan Mostafa. Their papers have an exquisite range of topics around autism, the most recent […]

El-Ansary A & Al-Ayadhi L (2012). Lipid mediators in plasma of autism spectrum disorders., Lipids in health and disease, 11 (1) 160. PMID: 23170784

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March 27, 2013

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10:21 PM | Looking at a Reference Manager: A Look at Mendeley Part 2

Mendeley is a reference manage program that operates on the web, as well as across mobile and desktop platforms. In part 1 of the review there was a brief look at videos explaining Mendeley. Having spent a little time I thought to give my first impressions of using Mendeley. 1. One particular strength amongst many [...]

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2:36 PM | The bad science of Satoshi Kanazawa

This is a response to the recent writings of Big Think blogger Satoshi Kanazawa. Not only does Kanazawa baldly assert “correlation certainly does imply causation” – unquestioningly disregarding one of the greatest logical fallacies universally printed in science textbooks, but according to him ...Read More

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