Tom Stafford's Blog, page 144

The tree of drunkeness

[image error]The flowers in the picture are from one of the most notorious plants in South America. Brugmansia is widespread across the continent and is strongly psychoactive causing disorientation, hallucinations and memory loss.

This is due to the fact that it contains high levels of the drug scopolamine and, as a result, it has been used for generations by many native peoples for shamanic rituals.

It is perhaps more commonly known for its criminal uses, however, particularly as a dried, powdered form...

2010-06-04 Spike activity

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

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Brain scan 'lie detection' not admissible in a landmark case which has been considered a test for the legal acceptability of the technology, reports Wired Science.

The Frontal Cortex argues that the BP engineers should take a break from tying to solve the oil spill crisis from what we know about the psychology of creativity.

Video gamers are more likely to have lucid dreams according to research covered by Kotaku.

The Guardian list Mind...

Concerned from Tunbridge Wells

[image error]The Guardian has been running a fun evolutionary psychology agony aunt column that's been tackling questions such as 'why do I fancy blonde women?', 'why do nice girls fall for bad boys?' and 'what can I do to stop my best friend marrying this idiot?'.

Despite it's potential, evolutionary psychology has a tendancy to be a bit over-enthusiastic at times but the column just discusses the published studies in relation to the readers' questions and turns out to be a concise guide to some of the...

An unwanted key to a devastating condition

[image error]The New York Times has a gripping article and video report about how a family in Colombia may be the key to unlocking the neuroscience of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, one of the most devastating forms of degenerative brain disease that can strike as early as the 30s or 40s.

Alzheimer's disease is a form of dementia, meaning that the mind and brain decline quicker than would be expected through normal ageing, but usually it is a condition of the old.

Most dementias are not thought to have...

Tripping in a PET scanner

[image error]The History of the Human Sciences journal covers the problem of psychedelic drug research and subjective experience. The article argues that the mind-bending nature of the drugs demand that scientists deal with the clash between the objective world view of science and the subjective experience of the participant that is often swept under the carpet in other areas of substance research.

One particular gem is where it has a report from a participant who describes his or her experience being PET ...

Pointing the finger

[image error]A brief yet intriguing description of a talk on pointing, by the ever versatile neuroscientist and philosopher Ray Tallis at the recent Hay Literary Festival.

A spellbinding hour with philosopher and self-confessed "many-layered anorak" Raymond Tallis on the subject of pointing. Yes, sticking your finger in the air and directing it at an object. It is, he argued, one of the attributes that mark us out as human beings with a sense of ourselves and others in a shared space: no other animal...

The memory manipulators

[image error]Slate has just finished an awesome eight-part special on how memory can be manipulated, shaped and reshaped even when we're completely unaware of it.

The series is really a retrospective on the life and work of Elizabeth Loftus, one of the most important and influential researchers in the area of false and flexible memories.

The first part is description of an online memory experiment completed by the website. If you're new to the area it's worth checking out, but if you're aware of how easy...

Disease rankings

[image error]There is a hierarchy of prestige in medicine. Numerous studies have found that surgery and internal medicine are thought of most highly by doctors while while psychiatry, geriatric and child medicine come near the bottom. A study published in Social Science & Medicine took this idea one step further and looked at which diseases have the most prestige among the medical community.

Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote a highly influential book about the social dynamics of stigma in which he...

On the edge of a nervous breakdown

[image error]The New York Times has an excellent article on the history of the 'nervous breakdown' - an inexact term that has never been officially recognised but which has been popular for over a century.

The article suggests that the phrase is common precisely because it sounds medical and, hence, significant, but remains vague enough to be used flexibly and by everybody without seeming pretentious.

The vagueness of the phrase made it impossible to survey the prevalence of any specific mental problem: It...

A brief and incomplete history of telepathy science

[image error]The Fortean Times has a wonderful article that discusses the long and winding quest to find scientific evidence for telepathy, extra-sensory perception and other mysterious psychic powers.

The opening paragraph both made me laugh out loud and sets the scene for the rest of the article:

There are two truths universally acknowledged about extra-sensory perception (ESP). The first is that the anecdotal evidence is often fun and fascinating to read, whereas to peruse the experimental evidence is...