Music Therapy Today, Vol. 6, No. 4 (part 4)

“Music Therapy Today” Vol. VI(4) November 2005

Contributions towards the consolidation of music therapy in Spain within the European Space For Higher Education (ESHE) Melissa Mercadal-Brotons

Coordinator of the Postgraduate/Master in Music Therapy, Univ. Ramón Llull, Barcelona.

E-mail: MelissaMC@blanquerna.url.es

Luis Alberto Mateos Hernández Coordinator of the Master in Music Therapy. Univ. Pontificia. Salamanca E-mail: master_esp.musicoterapia@eulv.es

Translation: Catherine Clancy

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The European Space for Higher Education (ESHE) The preparation of the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE) has been in progress since the Sorbonne Declaration (1998). With the subsequent Bologna Declaration (1999), Salamanca Convention (2001), Barcelona European Council (2001) and the Berlin Communication (2003) the chance has arisen for working synergies to be created amongst teams of university tutors throughout Europe, in order to learn, in the best way possible, how to converge or come closer together, starting off with the nearest universities. In the background is the urgent need to make serious changes in the methodology of university teaching so as to foment a new relationship between tutors and students in which the students progressively acquire more leadership and responsibility. For this reason, the role of the university tutor is having to change to allow for more individualised approach to students, adapting teaching to previously acquired levels and individual styles of learning. In the Convention of European Institutions of Higher Education held in Salamanca (2001) the principles of the ESHE were established: responsible autonomy; education as a public service, founded on research and with the ability to affirm diversity; education based on quality, on the adaptation to the labour market, and the free circulation of students throughout the European Union through the system of accumulation and transfer of ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) credits. This represents a substantial change regarding what is taught and how it is taught in the endeavour to train today’s European professionals to an adequate standard.

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The Current Situation of Music Therapy in Spain It is important to recognise that although Music Therapy is still a young developing profession in Spain, it has a notable tradition and progression.

Several people, from different areas of the country, have acted as pioneers, contributing great effort and dedication to the beginning of this profession. This means that today the words ‘music therapy’ do not sound strange or foreign in our society in general, or amongst the professionals in the education and health fields.

However, perhaps because these pioneering efforts lacked unity or failed to follow similar directions, there is still a long way to go before this discipline and profession becomes consolidated and integrated within the education and health systems in our country. To advance along this way, we believe that it is important and necessary to analyse where this profession lies at present with regard to a variety of questions, in order to identify those aspects which stall its development and consolidation.

For many years, due to a lack of unified criteria both at national and international level in continental Europe, the training of professional music therapists in Spain has been carried out in private non-university centres which have begun music therapy work. Training programmes have gradually started up in universities, but there is still a lack of agreement and a notable variability between the different curricula not only regarding their content but also their number of credits. Little by little, music therapy is becoming a university discipline which is understood as a training for professionals, innovation and research.

Before going into greater detail about the training of professionals in Spain, it is important to distinguish between the different levels of music

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therapy training that exist at present in our country. In other words, we need to distinguish between: Training for extending awareness. This is done through talks, introductory presentations etc, with the objective of giving a general vision of the discipline and extending awareness to professionals, students and the general public about the applications and possibilities that this discipline presents. • Training complementary to other areas of knowledge. Normally, this training is carried out through courses of a limited number of hours, designed for professionals who work with specific client groups, and who wish to learn about some music resources in order to integrate these into their daily work, thus extending their repertoire of possibilities and at the same time accumulating points in terms of continuing education. The objective of this training is not to produce music therapy professionals. In the context where specialists of other areas use music resources for re-educative or therapeutic goals, it is very important to emphasise that they should and must rely on professional music therapists to assess and supervise the use of these musical interventions. • Training of the music therapy professional or Music Therapist. This type of training is directed towards those people who wish to specialise and become active professional music therapists. Normally the qualification which recognises and accredits the professional music therapist is that which is acquired at the end of a postgraduate or masters course. In Europe the professional training of music therapists is traditionally carried out at postgraduate or masters level with people who already have undergraduate studies and music training. •

Each one of these three levels of training has its difficulties, and professional training in particular presents a variety of challenges that we will go into in the next section. Up to now there have been a large number of introductory training courses and complementary training courses, but we consider that there is still very little professional development in comparison with the professional status of other professions in the educative, rehabilitation, medical, social or mental health areas. Regarding the introductory training and complementary training, the challenge is to present sufficient information in order to transmit the possibilities that The Current Situation of Music Therapy in Spain

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music therapy offers for the different client groups, and to create interest in incorporating this therapeutic modality within the different centres. It is also important to make sure that the participants in these courses understand that Music Therapy is a specialist area which requires specific training and cannot be applied by any person. This concept is not always accepted by professionals who are not music therapists, when they see no harm in using music techniques.

Music Therapy as a university discipline in Europe For the training of professionals in Spain, at present there are courses offered by private institutions not linked to university centres, and other training courses linked to and hosted within universities. If we look at the training of music therapists in other European countries and in the USA, we can see that this is carried out in universities. What does the fact of offering music therapy programmes through universities imply? The programmes are not designed for private financial benefit, but rather are concerned to contribute to the society in general. Furthermore, the fact that the music therapy training programmes are situated in university centres means that the curricula are subject to constant revision, and that there is a control of quality imposed by the specific university centre which guarantees its continuity. Another important aspect that we will evaluate later on is that the elaboration of the curricula designs not only follow the guidelines of the EMTC (European Music Therapy Confederatin) and the WFMT (World Federation for Music Therapy) , but also closely follow the recommendations for European Convergence in the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE). This will help our students to benefit from experiences in other European countries as well as facilitate the exchange of students in general. For these reasons, it is Music Therapy as a university discipline in Europe

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important that the training of the professional music therapist be carried out within universities.

Music therapy as a university discipline is contemplated in almost all the countries of the EU, although in differing degrees. In Spain, which is the focus of our article, this training has at present no legal presence as an undergraduate degree, but is recognised as a postgraduate training, which in the future will exclusively be called ‘university masters’. This is a determining factor in the future development of our profession, as these masters will have to fulfil a series of requirements such as offering a congruent continuation to undergraduate degrees. In Spain, all the university masters are currently linked to the Faculties of Education Science, and as such, the different curricula developments must get progressively closer, particularly now that the transformation of the current study programmes into new programmes organized in ECTS credits is required. This context should encourage even closer working together with university centres.

At the same time it should serve as an invitation to the serious non-university training centres to follow the European guidelines and integrate themselves within the organizational structure of a university that recognises their work for the Music Therapy profession.

Music therapy professionals in Spain are more and more aware of the foundation work that has been done so far, and what more remains to be done. For a more promising future, the guidelines of the EMTC and the WFMT, and the recommendations for the European Convergence in the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE), must be followed more rigorously when setting out curricula designs. Perhaps more precision is needed here, so that an order of priorities can be establish in the future for the action plans of each specific university. Following on from this, we

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would like to take a brief look at the challenges that are, for us, the most important for the consolidation of Music Therapy in Spain. From our criteria as coordinators of music therapy master training courses, we think that we should take up these challenges, which we will classify in 5 thematic groups: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

1. ACADEMIC TRAINING OF FUTURE MUSIC THERAPISTS

Academic training of future music therapists Production of knowledge and publications Professional development for the music therapist Ethical development of the profession Social development of the profession

The professional training that is required to become a music therapist has various profiles in Europe, although these will become more homogeneous with the new system of European accreditation which the EMTC has been perfecting and will start using in the near future, which includes several modalities. (We will concentrate on the most complete modality of accreditation which is “full member�). In Spain, at least, this model will present various challenges, which we will describe briefly below: 1. It should consist of University training, wherever possible.

2. Minimum curricula requirements: A. If the EMTC is demanding a minimum of 200 hours of didactictherapeutic personal process in order to achieve professional accreditation, this is because it is fundamental that all training programmes consider this requirement in order to guarantee that the students have learned to face themselves, thus forging an essential pillar of their therapeutic identity.

B. The clinical experience must be well articulated and consolidated within each master, with the corresponding supervisions. We are aware that in some training courses in our country there is no supervision of the practicum programmed in the course, either in the therapy sessions themselves or afterwards using videos or other type of recordings. We believe that this is one of the most important pillars of a sound training in music therapy.

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C. The EMTC will require two years of full-time clinical experience.

The greatest challenge in Spain in this area is to achieve stable, correctly paid jobs so that music therapists can cover this requirement, and thus make their own contribution to the development of the profession. If this fails to happen, the professional development of our discipline will become indefinitely delayed. It is true that many music therapy positions have arisen, but it must be said that there is an imbalance between the demand for jobs by graduating students, the social demand for music therapists, and the financial and political infrastructure that is needed for these posts to be more abundant.

D. Coaching should be given for the writing up of a scientific project which can be published. The EMTC will require the publication of an article in a specialist magazine or book. (We will go further into this area in the next thematic block: section 2).

3. Design of curricula. Training programmes need to be coherent with the European credit system ECTS. For this, the programmes should have: a. A conceptually clear, well-defined professional profile. The signs of identity, or values, need to be set out a priori, with the functions well explained. b. The curricular areas should be well balanced, and include sufficient specific training in music therapy, as well as in psychology, music, medicine, education, innovation and research, giving each the pertinent teaching time according to the orientation of the training course.

In any case, we believe that there should be a balance guaranteed between intra-area and inter-area studies. c. A coherently designed map of skills with the corresponding evaluation indicators, in order to guarantee that the students have acquired the skills necessary for their professional profile, both regarding the generic skills and the specific skills of each of the training areas (see ‘project tuning’). It goes without saying that all these skills should be evaluated adequately and reliably. d. Constant methodology innovation, which is flexible to the changes of the times, and to the singularities of each group of future music therapists.

4. Clinical practicum. Along with the above, the clinical practicum within the training course should be ample, tutored as far as possible, with the presence of a music therapist supervisor in the sessions or, failing that, through videos recordings. Although the European accreditation still does not exist, it is advisable that the supervisor be somebody with a bachelor´s degree, with the widest possible postgraduate Music Therapy as a university discipline in Europe

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training, and with sufficient clinical experience to be able to carry out this task. The practicum should also endeavour to create employment.

We believe that in Spain we should continue to offer the students the approach that the practicum is really non-remunerated professional work (if it is paid for, better still). In reality, the student has to work with the responsibility of a contract as music therapist, with all its obligations, and carry out his/her work with care and innovation. For this reason, the student should be integrated from the first moment in the interdisciplinary teams, working with humility, transparency and professional ethic, defending and explaining well the role of the music therapist. It is very important that every institution knows, by the end of the practicum period, in what the music therapy programme has consisted, the role of the music therapist within the team, and that they are left feeling that they would like to have a music therapist in their institution. Perhaps it is at this moment that the corresponding institution should become more involved and dedicated in finding the financial resources to back this desire. Finally, although it is inevitable that there is competition between music therapists for the different posts that arise, this should not prejudice the collaboration between therapists at such an important time in the development in our profession.

5. Supervision. Supervision, or ‘self-experience’ is implicit in some of the training programmes but not in all. The first need for improvement in this area is the explication of this training requirement. We believe that it is very important to define very clearly the type of work which is carried out through ‘self-experience (Forinash, 2000) so that, in the future, a network of supervisors can be created throughout the Spanish territory, networked with other European supervisors, through which they can share and improve their work. We believe that there is still a question to be answered by the EMTC. In Spanish universities there are some supervisors, generally speaking the coordinators of the different masters, who have many hours of experience supervising other music therapists. This role is very scarce in Spain and is relatively recent. One of the requirements for becoming a supervisor of music therapy trainees is to have been supervised by an accredited supervisor. The question is: who is the supervisor of the first supervisor? We think that the idiosyncrasies of our country, and of other European countries, should be taken into account in order to help the development of supervision in the various training courses, taking advantage of those tutors who can demonstrate, in one way or another, their qualification as supervisor.

6. Systems for evaluating the quality of training courses. In order to avoid maintaining training inertias, it is necessary that every training

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centre be submitted annually to some system of quality evaluation, which could serve to accredit its internal coherence, effectiveness, and the value that its own students grant it. It is fundamental for the professional consolidation of music therapy in our country that the discipline of music therapy be incorporated in the permanent quality control plans of the universities. This has already begun, but it is by no means widespread in all the training programmes. In the future the courses will have to be submitted to the control board of the National Agency for Evaluation, Quality and Accreditation (ANECA)and other agencies to guarantee that these masters are guided by a strategic plan based on continual improvement.

7. The organisation of a general curricula for the Spanish university, flexible to the peculiarities of each training centre, to facilitate the implantation of postgraduate studies in music therapy and their access to financial research grants. At the same time, these must be coordinated with doctorate studies so that students have a training complement available to them for research purposes, and so that the researchers can also have access to music therapy practice.

