Tag Archives: Leaf

Guns cause mass shootings, not psychiatric drugs

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Las Vegas, Nevada – the latest of many places in America joined by the shared ignominy of senseless mass violence.

Each victim (and there are so many [1]) deserve respect – their lives, their stories, their memory, honoured. Their families should be allowed to mourn, their community given space to heal.

Their loss should not be used as an ideological segue to opportunistically push an unrelated viewpoint. To do so would be obnoxious, like someone attending a wake so they could try and sell life insurance to those who are grieving.

And yet, Dr Caroline Leaf has done just that, using the deaths of nearly five-dozen people as an opportunity to push the idea that psychiatric medications are somehow to blame for the actions of those who perpetrate mass murder (http://drleaf.com/blog/mental-health-news-october-2017/).

“One factor that is rarely discussed in both the mainstream media and among politicians is psychiatric drug-induced violence. It is too easy to label the perpetrator as an evil maniac with mental health problems without looking at the correlation between psychotropic drugs and violence.”

In my opinion, I think it’s abhorrent that Dr Leaf would be so callous as to use such an abject tragedy to push her ideological barrow, but sadder still that she is simply wrong.

The key factor in gun-related deaths isn’t psychiatric medications, but guns.

From 1996 to 2011, the use of any psychotropic medication in Australia roughly doubled (from about 55 to 130 ‘defined daily doses per 1000 population per day’ [2: p234, 3]). In the same period, Australia’s number of mass shootings fell to zero. Australia’s gun-related homicide and suicide rate also fell [4].

Why? Because after the tragedy of Port Arthur in 1996, the Australian government introduced gun law reform, drastically reducing the number of guns available within the general population. Admittedly, experts argue whether the gun law reform was a decisive factor or just one of many in the reduction of gun-related deaths in Australia [4].

But irrespective, the statistics decimate Dr Leaf’s irrational hypothesis on psychiatric medications. There is no link to psychiatric medications and mass murder. Indeed, those who suffer from mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence, not the cause of it [5, 6].

Dr Leaf attempts to soften the blow at the end of her newsletter. “That is not to say everyone who takes these medications will become violent – we should not fear or isolate people that are suffering from mental health disorders”. But her repeated claim that these egregious acts of violence are caused by psychiatric medications makes her words ring hollow.

In publishing her latest blog, Dr Leaf’s motives may have been benevolent, but her actions have left much to be desired. She has dishonoured the victims of Vegas. She has targeted the wrong cause. Her actions have created many more victims of what is already a senseless tragedy.

References

[1] Berkowitz B, Gamio L, Lu D, Uhrmacher K, Lindeman T. The math of mass shootings. 2015 [cited 2017 October 12]; Available from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/
[2] Australian Statistics on Medicines 1997. In: Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services, editor. Canberra: Commwealth of Australia, 1998.
[3] Stephenson CP, Karanges E, McGregor IS. Trends in the utilisation of psychotropic medications in Australia from 2000 to 2011. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 2013 Jan;47(1):74-87.
[4] Fact check: Have firearm homicides and suicides dropped since Port Arthur as a result of John Howard’s reforms? RMIT ABC Fact Check 2016 [cited 2017 October 12]; Available from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/2016-04-28/fact-check-gun-homicides-and-suicides-john-howard-port-arthur/7254880
[5] Mental Health Myths and Facts. 2017 [cited 2017 October 12]; Available from: https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/myths-facts/index.html
[6] Metzl JM, MacLeish KT. Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms. Am J Public Health 2015 Feb;105(2):240-9.

Post script: A picture says a thousand words:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/heres-why-australia-will-never-understand-the-us-obsession-with-guns-20171003-gyt7ys.html

If you have been distressed by the Las Vegas shooting or you have concerns about your mental health, please talk to your general practitioner or psychologist.

If you need urgent assistance, please talk to someone straight away:
In Australia:
Lifeline ~ 13 11 14
BeyondBlue ~ 1300 22 4636 or https://www.beyondblue.org.au/about-us/contact-us
Suicide Callback Service ~ 1300 659 467 or https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au

USA:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline ~ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

New Zealand:
Lifeline Aotearoa 24/7 Helpline ~ 0800 543 354

UK:
Samaritans ~ 116 123

For other countries: Your Life Counts maintains a list of crisis services across a number of countries: http://www.yourlifecounts.org/need-help/crisis-lines.

Dr Caroline Leaf and the Me-Too approach to mental health

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Since her recent less-than-successful attempt at portraying herself as a mental health expert, Dr Leaf has been laying low on social media, sticking to bland, innocuous quotes or passages of scripture.

Today, she thought it was safe enough to pop her head up from the trenches to fire off another opinionated volley on mental well-being, with a quote from one of her favourite authors, Peter Kinderman:

“It’s our framework of understanding the world, not our brains and not even the events that happen to us – not nature and not nurture – that determines our thoughts, emotions, behaviours and, therefore, our mental health.”

Dr Leaf is a communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. Without any training or professional experience in mental illness, she has also taken it upon herself to act as an expert on mental health within the Christian church.

Unfortunately, posting quotes like today’s offering only further destroys her flagging credibility among those with professional psychiatric experience, and adds to the confusion of the rest of the Christian church when it comes to understanding mental illness.

There are two main problems with Dr Leaf’s meme: the quote itself and it’s source.

The quote itself is wafer-thin, unable to stand up to even the most basic interrogation. For example, we know through basic common sense that the brain changes how we think, our moods, our emotions and our behaviours. We change our mood, our emotions and our alertness every time we have a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine. Hallucinogenic medications like LSD definitely change our framework of understanding the world. Coffee, alcohol, and illicit substances like LSD all change the mood or experience of the person using them because they all temporarily alter the function of the users brain.

Though it’s not just external substances that change how we experience our external and internal worlds, but our own internal hormonal ecosystem changes our emotions, our moods, our thoughts and our behaviours. This isn’t so obvious for most men as our hormones are fairly constant, though testicular failure is known to result in reduced energy, vitality, or stamina; depressed mood or diminished sense of well-being; increased irritability; and difficulty concentrating and other cognitive problems. For the female gender, monthly hormonal changes can sometimes result in sudden, marked changes in emotions, moods, thoughts and behaviours.

