melancholic minds

Today's issue of Current Biology has a special section on applied neuroscience, and my contribution to that is a feature on depression:

Silver linings for patients with depression?
Current Biology Volume 24, Issue 18, pR851–R854, 22 September 2014
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.08.059

Free access to full text and PDF file.
(May be withdrawn after two weeks, but will come back in a year.)

The artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) suffered from severe anxiety and has in his work depicted various states of emotional distress, including depression. This work is called Evening. Melancholy I. (1896). (Image: Wikipedia.)

memories are made of what exactly?

Today's issue of Current Biology is a special issue on memory, with lots of great articles on various aspects of memory. Oh, and there's also a feature from me, on sharp-wave ripples and whether or not they're important for memory.

Are memories just ripples in time?

Current Biology, Volume 23, Issue 17, R734-R736, 9 September 2013

Free access to

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All the themed content in this issue will remain on free access for a month after publication date, apparently.

By coincidence, there is also a new book out about one of the most extensively studied patients with memory loss, H.M. While this isn't directly linked to ripples, the cause of his memory loss was removal of his hippocampi, and they are also the source of ripples, so that was a good enough excuse for me to mention his case.

drugs prohibition kills

I wrote a feature about psychoactive drugs a few weeks ago, mainly inspired by the recent paper from David Nutt and colleagues who argued that the blanket ban of psychoactive drugs harms progress in neuroscience (apart from ruining the lives of millions of people with the unwinnable "war on drugs").

Since then, tragic events, including the death of a teenage girl here in Oxford, have highlighted the issue. There is a properly dangerous drug making the rounds in the UK right now, PMA (paramethoxyamphetamine) (probably called Dr Death for a reason), but as drugs are banned regardless of their harm, it's hard to know what is and what isn't dangerous. Plus, there is no quality control, and if kids buy an illegal pill, it could contain anything. In the Netherlands, by contrast, there are labs checking up on what is being traded, and they haven't had problems with PMA yet.

Essentially, my bottom line is, people always have used mind-altering drugs and always will do, and if there wasn't this blanket prohibition banning harmless and dangerous things alike, it would be much safer for them to do so. Hardline prohibitionists are just creating most of the problems they are pretending to solve.

Oh well. Don't get me started on this, it drives me up the wall in no time. Just read my feature:

Drugs prohibition is criminals’ gain, neuroscience’s loss

Current Biology, Volume 23, Issue 14, R585-R588, 22 July 2013 doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.07.012

which is freely accessible (and legal, still!) as

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Cannabis sativa - picture credit: GW pharmaceuticals.

PS: couple of further links re. the recent deaths linked to PMA:

• Ian Birrell in The Guardian
• Excellent piece from Archie Bland in the Independent
• Martha Fernback post-mortem inconclusive (BBC news)

PPS only after publishing this blog entry I became aware of the organisation Transform Drug Policy Reform, which has published detailed suggestions for a drugs regulation based on actual scientific evidence and on policies that are feasible (borrowing bits and pieces from established frameworks such as the handling of prescription drugs). "After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation" is freely available as a PDF download, but if you would like to support the organisation, you can also order it as a book from them. You can also download the executive summary only, which is also available in several other languages including Spanish, Russian, and Italian.

bees memories

Recent research and the EU's temporary ban on neonicotinoid pesticides has brought the threats to bees and other pollinators on the agenda again. While manufacturers insist that neonicotinoids aren't toxic to bees in concentrations found in the environment, the interest now focuses on the more subtle effects the substances may have. For instance, by making bees forgetful, even sublethal doses can endanger the survival of the colony.

Read all about it in my feature that came out in Current Biology last week:

EU ban puts spotlight on complex effects of neonicotinoids

Current Biology, Volume 23, Issue 11, R462-R464, 3 June 2013 doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.05.030

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(one of my many bumblebees on Flickr)

Incidentally, in this month's issue of Chemie in unserer Zeit I also have a piece on bees' memories. Unlike the neonicotinoids, caffeine seems to improve it.