2.) PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE AND PUBLICATIONS

The orientation of masters in the future will follow the model of offering not only a synthesis of the knowledge of others and also a permanent dialectic regarding the knowledge arising within different courses, facilitated by the training structure itself. In other words, masters will be more and more oriented towards the production of knowledge, while continuing to be excellent training for professional specialisation. Following on from this idea, we have highlighted three challenges which we believe to be important for the consolidation of the production of knowledge in Spain: 1. The creation or consolidation of research lines which have been emerging timidly, particularly in the last few years. The universities and the European Union will support quality Research and Innovation initiatives. But it is necessary to consolidate these lines so that the various projects have greater relevance and can therefore have a greater probability of financial backing. It is also very important that projects involving two or more universities proliferate. In Spain, to our knowledge, we have managed to form very rich collaborations in the aca-

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demic circles between a few universities, but very little has been done so far in terms of inter-university research projects.

2. Resources for the production of knowledge. We believe that, although various notable publications have been produced by Spanish music therapists (Sabatella, 2004), there is still a lot to be done to consolidate the documental sources in order to create qualified work and research synergies amongst the new music therapists who are coming out into the labour market. That is why it is fundamental, in Spain, that open virtual spaces be created immediately for the exchange of documentation, websites, research and development projects, and resources of all kinds for the production of knowledge. The authors of this article are working on this at present.

3. Publications: Along with the above, editorial collections need to be created in Spain which cover more specific subjects within the extensive field of music therapy. These collections might include translation of high quality books published in other countries, as well as locally produced publications, both about specific applied subjects and of a more conceptual or generally informative nature. We believe that this is necessary in order to lighten the workload of new music therapy researchers and to access a greater amount of funding from different sources.

3. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR MUSIC THERAPISTS

The profile of the music therapist, in whatever line of work, needs the support of continuous training, which is practically inexistent in Spain.

To provide the music therapist with the ‘nutrients’ necessary for healthy and balanced practice, further training can be in various forms: personal supervision, case supervision, Intervision (meeting with other music therapists to talk about cases, articles, different music, etc. Leite, T. 2005). To cover this need, further training for music therapist tutors should be increased, as should the network of professional supervision, both for tutors and new music therapists coming into the labour market. Further training can help us foster the difficult challenge of the continued systematic search for scientific values within our work without losing the profoundly human and humanizing value of our profession.

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4. THE ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROFESSION

Ethical responsibility supposes that music therapists, as the ethical code of the EMTC affirms, “agree to work with social and legal responsibility.

This includes responsibilities directed towards oneself, towards the task of the therapist and towards those individuals with whom a therapeutic relationship is established�. These aspects have been present in some form but have not been implicit. Patients have not always been protected from immoral practices, and this is undoubtedly prejudicial to these people and to the normal development of the profession. We think that it is of no coincidence that there is still no code of ethics for Music Therapy in Spain, with which to orient the commitment of the music therapists and their conduct, thereby contributing to greater rigour, trust and professional credibility.

There are many aspects that could do with improvement in this area. For example: 1. Control of ethical aspects in the regional associations should be strengthened. For those associations that have neither a means of control nor an ethical code, the progressive development of this aspect should be a priority.

2. The practicum within the music therapy training must be ethically and clearly carried out, given the lack of regulation. This excess of freedom and lack of definition can turn against us. In the training centres the practicum must be given the maximum of protocol, so that the institutions which take training students have a good understanding of everything that will be done and can have control over the situation of their clients within the practicum.

3. Professional practice requires greater control on the part of the regional associations, which must work towards the guarantee of ethical professional practice. The articulation of systems of evaluation, follow-up and sanctioning are needed which can remind all professionals of the great responsibility involved in working with individuals in critical situations, with suffering, with significant limitations, etc.

4. The code of ethics: given the lack of a Spanish code of ethics, we believe that it needs to be created, using as principal references the Music Therapy as a university discipline in Europe

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ethical codes of regional associations that already have one, and those of the EMTC and the WFMT. It is our hope that this decade will go down in the history of music therapy in Spain as the one in which ethical development was given higher priority than economic benefit or personal power. We need to move from a position of minimum ethics to one founded on ethics, as an essential part of the professional profile of the music therapist.

5. SOCIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROFESSION

1. Extend awareness via more specific aspects and through clinical and research practice, both to students who are coming across music therapy for the first time and to other professionals who are interested in our discipline.

2. Take special care of language use (Wheeler, 2005) and continue the conceptual construction of the discipline through continuous reflection about our Spanish (and European) reality, and opting for the permanent choice of continual improvement and change.

3. Professional organisations are essential for the articulation and distribution of tasks. College membership, professional accreditation, institutional support for professionals, etc, are organised at different levels, as there are innumerable music therapists throughout Europe. a. Local or regional organizations: In Spain we need to bear in mind the difference between intervention centres, training courses and professional organizations. Historically these have grown together but they are not the same. At the same time, we must work towards the creation of professional colleges that have the authority to regulate the profession. Regional associations can carry out an important role in this area. b. National organisations: Their principal objective is to bring together and unite the efforts of the principal development agents within the profession in order to fight for governmental recognition. In Spain there is still no federation between the 19 regional music therapy associations. Neither is there a federation of university centres which offer music therapy. Both proposals are ready to be tackled. c. EMTC (European Music Therapy Confederation). This has officially become the Confederation of Professional Associations. We think that, in the new system of accreditation, the EMTC should take into account the different levels of professional development in each country, and promote ways for its progressive advance.

4. According to this analysis, we believe that the creation of an open, flexible and transparent network or juridical structure is of top priority in Spain for the accreditation of music therapists. It should follow the

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criteria of the EMTC, it should favour the development of the profession in each autonomous region of the Spanish State, and it should be independent of the possible private interests of each training centre. In other words, it should be exclusively dedicated to the service of the development of Music therapy in Spain.

To close this article of thoughts and proposals, we would like to highlight our positive and optimistic vision, although there is a long way to go, given that our point of view coincides with that of many colleagues: Music therapy in Spain should be a serious, coherent, dynamic discipline, which generates employment and helps many people who need therapeutic support and can benefit enormously from our interventions. We are, without a shadow of doubt, in a decisive moment of change. We share with Bazarra, L.; Casanova, O. & García Ugarte, J (2004: 102,104) the need, now more than ever, to “accept and enjoy the change. (…) The inevitable presence of change can be lived as a conflict or as an opportunity, a moment for growing and creating. Believe in what we are doing, in that in the end our students will get involved little by litte, and that we are contributing to the creation of a future society that will know how to look back, take all that which has enriched it, and not repeat the errors that shame it. (…) To create a new educative framework which allows us to understand and face with guarantees the changes which affect our students”. In our case, this applies to the students of Music Therapy training in Spain, as they have in their hands the fascinating task of consolidating and guaranteeing the dignified future of this beautiful and humanizing profession.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aldridge, D. (Ed.). (1996). Music therapy research and practice in medicine. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Aldridge, D. et al. (2001). Music Therapy in Europe. Roma: ISMEZ Publications.

Bazarra, L.;Casanova, O. & García Ugarte, J. (2004). Ser profesor y dirigir profesores en tiempos de cambio. Madrid: Narcea.

European Commission (2003). “From Prague to Berlin: The EU contribution”, Brussels, European Commission.

European Commission (2003). “The role of the universities in the Europe of knowledge”, Brussels, European Commission.

CRUE (2002). “El Crédito europeo y el sistema educativo español”, Madrid, CRUE. EUA (2003). “Graz Declaration. Forward from Berlin: The role of universities”, Leuven, EUA. Forinash, M. (2000). Music Therapy Supervision. Gilsum, USA: Barcelona Publishers.

González, J. & Wagennar, R. (2003). “Tuning: Informe final proyecto piloto fase 1”, Madrid, ANECA. Hanser, S. (1999). The New Music Therapist's Handbook, 2nd Ed. Boston, MA: Berklee Press

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Haug, G. & Tauch, C. (2001). “ Bologna, Salamanca, Praga- and now?

Recent developments in the Bologna process” Leite, T. (2005). “Líneas de futuro para musicoterapeutas”. Plan de Formación Permanente para Musicoterapeutas. Asociación ACLEDIMA. http://www.acledima.blogia.com January 2005.

Marcelo, C. (1999). Formación del profesorado para el cambio educativo. Barcelona: EUB MECD (2003). “Ley Orgánica de Universidades 6/2001”,

Madrid,

MECD. MECD (2003). “La integración del Sistema Universitario Español en el Espacio Europeo de Enseñanza Superior”, Madrid, MECD. Sabbatella, P. L. (2004). Music Therapy in Spain. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved May 31, 2005, from http://www.voices.no/ country/monthspain_march2004.html Stige, B. (2002). Culture-Centered Music Therapy Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers Tauch, C. & Reichert, S. (2003). “Trends in Learning Structures in Higher Education in Europe (III)”, EUA & European Commission.

Wigram, T; West, R. and Saperston, B. (1995). The Art and Science of Music Therapy: a Handbook, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Wigram, T. (2000). Assessment and Evaluation in the Arts Therapies: Art Therapy, Music Therapy and Drama Therapy. London: Harper House Publications.

Wigram, Tony, Nygaard Pedersen, Inge & Bonde, Lars Ole (2002). A Comprehensive Guide to Music Therapy - Theory, Clinical Practice, Research and Training. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Wigram, T. (2004). Improvisation - Methods and Techniques for Music Therapy Clinicians, Educators and Students. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Wheeler, B. (2005). Our Language and Our Attitudes. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved May 31, 2005, from http:// www.voices.no/columnist/colwheeeler250405.html) http://www.acledima.org/docs/C%F3digo_EMTC..pdf (Ethical Code of the European Music Therapy Confederation) www.aneca.es (ANECA, National Agency for Evaluation, Quality and Accreditation) www.crue.org (CRUE, Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities) www.bologna-berlin2003.de (Berlin Conference) www.salamanca2001.org (Salamanca Conference) www.eaie.nl (EAIE, European Association for International Education) http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/socrates/ects.pdf (ECTS, European Commission- DGA) BIBLIOGRAPHY

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www.enqa,net (ENQA, European network of quality agencies) www.unige.ch/eua (EUA, European Universities Association) www.univ.mecd.es (MECD, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport) www.relint.deusto/TuningProject (Tuning Project)

This article can be cited as Brotons, M. & Hernandez, L.A.M. (2005) Contributions towards the consolidation of music therapy in Spain within the European Space For Higher Education (ESHE). Music Therapy Today Vol. 6, Issue 4 (November) 1713-1731. available at MusicTherapyWorld.net

This article can be cited as

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“Music Therapy Today” Vol. VI(4) November 2005

Response to Joerg Fachner’s report on the music therapy roundtable during the 2nd neurosciences and music symposium, Leipzig – May, 2005 Michael Thaut By accident I stepped on a report on the music therapy roundtable from the latest Neuroscience and Music Symposium in ‘musictherapyworld’, a website apparently maintained and edited by the music therapy faculty at the University of Witten/Herdecke.

Unfortunately – although offered as an objective report – it is mostly a continuation of personal and personalized attacks, voiced very aggressively by a few music therapists in the audience of several hundred, combined with a severe misrepresentation of what evidence-based best practice standards are in music therapy specifically, and in medicine, therapy, and rehabilitation in general. A quick response seems to be needed to right the presented picture.

First, the author seems to conveniently forget to report that the non-music therapy members of the panel voiced some very serious challenges to the

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Response to Joerg Fachner’s report on the music therapy roundtable during the

validity of music therapy as currently practiced. Furthermore, the vast majority of the audience did not join in the aggressive and highly ideological attacks of a few, rather than - what has transpired in feedback to us – seemed taken aback and aghast. All in all, not a good day for music therapy. To find this reiterated on a professional website, using names to personalize attacks, must be thoroughly rejected.

Second, as a researcher, university educator, and former clinical music therapist for over 20 years, I cannot help but to state and restate that the scientific evidence base for music in therapy has seen scientific developments not thought to be possible before, but the emphasis in understanding and applying this evidence in clinical paradigms has dramatically shifted traditional foci. It would be helpful for music therapy to fully embrace that rather than fight it on personal and philosophical grounds.

Third, evidence based best practice standards are not some sinister ideological plot by some bad people. On the contrary, many professional organizations have adopted them for ethical reasons, to assure best available treatment for our patients. A rejection of such standards is therefore incomprehensible.

Fourth and lastly, the good news is that Neurologic Music Therapy – the clinical model to deliver state-of- the-art treatment based on scientific evidence – is alive and well and growing rapidly. Over 500 music therapists from 18 countries are already certified with the number growing continuously. Recognition of its practice and research is found on highest professional levels in rehabilitation and medicine world-wide.