There are a lot of other reasons why the brain controls the mind, and our mental health, which I’ve also discussed numerous times in other blogs (here, here and here)

If you aren’t satisfied with a common sense approach, then consider the scientific evidence that personality, the name that we give to our inbuilt ‘framework of understanding the world’ is largely genetic, and dependent on the function of various neurotransmitter systems [1-4].

So to suggest that the brain is not responsible for our moods, our emotions, our thoughts and our behaviours isn’t supported by the weight of scientific evidence.

The quote by Kinderman doesn’t stop there, but suggests that “not even the events that happen to us … determines our thoughts, emotions, behaviours”, something that also flies in the face of current scientific evidence. For example, the other forty percent of personality is determined by our environment (specifically the ‘non-shared’ environment, the environment outside of our parental influence) [5, 6]. And common psychiatric illnesses are associated with early childhood adversity, such as schizophrenia [7] and ADHD [8]. So again, the quote is unscientific.

Who then is this Kinderman guy, and why does he disagree with the scientific literature?

Peter Kinderman is a Professor of Psychology at University of Liverpool, and the President-elect of the British Psychological Society. He’s a highly outspoken critic of modern psychiatry and what he perceives to be the medicalisation of normal moods and emotions and overuse of medications to treat these non-existent diagnoses. Kinderman believes that it’s our learning history that shapes the paths that our lives take, and so if we simply understand our personal models of the world and how they were shaped by the events and experiences to which we’ve been exposed, we can simply think our way out of any disease process [9].

Kinderman has come out in favour of talking treatments for psychosis in schizophrenia instead of medication, when there’s no scientific proof of benefit for psychosocial therapies in schizophrenia [10, 11] (and here).

This, and his staunch opposition of the DSM5 as invalid, makes me concerned about his bias against modern psychiatry, despite it’s many advances, scientifically and clinically.

However, I’m surprised that Kinderman would make such a statement because it’s such an asinine argument, I find it hard to believe that it came from a professor of psychology. Kinderman would surely recognise the role of biology in our mental health and wellbeing, even if he doesn’t agree with how it’s managed. Perhaps there’s an alternative explanation. Perhaps Kinderman didn’t say what Dr Leaf has claimed?

The answer is, he does, and he doesn’t.

Dr Leaf has quoted Kinderman correctly. Today’s quote is taken directly out of Kindermans 2014 book, “The New Laws of Psychology” [9], on the penultimate page of his introduction. So he does say that our brains and our experiences aren’t relevant for our mental health. But then again, in a blog on the militant anti-psychiatry blog ‘Mad in America’, Kinderman wrote this:

“I’ve spent much of my professional life studying psychological aspects of mental health problems. Inevitably, this has also meant discussing the role of biology. I hope I’ve made some progress in understanding these issues, in working out how the two relate to each other, and the implications for services. That’s my academic day-job. But it’s not just academic for me. I’m probably not untypical of most people reading this; I can see clear examples of how my experiences may have affected my own mental health, but I can also see reasons to suspect biological, heritable, traits. As in all aspects of human behaviour, both nature and nurture are involved and they have been intimately entwined in a complex interactive dance throughout my childhood and adult life.” http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/03/brain-baked-beans/

So he seems confused, both recognising that biological traits influence psychiatric illness, then denying it.

Personally, I disagree with the quote from his book, although I’m just a suburban GP from Australia, so what would I know, right? Though I think the evidence I’ve cited is on my side, and Kinderman is not without his critics who are more than his academic equal.

It also concerns me because the logical conclusion of this line of thinking is that psychiatric illnesses have no biological basis, and therefore psychiatric medications have no place in treatment of them. But as I outlined previously, there is good evidence for the beneficial effects of medications for schizophrenia and ADHD amongst other mental health disorders.

Dr Leaf continues to ignore the scientific evidence for the biological basis for mental ill-health, medications for their treatment, and even the most basic of all that our mind is a product of our brain. Instead, she’s nailed her colours to her mast and aligned herself with outspoken authors on the fringe of modern neuroscience. Rather than addressing the science behind her opposition to modern psychiatry and neuroscience, she has resorted to hiding behind their quotes, a ‘me-too’ commentator, rather than an actual expert.

Of more importance is the confusion that this brings to the vulnerable Christians who follow her social media “fan sites”. The more Dr Leaf criticises psychiatric medications and condemns their prescription and usage, the more likely it is that someone will come to serious harm when they inappropriately cease their medications. And if Dr Leaf won’t come to her senses, our church leaders are going to have to take action, before it’s too late.

References

[1]        Vinkhuyzen AA, Pedersen NL, Yang J, et al. Common SNPs explain some of the variation in the personality dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion. Translational psychiatry 2012;2:e102.
[2]        Chen C, Chen C, Moyzis R, et al. Contributions of dopamine-related genes and environmental factors to highly sensitive personality: a multi-step neuronal system-level approach. PloS one 2011;6(7):e21636.
[3]        Caspi A, Hariri AR, Holmes A, Uher R, Moffitt TE. Genetic sensitivity to the environment: the case of the serotonin transporter gene and its implications for studying complex diseases and traits. The American journal of psychiatry 2010 May;167(5):509-27.
[4]        Felten A, Montag C, Markett S, Walter NT, Reuter M. Genetically determined dopamine availability predicts disposition for depression. Brain and behavior 2011 Nov;1(2):109-18.
[5]        Krueger RF, South S, Johnson W, Iacono W. The heritability of personality is not always 50%: gene-environment interactions and correlations between personality and parenting. Journal of personality 2008 Dec;76(6):1485-522.
[6]        Johnson W, Turkheimer E, Gottesman, II, Bouchard TJ, Jr. Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current directions in psychological science 2010 Aug 1;18(4):217-20.
[7]        Howes OD, Murray RM. Schizophrenia: an integrated sociodevelopmental-cognitive model. Lancet 2014 May 10;383(9929):1677-87.
[8]        Thapar A, Cooper M, Eyre O, Langley K. What have we learnt about the causes of ADHD? Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines 2013 Jan;54(1):3-16.
[9]        Kinderman P. The New Laws of Psychology: Why Nature and Nurture Alone Can’t Explain Human Behaviour: Robinson, 2014.
[10]      Buckley LA, Maayan N, Soares-Weiser K, Adams CE. Supportive therapy for schizophrenia. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews 2015;4:CD004716.
[11]      Jones C, Hacker D, Cormac I, Meaden A, Irving CB. Cognitive behaviour therapy versus other psychosocial treatments for schizophrenia. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews 2012;4:CD008712.

