First Successful Brain Transplant

Recently, French scientists at the University of Southern North Dakota – Baltimore performed the first successful human brain transplant. Said the chief neurosurgeon, Dr. Cranial Head, MD, “This is a breakthrough of unprecedented magnitude. I’m ecstatic all our research and hard work finally paid off. We couldn’t be more pleased with how things turned out.”

The patient, who only agreed to be called Jose Ivanovich O’Malley, III for anonymity reasons, suffered a massive anterior communicating arterial stroke that left him severely incapacitated. He was a veterinarian at a local clinic before his stroke. His family heard about the research Dr. Head’s team was doing with rats and contacted him about the possibility of being his first human subject. Dr. Head agreed immediately, “I saw this as the perfect opportunity to advance our research out of animals and into humans. We’ve had great success – recently – with brain transplants in rats so it was only logical to start human trials.”

“This new brain transplant surgery is quite remarkable,” said Dr. Head. “My colleague, Dr. Sarah Wu, and I first came up with the idea 40 years ago while we were competing in a triathlon. It came out of the blue, really, neither of us are quite sure why we thought of it but here we are.”

What’s remarkable about the surgery is that it is done all under local anesthetic and the patient is kept talking throughout the procedure, except for the time when the brains are switched (during this time the patient is placed on life support). In this case, the transplanted brain came from a local high school physics teacher Stephen Cabeza who suffered an unexpected heart attack. He was not only young but also in good health. The Cabeza family wishes remain anonymous. The transplanted brain is removed from the original body and cooled to halt neuronal death. The end of the severed spinal column is treated with a new nanoglue that automatically splices individual axons to the new spinal cord when the transplant brain is placed on top.

“It’s incredible,” said Dr. Head, “surprisingly we don’t have much work to do because with this new nanoglue the process of reconnecting nerve fibers is automatic. It only takes 4 minutes. We just inspect the brain and spinal cord to make sure everything is lined up correctly. The nanoglue is also applied to areas like the optic nerves, that need to be spliced into the new brain.”

After the surgery, Jose made a speedy recovery. Within 24 hours he was moving his limbs and within a week he was walking and talking. His wife said, “It’s a miracle. We thought Jose was gone forever but Dr. Head saved him. He doesn’t know who any of us are, of course, and calls himself Stephen but we are all willing to work with the new Jose and learn to love him and hope he will learn to love us.” The medical team, however, remains baffled why Jose insists his name is Stephen. When asked if he planned on returning to work at his veterinary clinic, Jose stated that he couldn’t wait to return to teaching physics: “I’ve always had a love of physics. There’s something about gravity research that really attracts me.” Jose doesn’t remember any of his past self or his work as a veterinarian.

Disclaimer: this post was written in 2008 as an April Fool’s Day joke years before the idea of a head/body transplant was popularized by news media. It was written years before the “Fake News” trendy label. This post is completely made up and was written to be humorous. Surgeons cannot at the present time perform brain transplants, regardless of what is published online. The surgeon who claims he can perform a head transplant will not be successful. The idea of a brain/head/body replacement is interesting both as a potential medical advancement and as a point of ethical discussion. Is it theoretically possible? Yes. Will it happen anytime soon? No. Should it happen? That’s a discussion for another time.

Neuroscience and Marketing

There is a growing trend for marketing companies to turn to neuroscience in order to create better advertisements. Nielsen Entertainment Television Group now collaborates with NeuroFocus, a company that specializes in applying neurotechnology and neuroscience to marketing. NeuroFocus has some fairly well-known neuroscientists serving as advisors so their work should be pretty good. I hadn’t heard of the company before today but as I browsed their website I was intrigued. I recently completed a clinical rotation working at an anxiety disorders clinic. At the clinic all of the patients I saw were part of a research study investigating physiological arousal and emotion, specifically fear responses. Anyway, the patients were hooked up to sensors that measured skin conductance, eye blink, and other similar ways to measure physiological arousal. Some also received an EEG while viewing various photos.

My point is that the research that the company NeuroFocus is doing seems very valid knowing what we know about the physiological arousal associated with basic emotions. I think research like this is great because it has the potential for companies to make better, albeit more manipulative, commercials. All you need to do is look at physiological arousal and correlate the data from commercials with data from things like the International Affective Picture System. Of course, you can’t use the IAPS in for-profit work but a company could develop something similar. Even though I don’t do emotion research I think working at a place like NeuroFocus could be fascinating.

You can read more about using neuroscience in marketing in a short but good New York Times article.