Pflanzeninhaltsstoffe: Koffein stärkt Gedächtnis der Bienen

Chemie in unserer Zeit

Volume 47, Issue 3, page 146, Juni 2013 DOI: 10.1002/ciuz.201390029

Abstract and limited access to PDF file

cognitive enhancers

Not that I've felt the need for brain doping (beyond caffeine) so far, but I've been following the field of cognitive enhancers from a safe distance for a while now and have summed up the current state of affairs in a feature for Chemistry & Industry, which is out in the May issue:

Smart New World

Chemistry & Industry No. 5, pp32-35

Full text

In the same issue, I have a review of the book:

Gold nanoparticles for physics, chemistry and biology

on page 47.

Full text

Maybe the smart pills could magically convert me into this guy:

mind your mouse brain

Lots of neurosciences in today's issue of Current Biology. There's something on drosophila vision on the cover, a Q&A with Ann-Shyn Chiang, and a correction/clarification re. my earlier feature on optogenetics. Oh, and my new feature, which explores the rapid (and in some fields surprising) rise of the mouse as a model in neuroscience:

Small brain, big science

Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 23, R935-R937, 6 December 2011

FREE access to PDF file

illuminating brain function

As I have followed the story of bacteriorhodopsin - the biological computer that never happened - for many years now, I was very pleased to learn that somebody found something very clever to do with this and similar microbial opsins. Specifically, the recently developed methodology of "optogenetics" involves expressing microbial light-responsive ion channels or pumps in neurons, meaning that one can activate or inactivate these neurons by shining light of a certain wavelength onto them.

Stanford researcher and practicing psychiatrist Karl Deisseroth, who invented the method and pioneered its use, is keen to apply it directly to psychiatric questions. Others think a few fundamental things need to be sorted out first. Read more about all this in my feature, which is out in today's issue of Current Biology:

Shining new light on the brain
Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 20, R831-R833, 25 October 2011
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.10.007
Summary and free access to PDF file

neuroscience in China

In a rare departure from my comfort zone, I wrote a big feature article about neuroscience in China, which (like much of Chinese science) has seen a massive boost in the last 12 years, to the extent that new institutes can now attract both Chinese researchers returning from the US and international experts willing to try a new experience.

From the epic list of addresses at the top of my thank-you email I gather that it took at least 12 kind and helpful people to help me find my way in this big topic, and during the four weeks when I kicked this around, I certainly learned a lot.

So, the result of all this is out today:

Boom time for neuroscience in China
Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 12, R441-R444, 21 June 2011
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.06.001

and as it is part of some bigger event across the Cell Press journals, it is on open access here:

summary page / PDF file.

It is accompanied by a Q&A piece featuring Fang Fang (not mine, this interview was set up by the editors separately), which is also on open access.

synaptic vesicles & artificial genomes

The German pieces out this month include a look at the life cycle of synaptic vesicles, through the eyes of a STED microscope, a critical appreciation of Venter's "artificial genome" bugs, and a piece on data sharing ethics in the UK and Germany.

Methoden: Supermikroskop ermöglicht Beobachtung der Nervenfunktion
Chemie in unserer Zeit 44, Nr 4, 246.

Erstes künstliches Lebewesen?
Spektrum der Wissenschaft Nr 8, 14-16.

Datenschutz kontra Wissenschaft im Genomzeitalter: Very British - typisch deutsch
Trillium Report 8, Nr. 2, 117

happy centenary

Neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini turns 100 today, and I understand she's fighting fit and still working. According to a profile published in Nature a few weeks ago, she is the first Nobel laureate ever to live to 100 (which of course is partially due to the fact that there are so few women getting the prizes!)

Her autobiography In praise of imperfection sounds interesting and is available from various Amazon marketplace sellers in the US and the UK. Somebody could have thought of reprinting it on the occasion of this special birthday?!