Dr Caroline Leaf, behaviour and genetic destiny

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Today on her Facebook feed, Caroline Leaf posted a quote which said, “Your behavior can and does dictate your genetic destiny”. Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and a self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. In isolation, it sounds like she has found confirmation of her view that our thoughts and behaviour control the physical properties of our DNA (Leaf, 2013, p35).

However, I wanted to look at the quote in a broader context, because in the broader context, the quote still doesn’t confirm Dr Leaf’s teaching.

The quote comes from an American doctor, Sharon Moalem. Dr Moalem is obviously a smart man. According to Wikipedia, “Dr. Moalem is an expert in the fields of rare diseases, neurogenetics, and biotechnology. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book ‘Survival of the Sickest’ and ‘How Sex Works’. Moalem has cofounded two biotechnology companies and is the recipient of 19 patents for his inventions in biotechnology and human health.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Moalem)

It’s not that Dr Moalem’s quote is wrong. In the book from which the quote is taken, Dr Moalem discusses the expression of genes (Moalem, 2014). There is no doubt that our behaviour affects the expression of genes. For example, when the body encounters a high level of dietary iron (ie: we eat a big juicy steak), a series of steps activates a gene to promote the production of ferritin, a protein that helps to carry iron in the blood stream (Strachan and Read, 2011, p375-6). These changes in genetic expression are mostly protective (for example, ferritin is used to keep toxic elemental iron from damaging our tissues). There are some behaviours that will override the body’s protection, for example, excessive exposure to UV radiation will eventually lead to skin cancer. But overall, the changes in genetic expression that our behaviour causes are protective, and do not adversely affect our health.

Unlike Dr Leaf, Dr Moalem does not promote the notion that our behaviour changes the genes themselves. Neither does he promote that our behaviour, in isolation, is the only modifier of our genetic expression. The quote that Dr Leaf used came from the second chapter of Dr Moalem’s book, “Inheritance: How Our Genes Change Our Lives, and Our Lives Change Our Genes”. Really, the title says it all. Our behaviour influences our genetic destiny, but our genes influence our behaviour just as much, if not more.

For example, small variations in the genes that code for our smell sensors or the processing of smells can change our preferences for certain foods just as much as cultural exposure. Our appreciation for music is often changed subtly between individuals because of changes in the structure of our ears or the nerves that we use to process the sounds. The genetic structure of the melanin pigment in our skin changes our interaction with our environment because of the amount of exposure to the sun we can handle. Our genetic destiny is also largely influenced by our environment, most of which is also beyond our choice (Lobo and Shaw, 2008).

So your behaviour can and does influence your genetic destiny, but your genetic destiny is more influenced by our genes themselves, and the environment that is beyond our control.

Dr Leaf’s quote doesn’t look quite so supportive after all.

References

Leaf, C.M., (2013) Switch On Your Brain : The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Lobo, I. & Shaw, K. (2008) Phenotypic range of gene expression: Environmental influence. Nature Education 1(1):12

Moalem, S., (2014) Inheritance: How our genes change our lives and our lives change our genes, Grand Central Publishing, New York.

Strachan, T. and Read, A., (2011) Human Molecular Genetics. 4th ed. Garland Science, New York.

Dr Caroline Leaf: Avoid foods containing cellulose

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This is an anonymised screen shot taken from Dr Leaf’s Facebook feed just now, showing the very sensible reply of a Canadian dietician to Dr Leaf’s ill-informed assertion.  It’s possible that Dr Leaf’s Facebook minders could delete the dietician’s comments or the post altogether, so I wanted to ensure it was saved for the public record.

In fairness to Dr Leaf, I will post her correction if she is willing to make one.

Caroline Leaf Toxic Ingredients 2

Going green – why envy is an adaptive process

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The Bible says, in Job 5:2, “For wrath kills a foolish man, And envy slays a simple one.”

A German proverb goes, “Envy eats nothing, but its own heart.”

Dr Caroline Leaf, communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist, posted today on her social media feeds, “Jealousy and envy creates damage in the brain … but … celebrating others protects the brain!”

Yes, sometimes envy isn’t good for us. Emotions guide our thought process, and like all emotions that are out of balance, too much envy can cloud our better rational judgement and bias our perception of the world. Thankfully, envy doesn’t literally eat out our hearts or literally cause brain damage.

If anything, envy when experienced in a balanced way can actually improve our brain functioning. According to real cognitive neuroscientists, envy and regret are emotions that help us because they both fulfil the role of effectively evaluating our past actions, which improves our choices in the future. As Coricelli and Rustichini noted, “envy and regret, as well as their positive counterparts, share the common nature that is hypothesized in the functional role explanation: they are affective responses to the counterfactual evaluation of what we could have gotten had we made a different choice. Envy has, like regret, a functional explanation in adaptive learning.” [1]

When it comes to the human psyche, there is no black or white, good vs evil distinction between different feelings or emotions. B-grade life coaches and slick pseudoscience salespeople dumb down our emotions into a false dichotomy because it helps sell their message (and their books). Every emotion can be either helpful or unhelpful depending on their context in each individual.

As Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck wrote, “Emotion is integral to all phases of the coping process, from vigilance, detection, and appraisals of threat to action readiness and coordinating responses during stressful encounters. However, adaptive coping does not rely exclusively on positive emotions nor on constant dampening of emotional reactions. In fact, emotions like anger have important adaptive functions, such as readying a person to sweep away an obstacle, as well communicating these intentions to others. Adaptive coping profits from flexible access to a range of genuine emotions as well as the ongoing cooperation of emotions with other components of the action system.” [2]

If you find your thoughts and feelings tinged by the greenish hue of envy, don’t worry, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Your heart isn’t going to consume itself and you won’t sustain any brain damage. Use envy or regret as tools of learning, tools to help you evaluate your choices so that you make a better choice next time. Having balanced emotions is the key to learning and growing, coping with whatever obstacles life throws at us.

