This week's guest blogger is @ArkhamAsylumDoc! She has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and is a project scientist at a very nerdy university science lab. You can follow her on twitter for more geekery!

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (known to clinicians as the DSM-IV) is essentially psychiatry and psychology’s “big book” of illnesses. We refer to the manual when assessing and determining the condition(s) our patients may be suffering from. Publication of the fifth edition of the manual (DSM-5) is scheduled for May 2013, and is, according to the American Psychiatric Association, considered one of the "most anticipated events in the mental health field."

Why is this book so important? The manual lists and defines all psychiatric conditions that are recognized as valid illnesses by the field. Clinical scientists, medical doctors, and experienced experts in mental health are in charge of determining the criteria, constructs, and even the name of each disorder. The next edition will have substantial changes. What’s certainly made things interesting for this iteration is that the preliminary draft of the manual is now available for public review. This means we can all peruse the provisional diagnoses and proposed changes.

There are a number of conditions that are still under consideration, and thus remain on the chopping block. These illnesses have never before been published in the reference manual and many are not currently recognized as actual medical or mental health conditions. Using some familiar characters, I briefly describe and illustrate each proposed illness currently under the category of “Psychiatric Conditions Under Review.”



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So we (myself and the Psychobabble crew) are playing around with formatting and structure ideas for the podcast. Here's smething we're going to try and do a bit more of - Shorts. Something well less than 10 minutes that's on topic and covering a nice little chunk of information.

The following is only 8 minutes long, and it covers the history and science behind the idea of 'Women's Intuition'.





The rest of this post is cross-posted at the Psychobabble website, and covers some stuff we're looking at for the future of the show...

In other news we, the Psychobabble crew, have made some big decisions regarding the future format of Psychobabble. We’ve been doing this now since January and we think it’s time we tried to make the show a little bigger, a little better, and a little more accessible. Additionally, these changes should allow us to bring a little more insight to the topics than in the past.

Before I go on though – please consider filling out our survey - we’d like to know a little bit about you, about what you think, and how you’d like us to improve the show. Additionally, we’d like to know if the . . . More

So I've been thinking about religion and beliefs again. More specifically, souls...

I'll get to writing a full-length post, and explaining my recent interest, early next week.

In the mean time here's an episode of Radiolab with a reading of the story 'Metamorphosis'. It's written by a neuroscientist by the name of David Eagleman. If there's ever a version of the afterlife I could get on board with, it's this.



[Skip to 6:30; The reading lasts only 4 minutes]



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If you're feeling a little bummed out by the last story, try this next one. It's written by the same guy, and is a little more light-hearted and whimsical...



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The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe does a show at the end of every year in which they make predictions for the following year. They do this to demonstrate that anyone can be a psychic, and amazingly, two of the crew have 'accurately' predicted the death of two famous people. Both Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse were picked to die, and lo, they died.

Psychics generally rely on two factors when making predictions:

1. Make a crapload of predictions. People forget the misses, and celebrate the hits.

2. Make educated guesses. Pick old people, sick people, unhinged people and your odds (arguably) improve considerably.

The first point is simple. If you make enough predictions then time and chance will prove you though - particularly if you're vague to begin with. Sure, we might consider Charlie Sheen is high chance for death but predicting that a 'famous out-of-work TV actor will die' sets the bar pretty low and almost guarantees a hit during whatever period one specifies.

The second point seems intuitive, but I'm not sure it is. Charlie Sheen may die, but is he any more likely to die than anyone else in a big enough sample? There's a lot of things going . . . More

EcoPhysioMichelle is a graduate student in organismal biology. Her thesis research is on the ecophysiology of epidermal lipids and water homeostasis in house sparrows, and she is a graduate teaching associate for an introductory human physiology class for non-majors. She blogs about human physiology, weird animal biology, and the interface of science and culture on her blog C6-H12-O6. You can follow her on Twitter (@physilology).

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Hypoadiponectinemia is a long word that simply describes the state of having too little of a certain endocrine called adiponectin. Adiponectin is a major metabolic endocrine, and is responsible for regulating things like glucose uptake and lipolysis (the breakdown of fat stores). Having hypoadiponectinemia, or too little adiponectin, is a risk factor for both Type II Diabetes and metabolic syndrome (a syndrome principally characterized by central obesity, or an overly large waist circumference, among other things).

Plasma adiponectin concentration (or how much of the endocrine is present in your blood) is inversely correlated with the am . . . More

I was 3 years old. I didn't know what it meant, but I was 3. The next year, I'd be 4, and I would want an Atari 2600 for my birthday. But at that point in time, I was 3 and the world was going to change. I would later hear about how everything changed and the ensuing hard, uphill struggle to inform. To survive. But instead I was 3. Being filmed in the garage at my grandmother's house on my Uncle's old Betamax camcorder. Running around the small backyard in the Outer Sunset District.

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If you're new to this series, or new to Psycasm generally, Click Here for an explanation.

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Do we have free will?

I know I chose to pose that question and write those words, but I’m equally comfortable attributing that sensation of certainty to illusion.