Leukoaraiosis and Lacunes – A Very Brief Overview

As people age, it is common for their brain white matter to change. These changes often appear as bright white spots on T2-weighted MR scans. These areas or spots of hyperintensity (i.e., white matter hyperintensities {WMH}) are also called leukoaraiosis (LA). Researchers are still investigating the exact nature and pathology of these abnormalities but our understanding of them is increasing. They most often seem to start around the lateral ventricles and spread from there, although it is possible to have punctate WMH throughout the brain white matter (i.e., WMH that are not connected to other regions). WMH on brain MRIs represent rarefaction of the white matter, including swelling, demyelination, and damage, although the exact nature and combination of the white matter changes is not known. These WMH can interfere with normal cognitive functioning, including processing speed, attention, inhibition, as well as global executive functioning (although these claims are still being investigated).

Other damage to white matter includes lacunes, which are little holes in the brain, much like the holes in Swiss cheese. They are caused by mini infarcts, or strokes, or other processes. Most of the time they are due to “silent strokes”, or strokes that are small enough that the person does not have any noticeable stroke symptoms. These lacunes can have similar impact on cognition as WMH. Both WMH and lacunes are related to vascular risk factors, such as hyper- or hypo-tension, diabetes, etc.

The Psychology of Multiple-Choice Tests

As someone with many years of taking multiple-choice tests as well as a fair amount of experience writing them, I thought it was time to talk about the psychology behind them as well as offer tips to successfully taking them. I’ve personally never enjoyed essay tests (although I know that they separate out those who really know the material from those who do not) – I see their uses and recognize (obscure pun not intended) their strengths but I’m just not a fan in general. Maybe it’s partly because I’m much better at multiple-choice tests and partly because I’m not the fastest writer. I’m usually one of the first done with a multiple-choice test and one of the last with an essay test.

When looking at declarative memory (e.g., memory for facts) there are both recall and recognition components. Recall memory is like taking an essay test – you just have to write whatever you can about a topic. Recognition memory is like taking a multiple-choice test – the answer is in front of you (even if the answer is none of the above). The questions and answers serve as cues that can stimulate your memory. If you have good recall you should have good recognition; if you have poor recall you might still have good recognition (you can also have poor recall and recognition).

Why do some people just not like multiple-choice tests? I’ve heard everything from, “The questions are often tricky” to “I’m just not good at them.” Yes, multiple-choice tests can be tricky but good ones are not necessarily tricky. I say necessarily because what’s tricky to one can be seen as an important distinction by another. Good multiple-choice tests are also organized how class material was organized – that is, topics or chapters all lumped together. I know many people disagree with that point but the test questions and not the test structure should serve to distinguish between people who really understand the material and those who do not. In other words, the structure of the test should serve to facilitate memory by grouping topics and chapters together. Tests should also be given in the context in which material was learned for best results.

When I’ve written tests (as in creating them, not taking them {in case any Canadians read this}) I also tried to make questions test latent knowledge about concepts rather than manifest memory, if I can use structural equations modeling terms. For example, I wrote a question once that sought to pull out knowledge about where modern intelligence tests were developed (i.e., in France). So to test this instead of just asking what country they were developed in, I asked what was a possible name of someone who would have taken one of the early tests (a French name was the correct answer). While doing this has its own problems and limitations, it requires students to think, “OK, they were developed in France so I need a French name” or, “Binet developed the modern IQ test, Binet was French, so I need a French name.” Testing in this manner is an indirect way to get to the core knowledge. That was a fairly straightforward and simple example but testing in that manner (i.e., indirectly) overcomes some of the shortcomings of multiple-choice tests – it requires some reasoning and abstraction. All my test questions were not like that but that is a very effective way to test. I believe it’s also important to teach while testing. Sometimes this entails expanding a question to include a general statement about a topic, then asking something specific. For example, “William James was a 19th century philosopher who is often credited with being the ‘Father of Modern Psychology.’ William James believed all of the following about consciousness EXCEPT:….” Providing an extra sentence not only teaches but also serves as a cue. It should never be a distractor though (unless the question warrants it – for example, on a question about cognitive inhibition or the frontal lobes, then a distractor sentence could be included for astute students to catch the principle of it and be taught, or at least appreciate it). Tests should be constructed to teach. For me, making tests is an art. They should be crafted to help students, facilitate learning, as well as separate the wheat from the chaff. I’m also a firm believer in using humor on tests. The occasional distractor answer should be humorous or blatantly untrue (of course, it’s always funny when someone endorses one of the obviously untrue answers).