References

  1. Coricelli, G. and Rustichini, A., Counterfactual thinking and emotions: regret and envy learning. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 2010. 365(1538): 241-7 doi: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0159
  2. Skinner, E.A. and Zimmer-Gembeck, M.J., The development of coping. Annu Rev Psychol, 2007. 58: 119-44 doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085705

Dr Caroline Leaf and the law of great power

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Tonight as I was flicking through Facebook one last time, a post caught my eye. It read,

“The thought you are thinking right now is impacting every single one of the 75-100 trillion cells in your brain and body at quantum speeds”

Dr Leafs social media gem gave me an eerie sense of deja vu. It was only the end of October when she posted the same factoid on social media. Today’s version has been tweaked slightly, although in all fairness, I can’t describe it as an upgrade.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. On the 23rd of October 2014, she posted this on her social media stream, “Every thought you think impacts every one of the 75-100 trillion cells in your body at quantum speeds!”

On comparing the pair, Dr Leaf has added “brain” into the number of cells under the influence, and then massaged the opening slightly. I already had significant concern about the scientific validity of the previous meme in October. That hasn’t changed. Rather than improving the accuracy of her meme, Dr Leaf’s changes have left it missing the mark.

The fundamental fallacy that thoughts are the main controlling influence on our brain is still there. Thought is simply a conscious projection of one part of the overall function of our brain. Our brains function perfectly well without thought. Thought, on the other hand, doesn’t exist without the brain. Our brain cells influence our thoughts, not the other way around.

The myth of “quantum speeds” is still there. Our neurones interact with each other via electrochemical mechanisms. Like all other macroscopic objects, our brains follow the laws of classical physics. It’s not that quantum physics doesn’t apply to our brains, because quantum mechanics applies to all particles, but if you think you can explain macroscopic behaviour using quantum physics, then you should also try and explain Schrodingers Cat (see also chapter 13 of my book [1] for a longer discussion on quantum physics). Dr Leaf is particularly brave to make such bold statements about quantum physics when even quantum physicists find it mysterious.

What made me slightly embarrassed for Dr Leaf is the new part of her statement. In my blog on Dr Leaf’s previous attempt at this meme, I pointed out that Dr Leaf’s estimate of the number of cells in our body was more than three times that of the estimate of scientists at the Smithsonian (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-trillion-cells-in-your-body-4941473/?no-ist). The fact that Dr Leaf so badly estimated, when all she needed to do was a one line Google search, suggested that she just made the number up. Failing to cite her source eroded at her credibility as a scientist.

Today, Dr Leaf still claims that there are 75-100 trillion cells in the brain and the body. The Smithsonian still hasn’t changed its estimate. Dr Leaf still hasn’t cited her source, and has ignored a world-renowned scientific institution. Perhaps Dr Leaf believes she knows more than the scientists at the Smithsonian? Perhaps she has a better reference? We’ll never know unless she cites it.

Taken as a whole, her meme is no closer to the truth than it was six weeks ago. Some may ask if it really matters. “Who cares if we have 37.2 trillion cells or 100 trillion cells or even 100 billion trillion”. “So what if our thoughts influence us or not.” If this was just a matter of a pedantic argument between some scientists over a coffee one morning,then I’d agree, it wouldn’t be so important. But Dr Leaf claims to be an expert, and more than 100,000 people read her memes on Facebook and many more on Twitter, Instagram, and the various other forms of social media she is connected to. Nearly every one of those people take Dr Leaf at her word. Ultimately the issue is trust.

If Dr Leaf can misreport such a simple, easily sourced fact, and not just once but twice now, then what does that mean for her other factoids and memes that she regularly posts on social media? If Dr Leaf incorrectly says that every thought we think impacts every cell in our body, then hundreds of thousands of people are wasting their mental and physical energy on trying to control their thoughts when it makes no real difference, and if anything might make their mental health worse [2, 3].

This is more than just a pedantic discussion over a trivial fact.  These memes matter to people, and can potentially influence the health and wellbeing of many thousands of lives.

Peter Parker, quoting Voltaire, said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  Just because Spiderman said it doesn’t diminish the profundity of that statement.  This law of great power applies to Dr Leaf as much as it does to Spiderman.  I hope and pray that she gives this law of great power the consideration it deserves.

References

  1. Pitt, C.E., Hold That Thought: Reappraising the work of Dr Caroline Leaf, 2014 Pitt Medical Trust, Brisbane, Australia, URL http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/466848
  2. Garland, E.L., et al., Thought suppression, impaired regulation of urges, and Addiction-Stroop predict affect-modulated cue-reactivity among alcohol dependent adults. Biol Psychol, 2012. 89(1): 87-93 doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.09.010
  3. Kavanagh, D.J., et al., Tests of the elaborated intrusion theory of craving and desire: Features of alcohol craving during treatment for an alcohol disorder. Br J Clin Psychol, 2009. 48(Pt 3): 241-54 doi: 10.1348/014466508X387071

Dr Caroline Leaf and the organic foods fallacy

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Organic foods. They are amazingly popular. More than a million Australians buy organic foods regularly, and several million more buy it occasionally. The retail value of the organic market is estimated to be more than $1 billion annually. The assumption made by most people is that because it’s so popular, organic foods must be good for you, or at least have something going for them to make them worth all the hype.

Of course, just because something’s immensely popular and has a billion-dollar turnover doesn’t necessarily mean it’s beneficial (One Direction is a case-in-point).

In fact, despite organic foods being touted by their supporters as healthier, safer, and better for the environment than normal foods, actual scientific evidence fails to show any significant difference. I wrote about this earlier in the year (see: Borderline Narcissism and Organic Food). Since then, another large prospective trial deflated organic food’s bubble, with a British study showing no change in the incidence of cancer in women who always ate organic foods versus those who never ate organic foods [1].

The dearth of benefit from organic foods wouldn’t be so bad if they were just another guy in the line-up, something neutral and inert. Unfortunately, not only can organic produce be contaminated if farmed incorrectly [2, 3], but they come at an extraordinary premium, sometimes costing four times more than their conventional counterparts (Borderline Narcissism and Organic Food).