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Response to Joerg Fachner’s report on the music therapy roundtable during the

This article can be cited as Thaut, M. (2005) Response to Joerg Fachner’s report on the music therapy roundtable during the 2nd neurosciences and music symposium, Leipzig – May, 2005. MusicTherapyToday Vol. 6, Issue 4 (November) 1732-1734. available at MusicTherapyWorld.net Editors note:This article is a response to an article published in MusicTherapyToday.com (July 2005) http://www.musictherapyworld.net/modules/mmmagazine/showarticle.php?articletoshow=146&language=en See also Editorial comments by David Aldridge

This article can be cited as

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“Music Therapy Today�

Vol. VI 4) November 2005

Odds and ends - themes and trends Tom Doch

Reading depends on writing, in Chinese

By Li Hai Tan , John A. Spinks, Guinevere F. Eden, Charles A. Perfetti and Wai Ting Siok Source: http://www.pnas.org/June 6, 2005 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0503523102v1

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0503523102 Language development entails four fundamental and interactive abilities: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Over the past four decades, a large body of evidence has indicated that reading acquisition is strongly associated with a child's listening skills, particularly the child's sensitivity to phonological structures of spoken language.

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Reading depends on writing, in Chinese

Furthermore, it has been hypothesized that the close relationship between reading and listening is manifested universally across languages and that behavioral remediation using strategies addressing phonological awareness alleviates reading difficulties in dyslexics.

The prevailing view of the central role of phonological awareness in reading development is largely based on studies using Western (alphabetic) languages, which are based on phonology.

The Chinese language provides a unique medium for testing this notion, because logographic characters in Chinese are based on meaning rather than phonology.

Here we show that the ability to read Chinese is strongly related to a child's writing skills and that the relationship between phonological awareness and Chinese reading is much weaker than that in reports regarding alphabetic languages.

We propose that the role of logograph writing in reading development is mediated by two possibly interacting mechanisms.

The first is orthographic awareness, which facilitates the development of coherent, effective links among visual symbols, phonology, and semantics; the second involves the establishment of motor programs that lead to the formation of long-term motor memories of Chinese characters.

These findings yield a unique insight into how cognitive systems responsible for reading development and reading disability interact, and they challenge the prominent phonological awareness view.

To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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1736

A requirement for memory retrieval during and after long-term extinction

Wai Ting Siok, E-mail: siok@hku.hk OutDoorLinks: Wai Ting Siok, Ph. D. http://www.hku.hk/fmri/people/siok.htm

A requirement for memory retrieval during and after long-term extinction learning

By Ming Ouyang and Steven A. Thomas Source:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/

0502315102v1?etoc

PNAS Early Edition Contents Alert/Edition for 8 Jun 2005 to 9 Jun 2005.

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0502315102 Current learning theories are based on the idea that learning is driven by the difference between expectations and experience (the delta rule).

In extinction, one learns that certain expectations no longer apply.

Here, we test the potential validity of the delta rule by manipulating memory retrieval (and thus expectations) during extinction learning.

Adrenergic signaling is critical for the time-limited retrieval (but not acquisition or consolidation) of contextual fear.

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1737

Preferring one taste over another without recognizing either

Using genetic and pharmacologic approaches to manipulate adrenergic signaling, we find that long-term extinction requires memory retrieval but not conditioned responding.

Identical manipulations of the adrenergic system that do not affect memory retrieval do not alter extinction.

The results provide substantial support for the delta rule of learning theory.

In addition, the timing over which extinction is sensitive to adrenergic manipulation suggests a model whereby memory retrieval occurs during, and several hours after, extinction learning to consolidate long-term extinction memory.

To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Steven A. Thomas, E-mail: thomas@pharm.med.upenn.edu OutDoorLinks: Steven A. Thomas, M.D., Ph.D. http://www.med.upenn.edu/pharm/faculty/indext.html#thomas

Preferring one taste over another without recognizing either

By Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Michael Koenigs & Antonio R Damasio Source: http://www.nature.com/12 June 2005 Odds and ends - themes and trends

1738

Preferring one taste over another without recognizing either

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ nn1489.html

doi:10.1038/nn1489 Stimuli can be discriminated without being consciously perceived and can be preferred without being remembered.

Here we report a subject with a previously unknown dissociation of abilities: a strong behavioral preference for the taste of sugar over saline, despite a complete failure of recognition.

The pattern of brain damage responsible for the dissociation suggests that reliable behavioral choice among tastes can occur in the absence of the gustatory cortex necessary for taste recognition.

Correspondence should be addressed to Ralph Adolphs radolphs@hss.caltech.edu OutDoorLinks: Ralph Adolphs von der Universit채t Iowa http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/med/neurology/neurologymds/ adolphs.html

Antonio R Damasio http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/med/neurology/neurologymds/ damasioa.html

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1739

Stars in their eyes - Friends and grandmothers

Stars in their eyes - Friends and grandmothers How do neurons in the brain represent movie stars, famous buildings and other familiar objects?

Rare recordings from single neurons in the human brain provide a fresh perspective on the question

By R. Quian Quiroga, L. Reddy, G. Kreiman, C. Koch and I. Fried Source: www.nature.com/23 June 2005 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7045/edsumm/ e050623-16.html

doi: 10.1038/nature03687 It takes moments for the human brain to recognize a person or an object even if seen under very different conditions.

This raises the question: can a single neuron respond selectively to a given face regardless of view, age, pose or context?

That question — it has been called the search for the 'grandmother neuron' — is difficult to test.

But now, in patients with intractable epilepsy who were implanted with depth electrodes for a clinical process, an answer has been obtained.

Patients were asked to respond to images on computer screens, and the results showed that neurons are pretty single-minded in what they respond to.

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1740

Chickadees' alarm-call carry information about size, threat of predator

For instance, one neuron will respond selectively to different pictures of the actress Jennifer Aniston, one to basketball player Michael Jordan, and another to different views of the Tower of Pisa.

OutDoorLinks: TZHAK FRIED, M.D., PH.D. http://www.neurosurgery.medsch.ucla.edu/Faculty/Fried/ Faculty_Fried.html

Christof Koch http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga http://www.santafe.edu/education/csss/csss00/students/quiroga.php

Chickadees' alarm-call carry information about size, threat of predator Source: www.physorg.com/June 23, 2005 http://www.physorg.com/news4716.html

There's more than meets the human ear when the black-capped chickadee lets its flock mates know a predator is lurking about by giving out its familiar "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" call.

The small songbirds, which are common throughout much of North America, use that signature call in a wide variety of social interactions

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1741

Chickadees' alarm-call carry information about size, threat of predator

including warning of predators. And it turns out that those alarms are far more subtle and information-packed than scientists previously imagined.

Writing in the current issue of the journal Science, researchers report that chickadees use one of the most sophisticated signaling systems discovered among animals. The calls warn other chickadees not only if a predator is moving rapidly, but also transmit information on the degree of threat posed by stationary predators of different sizes.

Chris Templeton, a biology doctoral student at the University of Washington and lead author of the study, said chickadees produce two very different alarm signals in response to predators. When they see flying raptors -- birds of prey such as hawks, owls and falcons -- they produce a soft, high-pitched "seet" call. But when they see a stationary or perched predator, the birds use a loud, wide spectrum chick-a-dee-deedee alarm to recruit other chickadees, as well as other bird species, to harass or mob the predator.

Spectrographic analysis of more than 5,000 recorded chickadee mobbing alarm calls made under semi-natural conditions showed that the acoustic features of the calls varied with the size of the predator. And when the recordings were played back to the birds through speakers, their mobbing behavior was related to the size and threat presented by the potential predator.

Templeton said chickadees can alter their mobbing calls in a number of ways, most of which humans can not hear. Most typically they change the dee dee dee note at the end of the call, sometimes adding five, 10 or 15 dees.

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1742

Chickadees' alarm-call carry information about size, threat of predator

"You certainly might notice a change in the number of dee notes in their call if a neighbor's cats was around harassing them. With something really dangerous, such as a pygmy-owl perched near some chickadees in our aviary, we heard as many as 23 added dees," he said The research was triggered when Templeton noticed the chickadees responding differently to a variety of predators inside an aviary. So the researchers set up an outdoor experiment in a semi-natural aviary with 15 different live perched or leashed predators. Thirteen of these were raptors. Two were mammals, a domestic cat and a ferret, which resembles weasels that prey on small birds. The birds of prey ranged in size from large owls, such as the great gray owl and great horned owl that usually feed on small mammals, to the small pygmy-owl and the American kestrel that hunt small mammals and birds. The smaller raptors represent a greater threat to the agile chickadees than the larger ones because they are more maneuverable in flight and can readily catch small birds.

"That's why a pygmy-owl is more dangerous to a chickadee than a great horned owl that has a large hooked beak and big talons. A great horned owl going after a chickadee would be like a Hummer trying to outmaneuver and catch a Porsche, "Templeton said.

The chickadees also were exposed to a perched bobwhite quail, a nonpredatory species, as a control animal, and did not react to it.

He noted that the chickadees are assessing risk on the basis of body size, but since they don't react to the bobwhite quail, they also seem to be assessing individual species.

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1743

The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated

In the future, Templeton would like to examine the chickadee's "seet" calls to see if they change in response to different raptors flying above them. If they do, this would be even more impressive since the birds would have such a brief glimpse as a predator flew by.

Co-authors of the paper are Erick Greene, associate professor in the division of biological sciences at the University of Montana, and Kate Davis, executive director of Raptors of the Rockies, a raptor education and Rehabilitation facility in Florence, Mont. Templeton led the research while he was a master's degree student at Montana.

OutDoorLinks: Chris Templeton http://students.washington.edu/ctemple2/

The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks

By Michael D. Fox, Abraham Z. Snyder, Justin L. Vincent, Maurizio Corbetta, David C. Van Essen, and Marcus E. Raichle Source: www.pnas.org/June 23, 2005 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0504136102v1?etoc

During performance of attention-demanding cognitive tasks, certain regions of the brain routinely increase activity, whereas others routinely decrease activity.

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1744

The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated

In this study, we investigate the extent to which this task-related dichotomy is represented intrinsically in the resting human brain through examination of spontaneous fluctuations in the functional MRI blood oxygen level-dependent signal.

We identify two diametrically opposed, widely distributed brain networks on the basis of both spontaneous correlations within each network and anticorrelations between networks.

One network consists of regions routinely exhibiting task-related activations and the other of regions routinely exhibiting task-related deactivations.

This intrinsic organization, featuring the presence of anticorrelated networks in the absence of overt task performance, provides a critical context in which to understand brain function.

We suggest that both task-driven neuronal responses and behavior are reflections of this dynamic, ongoing, functional organization of the brain.

To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Michael D. Fox E-mail: foxm@npg.wustl.edu OutDoorLinks: The Neuro Imaging Laboratory http://www.npg.wustl.edu/

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1745

Professor says ‘real obscenity’ of shock music isn’t in the lyrics

Professor says ‘real obscenity’ of shock music isn’t in the lyrics Source: http://live.psu.edu/story/12255/Thursday, June 2, 2005 The best-selling and award-winning music lyrics and styles of controversial performers from Eminem and Marilyn Manson, to Limp Bizkit and Slipknot have been called vile, disgusting, uncivilized and even dangerous, particularly in recent Congressional hearings.

But a Penn State researcher says that's just nonsense.

Dr. Karen Halnon, associate professor of sociology at Penn State's Abington Campus near Philadelphia, says what makes this music so attractive for an increasingly diverse fandom -- from college students to white collar professionals such as brokers and lawyers -- is its “difference” from the commercialized mainstream.

Music that breaks nearly every conceivable rule for morality is embraced by fans because it breaks though the "noise" of commercial culture.

She calls it a "refreshing time-out" from the pressures of commercial conformity, a place where difference, self-expression and equality are celebrated, if not demanded.

It is a temporary escape from a world in which, it seems, everything is a commodity, she notes.

In a recent article, "Alienation Incorporated," published in the May 2005 issue of "Current Sociology," the journal of the International Sociology Association, Halnon argues that the "real obscenity" is how the cul-

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1746

Professor says ‘real obscenity’ of shock music isn’t in the lyrics

ture industry has found a way to commodify the consumer alienation that it created in the first place.

This recent version of the "commodification of dissent" has the effect of distracting youth from more pragmatic avenues of social change, the Penn State researcher adds.

"The real obscenity of the Mainstream Music is not its anti-everything rebellion against all that is moral, sacred, or civilized, but rather that it serves to control and contain what might otherwise be a directed and pragmatic youth movement aimed at social justice," says Halnon, noting that military violence, presidential politics, and social security are just a few of the topics to which youths could be channeling their collective energy.

Instead, as Eminem has aptly put it, youth alienation "just sprays and sprays," but in "no particular direction."

The Penn State sociologist says that shock music is much more complex from the inside than outsiders might imagine.

She has conducted five years of concert field work and extensive music media analysis of the most transgressive heavy metal (and also punk, alternative rock and white rap) artists and bands increasingly making it into the mainstream.

