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Pan-American Health Organisation Webpage PubMed Search Results for "Zika Virus" Search Results ECDC Webpage WHO 21 October 2015 Article Microcephaly - NINDS Microcephaly Information Page Basic Information Webpage ECDC "Rapid Risk Assessment" on risk of microcephaly in Zika virus infection (24 Nov 2015) pdf Paper

A good read from Slate about the movie, "Concussion": Concussion Lies by Daniel Engber Slate 21 December 2015 Concussion Lies (link) Don't mistake drama for truth, fiction for fact, excellent acting for documentary accuracy. And, in the bigger picture, the loudness of an argument for the sound scientific basis of that argument.

Otfried Spreen

Public Workshop - Neurodiagnostics and Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Medical Devices Workshop, November 19-20, 2015 Meeting homepage with links to agenda, background papers, and webcast streams from the meeting. [snip] "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing the following two-day public workshop entitled, “Neurodiagnostics and Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Medical Devices Workshop.” The focus of the first day of the workshop will be cognitive assessment medical devices, which are intended to provide healthcare professionals with an evaluation of cognitive function through non-invasive measurements. The focus of the second day of the workshop will be non-invasive brain stimulation medical devices, which are medical devices that are intended to improve, affect, or otherwise modify the cognitive function of a normal individual (i.e., without a treatment objective) by means of non-invasive electrical or electromagnetic stimulation to the head. The purpose of t...

Dr. Otfried Spreen died, aged 89, on the 29th of November. A colleague, a mentor, a professor for so many of us in neuropsychology. A true gentleman. A true academic. Our profession will miss him and his contributions.

Dr. Kerry Hamsher died on 23rd October, 2015. Dr. Hamsher's commitment to neuropsychology as a science and as a profession was an ever-present one. His was an encyclopedic and sharp mind that could wrap itself around any clinical topic related to the central nervous system and behavior. He was indefatiguable in his pursuit of best practices for the education and post-graduate training of neuropsychologists. He was an essential participant in the work of the Houston Conference and within the American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology (ABCN). His two-year fellowship program at the Neurology Department of the University of Wisconsin Medical School – Milwaukee Clinical Campus during the decade of the 1980s was to become a model of post-graduate training in neuropsychology. A student of Dr. Arthur L. Benton, he was instrumental in the development of the Multilingual Aphasia Examination (MAE), the Facial Recognition Test (FRT), the Judgment of Line Orientation test (JLO), and the...

The first part of a two-part course on the topic, Principles of fMRI , opens at Coursera in October. Addendum: Opening day is Monday, the 12th of October.

The Brain, within its Groove Runs evenly--and true-- But let a Splinter swerve-- 'Twere easier for You-- To put a Current back-- When Floods have slit the Hills-- And scooped a Turnpike for Themselves-- And trodden out the Mills-- -Emily Dickinson In the world of MOOCs, few courses have shown the creativity of purpose and the dedicated following as has the course "Modern and Contemporary American Poetry" by Dr. Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania and Director of its wonderful Kelly Writers House. It opens today for its fourth offering Few courses, in real life or online, have such a dedicated teacher as Al. The course, part of Al's regular teaching at Penn in its English Department, has been presented in MOOC form at this time of year in 2012, 2013, and 2014 at Coursera. The ten-week course is back, opening today to thousands of students, myself included (fourth timer). Week after week, this likely remains the largest single collection of ded...

Oliver Sacks.

Earlier today, the Alzheimer's Disease International group released its "World Alzheimer Report 2015" document. It can be found at: Report .

My Katrina blog entry from 03 September 2005: Shame on US The "Fuck Katrina" Mixtape:

Prof. Jean Aicardi .

Friday, the 7th of August 2015, was the day the anti-torture reformers (The "Dissidents") won a victory that was a decade-long in the making. Here is the approved resolution: document here . Now, the devil will be in the details as the ban needs to be encoded and formalized. Stay vigilant. Regardless of whether or not you are a member of the APA (I am not), stay vigilant. But, enjoy and long remember the day when the membership won an important victory. Psychologists Approve Ban on Role in National Security Interrogations James Risen The New York Times 07 August 2015 Read the article here . Other media reports include Democracy Now! coverage and interviews and another excellent BuzzFeed piece. [Photo by Anthony Risser, 15 June 2008, Philadelphia]

This is a "turning point" week for American psychology, with implications that are generational, rather than short-term. These are implications that directly impact the profession and science of psychology and the degree of trust that the public can have in psychology. Will the APA as an entity say "no" to torture, say "no" to its increased militarization, and say "no" to this Obedience-To-Our-Authority approach to membership, especially members who disagree with the entity's 'party line'? Or will it say "yes" to a return to ethics, say "yes" to an embrace of "First, Do No Harm" approach to its services, and say "yes" to an end of its bullying of people who do not agree with them? We still do not know. You can find the "Hoffman Report" here: click here Wednesday was a pre-conference day of workshops and meetings for the APA, including a meeting of its Council of Representatives. ...