Though I’m not widely read in philosophy that which I have exposed myself to lead me to the conclusion that free will is probably an illusion. I don’t remember who I read, what arguments they used or why it seemed a reasonable conclusion to me, but it is the assumption I have been operating under for a fair period of time.

However, in considering this topic in light of a few more years of experience, and in light of a few years of scientific training… I’m no longer sure what I think.

I know enough to say that I don’t know enough about physics to take that into consideration; not in any meaningful way, at any rate. I could drop a ‘quantum’ here, or list the flavours of subatomic particles (my favourite being ‘Strange’), but it wouldn’t help me understand the problem at hand.

I can, however, parse the problem in terms I am familiar with. If freewill exists – illu . . . More

A Psychobabble short. Occupy Wall Street and the Inner Primate.

My motivation for doing this particular research was to ask the question 'how deep does our sense of fairness run?'. There's a little bit of anthropomorphising going on, but I think some of the more interesting stuff comes through.

This short is less than 10 minutes long. Hope you enjoy it.



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Silly analogies, I know. But it kind of gets the point across. A paper by Griskevicius et al (2006) suggests that, when individuals in a same-sex group are presented with the option of conforming or non-conforming when a sexy other is around, men and women behave differently.

Let me explain, and more importantly, let me pose a question.

Griskevicius et al (2006) conducted two studies. The first asked participants (N = 237) to rate a number of images (to determine their aesthetic preference) then placed them in a same-sex group (online; 3 members) to discuss some of the images. They participant was always last to engage in the discussion, and was basically given the option to conform to a unanimous group opinion, or non-conform (i.e. Like vs Dislike). The trick, however, is that prior to the group discussion participants were given a written scenario to imagine themselves in; the first was a 'self protective' scenario:


In the self-protective scenario, participants imagined being in a house
alone late at night. As the scenario progressed, they overheard scary noises
outside and believed that someone had entered the house. After calling out
and receiving no reply, the story ende . . . More

[Check out Post 1 if you haven't already.]

I was hoping to do a more science-based post, but I couldn't really find any research on the topic.... but I'm doing one anyway. What's life without a little whimsy?

Our campus Skeptical group has a fairly active Facebook group that discusses all kinds of things. One member posted the comic found here (Sorry, I can't post it. Plus this guy deserves the page view...do it...).

The comic found at the link above had a very brief blog post which describes the actions of an Atheist group offering freshly baked cookies in exchange for one's soul. The comment was made on the skeptical facebook group that we should do the same.

Everyone took to the idea. A few of us discussed the nuances of how and why over lunch, and as a result a few changes were made. Our goal was not to alienate the devout, or offend anyone who holds that souls exist. Our goal is simply to make one question the concept. If one decides that they have a soul - then great; the point is they were actually confronted by the idea and devoted a few minutes of thought (at a . . . More

Part I here. Perhaps not necessarily homework, but it would help make sense of the following...

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It seems appropriate to open Part II on Laughter by quoting myself (O, Narcisus). In part one I wrote the following:

"But why is this paper an excellent example of Evo Psych? Well, unlike things like vision or attraction or communication, laughter is a unique human quality (well, not quite; but the manner, extent and contexts in which we employ it is unique), and so provides an excellent topic to investigate with a human behaviour evolutionary framework. Second, this topic synthesises huge amounts of data on what we currently know about laughter from many different domains (social psych, positive psych, biological foundations, and neuroscience) and constructs an evolutionary framework that incorporates all of it. Third, it brings together many converging lines of evolutionary evidence (archaeology, comparative studies, etc) to inform their evolutionary hypothesis. And finally, the authors freely admit and highlight the weaknesses of their position, and (crucially) provide a number of predictions inherent in their framework."

I do quote this with reason. Commenter Yannisguerra, ma . . . More

Carolyn McGraw In the center, the unmanipulated photo. With the less cute manipulated photo to the left, and the cute one to the right. . . . More

If I had to pick any one pathogen to call my "favorite", it would be the influenza virus. In truth, it picked me. It's a passion of my boss/mentor, so naturally much of my work and study has revolved around various influenza viruses. Zoonotic influenza research is the primary focus of his applied laboratory in which I work. Our "niche" is occupational animal exposures as risk factors for zoonotic influenza infections. From the countless grant proposals, manuscripts, and undergrad lecturing, to a key component of my dissertation, I've developed quite an interest in this virus and even consider it as a career focus after graduating.

This first post of the blog series will cover the basics of influenza A viruses and their pandemic potential. Later I'll go into the epidemiology of influenza viruses, but this first post serves as a starting point. A word of caution: I'm not a virologist, so I've kept things simple. Now let's jump right in...

Influenza virus basics. There are three species, or types, of influenza viruses (A, B, and C). Humans can be infected with all types, but influenza A is the most virulent. Wild aquatic birds are the natural reservoirs for most influenza A viruses, but through various modes of transmission . . . More

[Wherein our Hero defends his skeptical stance regarding Psi, despite those with bigger brains than his own working on finding positive evidence. But is it even a legitimate domain of investigation?]