OutDoorLinks: Alienation Incorporated published in the May 2005 issue of "Current Sociology

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1747

Study shows how sleep improves memory

http://csi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/53/3/441

Karen Bettez Halnon Ph.D., Associate Professor http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/k/b/kbh4/

Study shows how sleep improves memory Source: www.innovations-report.de/29.06.2005 http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/studien/bericht45938.html

A good night’s sleep triggers changes in the brain that help to improve memory, according to a new study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).

These findings, reported in the June 30, 2005, issue of the journal Neuroscience and currently published on-line, might help to explain why children – infants, in particular – require much more sleep than adults, and also suggest a role for sleep in the rehabilitation of stroke patients and other individuals who have suffered brain injuries.

"Our previous studies demonstrated that a period of sleep could help people improve their performance of ’memory tasks,’ such as playing piano scales," explains the study’s lead author Matthew Walker, PhD, director of BIDMC’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory. "But we didn’t know exactly how or why this was happening.

"In this new research, by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we can actually see which parts of the brain are active and which Odds and ends - themes and trends

1748

Study shows how sleep improves memory

are inactive while subjects are being tested, enabling us to better understand the role of sleep to memory and learning."

New memories are formed within the brain when a person engages with information to be learned (for example, memorizing a list of words or mastering a piano concerto). However, these memories are initially quite vulnerable; in order to "stick" they must be solidified and improved. This process of "memory consolidation" occurs when connections between brain cells as well as between different brain regions are strengthened, and for many years was believed to develop merely as a passage of time.

More recently, however, it has been demonstrated that time spent asleep also plays a key role in preserving memory.

In this new study, twelve healthy, college-aged individuals were taught a sequence of skilled finger movements, similar to playing a piano scale.

After a 12- hour period of either wake or sleep, respectively, the subjects were tested on their ability to recall these finger movements while an MRI measured the activity of their brain.

According to Walker, who is also an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, the MRI results showed that while some areas of the brain were distinctly more active after a period of sleep, other areas were noticeably less active. But together, the changes brought about by sleep resulted in improvements in the subjects’ motor skill performance.

"The cerebellum, which functions as one of the brain’s motor centers controlling speed and accuracy, was clearly more active when the subjects had had a night of sleep," he explains. At the same time, the MRIs showed reduced activity in the brain’s limbic system, the region that controls for emotions, such as stress and anxiety.

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Study shows how sleep improves memory

"The MRI scans are showing us that brain regions shift dramatically during sleep," says Walker. "When you’re asleep, it seems as though you are shifting memory to more efficient storage regions within the brain. Consequently, when you awaken, memory tasks can be performed both more quickly and accurately and with less stress and anxiety."

The end result is that procedural skills – for example, learning to talk, to coordinate limbs, musicianship, sports, even using and interpreting sensory and perceptual information from the surrounding world -- become more automatic and require the use of fewer conscious brain regions to be accomplished.

"Sleep appears to play a key role in human development," says Walker. "At 12 months of age, infants are in an almost constant state of motor skill learning, coordinating their limbs and digits in a variety of routines. They have an immense amount of new material to consolidate and, consequently, this intensive period of learning may demand a great deal of sleep." This new research may explain why children and teenagers need more sleep than adults and, in particular, why infants sleep almost round the clock.

The new findings may also prove to be important to patients who have suffered brain injuries, for example, stroke patients, who have to re-learn language, limb control, etc.

"Perhaps sleep will prove to be another critical factor in a stroke patient’s rehabilitation," he notes, adding that in the future he and his colleagues plan to examine sleep disorders and memory disorders to determine if there is a reciprocal relationship between the two.

"If you look at modern society, there has in recent years been a considerable erosion of sleep time," says Walker. Describing this trend as "sleep bulimia" he explains that busy individuals often shortchange their sleep during the week – purging, if you will – only to try to catch up by "binging" on sleep on the weekends.

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1750

Women feel pain more than men, research shows

"This is especially troubling considering it is happening not just among adults, but also among teenagers and children," he adds. "Our research is demonstrating that sleep is critical for improving and consolidating procedural skills and that you can’t short-change your brain of sleep and still learn effectively."

Study co-authors include BIDMC researchers Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD, Robert Stickgold, PhD, David Alsop, PhD and Nadine Gaab, PhD. OutDoorLinks: Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD http://musicianbrain.com/people.html

Matthew Walker BIDMC http://musicianbrain.com/people.html

Women feel pain more than men, research shows Women feel pain more than men despite the popular notion that the opposite is true, according to research.

Source: University of Bath Press Release - 04 July 2005 http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/ paingender040705.html

Scientists investigating gender differences in pain have found that not only do women report more pain throughout the course of their lifetime,

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1751

Women feel pain more than men, research shows

they also experience it in more bodily areas, more often and for longer duration when compared to men.

There also seem to be differences in how men and women think and feel about their pain. For example, anxiety may affect men and women in different ways, and the strategies used to cope with pain may actually make their experience worse.

These conclusions are based on several studies into the pain response of volunteers exposed to a pain stimulus, such as a cold water bath, as well as field studies in clinics and hospitals.

“Until fairly recently it was controversial to suggest that there were any differences between males and females in the perception and experience of pain, but that is no longer the case,” said Dr Ed Keogh a psychologist from the Pain Management Unit at the University of Bath.

“Research is telling us that women experience a greater number of pain episodes across their lifespan than men, in more bodily areas and with greater frequency.

“Unfortunately all too often the differences between males and females are not considered in pain research or practice, and instead are either ignored or statistically averaged.”

There remains much discussion in the scientific community about why these gender differences in pain exist.

“While most explanations concentrate on biological mechanisms, such as genetic and hormonal differences, it is becoming increasingly clear that social and psychological factors are also important,” said Dr Keogh.

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Women feel pain more than men, research shows

One example of this is the different strategies men and women use to cope with pain. Whilst women tend to focus on the emotional aspects of pain they experience, men tend to focus on the sensory aspects, for example concentrating on the physical sensations they experience.

“Our research has shown that whilst the sensory-focused strategies used by men helped increase their pain threshold and tolerance of pain, it was unlikely to have any benefit for women,” said Dr Keogh.

“Women who concentrate on the emotional aspects of their pain may actually experience more pain as a result, possibly because the emotions associated with pain are negative.”

To carry out this research, scientists asked volunteers to place their nondominant arm in a warm water bath (37 degrees centigrade) for two minutes before transferring the hand into an ice water bath maintained at a temperature of 1 - 2 degrees centigrade.

The cold pressor tank allows researchers to monitor the pain threshold (the point at which volunteers first notice the pain) and pain tolerance (the point at which volunteers can no longer stand the pain). An upper time limit of two minutes is used in these kinds of studies.

Other research by the Pain Management Unit has looked at the relationship between gender differences in anxiety sensitivity and pain. Anxiety sensitivity is the tendency to be fearful of anxiety-related sensations (e.g., rapidly beating heat), and seems to be important in the experience of pain sensations. In a study of 150 patients referred to a hospital clinic with chest pain, researchers discovered that the factors that predicted pain in men and women were different.

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Women feel pain more than men, research shows

Researchers believe that it is the fear of anxiety-related sensations and an increased tendency to negatively interpret such sensations, both of which are more predominant in women than men that influences women’s experiences of pain.

“Chest pain is associated with coronary heart disease, angina and heart attacks, so it is understandable that chest pain is a cause of great anxiety for patients and that anxiety has an important role in the experience of chest pain,” said Dr Keogh. ”This research is also consistent with studies that suggest that men and women experience chest pain in different ways and that, compared to men, women can sometimes report more intensive pain and nausea.”

Another study has shown that interdisciplinary approaches to pain management may have different effects on women than men.

Working with the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Bath, researchers from the Pain Management Unit carried out assessments on 98 patients in chronic pain as they went through a pain management programme involving physiotherapy, psychological treatments and occupational therapy.

Whilst both men and women exhibited a significant reduction in pain intensity both during and immediately after the programme, three months later women reported the same levels of pain as pre-treatment, whereas men’s remained the same as immediately post-treatment. Interestingly, there were improvements in disability, in both sexes, which were maintained at follow-up. This suggested that there may also be important differences in pain experiences and improvements in disability.

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Congress: 21. - 23. July 2005 in Halle (Saale) Germany: 26. International

“Gender can be profitably examined as a potential predictor of pain experience, and in particular, pain following treatment, but it is too early to say exactly how gender-specific interventions can be tailored to address these potentially important differences,” said Dr Keogh.

“However, evidence is certainly converging to suggest that accounting for greater differences may increase the overall effectiveness of treatments.”

OutDoorLinks: Dr Edmund Keogh http://staff.bath.ac.uk/pssemk/

Congress: 21. - 23. July 2005 in Halle (Saale) Germany: 26. International Conference of the Stress and Anxiety Research Society STAR STAR is a multidisciplinary, international organization of researchers who share an interest in problems of stress, coping and anxiety. Through its conferences, networks, and publications STAR enables a constructive dialogue and supports international cooperation.

Its members, from all parts of the eastern and western Europe and many parts of the world meet annually to exchange research findings and clinical applications on a wide range of stress and anxiety related phenomena.

Today's STAR was formed in 1980, and the "founding fathers" included Charles Spielberger, Henk Van der Ploeg, and Ralf Schwarzer.

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Congress: 21. - 23. July 2005 in Halle (Saale) Germany: 26. International

Originally the group was named the Society for Test Anxiety Research, but the name was changed to the Stress and Anxiety Research Society in 1991 at the Budapest conference, to better reflect the extended interests of the group (while still maintaining the acronym).

STAR conferences provide a unique opportunity to learn, not just about stress and anxiety, but also how psychology is studied and practiced throughout the world. STAR has been exceedingly active in providing an opportunity to share research and clinical findings in an international forum.

MAIN TOPICS • Clinical Aspects of Stress, Anxiety and Depression • Stress, Anger and Anxiety in Sportpsychology • Evaluation and Quality Management of Interventions • Burnout and Maldaptive Stress Recovery • Contemporary Developments in Stress and Coping Research Additional Symposia • Mastering Stress Optimistically - a cognitiv-behavioural stress management program Organizer: Reschke, Konrad and Schröder, Harry • New approaches in anxiety research: Implications for assessment and treatment.

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Congress: 21. - 23. July 2005 in Halle (Saale) Germany: 26. International

Organzizer: Derakhshan, Naz • New physiological approaches to stress prevention and treatment of mood disorders Organzizer: Putilov, Arcady • Occupational stress and burnout Organzizer: Cieslak, Roman • Advances in Perfectionism Research Organzizer: Stöber, Joachim • Recovery from stress – empirical findings an directions for future research Organzizer: Sonnentag, Sabine • Roundtable „Burnout and Coping – Current Trends in Theory and Application“ Organzizer: Buchwald, Petra • Psychological consequences of terrorism: general population, victims and relatives, emergency personnel Organizer: Juan J. Miguel-Tobal Contakt:

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Male and female voices affect brain differently

Prof. Dr. Oliver Stoll/Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Institut für Sportwissenschaften E-Mail: stoll@sport.uni-halle.de OutDoorLinks: Congress-Website http://www.star2005.org/

Male and female voices affect brain differently Source: www.alphagalileo.org/12 July 2005 http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=506879

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have explained the differences in the way the male brain interprets male and female voices, explaining why people who hallucinate and hear false voices almost always hear a man.

It also sheds new light on the way the brain processes voices to produce an ‘auditory face’ that allows people to determine aspects of someone’s physical appearance based solely on the way they sound. x The paper, published online in NeuroImage, describes how scientists studied brain scans of 12 male subjects whilst they listened to male and female voices.

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Male and female voices affect brain differently

It found startling differences in the way that the brain interprets the two sounds, with female voices causing activity in the auditory section of the brain and the male voice sparking activity in the ‘mind’s eye’ at the back of the brain.

Dr Michael Hunter, of Professor Peter Woodruff’s group in the Department of Psychiatry and Division of Genomic Medicine at the University of Sheffield, and co-author of the study explains, “Voices allow the brain to determine various factors about a person’s appearance, including their sex, size and age. It is much more complex than most people think and is an extremely important tool for determining someone’s identity without having to see them.

“The female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between women and men, and also due to women having greater natural ‘melody’ in their voices.

This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male voice.

“When a man hears a female voice the auditory section of his brain is activated, which analyses the different sounds in order to ‘read’ the voice and determine the auditory face.

“When men hear a male voice the part of the brain that processes the information is towards the back of the brain and is colloquially known as the ‘mind’s eye’.

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Male and female voices affect brain differently

This is the part of the brain where people compare their experiences to themselves, so the man is comparing his own voice to the new voice to determine gender.

“People who hear hallucinatory voices usually hear male voices.

Psychiatrists believe that these auditory hallucinations are caused when the brain spontaneously activates, creating a false perception of a voice.