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and a self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. A couple of months ago, she let slip her intention to publish a book in 2015 about food. Who knows what she’ll actually say, but if today’s social media meme is anything to go by, it will likely follow the same pattern of her other teachings.

Today, she wrote, “Research shows that dark organic CHOCOLATE lowers blood pressure, improves circulation, increase HDL (“good”) cholesterol, reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, and increases insulin … and … recent research has even suggest it may prevent weight gain!”

As I discussed recently, Dr Leaf does herself a disservice by not citing her sources. It’s very brave to write in a public forum that dark chocolate reduces the heart attack and stroke, since this could be interpreted as medical advice, which she is not qualified to give. As for the actual effects of dark chocolate, there is not a lot of quality evidence on dark chocolate on its own. A 2011 meta-analysis of general chocolate consumption on cardiovascular risk did indeed show a relative risk reduction of 37% [4]. But before you prescribe yourself two dark chocolate Lindt balls twice a day, consider that a relative risk reduction of 37% isn’t a big effect. Plus, the recommended 50 grams of 85% organic dark chocolate to attain the small benefit for your cardiovascular health contains just over 300 calories/1280 kJ (the average can of Coke contains 146 calories/ 600 kJ), and is 30% saturated fat (http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-green-blacks-organic-dark-chocolate-i110689). So any health benefit that may be associated with the poly-phenol content is likely nullified by the high saturated fat and calorie count.

What concerns me about Dr Leaf’s future foray into dietetics is that little word sitting quietly in her opening sentence: “organic”. Dr Leaf is an organic convert. But rather than act like a scientist that she claims to be, she preaches from her biases, ignoring the evidence that organic food is all hype and no substance, encouraging Christians everywhere to pay excessive amounts of money for something that’s of absolutely no benefit. Dr Leaf is welcome to eat whatever she chooses, but encouraging organic eating without clear benefit is more hindrance than help for most of her followers.

References

  1. Bradbury, K.E., et al., Organic food consumption and the incidence of cancer in a large prospective study of women in the United Kingdom. Br J Cancer, 2014. 110(9): 2321-6 doi: 10.1038/bjc.2014.148
  2. Mukherjee, A., et al., Association of farm management practices with risk of Escherichia coli contamination in pre-harvest produce grown in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Int J Food Microbiol, 2007. 120(3): 296-302 doi: 10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2007.09.007
  3. Sample, I., E coli outbreak: German organic farm officially identified. The Guardian, London, UK, 11 June 2011 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/10/e-coli-bean-sprouts-blamed
  4. Buitrago-Lopez, A., et al., Chocolate consumption and cardiometabolic disorders: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ, 2011. 343: d4488 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d4488

Dr Caroline Leaf and the chemistry of perceptions

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On her social media feed just now, Dr Caroline Leaf, communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist, said, “Your perceptions adjust your brain chemistry”.

Hmmm … yes and no.

I’m not really sure what Dr Leaf is trying to suggest with this statement, because it’s so vague. The brain works through the passage of an electrical current travelling along a nerve cell, and being passed to the next nerve cell by the release of a “chemical” neurotransmitter that floats across the space between the nerve cells.  If that’s what Dr Leaf is referring when she talks about our brain chemistry, then sure, our perceptions adjust our brain chemistry. But then again, so does everything else that our brain does. In this sense, perception is nothing special.

What I think Dr Leaf was trying to suggest is that our mind influences our brain chemistry, following along with her “mind controls matter” theme. But perception is the process of translating the raw data into a signal that the brain can process, for example, the light coming into your eye is translated into the electrical impulses your brain can utilise. It’s not an explicit process. It has nothing to do with our consciousness or our volition.

Also, our “brain chemistry” as it’s considered in neuroscience is usually referring to the neurotransmitters and their function, which is often determined by our genetics and influences how we perceive and understand our environment [1].

So if anything, it’s not our perception altering our brain chemistry, but rather it’s our brain chemistry that alters our perceptions.

Our mind does not control our brain. Our brain is responsible for the function of our mind.

References

  1. Caspi, A., et al., Genetic sensitivity to the environment: the case of the serotonin transporter gene and its implications for studying complex diseases and traits. Am J Psychiatry, 2010. 167(5): 509-27 doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.09101452

Dr Caroline Leaf and the tongues trivia tall tales

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In every day life, if someone started talking in strings of indecipherable, chaotic syllables, you’d be giving them quite a lot of space, concerned about how much methamphetamine they’d been using.

In the average charismatic church, it’s just another service (the speaking in tongues, not the meth).

I’ve grown up in Pentecostal churches, and was baptised in the Holy Spirit when I was a child, so I forget how freaky it is for those who’ve never seen a whole church start talking or singing in tongues. For the uninitiated, the Bible talks about speaking in other tongues, which is a “New Testament phenomena where a person speaks in a language that is unknown to him. This language is either the language of angels or other earthly languages (1 Cor. 13:1). It occurred in Acts 2 at Pentecost and also in the Corinthian church as is described in 1 Corinthians 14. This New Testament gift was given by the Holy Spirit to the Christian church and is for the purpose of the edification of the Body of Christ as well as for glorifying the Lord.” (http://carm.org/speaking-in-tongues)

In scientific terms, speaking in tongues is referred to as “Glossolalia”, from the Greek, ‘glosso-‘ ~ ‘the tongue’ and ‘-lalia’ ~ ‘to speak, to chat’. Scientists who initially studied it in the 60’s and 70’s drew the conclusion that glossolalia was related to psychopathology (that people who spoke in tongues were crazy) [1, 2], and in later decades, it was thought to be caused by a form of temporal lobe epilepsy [3].

Earlier today, Dr Caroline Leaf, a communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist, declared that, “When we speak in tongues, research shows that the areas involved in discernment in the brain increase in activity, which means we increase in wisdom.”

I was fascinated to find this research for myself. Dr Leaf never references her social media memes, so I started looking through the medical literature on the subject from respected databases like PubMed, and search engines like Google Scholar.