Tell the American Psychological Association that torture is wrong, that they need to find a way to become ethical representatives of psychology and psychologists --- or they should just remove themselves from being a body that purports to represent American psychologists and psychology. [Photo by Anthony Risser, 15 June 2008, Philadelphia]

Alzheimer's Association Press Release at 0700 hrs EDT on 22 July 2015. - Longer-Term Analysis of Phase 3 Solanezumab (Lilly) Up to 3.5 Years - Biomarker Results from Phase 3 Gantenerumab (Roche) Trial - New Data from Aducanumab (Biogen) Phase 1b Study Video released by the Alzheimer's Association: Video from press briefing Article in The Guardian: Scientists find first drug that appears to slow Alzheimer's disease Solanezumab blocks memory loss in patients with mild version of the disease, making it the first medicine ever to slow pace of damage to patients’ brains Read the article here

Here is a link to the statement: British Psychological Society statement on APA Hoffman Review "We condemn and repudiate such practices and repeat our longstanding and principled stance that there is an overriding ethical responsibility on all psychologists and other healthcare professionals to protect and defend fundamental human rights."

Spencer Ackerman of The Guardian has written a fine piece about a psychologist who tried and tried hard to defeat Torture Psychology and the complicity of the American Psychological Association (APA). In doing so, she had to experience a smear campaign by the powers of the American Psychological Association who were hell-bent on their path of complicity. 'A national hero': psychologist who warned of torture collusion gets her due by Spencer Ackerman The Guardian 13 July 2015 Read this fine article here Dr. Arrigo was also interviewed earlier today on Democracy Now! Here is additional information about Dr. Arrigo from her Coalition for Ethical Psychology website: Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo

Today is opening day for a new Coursera MOOC on the topics of systematic reviews and meta-analysis. The course is from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Here is an overview to the course: Read Course Overview Here

I've been curating tweets about this using a hashtag I started using back in April: #TorturePsychology

An excellent overview written by Tom Bartlett in the Chronicle of Higher Education about Torture Psychology and the APA. What a Bombshell Report Tells Us About the APA’s Abetting of Torture by Tom Bartlett (@tebartl) Chronicle of Higher Education 13 July 2015 Read the article here

Dr. John Grohol at his "PsychCentral" blog 11th July, 2015 Read the full blog entry [snip] "My Membership in the APA" "While I’ve enjoyed the collegiality of having other like-minded psychologists to turn to over the years of maintaining my APA membership, this report has made it clear that the APA in its current form is an organization that has lost the plot. "I feel that it is shameful that I’m a member of an organization that has stifled and dismissed dissent, while covering up its own unethical practices. If the APA were a professional of its own organization, it would have kicked itself out years ago for its unethical behavior and lies. "In short, my APA membership is actually a liability now. I refuse to be a member in any organization that has spent so much time, effort and focus on defending its unethical practices than in doing much of anything to help my profession. I can no longer trust it to act responsibly and ethically, nor ...

One of the day's essential reads: "Opening Comments of Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner to the American Psychological Association (APA) Board of Directors" 02 July 2015 Washington, DC Read document here

An excellent Comment is free by Dr. Steven Miles, writing in The Guardian: Psychologists' collusion with US torture limited our ability to decry it anywhere Dr. Steven Miles The Guardian 11 Jul 2015 Read article here

Today's New York Times editorial: Psychologists Who Greenlighted Torture The New York Times New York Times editorial

"Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds" By James Risen The New York Times article The public and all psychologists who opposed such work and who felt that the APA was not being forthcoming with truth and reality owe a huge thank you to brave journalist James Risen for the persistence and quality of his work in and of itself, but also in the face of APA's Nixonesque dismissal of his reporting. Here is a .pdf of the report by the APA about America's Torture Psychology and the complicity and involvement of the American Psychological Association: Report text (.pdf) In addition to the NYT link, here is a link to The Guardian's article: "US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9/11 'collusion'" by Spencer Ackerman The Guardian article

The 9th IBRO World Congress on Neuroscience is underway. Here is the conference website , which is rich with information about the conference. Twitter hashtag is #IBRO2015.

$150 million slap: Laguna Beach firms, parent company fined for false advertising of Procera AVH dietary supplement The Orange County Register 6th July, 2015 Read full article here [snip] The Federal Trade Commission has issued a judgment of more than $150 million against distributors of dietary supplement Procera AVH for falsely advertising the product’s ability to restore memory loss and improve brain function, according to documents filed in Santa Ana’s federal courthouse. The settlement, filed last Wednesday, acknowledges distributors violated sections of FTC rules that prohibit “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” in commerce. Brain Research Labs (BRL) and its collaborators, 20/20 Brain Power Partners, 20/20 Brain Power Founders, and MedHealth Direct, all of which are based in Laguna Beach, were fined $91 million. Key View Labs, the Florida-based company that bought BRL in 2012, was fined $61 million. A majority of each judgment will be suspended in lieu of $2.8 m...