The reason these voices are usually male could be explained by the fact that the female voice is so much more complex that the brain would find it much harder to create a false female voice accurately than a false male voice. ”This research could also explain why female voices are considered to be clearer then male voices. This could be linked to the fact that female voices are interpreted in the auditory part of the brain, and are therefore more easily decoded.”

OutDoorLinks: Dr Michael Hunter http://www.shef.ac.uk/medicine/staff/hunter.html

Prof Peter Woodruff http://www.shef.ac.uk/medicine/staff/woodruff.html

NeurImage – online

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1760

Evidence for Ectopic Neurotransmission at a Neuronal Synapse

http://authors.elsevier.com/JournalDetail.html?PubID=622925&Precis=DESC

Evidence for Ectopic Neurotransmission at a Neuronal Synapse Jay S. Coggan, Thomas M. Bartol, Eduardo Esquenazi, Joel R. Stiles, Stephan Lamont, Maryann E. Martone, Darwin K. Berg, Mark H. Ellisman,Terrence J. Sejnowski Source: www.sciencemag.org/Vol 309, Issue 5733, 446-451/15 July 2005 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5733/446

Neurotransmitter release is well known to occur at specialized synaptic regions that include presynaptic active zones and postsynaptic densities.

At cholinergic synapses in the chick ciliary ganglion, however, membrane formations and physiological measurements suggest that release distant from postsynaptic densities can activate the predominantly extrasynaptic 7 nicotinic receptor subtype.

We explored such ectopic neurotransmission with a novel model synapse that combines Monte Carlo simulations with high-resolution serial electron microscopic tomography.

Simulated synaptic activity is consistent with experimental recordings of miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents only when ectopic transmission is included in the model, broadening the possibilities for mechanisms of neuronal communication.

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Vocal Pathways Modulate Efferent Neurons to the Inner Ear and Lateral Line

To whom correspondence should be addressed: terry@salk.edu

OutDoorLinks: Jay Coggan http://www.snl.salk.edu/~coggan/

Terrence Sejnowski http://www.salk.edu/faculty/faculty/details.php?id=48

Vocal Pathways Modulate Efferent Neurons to the Inner Ear and Lateral Line Matthew S. Weeg, Bruce R. Land, and Andrew H. Bass Source: http://www.jneurosci.org/ June 22, 2005 http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/25/5967

All sonic vertebrates face the problem of sound production interfering with their ability to detect and process external acoustic signals, including conspecific vocalizations.

Direct efferent inputs to the inner ear of all vertebrates, and the lateral line system of some aquatic vertebrates, represent a potential mechanism to adjust peripheral sensitivity during sound production.

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1762

Vocal Pathways Modulate Efferent Neurons to the Inner Ear and Lateral Line

We recorded from single efferent neurons that innervate the inner ear and lateral line in a sound-producing teleost fish while evoking fictive vocalizations predictive of the temporal features of natural vocalizations.

The majority of efferent neurons showed an increase in activity that occurred in-phase with modulations in the fine temporal structure of the fictive vocalizations.

Many of these neurons also showed a decrease in activity at fictive vocal offset. Efferents to the sacculus, the main auditory end organ, showed features especially well adapted for maintaining sensitivity to external acoustic signals during sound production.

These included robust phase locking of efferent activity to each cycle of a fictive vocalization and a long-duration rebound suppression after each fictive vocalization that could provide a rapid, long-lasting period of sensitization to external acoustic stimuli such as the call of a conspecific.

These results suggest that efferent activation by the vocal motor system can directly modulate auditory sensitivity to self-generated sounds and maintain sensitivity to ongoing external sounds.

Given the conserved organization of the auditory efferent system across vertebrates, such mechanisms may be operative among all sonic vertebrates.

OutDoorLinks: Eric Parmentier http://www.ulg.ac.be/morfonct/mem/eric/

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1763

Long-term sensory deprivation prevents dendritic spine loss in primary

Andrew H. Bass http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/neurobio/department/Faculty/Bass/ Bass.html

Long-term sensory deprivation prevents dendritic spine loss in primary somatosensory cortex

By Yi Zuo, Guang Yang, Elaine Kwon and Wen-Biao Gan Source:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7048/abs/

nature03715.html#top

Nature 436, 261-265 (14 July 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature03715 A substantial decrease in the number of synapses occurs in the mammalian brain from the late postnatal period until the end of life.

Although experience plays an important role in modifying synaptic connectivity, its effect on this nearly lifelong synapse loss remains unknown.

Here we used transcranial two-photon microscopy to visualize postsynaptic dendritic spines in layer I of the barrel cortex in transgenic mice expressing yellow fluorescent protein.

We show that in young adolescent mice, long-term sensory deprivation through whisker trimming prevents net spine loss by preferentially reducing the rate of ongoing spine elimination, not by increasing the rate of spine formation.

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1764

Worldconference of Ethnotherapies 2006

This effect of deprivation diminishes as animals mature but still persists in adulthood.

Restoring sensory experience after adolescent deprivation accelerates spine elimination. Similar to sensory manipulation, the rate of spine elimination decreases after chronic blockade of NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate) receptors with the antagonist MK801, and accelerates after drug withdrawal.

These studies of spine dynamics in the primary somatosensory cortex suggest that experience plays an important role in the net loss of synapses over most of an animal's lifespan, particularly during adolescence.

OutDoorLinks: Wenbiao Gan http://www.med.nyu.edu/people/W.Gan.html

Worldconference of Ethnotherapies 2006 October 6-8, 2006 University of Munich, Germany source: http://www.institut-ethnomed.de/News05-2.html Submissions will be accepted until October 31, 2005.

Please send presentation title, abstract and short C.V., full address, phone, fax and e-mail.

The conference language is English and German.

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1765

The X th International Congress for the Study of Child Language in Berlin

Contact: ETHNOMED Institut fuer Ethnomedizin e.V." Email: info@institut-ethnomed.de> OutDoorLinks: http://www.institut-ethnomed.de/News05-2.htmlConference

Website-Information

The X th International Congress for the Study of Child Language in Berlin source: http://www.ctw-congress.de/iascl/default.html The meeting is hosted by the Freie Universität, one of Germany's most important research universities, in cooperation with the Humboldt-Universität, the Universität Potsdam and the Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung Berlin.

The special emphasis topic of the meeting is on Crosslinguistic and Intercultural Aspects of Unimpaired and Impaired Language Acquisition: A window on universal and language particular learning mechanisms.

We hope that this conference will attract many child language researchers from all over the world. We expect it to be a forum for intense and productive scientific collaboration and discussions for which the Freie Universität, – founded in 1948 by students with American support – with its device ‘veritas, iustitia, libertas’ and its international aspiration should provide a stimulating environment.

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The X th International Congress for the Study of Child Language in Berlin

Specific Topic Areas within the Special Emphasis Topic Methods of crosslinguistic and intercultural research in language development Conceptual and lexical development Bootstrapping mechanisms Models of learning Interaction between morphosyntactic and lexical development The neurocognitive basis of language learning Genetic aspects of language acquisition Language acquisition in children with genetic syndromes Origins of specific language disorders Bilingual acquisition Similarities and differences between the acquisition of sign language and spoken language The acquisition of Pidgins and Creoles OutDoorLinks: Kongressprogramm + Info www.ctw-congress.de/iascl

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1767

Primary Visual Cortex Activity along the Apparent-Motion Trace Reflects

International Association for the Study of Child Language http://www.cnts.ua.ac.be/IASCL/

Primary Visual Cortex Activity along the ApparentMotion Trace Reflects Illusory Perception

By Lars Muckli, Axel Kohler, Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, Wolf Singer Source: http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/3/8/pdf/ 10.1371_journal.pbio.0030265-p-S.pdf

The illusion of apparent motion can be induced when visual stimuli are successively presented at different locations.

It has been shown in previous studies that motion-sensitive regions in extrastriate cortex are relevant for the processing of apparent motion, but it is unclear whether primary visual cortex (V1) is also involved in the representation of the illusory motion path.

We investigated, in human subjects, apparent motion-related activity in patches of V1 representing locations along the path of illusory stimulus motion using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Here we show that apparent motion caused a blood-oxygenation-leveldependent response along the V1 representations of the apparent-motion path, including regions that were not directly activated by the apparentmotion-inducing stimuli.

This response was unaltered when participants had to perform an attention-demanding task that diverted their attention away from the stimulus.

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1768

Some Moral Dilemmas

With a bistable motion quartet, we confirmed that the activity was related to the conscious perception of movement. Our data suggest that V1 is part of the network that represents the illusory path of apparent motion.

The activation in V1 can be explained either by lateral interactions within V1 or by feedback mechanisms from higher visual areas, especially the motion-sensitive human MT/V5 complex.

Read Fulltext at http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/3/8/pdf/ 10.1371_journal.pbio.0030265-p-S.pdf

OutDoorLinks: Lars Muckli http://www.mpih-frankfurt.mpg.de/global/Np/Staff/muckli_d.htm

Some Moral Dilemmas The Definition of Morality Source:

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/

view.php3?article_id=218392590

Brain scans are often used to spot physical ills. But one researcher is using MRI images to map how your brain makes sense of moral problems as well. This ScienCentral News video explains.

Moral Mindset

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Some Moral Dilemmas

What if you and your baby were hiding with a group of your peers from war-time enemies and the baby's crying threatened to give you all away?

Would you be willing to do anything, including smothering your child in order to save the rest of the group?

Philosophers have been contemplating questions like these for decades.

No doubt a moral case can be made for either choice. Now, researchers are looking not at our souls, but at our brains to see what happens neurologically as we wrestle with moral dilemmas.

"There doesn't seem to be any single moral faculty or moral center in the brain," says Joshua Greene, a neuroscientist at Princeton University.

"Rather, we have different responses and sometimes they all work together, and sometimes they compete with each other, and that's what makes a moral decision difficult, when there are different kinds of processes in the brain that are sort of duking it out."

To put himself ringside, Greene took MRI brain images of 41 volunteers as they responded to 60 questions, with a mix raising no moral choice, like what to cook for dinner, and questions specifically designed to force them to make agonizing choices, like whether to smother their baby to save more lives.

"Sometimes, I wanted a dilemma where everyone would say it was wrong, and other cases where everyone would say that it was right," he explains of the study design.

"Sometimes, I wanted a case‌ where some people would say that it is right and some people would say that it was wrong. I think those are Odds and ends - themes and trends

1770

Some Moral Dilemmas

really the most interesting cases because by comparing the data from people who go one way with people who go another way we can start to see what competing moral values look like in the brain."

Hands down, responses took longer when volunteers addressed more complex scenarios — ones Greene calls personal dilemmas — like the crying baby case. When contemplating those questions Greene reported that activity spiked in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the brain region known to signal conflict, in all volunteers, suggesting that volunteers were calling in a neurological mediator.

But brain responses changed when volunteers eventually came down on different sides of the issue.

Respondents who chose to hurt their baby to save the group had brain activity that spiked in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the inferior parietal cortex — both of which are associated with cognitive control.

"It seems that people who end up saying, 'Well, go ahead and smother the baby,' or whatever it is in the particular example they're talking about, they exhibit more activity in the part of the brain again that's associated with cognitive processes." In those who chose not to kill the baby, Greene says, it's possible to infer that, "their response is driven by that emotional intuition."

However, he notes that all respondents initially had increased activity in the amygdala, a brain area known to regulate emotion, so that the ACC was activated, suggesting, "Indeed there is this conflict between at least one response which we think is the emotional response, and this other

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1771

Some Moral Dilemmas

response that we think is the cognitive cost-benefit analysis response," Greene says.

Most likely, these results can be traced to, "At least two different processes that are at work in moral judgment. We have intuitive emotional sort of responses that give us a quick sort of flash, a sense of, 'That's wrong'... and a slower, more reflective way of thinking of things, where we can conscientiously apply a moral rule or we can think about things in a more actuarial way, like an accountant adding up costs and benefits in deciding what to do."

But how does moral decision-making play out in a world where people are likely to be taught that some things — like showing too much skin in public — are morally troublesome while others are not? Greene told Discover Magazine that it's an area he plans to explore next.

"In some countries it's considered very much wrong for a woman to walk down the street with her hair exposed, whereas here we consider that fine," he says.

"So, we know there's behavioral difference and anywhere that there's a behavioral difference. There's got to be some kind of difference in the brain, because the brain is what causes behavior.

The question is not whether there are differences but what kind of a difference is it and can we see it with the technology we have?"

Ultimately, Greene hopes that the information he records will prove something radical, that our moral thinking is a convoluted mess of emotion and reason, shaped by a multitude of experiences that could be keeping us from reaching moral consensus.

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1772

Knockdown of Cone-Specific Kinase GRK7 in Larval Zebrafish Leads to Impaired

If Greene can find a new way to help us think differently about moral choice he says it could lead to life in a more peaceful world.