Despite a thorough search, I was only able to find one article that studied the pattern of brain activity during speaking in tongues. The article, “The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during glossolalia: A preliminary SPECT study” [4] took five healthy women, psychiatrically stable, long term members of their churches, who had all spoken in tongues for many years. They scanned their brain activity after a period of singing to gospel songs in English and compared it to their brain activity after the same amount of time praying in tongues (while listening to the same music as before).

What they found was that the brain was more active in the left superior parietal lobe, while there was a decrease in brain activity in the prefrontal cortices, left caudate nucleus and left temporal pole. There was a trend for an increase in the activity of the right amygdala, but this may have just been chance.

So are any of those brain regions responsible for discernment as Dr Leaf suggested?

Well, that all depends on how you define “discernment”. “Discernment” is not really a common neurobiological term. The standard term in the literature is “judgement”. The brain regions that are associated with evaluation and judgement are the amygdala and ventral portions of the striatum as well as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the insula, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), and the periaqueductal gray (PAG) [5].

Are there any parts of the brain that match in the two lists? Only one – the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, or vmPFC for short. The prefrontal cortex is important in reasoning and decision-making, especially if there is uncertainty or novelty, while the vmPFC in particular is involved in the use of goal-relevant information in guiding responses, e.g., assigning value to choice options [6].

According to Dr Leaf, “When we speak in tongues, research shows that the areas involved in discernment in the brain increase in activity”. But that’s certainly not what the research paper said. The actual research is entirely the opposite.

Again, there are really only two reasonable explanations as to why the research contradicts Dr Leaf; either there is another piece of research which supports Dr Leaf’s assertion, or Dr Leaf is simply wrong.

At the risk of repeating myself, Dr Leaf needs to quote her sources when she is writing her little social media memes. Her meme may be perfectly justified by robust scientific evidence, but if she isn’t willing to share her sources, we’ll never know, and the only conclusion remaining is that Dr Leaf can’t interpret simple research.

So as it stands, there really isn’t any evidence that speaking in tongues makes you more discerning. By trying to claim otherwise, Dr Leaf further undermines her own reputation and credibility as an expert.

References

  1. Hine, V.H., Pentecostal glossolalia: towards a functional reinterpretation. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1969. 8: 212-26
  2. Brende, J.O. and Rinsley, D.B., Borderline disorder, altered states of consciousness, and glossolalia. J Am Acad Psychoanal, 1979. 7(2): 165-88 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/370074
  3. Persinger, M.A., Striking EEG profiles from single episodes of glossolalia and transcendental meditation. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1984. 58: 127-33
  4. Newberg, A.B., et al., The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during glossolalia: a preliminary SPECT study. Psychiatry Res, 2006. 148(1): 67-71 doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2006.07.001
  5. Doré, B.P., et al., Social cognitive neuroscience: A review of core systems, in APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, Mikulincer, M., et al., (Eds). 2014, American Psychological Association: Washington, DC. p. 693-720.
  6. Nicolle, A. and Goel, V., What is the role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in emotional influences on reason?, in Emotion and Reasoning, Blanchette, I., (Ed). 2013, Psychology Press.

STOP THE PRESSES! Dr Leaf releases a new meme based on my correction, still doesn’t acknowledge source. (13 November 2014)

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So, I can’t find fault on what Dr Leaf said here.  It fits with the paper I quoted from Newberg et al (2006).  Still, it begs the question of why Dr Leaf couldn’t have said this in the first place, and why she still isn’t willing to share her citations?

It also raises the other obvious question, why is it important to know what our brain does in glossolalia?  It’s only a study of 5 patients, and I’m sure that not all episodes of speaking in tongues is associated with decreased intentionality.  The research, being so small, isn’t a true reflection of the practice of speaking in tongues.  Lets hope that the future will bring more funding to better study this central tenet to the charismatic faith.

Dr Caroline Leaf: Putting thought in the right place

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Following hard on the heels of her false assumption that our minds control our health, not our genes, and following the same theme, Dr Leaf had this to say today, “Everything is first a thought; the brain is being controlled with EVERY thought you think!”

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and a self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. Reading back through my blogs, this “thought controls the brain / mind controls matter” is a recurrent theme of hers. It is repeated multiple times in her books, like when she writes, “Thoughts influence every decision, word, action and physical reaction we make.” [1: p13] and “Our mind is designed to control the body, of which the brain is a part, not the other way around. Matter does not control us; we control matter through our thinking and choosing” [2: p33] just as a couple of examples.

So how does thought relate to the grand scheme of our brain and it’s processing? Does our thought really control our brain, or is it the other way around. Through all of the reading that I have done on neuroscience, I propose a model of the place of thought in relation to the rest of our brains information processing. It is based on the LIDA model, dual systems models, and other neuroscientific principles and processes.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “It’s just the tip of the iceberg.” It comes from the fact that icebergs are made of fresh water, which is nine-tenths less dense than seawater. As a result, ten percent of an iceberg sits above the waters surface with most of it hiding beneath.

The information processing of our brains is much the same. We may be aware of our conscious stream of thought, but there is a lot going on under the surface that makes our thoughts what they are, even though we can’t see the process underneath.

What’s going on under the surface is a complex interplay of our genes and their expression which controls the structure and function of our brains, which effects how we perceive information, how we process that information and combine it into our memories of the past, predictions of the future, and even the further perception of the present [3].

CAP v2.1.2
Genes, epigenetics and the environment
We start with the most fundamental level of our biological system, which is genetics. It becomes clear from looking at any textbook of biological sciences that genes are fundamental to who we are. From the simplest bacteria, fungi, protozoans and parasites, through to all plants, all animals and all of human kind – EVERY living thing has DNA. DNA is what defines life in the broadest sense.

Proteins are responsible for the size, shape and operation of the cell. They make each tissue structurally and functionally different, but still work together in a highly precise electrochemical synchrony. But ultimately, it’s our genes that hold all of the instructions to make every one of the proteins within our cells. Without our genes, we would be nothing more than a salty soup of random amino acids.

Epigenetics and the environment contribute to the way genes are expressed. Epigenetics are “tags” on the strand of DNA that act to promote or silence the expression of certain genes (I discuss this in more detail in chapter 12 of my book, https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/466848). Environmental factors (the components that make up the world external to our bodies) can influence genes and epigenetic markers. The environment can cause genetic mutations or new epigenetic marks that change the function of a particular gene, and depending on which cell they effect (a very active embryonic cell or a quiet adult cell) will largely determine the eventual outcome. The environment is more influential to our genetic expression than epigenetics.

