Pure Pedantry

I apologize for my long hiatus from blogging. Things have just been crazy at work lately. All the same it has given me some time to think about what I want from blogging, and where I see myself in the next several years.

For those of you who don't know I am an MD-PhD student which means that when I finish my PhD -- hopefully in about a year -- I will return to medical school. Anyone who has written a dissertation or gone through 3rd of medical school will tell you that neither are particularly conducive to large amounts of free time. So looking forward I have to take into account that finding time for blogging will be more challenging in the future.

Likewise, I have been doing this schtick for three years now, and after over a thousand posts one does begin to struggle for story ideas. I have always been of the opinion that if you are posting something it shouldn't feel like a chore, because if it does what you are writing isn't going to be that interesting. Increasingly, I have to push myself to wake up in the morning and write something.

For these reasons, I have decided to close the Pure Pedantry blog. I know (sigh) we had a good run, but good things come to an end. I have deeply enjoyed writing for all of you as a blogger, and I appreciate all of you that have been my regular readers.

However -- for those of you concerned that I will now vanish off the planet -- I will be continuing to blog for ScienceBlogs in a capacity. Evil Monkey and Scicurious over at Neurotopia have very graciously offered me a job as a co-blogger. While my posting there will be much more irregular than it was here, I will still have a chance to interact with you all. I encourage you to go take a look -- if you haven't already -- at the always interesting conversations that go on at their blog.

In keeping with the aesthetic over at their blog -- and frankly because all the cool kids are doing it these days :) -- I will be adopting the pseudonym NotoriousLTP (but you'll all know it is still me [winks]).

Take care, and I hope to see you all over at Neurotopia.

de Gelder et al. discuss a patient -- referred to as TN to protect his privacy -- who had two sequential strokes that damaged his brain. The parts of the brain that were damaged included the primary visual cortex in both hemispheres -- rendering the patient blind. However, the patient could still respond to some visual stimuli through a phenomenon called blindsight.

These aren't happy-joy-joy emotions. They don't make me swell with pride for the future of humanity. They aren't pleasant, but they are nonetheless humane in that -- except for saints -- they are general to the human species.

An eight-year study of 218 couples found 90 percent experienced a decrease in marital satisfaction once the first child was born.

"Couples who do not have children also show diminished marital quality over time," says Scott Stanley, research professor of psychology at University of Denver. "However, having a baby accelerates the deterioration, especially seen during periods of adjustment right after the birth of a child."

An unrelated study in 2006 of 13,000 people found parents are more depressed than non-parents. Scientists speculate that the problem is partly a modern one, because parents don't get as much help at home as they did in previous generations.

So your saying that a screaming thing waking you in the middle of the night demanding attention (and possibly financial support) isn't the recipe for nuptial bliss? I'm shocked to hear it.

Reminds me of another Dylan Moran sketch I like. (I really am a hack. Posting two Dylan Moran sketches in a month. It's sad really...)

While I am certain that it is very interesting research, I have a more technical question: minus sedation, how in Heaven's name did they get the kids to sit still long enough to collect the data? An fMRI is hardly a crib decorated with puppies and ducklings. You feel like you are about to be shot out of a torpedo tube, and the whole thing is about as loud as being face first in the speakers at a Kiss concert. How did they get the two years-olds to put up with that?

In this vein, I found this paper in the journal Brain particularly interesting. Abe et al. report that Parkinson's patients tell fewer lies than controls in a task where they were prompted to do so. In addition, the resting metabolic rate in areas of the brain associated with deception in healthy patients is lower in Parkinson's patients.

Neurology is unique among the medical specialties in that much of the clinical examination can be appreciated visually and taught by use of video recordings.3, 4 Since 2003, we have conducted a 'neurological localization course', during which participants are taught correct clinical examination techniques with the help of patients.5 Trainees are often impressed by the wealth of clinical information that can be gleaned by observation alone; for example, how the externally rotated, slightly plantar-flexed attitude of the lower limb of a supine patient can hint at the possibility of an underlying footdrop, or how muscle atrophy, diabetic dermopathy and trophic changes can not only provide clues to an underlying peripheral neuropathy, but can even indicate the level of the stocking paresthesia.

A guy who doesn't want to, ahem, proceed too quickly will think of baseball or something non-sex related. A girl who wants to proceed more quickly might focus on surrounding milieu of a loving environment. These are stereotypes, I know, but the fact that we have them does confirm that what we think about during sex matters: what we attend to changes the nature of the experience.

In this vein, Mind Hacks links to a great review of the role of attention in sex. Vaughan makes the point that we tend to view sexual dysfunction as a problem of equipment -- hence prescribing Viagra, when a more accurate diagnosis may be a problem of state-of-mind. Definitely read the whole thing.