OutDoorLinks: Joshua Greene http://www.csbmb.princeton.edu/~jdgreene/

Knockdown of Cone-Specific Kinase GRK7 in Larval Zebrafish Leads to Impaired Cone Response Recovery and Delayed Dark Adaptation

By Oliver Rinner, Yuri V. Makhankov, Oliver Biehlmaier, and Stephan C.F. Neuhauss Source: www.neuron.org/21 July 2005 http://www.neuron.org/content/article/ abstract?uid=PIIS0896627305005155&highlight=Rinner

Copyright Š 2005 Cell Press.

Phosphorylation of rhodopsin by rhodopsin kinase GRK1 is an important desensitization mechanism in scotopic vision.

For cone vision GRK1 is not essential. However, cone opsin is phosphorylated following light stimulation.

In cone-dominant animals as well as in humans, but not in rodents, GRK7, a cone-specific homolog of GRK1, has been identified in cone outer segments.

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1773

Knockdown of Cone-Specific Kinase GRK7 in Larval Zebrafish Leads to Impaired

To investigate the function of GRK7 in vivo, we cloned two orthologs of grk7 in zebrafish and knocked down gene expression of grk7a in zebrafish larvae by morpholino antisense nucleotides.

Photoresponse recovery in Grk7a-deficient larvae was delayed in electroretinographic measurements, and temporal contrast sensitivity was reduced, particularly under bright-light conditions.

These results show that function of a cone-specific kinase is essential for cone vision in the zebrafish retina and argue that pigment bleaching and spontaneous decay alone are not sufficient for light adaptation and rapid cone response inactivation.

Correspondence: Stephan C.F. Neuhauss, Email: neuhauss@hifo.unizh.ch OutDoorLinks: Oliver Rinner http://www.imsb.ethz.ch/researchgroup/aebersold/people/orinner

Stephan C. F. Neuhauss http://www.hifo.unizh.ch/research/neuromorphology/neuhauss/ index.en.html

Neuron http://www.neuron.org/

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1774

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod About people experiencing musical hallucinations

By CARL ZIMMER Source: www.nytimes.com/12.07.2005 http://www.thepowerhour.com/news/musical_hallucinations.htm

Seven years ago Reginald King was lying in a hospital bed recovering from bypass surgery when he first heard the music.

It began with a pop tune, and others followed. Mr. King heard everything from cabaret songs to Christmas carols. "I asked the nurses if they could hear the music, and they said no," said Mr. King, a retired sales manager in Cardiff, Wales.

"I got so frustrated," he said. "They didn't know what I was talking about and said it must be something wrong with my head. And it's been like that ever since."

Each day, the music returns. "They're all songs I've heard during my lifetime," said Mr. King, 83. "One would come on, and then it would run into another one, and that's how it goes on in my head. It's driving me bonkers, to be quite honest."

Last year, Mr. King was referred to Dr. Victor Aziz, a psychiatrist at St. Cadoc's Hospital in Wales. Dr. Aziz explained to him that there was a name for his experience: musical hallucinations.

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1775

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

Dr. Aziz belongs to a small circle of psychiatrists and neurologists who are investigating this condition. They suspect that the hallucinations experienced by Mr. King and others are a result of malfunctioning brain networks that normally allow us to perceive music.

They also suspect that many cases of musical hallucinations go undiagnosed.

"You just need to look for it," Dr. Aziz said. And based on his studies of the hallucinations, he suspects that in the next few decades, they will be far more common.

Musical hallucinations were invading people's minds long before they were recognized as a medical condition. "Plenty of musical composers have had musical hallucinations," Dr. Aziz said.

Toward the end of his life, for instance, Robert Schumann wrote down the music he hallucinated; legend has it that he said he was taking dictation from Schubert's ghost.

While doctors have known about musical hallucinations for over a century, they have rarely studied it systematically. That has changed in recent years. In the July issue of the journal Psychopathology, Dr. Aziz and his colleague Dr. Nick Warner will publish an analysis of 30 cases of musical hallucination they have seen over 15 years in South Wales. It is the largest case-series ever published for musical hallucinations.

"We were trying to collect as much information about their day-to-day lives as we could," Dr. Aziz said. "We were asking a lot of the questions that weren't answered in previous research. What do they hear, for example? Is it nearby or is it at a long distance?"

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1776

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

Dr. Aziz and Dr. Warner found that in two-thirds of the cases, musical hallucinations were the only mental disturbance experienced by the patients.

A third were deaf or hard of hearing.

Women tended to suffer musical hallucinations more than men, and the average patient was 78 years old.

Mr. King's experience was typical for people experiencing musical hallucinations. Patients reported hearing a wide variety of songs, among them "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and "Three Blind Mice."

In two-thirds of the cases, the music was religious; six people reporting hearing the hymn "Abide With Me." Dr. Aziz believes that people tend to hear songs they have heard repeatedly or that are emotionally significant to them. "There is a meaning behind these things," he said.

His study also shows that these hallucinations are different from the auditory hallucinations of people with schizophrenia. Such people often hear inner voices. Patients like Mr. King hear only music.

The results support recent work by neuroscientists indicating that our brains use special networks of neurons to perceive music. When sounds first enter the brain, they activate a region near the ears called the primary auditory cortex that starts processing sounds at their most basic level.

The auditory cortex then passes on signals of its own to other regions, which can recognize more complex features of music, like rhythm, key changes and melody.

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1777

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

Neuroscientists have been able to identify some of these regions with brain scans, and to compare the way people respond to musical and nonmusical sounds.

Only a handful of brain scans have been made of people with musical hallucinations. Dr. Tim Griffiths, a neurologist at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in England, performed one of these studies on six elderly patients who developed musical hallucinations after becoming partly deaf.

Dr. Griffiths used a scanning technique known as PET, which involves injecting radioactive markers into the bloodstream. Each time he scanned his subjects' brains, he asked them whether they had experienced musical hallucinations. If they had, he asked them to rate the intensity on a scale from one to seven.

Dr. Griffiths discovered a network of regions in the brain that became more active as the hallucinations became more intense. "What strikes me is that you see a very similar pattern in normal people who are listening to music," he said.

The main difference is that musical hallucinations don't activate the primary auditory cortex, the first stop for sound in the brain. When Dr. Griffith's subjects hallucinated, they used only the parts of the brain that are responsible for turning simple sounds into complex music.

These music-processing regions may be continually looking for signals in the brain that they can interpret, Dr. Griffiths suggested. When no sound is coming from the ears, the brain may still generate occasional, random impulses that the music-processing regions interpret as sound.

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1778

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

They then try to match these impulses to memories of music, turning a few notes into a familiar melody.

For most people, these spontaneous signals may produce nothing more than a song that is hard to get out of the head. But the constant stream of information coming in from the ears suppresses the false music.

Dr. Griffith proposes that deafness cuts off this information stream. And in a few deaf people the music-seeking circuits go into overdrive. They hear music all the time, and not just the vague murmurs of a stuck tune. It becomes as real as any normal perception.

"What we're seeing is an amplification of a normal mechanism that's in everyone," Dr. Griffiths said.

It is also possible for people who are not deaf to experience musical hallucinations. Epileptic seizures, certain medications and Lyme disease are a few of the factors that may set them off.

Dr. Aziz also noted that two-thirds of his subjects were living alone, and thus were not getting much stimulation. One patient experienced fewer musical hallucinations when Dr. Aziz had her put in a nursing home, he said, "because then she was talking to people, she was active."

There is no standard procedure for treating musical hallucinations. Some doctors try antipsychotic drugs, and some use cognitive behavioral therapy to help patients understand what's going on in their brains. "Sometimes simple things can be the cure," Dr. Aziz said. "Turning on the radio may be more important than giving medication."

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1779

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

Despite these treatments, many people with musical hallucinations find little relief. "I'm just living with it," Mr. King said. "I wish there was something I could do.

"I do silly things like talking to myself, hoping that when I stop talking, the tune will stop. But it doesn't work that way."

More studies may help researchers find new treatments. Prof. Diana Deutsch, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, is planning a new scanning study of musical hallucination on people who are not deaf, using functional M.R.I. Unlike the PET scanning used by Dr. Griffiths, functional M.R.I. is powerful enough to catch second-bysecond changes in brain activity.

"It might be awhile before we have results, but it's certainly something I'm very excited about," Dr. Deutsch said. "We'll see where it takes us."

Dr. Aziz also believes that it is necessary to get a better sense of how many people hear musical hallucinations. Like Mr. King, many people have had their experiences dismissed by doctors.

Dr. Aziz said that ever since he began presenting his results at medical conferences last year, a growing number of patients have been referred to him.

"In 15 years I got 30 patients," he said, "and in less than a year I've had 5.

It just tells you people are more aware of it."

"We have speculated that people will hear more pop and classical music than they do now," said Dr. Aziz. "I hope I live long enough to find out myself in 20 years' time."Dr. Odds and ends - themes and trends

1780

Blink and you miss it!

Aziz suspects that musical hallucinations will become more common in the future. People today are awash in music from radios, televisions, elevators and supermarkets. It is possible that the pervasiveness of music may lead to more hallucinations. The types of hallucinations may also change as people experience different kinds of songs.

Blink and you miss it!

Source: www.alphagalileo.org/25 July 2005 http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=507064

Blinking temporarily switches off parts of your brain, according to a study published in the latest issue of Current Biology.

The University College London (UCL) team found that the brain actively shuts down parts of the visual system each time you blink, even if light is still entering the eyes.

Their findings could explain why you don’t notice your own blinks.

Scientists from the UCL Institute of Neurology designed a special device to study the effects of blinking on the brain. The device, made with fibre optic cable, was placed in the mouth of volunteers wearing light proof goggles and lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scanner.

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1781

Blink and you miss it!

The optical fibre illuminated the eyeballs through the roof of the mouth with a strong light, making the head glow red. Thus, light falling on the retina remained constant even when the volunteers blinked, enabling scientists to measure the effects of blinking on brain activity independently of the effect of eyelid closure on light entering the eye.

The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, found that blinking suppressed brain activity in the visual cortex as well as parietal and prefrontal areas which are usually activated when people become conscious of visual events or objects in the outside world.

Davina Bristow of the UCL Institute of Neurology says: “Blinking is necessary to keep the surfaces of the eyes moist. Most people blink around 15 times a minute and a blink lasts on average 100-150 milliseconds, which means that overall we spend at least 9 days per year blinking.

“We would immediately notice if the outside world suddenly went dark, especially if it was happening every few seconds. But we are rarely aware of our blinks, even though they cause a similar reduction in the amount of light entering the eye, and this gives us an uninterrupted view of the world.

“Transiently suppressing the brain areas involved in visual awareness during blinks may be a neural mechanism for preventing the brain from becoming aware of the eyelid sweeping down over the pupil during a blink and the world going dark.”

In short, the authors suggest that when we blink, the brain may just miss it.

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1782

Gene Expression in the Aging Brain

For more information please contact Jenny Gimpel , E-mail j.gimpel@ucl.ac.uk.

OutDoorLinks: Davina Bristow http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~grees/people.html

Gene Expression in the Aging Brain Source: biology.plosjournals.orgVolume 3/Issue 9/SEPTEMBER 2005 http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030313

Copyright: © 2005 Public Library of Science.

No matter how healthy a life one leads, no person has managed to live much longer than a century. Even though the advances of the modern age may have extended the average human life span, it is clear there are genetic limits to longevity.

One prominent theory of aging lays the blame on the accumulation of damage done to DNA and proteins by “free radicals,” highly reactive molecules produced by the metabolic activity of mitochondria. This damage is expected to reduce gene expression by damaging the DNA in which genes are encoded, and so the theory predicts that the most metabolically active tissues should show the greatest age-related reduction in gene expression.

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1783

Gene Expression in the Aging Brain

In this issue, Michael Eisen and colleagues show that the human brain follows this pattern. A similar pattern—which, surprisingly, involves different genes—is found in the brain of the aging chimpanzee.

The authors compared results from three separate studies of age-related gene expression, each done on the same type of DNA microarray and each comparing brain regions in young versus old adult humans. In four different regions of the cortex (the brain region responsible for higher functions such as thinking), they found a similar pattern of age-related change, characterized by changes in expression of hundreds of genes.

In contrast, expression in one non-cortical region, the cerebellum (whose principal functions include movement), was largely unchanged with age.

In addition to confirming a prediction of the free-radical theory of aging (namely, that the more metabolically active cortex should have a greater reduction in gene activity), this is the first demonstration that age-related gene expression patterns can differ in different cells of a single organism.

The authors found a similar difference in age-related patterns in the brain of the chimpanzee, with many genes down-regulated in the cortex that remained unchanged in the cerebellum.

However, the set of affected cortical genes was entirely different between humans and chimps, whose lineages diverged about 5 million years ago.

The explanation for this difference is unknown, but the finding highlights the fact that significant changes in gene expression patterns, and thus changes in many effects of the aging process, can accumulate over relatively short stretches of evolutionary time.