My test-making philosophy (and psychology) is based on differentiating the poor from the mediocre students and the mediocre from the good and the good from the great. This is a philosophy that students do not particularly like because it means that I try to write difficult tests. Difficult is not tricky or nit-picky (although it is good to have a couple nit-picky questions), difficult is well-written, requiring reasoning and deeper thinking. When writing tests I try to avoid both ceiling and floor effects. Getting all the questions correct is possible but rare (i.e., no more than 1-3 students in a class of 50 should get 100%). I try to write my tests to have an average score in the mid 70s. Having an average in the mid 70s basically guarantees that there are no floor or ceiling effects and that the test is not too difficult that it is frustrating to too many people. I’m also a big believer in mercy so I like to curve grades (I only curve up, not down). I also usually provide students an opportunity to go back over their tests, correct what they missed and resubmit the tests so they can earn back 25% of the points that they missed. This helps students on the lower end more than on the higher end, but the ones on the high end don’t need higher grades.Do It Yourself Frontal Lobotomy

So now to test-taking strategies. Here are my Top 11 Multiple-Choice Test-Taking Strategies:

  1. Work through the test as quickly as possible answering the questions that you can answer right away. It’s okay to think about one for a little bit but if you can’t get it within a little bit, move on. On longer tests, there are often questions or answers that will help you answer some of the questions you didn’t know.
  2. It’s also okay to work from the end to the beginning or to skip around. Don’t skip around too much though, especially in tests structured by topic or chapter.
  3. Always go with your first impression about an answer unless you are sure that you need to change your answer or if your first impression was just a guess. There is conflicting evidence as to whether or not first impressions are more accurate but in my experience they are.
  4. Look for patterns in answers. For example: A) James, Freud, and Watson; B) Thorndike, Skinner, and Watson; C) Thorndike, Piaget, and Ebbinghaus; D) Skinner, Thorndike, and Beck. In this case the answer is B) (assuming the question is something like which group of psychologists are all behaviorists?). Notice that Watson is repeated twice, Thorndike is repeated 3 times, and Skinner is repeated twice. If you knew nothing about the question you could use logic to figure it out. This does not always work but it often does.
  5. Related the point 4, always try to rule out any answers that you know are not true. Then if you have to guess, you have better odds. This works one tests that penalize you for wrong answers (like many standardized tests do). If a multiple-choice test is designed to subtract .25 points if you miss a question, if you can rule out one answer then you should go ahead and guess (assuming there are only 4 answers) because then you will have a 33% chance of getting it right versus the possibility of losing .25 points.
  6. The most common answers on tests are either “B” or “C”. So if you have no idea about the answer, guess one of those.
  7. If there is an all or none of the above, take a close look at those. If there are not a lot of “all of the aboves” on the test, it’s likely that that is the answer.
  8. Do not pay attention to the number of letters that you’ve answered: “I’ve had 5 Ds in a row; that can’t be right.” If you’re doing this you’re likely over-analyzing the test. Sometimes you are right but it’s not worth the effort to focus on (unless you really know most of the test material {and how the teacher or professor makes her tests}).
  9. Don’t panic! Don’t be afraid to stop for a few seconds or a minute and clear your mind. It’s worth the effort if you are feeling anxious or too nervous or overwhelmed. Too much anxiety can ruin even a well-prepared test-taker.
  10. Think positively. Tell yourself that you can do well. Tell yourself that you are a good multiple-choice test-taker.
  11. Above all – PREPARE. Studying for multiple choice tests is different than studying for essay examinations. Read over all the salient material then read over it again (I find it helpful personally to read it multiple times quickly). Multiple-choice tests are usually about breadth and not depth.

Image by gillespinault.

A Couple of Galton’s Contributions to Modern Psychology

Sir Frances Galton was not only related to Darwin he also did very similar research to Darwin. His most important contribution to modern psychology likely was through his efforts at quantifying behavior in addition to natural and physical phenomena (including the uniqueness of human fingerprints). Galton was the first person to really recognize some of the ramifications that Darwin’s theories had for understanding humans. He believed that intelligence was (largely) hereditary and that according to principles of natural selection, the most intelligent people should be the most influential in society even if their environment was not ideal; he thought that the most intelligent people were the most evolved. He was able to demonstrate that intelligence did appear to be hereditary by researching the families of eminent men and women. He estimated that preeminence occurred in about 1 in 4000 people but that people who were related to eminent men and women were more likely to be eminent themselves.

He expanded on this method by studying twins (a common method for understanding heritable factors today). He demonstrated that, even when living in different environments, twins more often than not had very similar propensities. Galton really was the scientist who injected the ideas of evolution into the study of human behavior and attributes. Most intelligence testing today traces its roots back to Galton and his ideas of individual differences and heritability.