What the flip is all the fuss? See here (post) and (comment)



This particular post way an eye-opener. I’m not going to say a mind-opener, with all its implications, but it definitely made me more aware that important people are working on this topic.

First, I am humbled by some of the authors involved and by some of the organizations and journals endorsing such work.

Second, I stand by my initial mocking tone of the work I cited – and the field more generally.

Third, I believe the question itself is still (currently) without as much merit as Disgruntledphd might suggest.

I’m going to work my way backwards, from point three to one.

The Society of Psychical Research was indeed founded by some great Victorian minds – a most interesting point was that William James (the late, great) was involved in their American operations. I assume, too, that disgruntledphd is accurat . . . More

If you're new to Psycasm, feel free to skip the following preamble. It's mostly just background. I'd like to think it does have some interesting links to past works, however (both mine, and of others).

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The following post is in response to a comment made by Michael Blume (who has previously graced LabSpaces with a Dangerous Experiments post), who, in repsonse to my post regarding the Cognitive Differences Between Christians and Atheists suggested I might be interested in work done by Ara Norenzayan (at the University of British Columbia).

Though it may seem I tend to fixate on religion, I assure you this is not the case. Prior to this post I have made approximately 2 1/2 posts on religion (the 1/2 was on . . . More

Magical thinking is a funny term for a strange phenomenon. Broadly put it is the belief or expectation that our thoughts and actions will influence the future, others, or ourselves. I can only imagine it seems ridiculous for anyone reading this blog to consider the possibility of actually cursing someone, or placing a hex on their family. But I do imagine a certain percentage pray to a bearded man in sky to bestow good luck or good health on themselves or the people they know. Yet the middle group - the non-hexers and the non-prayers - are not exempt. Chances are you know it in some other form - willing the phone not to ring at 4:45 on a friday afternoon, 'jinxing' your own (or someone else's) good luck by making it the subject of conversation, or suggestion one ought to 'wish you luck' prior to some big event, and engaging in any other kind of superstitious behaviour.

The crazy part is that magical thinking can work. Sometimes. If you're so persuaded by the arguments of religion knowing that folk are praying for you can actually work. Of course, the magical thinking is on the part of the thinker/prayer; and the benefits associated with the knowledge that you're being prayed for are in . . . More

I'm no expert. I'm a student - an Undergrad, at that. I'm no block-busting blogger, either. I consider that I have had a bit of modest success doing what I'm doing, but still view myself on the outskirts of the scienceblogging community.

However, being both a student and one who attempts to communicate psychology has given me the opportunity to observe what people don't know about psychology, and to observe what people think they know about psychology, but are wrong.

No doubt all fields have this. The layperson likely asks chemists if they can make bombs and drugs, may ask astronomers if we can visit other planets, or ask biologists if they can create life. Sure, it's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it reveals ignorance. The Chemists' work may involve synthesizing organic molecules; the Astronomer spends their day examining reams of data regarding the wobbles of far off planets, and the biologist, well... Labspaces is populated with biologist - if you want the full idea.

Psychologists get asked if they can read people's minds. Yes, they're making a joke - but if their goal is to get a 30 second rundown of what psychology is, it doesn't really leave the door open.

...and the answer is yes; for a given . . . More

In 1994 Monk and friends investigated why people on mobile phones are annoying. You know what I'm talking about. When you're sitting on a train just minding your own business and you heard the dingle-dingle of someone's phone and you just know you're going to hear all about someone's baby / Saturday night / shopping list / job. FSM, that's annoying. Seriously, when my phone rings I keep it as quick and as quiet as possible, often returning the call as soon as I'm in a more appropriate setting. On a side note: I'm so glad we no longer have novelty ring tones. Did you ever hear the female orgasm one go off in a public space? Yeah, good one buddy. You and your mate might think that's cute on the work site, but on a bus it's another story...

Anyway, Monk and friends (1994) investigated why this was so damn annoying. Was it due to the volume of the speaker? Are mobile phones just more salient (attention capturing) than normal conversations? Do people have biases against people who publicly use mobile phones? Or was it something else?

By cleverly staging a conversation on a train (or at a bus stop), either with one person on a mobile phone, or with two people . . . More

Who knows the trolley dilemma?

It's a simple little thought experiment in ethics. Here's a variation:

You are a station master at a railway and a runaway train is speeding through the station. Ahead of it is a split line, and the train is headed down Line A if you do not act. At the end of Line A is a single surveyor, inspecting the tracks, oblivious to the fact there is a train headed for him. At the end of Line B is a group of 4 or 5 workmen doing some maintenance.

You cannot stop the train, but you can redirect it down Line B. Do you?

Most people will answer No. It's a tragedy, but the loss of one life is better than the loss of 5.

You are a station master at a railway and a runaway train is speeding through the station. Ahead of it is a split line, and the train is headed down Line A if you do not act. At the end of Line A is a group of 4 or 5 workmen doing some maintenance, oblivious to the fact there is a train headed for them. At the end of Line B is a single surveyor, inspecting the tracks.

You cannot stop the train, but you can redirect it down Line B. Do you?

Many people will answer Yes for the same reason. The loss of one life is a tragedy, yet your a . . . More