"UC San Diego sues USC and scientist, alleging conspiracy to take funding, data" Los Angeles Times 06 July 2015 article The complaint filing: pdf of the complaint

The 5th INS/ASSBI Pacific Rim Neuropsychology Conference is underway. Here is the conference homepage . Follow the action on Twitter at the hashtag #insassbi2015.

The homepage for the AAIC15 conference: http://www.alz.org/aaic/ (includes attendee information, program, abstracts and more).

M-Marsel Mesulam, Cynthia K. Thompson, Sandra Weintraub, and Emily J. Rogalski (2015). The Wernicke conundrum and the anatomy of language comprehension in primary progressive aphasia. Brain. [Published online June 25 2015 doi:10.1093/brain/awv154] Wernicke’s aphasia is characterized by severe word and sentence comprehension impairments. The location of the underlying lesion site, known as Wernicke’s area, remains controversial. Questions related to this controversy were addressed in 72 patients with primary progressive aphasia who collectively displayed a wide spectrum of cortical atrophy sites and language impairment patterns. Clinico-anatomical correlations were explored at the individual and group levels. These analyses showed that neuronal loss in temporoparietal areas, traditionally included within Wernicke’s area, leave single word comprehension intact and cause inconsistent impairments of sentence comprehension. The most severe sentence comprehension impairments were assoc...

"The Last Day of Her Life" by Robin Marantz Henig The New York Times Sunday Magazine 17 May 2015 Read the article here

The day ends with the American Psychological Association (APA) appearing content to issue a press release which bears commonality with any Richard Nixon statement during the depths of the Watergate crime and cover-up --- more so than anything relating to a statement by an organization that currently represents tens of thousands of psychologists. Another shameful day for psychology in the eyes of the world.

Report Says American Psychological Association Collaborated on Torture Justification by James Risen The New York Times 30 April 2015 Link to article The text of the report

For those interested in Kolb and Whishaw's textbook, there is a new (Seventh) edition available, with a 2015 publication date: Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology by Kolb and Whishaw

A FYI link for undergraduate and graduate students seeking to do a small neuroscience/neuropsychology relevant research project: Cantab Bursary Award

A NASA interview posted today: Watch interview here . A description of the testing protocol: Read a description of the tests here Read a Task Report here .

Fischer, A.G. & Ullsperger, M. (2013). Real and fictive outcomes are processed differently but converge on a common adaptive mechanism. Neuron, 79, 1243-1255. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.07.006. The ability to learn not only from experienced but also from merely fictive outcomes without direct rewarding or punishing consequences should improve learning and resulting value-guided choice. Using an instrumental learning task in combination with multiple single-trial regression of predictions derived from a computational reinforcement-learning model on human EEG, we found an early temporospatial double dissociation in the processing of fictive and real feedback. Thereafter, real and fictive feedback processing converged at a common final path, reflected in parietal EEG activity that was predictive of future choices. In the choice phase, similar parietal EEG activity related to certainty of the impending response was predictive for the decision on the next trial as well. These p...

From the British Psychological Society: A lecture from October 2014 by Prof. Edgar Jones on the topic, "Shell Shock: The First World War and the Origins of Psychological Medicine" Watch the lecture here . This is a very informative historical presentation about the topic.

BBC Front Row's interview with Julianne Moore included a description of how she prepared for her role as Alice: Listen here

This reference (with free-access .pdf) has been getting some media attention this week and is a good read: Flinker, A. et al. (2015). Redefining the role of Broca's area in speech. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1414491112 article pdf The authors report one of their findings that when the motor cortex is activated during spoken responses, Broca’s area is "surprisingly silent". They provide additional information about activity of Broca's area - relative to motor cortex - depending upon the novelty of what is spoken. The study used electrical recording from the cortical surface in a sample of seven participants who were to undergo neurosurgical treatment for refractory epilepsy. The authors note that results were consistent to the presentation of patients with cortical lesions that are limited to Broca’s - it is typical for this presentation not to cause a Broca’s aphasia but to result in an acute, transient mutism. The authors conclude that Broca's...

I am teaching a course in Social Psychology this term for the MSc online program where I have an affiliation. Although social neuroscience has had quite the growth over the past decade and we all get experience in the neurobehavioral syndromes resulting from certain types of brain disease and damage, the course has been a good reminder to me that just about any graduate student in psychology and in neuropsychology would benefit by a good course in core social psychological principles as it relates to normal behavior by mentally and neurologically healthy adults.

Here is the obituary for Dr. Pribram, which appeared on his website recently: Dr. Karl Pribram