Still, on average only about 25% of the expression of a complex trait is related to environmental factors. So while the environment is important, it is still outdone 3:1 by our genome.

Yes, epigenetics and the environment are important, but they influence, not control, the genome.

Perception
We live in a sensory world. The five senses are vital in providing the input we need for our brain to understand the world and meaningfully interact with it.

Different organs are needed to translate the optical, chemical or mechanical signals into electrical signals. Different parts of our brain then interpret these signals and their patterns.

Our genes significantly influence this process. For example, if someone is born with red-green colour blindness then how he or she interprets the world will always be subtly different to someone with normal vision. Or a person born with congenital deafness will always interpret his or her environment in a different way to someone with full hearing. I’ve highlighted these two conditions because they provide stark examples to help demonstrate the point, but there are many unique genetic expressions in each of the five senses that subtly alter the way each of us perceives the world around us.

So while we may all have the same photons of light hitting our retinas, or the same pressure waves of sound reaching our ears or touch on our skin, how our brains receive that information is slightly different for every individual. The information from the outside world is received by our sensory organs, but it is perceived by our brain, and even small differences in perception can have a big impact on the rest of the system.

Personality
Personality is “the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character” [4]. Formally speaking, personality is, “defined as constitutionally based tendencies in thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that surface early in life, are relatively stable and follow intrinsic paths of development basically independent of environmental influences.” [5]

Professor Gregg Henriques explained it well in Psychology Today, “Personality traits are longstanding patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions which tend to stabilize in adulthood and remain relatively fixed. There are five broad trait domains, one of which is labeled Neuroticism, and it generally corresponds to the sensitivity of the negative affect system, where a person high in Neuroticism is someone who is a worrier, easily upset, often down or irritable, and demonstrates high emotional reactivity to stress.” [6] The other four personality types are Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience.

Gene x environment studies suggest that personality is highly heritable, with up to 60% of personality influenced by genetics [7], predominantly through genes involved in the serotonin [8] and dopamine systems [9, 10]. The “non-shared environment” (influences outside of the home environment) contributes heavily to the remainder [11, 12].

Personality is like a filter for a camera lens, shaping the awareness of our emotional state for better or worse, thus influencing the flow on to our feelings (the awareness of our emotions), our thoughts, and our actions.

Physiology
Watkins describes physiology as streams of data that are provided from the different parts of your body, like the heart rate, your breathing rate, the oxygen in your blood, the position of your joints, the movement of your joints, even the filling of your bladder telling you that you need a break soon.

All of these signals are constantly being generated, and collated in different parts of the brain. Some researchers consider them positive and negative depending on the data stream and the signal its providing. They coalesce into emotion [13].

Emotion
According to Watkins, “emotion” is the sum of all the data streams of physiology, or what he described as “E-MOTION … Energy in MOTION.” [13] In this context, think of emotion as a bulls-eye spirit-level of our body systems. The different forces of our physiology change the “level” constantly in different directions. Emotion is the bubble that marks the central point, telling us how far out of balance we are.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that although emotion is a familiar concept, the work of literally thousands of brilliant minds has brought us no closer to a scientifically validated definition of the word “emotion”. Some psychologists and researchers consider it vague and unscientific, and would prefer that it not be used altogether [14].

I’ve retained it because I think it’s a well-recognised word that conceptually describes the balance of physiological forces.

Feelings
“Feelings” are the perception of emotion.

I discussed earlier in the chapter that what we perceive is different to what we “see” because the subtle genetic differences in our eyes and brains causes the information to be processed differently between individuals. The same applies to the perception of our emotion.

As I wrote earlier, personality is largely determined by our genetics with contributions from our environment [11, 12]. The emotional signal is filtered by our personality to give rise to our feelings. Classically, an optimistic personality is going to bias the emotional input in a positive, adaptive way while a pessimist or neurotic is going to bias the emotional signal in a maladaptive way

That’s not to say that an optimist can’t have depressed feelings, or a neurotic can’t have happy feelings. In the same way that a coloured lens will allow a lot of light through but filter certain wavelengths out, most of our emotional state of being will come through the filter of our personality but the feelings will be subtly biased one way or another.

Executive Functions
Executive function of the brain is defined as a complex cognitive process requiring the co-ordination of several sub-processes to achieve a particular goal [15]. These sub-processes can be variable but include working memory, attention, goal setting, maintaining and monitoring of goal directed action and action inhibition. In order to achieve these goals, the brain requires flexibility and coordination of a number of networks and lobes, although mainly the prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, anterior cingulate and basal ganglia, and the while matter tracts that connect them.

Executive functions process the incoming information and decide on what goals are best given the context, then plan the goals, execute them to the motor cortices, and monitor the action. Research work from Marien et al [16] demonstrates that unconscious/implicit goals can divert resources away from conscious goals especially if it is emotionally salient or otherwise strongly related. They also confirm that conscious awareness is not necessary for executive function but that implicit goals can be formed and executed without conscious involvement.

Thoughts
Thoughts are essentially a stream of data projected into our conscious space. Baars [17, 18] noted that the conscious broadcast comes into working memory which then engages a wider area of the cerebral cortex necessary to most efficiently process the information signal. We perceive thought most commonly as either pictures or sounds in our head (“the inner monologue”), which corresponds to the slave systems of working memory. When you “see” an image in your mind, that’s the visuospatial sketchpad. When you listen to your inner monologue, that’s your phonological loop. When a song gets stuck in your head, that’s your phonological loop as well, but on repeat mode.

There is another slave system that Baddeley included in his model of working memory called the episodic buffer, “which binds together complex information from multiple sources and modalities. Together with the ability to create and manipulate novel representations, it creates a mental modeling space that enables the consideration of possible outcomes, hence providing the basis for planning future action.” [19]

Deep thinking is a projection from your brains executive systems (attention or the default mode network) to the central executive of working memory, which then recalls the relevant information from long-term memory and directs the information through the various parts of the slave systems of working memory to process the complex details involved. For example, visualizing a complex scene of a mountain stream in your mind would involve the executive brain directing the central executive of working memory to recall information about mountains and streams and associated details, and project them into the visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop and combine them via the episodic buffer. The episodic buffer could also manipulate the scene if required to create plans, or think about the scene in new or unexpected ways (like imagining an elephant riding a bicycle along the riverbank).