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1784

Testing the Efficiency of Sensory Coding with Optimal Stimulus Ensembles

These results raise a number of questions about age-related gene expression changes, including whether metabolically active non-brain tissues display similar patterns of changes, and whether the divergence between human and chimp patterns was the direct result of selection, or was an inevitable consequence of some other difference in brain evolution.

The patterns seen in this study also provide a starting point for understanding the network of genetic changes in aging, and may even reveal targets for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

OutDoorLinks: Michael B. Eisen http://mcb.berkeley.edu/faculty/GEN/eisenm.html

Svante P채채bo http://email.eva.mpg.de/~paabo/

Joshua B. Plotkin http://cgr.harvard.edu/Plotkin/plotkin.html

Testing the Efficiency of Sensory Coding with Optimal Stimulus Ensembles

By Christian K. Machens, Tim Gollisch, Olga Kolesnikova, and Andreas V.M. Herz Source:

http://www.neuron.org/content/article/

abstract?uid=PIIS0896627305005209 Odds and ends - themes and trends

1785

Testing the Efficiency of Sensory Coding with Optimal Stimulus Ensembles

© 2005 Cell Press According to Barlow’s seminal “efficient coding hypothesis,” the coding strategy of sensory neurons should be matched to the statistics of stimuli that occur in an animal’s natural habitat.

Using an automatic search technique, we here test this hypothesis and identify stimulus ensembles that sensory neurons are optimized for.

Focusing on grasshopper auditory receptor neurons, we find that their optimal stimulus ensembles differ from the natural environment, but largely overlap with a behaviorally important sub-ensemble of the natural sounds.

This indicates that the receptors are optimized for peak rather than average performance.

More generally, our results suggest that the coding strategies of sensory neurons are heavily influenced by differences in behavioral relevance among natural stimuli.

Correspondence: Christian K. Machens, Email: machens@cshl.edu OutDoorLinks: Andreas V.M. Herz http://itb.biologie.hu-berlin.de/~herz/

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1786

Twins Early Development Study (TEDS)

Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) source:

http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/iopweb/departments/home/?loca-

tor=336

The Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) focuses on the early development of the three most common psychological problems in childhood: Communication disorders, mild mental impairment and behaviour problems.

The TEDS twins were assessed longitudinally at 2, 3, 4, 7 and 9 years of age in order to investigate genetic and environmental contributions to change and continuity in language and cognitive development; it is multivariate in order to examine the origins of co-morbidity; and it uses a large sample in order to study abnormal development in the context of normal development.

The twins were identified from birth records of twins born in the UK in 1994-96.

More than 15,000 pairs of twins have been enrolled in TEDS and the participating families are representative of the UK. At 7 and 9 years, children are assessed for language and cognitive development and behaviour problems and teachers also assess behaviour problems as well as academic achievement.

One set of findings is that the same genes largely contribute to both language and cognitive problems and the same genes affect normal and abnormal development, a result that suggests that general impairment

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1787

Predicting the Stream of Consciousness from Activity in Human Visual Cortex

may be a better target for genetic research than specific language impairment independent of nonverbal cognitive problems.

DNA has been obtained so far for more than 5000 pairs, which is used in molecular genetics research to identify specific genes involved in normal and abnormal development.

Current studies include language impairment, hyperactivity, autistic spectrum disorders, antisocial behaviour, reading, writing and maths. In future, TEDS plans to continue its research through online activities and assessments completed by twins, parents and teachers.

OutDoorLinks: Yulia Kovas http://internal.iop.kcl.ac.uk/ipublic/staff/profile/external.aspx?go=10755

Robert Plomin http://www.robertplomin.com/

Predicting the Stream of Consciousness from Activity in Human Visual Cortex

By John-Dylan Haynes and Geraint Rees Source: www.current-biology.com/26 July 2005 http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/ abstract?uid=PIIS0960982205006615&highlight=Haynes

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1788

Predicting the Stream of Consciousness from Activity in Human Visual Cortex

Can the rapid stream of conscious experience be predicted from brain activity alone?

Recently, spatial patterns of activity in visual cortex have been successfully used to predict feature-specific stimulus representations for both visible and invisible stimuli.

However, because these studies examined only the prediction of static and unchanging perceptual states during extended periods of stimulation, it remains unclear whether activity in early visual cortex can also predict the rapidly and spontaneously changing stream of consciousness.

Here, we used binocular rivalry to induce frequent spontaneous and stochastic changes in conscious experience without any corresponding changes in sensory stimulation, while measuring brain activity with fMRI. Using information that was present in the multivariate pattern of responses to stimulus features, we could accurately predict, and therefore track, participants’ conscious experience from the fMRI signal alone while it underwent many spontaneous changes.

Prediction in primary visual cortex primarily reflected eye-based signals, whereas prediction in higher areas reflected the color of the percept.

Furthermore, accurate prediction during binocular rivalry could be established with signals recorded during stable monocular viewing, showing that prediction generalized across viewing conditions and did not require or rely on motor responses.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1789

Vestibular Reafference Shapes Voluntary Movement

It is therefore possible to predict the dynamically changing time course of subjective experience with only brain activity.

Correspondence: John-Dylan Haynes, Email: haynes@fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk OutDoorLinks: Geraint Rees http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~grees/

Department of Imaging Neuroscience http://www.ion.ucl.ac.uk/research/imaging/imaging_intro.htm

Vestibular Reafference Shapes Voluntary Movement

By Brian L. Day, and Raymond F. Reynolds Source: www.current-biology.com/9 August 2005 http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/ abstract?uid=PIIS0960982205006718&highlight=Vestibular%20Reafference

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2005.06.036 Copyright Š 2005 Elsevier Ltd Abstract

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1790

Vestibular Reafference Shapes Voluntary Movement

The vestibular organs in the inner ear are commonly thought of as sensors that serve balance, gaze control, and higher spatial functions such as navigation.

Here, we investigate their role in the online control of voluntary movements.

The central nervous system uses sensory feedback information during movement to detect and correct errors as they develop.

Vestibular organs signal three-dimensional head rotations and translations and so could provide error information for body movements that transport the head in space.

To test this, we electrically stimulated human vestibular nerves during a goal-directed voluntary tilt of the trunk.

The stimulating current waveform was made identical to the angular velocity profile of the head in the roll plane.

With this, we could proportionally increase or decrease the rate of vestibular nerve firing, as if the head were rotating faster or slower than it actually was.

In comparison to movements performed without stimulation, subjects tilted their trunk faster and further or slower and less far, depending upon the polarity of the stimulus.

The response was negligible when identical stimulus waveforms were replayed to stationary subjects.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1791

Good Video Games

We conclude that the brain uses vestibular information for online error correction of planned body-movement trajectories.

OutDoorLinks: University College London http://www.ucl.ac.uk/

Wissenschaftsmagazin Current Biology http://www.current-biology.com

Good Video Games Source: Brad Kloza/www.sciencentral.com/08.04.05 http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/ view.php3?article_id=218392612

Is your child wasting summer vacation inside playing video games?

While many parents might feel that way, this ScienCentral News video reports on research showing that playing video games can have beneficial effects on the brain.

Your Brain on Video Games Laparoscopic surgeon Butch Rosser had an epiphany several years ago when a reporter sat in on one of his procedures and wrote, "I saw the work of the Nintendo surgeon."

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1792

Good Video Games

"Now that just hit me when I read that," says Rosser, who is now director of minimally invasive surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.

"And I said, 'Well I am a gamer, all the way back to the days of pong. Is that why I can do this a little better than the average bear? Is that why this seems so natural to me? Because I navigate in a video game environment?'"

Laparoscopic surgeons work by cutting very small holes in a person's skin and inserting what are essentially long joysticks — with a fiber optic camera and surgical tools attached to the end of them — into a person's body to perform "minimally invasive surgery".

Without having to cut a person open to look inside, the tiny camera allows them to operate by seeing everything on a video monitor, while making post-surgery recovery much easier.

The similarities between this kind of procedure and playing video games struck Rosser so much, he did his own study in 2004 where he compared the surgical skills of surgeons who played video games with those who did not.

Skill was measured in a standardized laparoscopic training exercise created by Rosser called "Top Gun." "The results were really astounding," he says. "First of all, if you played video games [at any time] in the past, it was found that you were significantly faster and, more importantly, you created fewer errors than people who had no previous video game experience.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1793

Good Video Games

Then when we looked at whether you were a current video gamer, we found that if you played video games currently, you were over 30 percent better — faster, and created fewer errors — than someone who did not play video games at all."

Rosser's is one of many studies featured in a recent Discover Magazine article detailing the growing body of research suggesting that video games can exercise the mind the way physical activity exercises the body.

"Previous research has shown that video game players have more attentional capacity and can carry out search functions in more efficient manners," says Alan Castel, psychology professor at Washington University of St. Louis.

"Our research was interested in examining whether there were differences in how video game players and non-video game players search the visual environment, how they carry out visual search.

We were interested in whether video game players would carry out visual search in a different way relative to people who don't play video games."

Castel (who performed his study while working at the University of Toronto) had people from both groups perform a simple, standard task of looking for a particular object, such as a letter, among a group of other objects (like other letters) on a computer monitor. When they found the letter, they pressed a button on the keyboard.

"Video game players had faster reaction times on the order of 100 milliseconds, which might not sound like a lot but in this domain it's quite a

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1794

Good Video Games

strong finding," says Castel. "And you can imagine, when driving, a difference of 100 milliseconds could really help you avoid accidents."

On top of the difference in reaction time, Castel says the gamers were using the same searching technique as the non-gamers, "but video game players were faster and more efficient when carrying out this search."

Search technique was inferred by a standard measure called "inhibition of return," which determines how people search the visual field based on their response time to objects placed in specific locations at specific times.

Castel says that video games essentially help people "practice" performing things like visual searches and the mental processes that accompany them, which shows why they are effective in training for tasks where fast visual searching is important (military flight training, for instance).

He also thinks video games could be a good tool for rehabilitation for people recovering from brain injuries.

As for Rosser, he's already preaching the benefits of video games to the surgeons he trains and directs.

"Mine is an interesting lab," he says. "Where along with the laparoscopic training instruments, virtual reality training instruments and all this other research technology‌ you have an X-Box, Playstation 2, side by side with these medical-related items.

And so‌ for warm up before laparoscopic cases, we're gaming! Alright?

Down time, we are gaming.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1795

Good Video Games

Because we know from a new study that when we are doing that, even warming up with these games before going in and performing a laparoscopic task, can have a significant positive impact."

Nevertheless, he warns that moderation is important.

Rosser says the video-gaming surgeons who performed better showed this effect with just three hours of video game play per week, so kids who play much more than that shouldn't feel vindicated: "I say to the kids out there that Butch Rosser would not be here in this capacity if he played video games and did not have good grades, did not develop perseverance. And I would say to that child out there that thinks that they got a free pass to play video games carte blanche, I say 'Nooo, sadly mistaken.'"

Rosser's study was presented at the 2004 Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference, and received no outside funding.Castel's research was published in the March 2005 issue of the journal Acta Psychologica, and was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant and scholarship.

OutDoorLinks: Butch Rosser http://www.rosseramti.com/miniminvassurg/main.html

Alan Castel http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/%7Eacastel/ Odds and ends - themes and trends

1796

Global scientific research project launched to improve understanding of the

Acta Psychologica http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/ 505579/description#description

Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/

Global scientific research project launched to improve understanding of the human brain Source: www.alphagalileo.org/10 August 2005 http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=507256

Seven member countries of the OECD’s Global Science Forum have launched a project to promote international collaboration among scientists and create new ways of sharing and analysing data to improve our understanding of how the human brain works.

Advances in information technology are enabling scientists to develop increasingly sophisticated methods of measuring a brain’s functions.

To spur developments in this new research field, called neuroinformatics, the seven founding countries (the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States) have set up the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF).

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1797

Global scientific research project launched to improve understanding of the

Other countries are expected to join the INCF in the coming months, with membership open to both OECD member and non-member countries.

The host country for the headquarters of this new international body will be announced in Paris on Monday 28 November.

Better understanding the human brain could lead to breakthroughs in the prevention and cure of nervous system disorders, such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease, as well as new treatments for depression or schizophrenia.

But to date it has proved difficult for the scientists and researchers working on thousands of different projects around the world to manage the vast amounts of data being collected, given that a single human brain has over 100 billion nerve cells and 5 million kilometers of neural interconnections. They then need to share these data and analyse them, often using different modeling tools across different computing platforms.

To address these challenges and others, the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility will: Promote international collaboration in the management of neuroscience data and associated knowledge databases Create new internationally agreed analytical and modeling tools Develop mathematical/computational models of brain function Promote the development of standards, guidelines, ontologies and software tools to facilitate interoperability across multiple computing platforms.