New Blog Design

I updated my site with a new WordPress theme. I think it is a little cleaner than the previous theme. I’m still trying to decide what I want to do with the site redesign so I thought I’d do a quick little refresher for the time being, since it might take me a few more months to have the time to do a larger site redesign.

FPS Gamers Enjoy Dying More Than Killing

New research published in the APA journal Emotion shows that people have different responses to killing and dying in first-person shooters. From the abstract of the article by Ravaja et al. (2008): “Instead of joy resulting from victory and success, wounding and killing the opponent may elicit high-arousal negative affect (anxiety), with high Psychoticism scorers experiencing less anxiety than low Psychoticism scorers. Although counterintuitive, the wounding and death of the player’s own character may increase some aspect of positive emotion.”

Link to the abstract.

Link to an article about the research.

I have not yet read the original article but it sounds very creative.

Douglas Spaulding and Ethology

Douglas Spaulding is considered the father of modern ethology, which is the study of instinctive animal behavior (Goodwin, 2005). Spaulding began his research of animals in the 1860s in France. One of his early experiments involved “blindfolding” baby chickens before they had any visual experience outside an egg and then leaving them blindfolded for at least a few days. After removing the blindfolds the chicks were able to peck at moving insects naturally as if they had never been without sight. Spaulding stated that this was instinct, an in-born and inherent knowledge of basic survival skills. Other chicks were temporarily deafened at hatching time. When the material stopping up their ears was removed they were able to run towards a mother hen at the sound of a cluck. Again, Spaulding stated that this was an instinctual behavior. Spaulding also observed imprinting; he stated that baby chickens will follow any moving object if it was the first moving object that they saw.

Another ethological principle Spaulding proposed was critical periods. These are periods in which the development of a characteristic or attribute must develop. If it is delayed it will not fully develop. For example, if he stopped the hearing of chicks for too long (10 days or so) they would not respond to a call from a mother hen. If they were deprived of vision for too long they would not imprint and follow him. Developmental psychologists use the idea of critical periods (often called sensitive periods in humans) on which to base much research.

The Woman on the Bus

Yesterday I was riding the bus to campus and sat across from a woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder. At least, I believe she had the disorder. For at least 10 minutes she combed her hair in one spot on the back of her head. Over and over and over she combed. Occasionally she would switch hands but she kept combing for about 10 minutes. Then she stopped. It was so interesting to see these compulsions in real life. I’ve seen them in videos and read about them but hadn’t yet seen them in real life. It’s possible that she was just combing her hair or that she had a tic disorder that manifested itself through combing over and over but it sure looked like OCD. I really felt sorry for her. Sorry isn’t quite the right word but OCD is not easy to deal with. She didn’t even look like she really was paying attention to what she was doing – her movements were so robotic. Anyway, that was one interesting experience yesterday.

Darwin’s Role in Psychology

Charles Darwin’s work has had a huge influence on the world, specifically in the sciences. While Darwin hypothesized and theorized many things some parts of his research were more salient to psychology than other aspects. Darwin wrote that humans and animals were descended from a common ancestor (this would develop into research in the 1900s and 2000s showing that humans and animals share the majority of their genes). Because Darwin stated that humans and animals have a lot in common, the field of comparative psychology (i.e., studying animals to learn about human behavior) increased in popularity. Scientists had studied animals for thousands of years and made inferences about humans from those animals but Darwin’s theories led to researchers making inferences about human behaviors such as learning, memory, emotions, and even social interactions based on observations and experiments with animals.

Darwin’s research also led to research in psychology of individual differences. Before his theories, most researchers were trying to understand humans by looking at averages and similarities between people. They were just trying to understand the basic underlying constructs of human behavior. After Darwin, psychologists began investigating individual differences. It was not many years before the first modern intelligence test was developed by Binet in France. Intelligence is one area where many researchers focus on individual differences. Some psychologists are interested in what human traits make some people more successful than others. This is based largely on Darwin’s idea of natural selection where the strongest, adaptive, or creative species survive and other ones do not.

Darwin’s theories also had a large impact on psychology in general; much of psychology today has strong biological underpinnings. This traces largely back to Darwin. Psychologists often try to explain psychological concepts in light of biological processes. Some schools of psychology are almost strictly Darwinian, such as ethological psychology (the most famous 20th century ethological psychologist is Konrad Lorenz) and evolutionary psychology. Even though Darwin was not a psychologist, his theories have had a large and lasting impact on the field of psychology.