Even though the scene appears as one continuous episode, it is actually broken up into multiple cognitive cycles, in the same way that images in a movie appear to be moving, but are really just multiple still frames played in sequence.

Action
Action is the final step in the process, the output, our tangible behaviour

Our behaviour is not the direct result of conscious thought, or our will (as considered in the sense of our conscious will).

We discussed this before when we talked about our choices in chapter 1. There are two main pathways that lead from sensory input to tangible behaviour – various automated pathways that take input from the thalamus, deep in the brain, and sent to motor circuits in the supplementary motor area and motor cortex of the brain. These can be anything from evasive “reflex” actions[1] to rehearsed, habituated motor movements, like driving. Then there is the second pathway, coming from the executive areas of our brain, that plan out options for action, which are reviewed by the pre-supplemental motor area and the default mode network.

This second pathway is amenable to conscious awareness. Like thought, the projection of different options for action into our consciousness helps to engage a wider area of cerebral cortex to process the data. Most of the possible plans for action have already been rejected by the implicit processing of our executive brain before consciousness is brought in to help. Once an option has been selected, the action is sent to the pre-supplementary motor area, the supplementary motor area, the basal ganglia and finally the motor cortex.

According to the model proposed by Bonn [20], the conscious network has some feedback from the control network of our brain, providing real time context to actions about to be executed, and a veto function, stopping some actions at the last minute before they are carried out. This is largely a function of the basal ganglia [21], with some assistance from working memory.

So as you can see, according to the CAP model, conscious thoughts are one link of a longer chain of neurological functions between stimulus and action – simply one cog in the machine. Thoughts are dependent on a number of processes that are both genetically and environmentally determined, beyond our conscious control. It’s simply wrong to assume that thoughts control the brain.

Dr Leaf is welcome to her opinion, but it is in contradiction to the overwhelming majority of neuroscientific knowledge

References

  1. Leaf, C., Who Switched Off My Brain? Controlling toxic thoughts and emotions. 2nd ed. 2009, Inprov, Ltd, Southlake, TX, USA:
  2. Leaf, C.M., Switch On Your Brain : The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health. 2013, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan:
  3. Hao, X., et al., Individual differences in brain structure and resting brain function underlie cognitive styles: evidence from the embedded figures test. PLoS One, 2013. 8(12): e78089 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078089
  4. Oxford Dictionary of English – 3rd Edition, 2010, Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.
  5. De Pauw, S.S., et al., How temperament and personality contribute to the maladjustment of children with autism. J Autism Dev Disord, 2011. 41(2): 196-212 doi: 10.1007/s10803-010-1043-6
  6. Henriques, G. (When) Are You Neurotic? Theory of Knowledge: Psychology Today; 2012, 23 Nov 2012 [cited 2013 23 Nov 2012]; Available from: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201211/when-are-you-neurotic.
  7. Vinkhuyzen, A.A., et al., Common SNPs explain some of the variation in the personality dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion. Transl Psychiatry, 2012. 2: e102 doi: 10.1038/tp.2012.27
  8. Caspi, A., et al., Genetic sensitivity to the environment: the case of the serotonin transporter gene and its implications for studying complex diseases and traits. Am J Psychiatry, 2010. 167(5): 509-27 doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.09101452
  9. Felten, A., et al., Genetically determined dopamine availability predicts disposition for depression. Brain Behav, 2011. 1(2): 109-18 doi: 10.1002/brb3.20
  10. Chen, C., et al., Contributions of dopamine-related genes and environmental factors to highly sensitive personality: a multi-step neuronal system-level approach. PLoS One, 2011. 6(7): e21636 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0021636
  11. Krueger, R.F., et al., The heritability of personality is not always 50%: gene-environment interactions and correlations between personality and parenting. J Pers, 2008. 76(6): 1485-522 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00529.x
  12. Johnson, W., et al., Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Curr Dir Psychol Sci, 2010. 18(4): 217-20 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01639.x
  13. Watkins, A. Being brilliant every single day – Part 1. 2012 [cited 2 March 2012]; Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q06YIWCR2Js.
  14. Dixon, T., “Emotion”: The History of a Keyword in Crisis. Emot Rev, 2012. 4(4): 338-44 doi: 10.1177/1754073912445814
  15. Elliott, R., Executive functions and their disorders Imaging in clinical neuroscience. British Medical Bulletin, 2003. 65(1): 49-59
  16. Marien, H., et al., Unconscious goal activation and the hijacking of the executive function. J Pers Soc Psychol, 2012. 103(3): 399-415 doi: 10.1037/a0028955
  17. Baars, B.J. and Franklin, S., How conscious experience and working memory interact. Trends Cogn Sci, 2003. 7(4): 166-72 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12691765 ; http://bit.ly/1a3ytQT
  18. Baars, B.J., Global workspace theory of consciousness: toward a cognitive neuroscience of human experience. Progress in brain research, 2005. 150: 45-53
  19. Repovs, G. and Baddeley, A., The multi-component model of working memory: explorations in experimental cognitive psychology. Neuroscience, 2006. 139(1): 5-21 doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2005.12.061
  20. Bonn, G.B., Re-conceptualizing free will for the 21st century: acting independently with a limited role for consciousness. Front Psychol, 2013. 4: 920 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00920
  21. Beste, C., et al., Response inhibition subprocesses and dopaminergic pathways: basal ganglia disease effects. Neuropsychologia, 2010. 48(2): 366-73 doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.09.023

[1] We often describe rapid unconscious movements, especially to evade danger or to protect ourselves, as “reflexes”. Medically speaking, a true reflex is a spinal reflex, like the knee-jerk reflex. When a doctor taps the knee with the special hammer, the sudden stretch of the tendon passes a nerve impulse to the spinal cord, which is then passed to the muscle, which makes it contract. A true reflex doesn’t go to the brain at all.