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1798

Extensive piano practicing has regionally specific effects on white matter

In the near future, INCF will also manage a new funding programme in neuroinformatics, to bring together international teams of scientists to collaborate on creating new databases, analytical tools and computational models.

Notizen für den Editor For further comment, journalists are invited to contact Professor Sten Grillner, interim Chairman of the INCF Governing Board, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, SE-17177 Stockholm, Sweden (tel. +46-8-524 86900 or sten.grillner@neuro.ki.se) or Stefan Michalowski (tel. 33 1 45 24 92 89) of the OECD’s Global Science Forum.

OutDoorLinks: About the INCF http://www.oecd.org/sti/gsf

Extensive piano practicing has regionally specific effects on white matter development

By Sara L Bengtsson, Zoltán Nagy, Stefan Skare, Lea Forsman, Hans Forssberg & Fredrik Ullén Source: www.nature.com/7 August 2005/doi:10.1038/nn1516 http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ nn1516.html

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1799

A Truffle in the Mouth Is Worth Two in the Bush: Odor Localization in the Human

Using diffusion tensor imaging, we investigated effects of piano practicing in childhood, adolescence and adulthood on white matter, and found positive correlations between practicing and fiber tract organization in different regions for each age period.

For childhood, practicing correlations were extensive and included the pyramidal tract, which was more structured in pianists than in non-musicians.

Long-term training within critical developmental periods may thus induce regionally specific plasticity in myelinating tracts.

Correspondence should be addressed to Fredrik UllĂŠn, Email: Fredrik.Ullen@neuro.ki.se OutDoorLinks: Sara L. Bengtsson http://www.ki.se/kbh/neuropediatrics/bengtsson.htm

A Truffle in the Mouth Is Worth Two in the Bush: Odor Localization in the Human Brain Source: Neuron, Vol 47, 473-476, 18 August 2005 http://www.neuron.org/content/article/ abstract?uid=PIIS0896627305006501

Copyright Š 2005 Cell Press

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1800

Error-Related Negativity Predicts Reinforcement Learning and Conflict Biases

It is widely thought that locating the source of a smell is an ability best left to nonhuman members of the animal kingdom.

In this issue of Neuron, two complementary articles highlight the neural mechanisms underlying the localization of an odor, either to the left or right side of the nose (Porter et al.) or to the inside or outside of the mouth (Small et al.).

Together, these studies validate the idea that the human brain is equipped with the apparatus necessary to pinpoint the location of an odor source.

Correspondence: Jay A. Gottfried, Email: j-gottfried@northwestern.edu OutDoorLinks: Jay A. Gottfried http://www.northwestern.edu/nuin/faculty/Gottfried_J/

Dana Small http://www.jbpierce.org/Staff/Small.html

Error-Related Negativity Predicts Reinforcement Learning and Conflict Biases

By Michael J. Frank, Brion S. Woroch and Tim Curran Source: /www.neuron.org/18 August 2005

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1801

Error-Related Negativity Predicts Reinforcement Learning and Conflict Biases

http://www.neuron.org/content/article/ abstract?uid=PIIS089662730500526X

Neuron, Vol 47, 495-501, 18 August 2005 Copyright Š 2005 Cell Press The error-related negativity (ERN) is an electrophysiological marker thought to reflect changes in dopamine when participants make errors in cognitive tasks.

Our computational model further predicts that larger ERNs should be associated with better learning to avoid maladaptive responses.

Here we show that participants who avoided negative events had larger ERNs than those who were biased to learn more from positive outcomes.

We also tested for effects of response conflict on ERN magnitude.

While there was no overall effect of conflict, positive learners had larger ERNs when having to choose among two good options (win/win decisions) compared with two bad options (lose/lose decisions), whereas negative learners exhibited the opposite pattern.

These results demonstrate that the ERN predicts the degree to which participants are biased to learn more from their mistakes than their correct choices and clarify the extent to which it indexes decision conflict.

Correspondence: Michael J. Frank, Email: frankmj@psych.colorado.edu

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1802

Structural and functional asymmetry of lateral Heschl's gyrus reflects pitch

OutDoorLinks: Michael J. Frank http://psych.colorado.edu/~frankmj/

Structural and functional asymmetry of lateral Heschl's gyrus reflects pitch perception preference

By Peter Schneider, Vanessa Sluming, Neil Roberts, Michael Scherg, Rainer Goebel, Hans J Specht, H GĂźnter Dosch, Stefan Bleeck, Christoph Stippich & AndrĂŠ Rupp Source: www.nature.com/21 August 2005; http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ nn1530.html

doi:10.1038/nn1530 The relative pitch of harmonic complex sounds, such as instrumental sounds, may be perceived by decoding either the fundamental pitch (f 0) or the spectral pitch (f SP) of the stimuli.

We classified a large cohort of 420 subjects including symphony orchestra musicians to be either f 0 or f SP listeners, depending on the dominant perceptual mode. In a subgroup of 87 subjects, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and magnetoencephalography studies demonstrated a strong neural basis for both types of pitch perception irrespective of musical aptitude.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1803

Brain Remembers Familiar Faces When Choosing Potential Mate

Compared with f 0 listeners, f SP listeners possessed a pronounced rightward, rather than leftward, asymmetry of gray matter volume and P50m activity within the pitch-sensitive lateral Heschl's gyrus.

Our data link relative hemispheric lateralization with perceptual stimulus properties, whereas the absolute size of the Heschl's gyrus depends on musical aptitude.

Correspondence should be addressed to Peter Schneider Email: Peter.Schneider@med.uni-heidelberg.de OutDoorLinks: Peter Schneider http://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php?id=5507

Wissenschaftsmagazins Nature Neuroscience http://www.nature.com/neuro/index.html

Brain Remembers Familiar Faces When Choosing Potential Mate Source: www.alphagalileo.org/31 August 2005 http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=507494

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered that the human brain favours familiar-looking faces when choosing a potential partner.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1804

Brain Remembers Familiar Faces When Choosing Potential Mate

The research team found that people find familiar faces more attractive than unfamiliar ones. They also found that the human brain holds separate images of both male and female faces and reacts to them differently depending on how familiar it is with their facial features.

Dr Anthony Little, from the University’s School of Biological Sciences, examined whether early visual experience of male and female faces affected later preferences.

The research team asked over 200 participants to view a number of human faces that had been digitally manipulated to change their facial characteristics.

Dr Little said: “We found that participants preferred the face that they were most visually familiar with. In one of the tests we showed participants a block of faces with wide-spaced eyes and then asked them to compare these with a face that had narrow-spaced eyes. We found that participants preferred the face with wide-spaced eyes, suggesting that the brain connects familiarity with attraction.”

The team also asked participants to judge the same preferred facial features in those of the opposite sex. Participants who were shown male faces with wide-spaced eyes preferred this trait in subsequent male faces but not in female faces.

Dr Little explains: “The research revealed that the sex of the face can be a deciding factor in facial preference. The tests showed for the first time that the brain holds separate visual patterns of male and female faces and responds to them based on their sex as well as their familiarity. We will continue to investigate why this is the case.”

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1805

Brain cells respond to pitches

“The next step in the research is to find out why the brain makes a link between familiarity and attractiveness. It maybe that visual experience of particular facial features suggests that a person is ‘safe’ or more ‘approachable’, both of which are desirable traits.”

Dr Little’s research, in collaboration with University of St Andrews and University of Aberdeen, will be published by Proceedings of The Royal Society – Biological Sciences this week.

Members of the public are invited to take part in the on-line facial attractiveness study by logging on to www.alittlelab.com OutDoorLinks: Anthony Little http://www.alittlelab.com/

Brain cells respond to pitches Source: Roxanne Khamsi/Nature/www.manilatimes.net/ August 30, 2005 http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/aug/30/yehey/life/ 20050830lif6.html

The discovery of a group of pitch-sensitive cells in the brain has sent reverberations through the field of music perception.

Researchers think that studying these neurons will reveal how our minds grasp songs and speech.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1806

Brain cells respond to pitches

Most people can hear that two instruments are playing the same note, even if they sound as different as a trumpet and a piano.

Our perception of fundamental sound frequency or “pitch” remains constant despite differences in an instrument’s acoustical traits.

This holds true even when the fundamental frequency is actually missing from a complex sound. If several strings are plucked such that they vibrate at their higher harmonics, at 800, 1,000 and 1,200 hertz for example, we will perceive the sound as belonging to the same pitch as the primary harmonic of those strings: 200 hertz. For centuries scholars have puzzled over how the brain does this.

In recent years, researchers have looked at the role played by the primary auditory cortex, the brain region known to digest sounds. Human brain scans have indicated that a peripheral bit of this brain region is active when we try to identify pitch. But no one could find cells that responded to specific frequencies, leaving it a mystery how we interpret them.

A study with marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus) has now shown up specific neurons that do just that. “This is the first evidence that there are individual neurons in the brain that are encoding for pitch,” explains Josh McDermott, a music psychologist based in Cambridge at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Daniel Bendor and Xiaoqin Wang of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, identified the neurons by recording the response of the monkeys’ brain cells while the animals heard various notes from a computer. They found that individual cells consistently got excited by sounds at specific frequencies, or multiples of that frequency.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1807

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

Just as humans can perceive a pitch even if the fundamental is missing, the monkeys’ neurons for 200 hertz lit up when presented with a mix of 800-, 1,000- and 1,200-hertz sounds. The findings appear this week in Nature.

Exactly how a given frequency sets off a single cell remains unclear. But experts say the location of this unique population of neurons is an important first step.

McDermott says the discovery will open doors for investigators to explore how other primates, including humans, appreciate music. “There are about a thousand studies one can think of doing after this,” he says.

Already there is speculation that damage to cells in this brain region could explain why some people can’t carry a tune. “There are a lot of different possibilities, but this might be an area that could be affected when someone is tone deaf,” Bendor says.

OutDoorLinks: Xiaoqin Wang http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/peopledetail.asp?ID=73

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

By John P. A. Ioannidis Source: medicine.plosjournals.org/August 30, 2005

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1808

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10%2E1371%2Fjournal%2Epmed%2E0020124

Summary There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.

To read Fulltext go to <http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10%2E1371%2Fjournal%2Epmed%2E0020124>

OutDoorLinks: John P. A. Ioannidis

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1809

Fine functional organization of auditory cortex revealed by Fourier optical

http://www.tla.org/ji-cv.html

Public Library of Science http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10%2E1371%2Fjournal%2Epmed%2E0020124

Fine functional organization of auditory cortex revealed by Fourier optical imaging

By Valery A. Kalatsky, Daniel B. Polley, Michael M. Merzenich, Christoph E. Schreiner, and Michael P. Stryker Source: www.pnas.org/September 1, 2005 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0505592102v1?etoc

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0505592102 We provide an overall view of the functional tonotopic organization of the auditory cortex in the rat.

We apply a recently developed technique for acquiring intrinsic signal optical maps, Fourier imaging, in the rat auditory cortex. These highly detailed maps, derived in a several-minute-long recording procedure, delineate multiple auditory cortical areas and demonstrate their shapes, sizes, and tonotopic order.

Beyond the primary auditory cortex, there are at least three distinct areas with fine-scale tonotopic organization, as well as at least one additional high-frequency field.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1810

Animals and Human Experience the Same Emotions

The arrangement of all of these cortical areas is consistent across subjects.

The accuracy of these optical maps was confirmed by microelectrode mapping in the same subjects. This imaging method allows fast mapping of the auditory cortex at high spatial resolution comparable to that provided by conventional microelectrode technique.

Although spiking activity is largely responsible for the evoked intrinsic signals, certain features of the optical signal cannot be explained by spiking activity only, and should probably be attributed to other mechanisms inducing metabolic activity, such as subthreshold membrane phenomena.

To whom correspondence may be addressed.

Valery A. Kalatsky, E-mail: vkalatsky@uh.edu Michael M. Merzenich, E-mail: merz@phy.ucsf.edu OutDoorLinks: Valery A. Kalatsky http://www.egr.uh.edu/ece/faculty/kalatsky/

Michael M. Merzenich http://www.ucsf.edu/neurosc/faculty/neuro_merzenich.html

Animals and Human Experience the Same Emotions Source: www.alphagalileo.org/05 September 2005 Odds and ends - themes and trends

1811

Animals and Human Experience the Same Emotions

http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=507621

The link between humans and animals may be closer than we may have realised.

Research by Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) has found that our furry relatives may share many of the same emotions that humans experience in everyday life.

He explains: “My research has shown that emotion is a valid topic for scientific investigation in animals and helps us to understand how animals behave with great flexibility.Dr Filippo Aureli, reader in Animal Behaviour and co-director of the Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology at LJMU will present his findings today (September 6) at the BA Festival of Science in Dublin.

“For example self directed behaviours, such as scratch-grooming, obviously have a hygiene function, but they also reflect motivational ambivalence or frustration.

“Recent research has shown that there is an increase in such behaviour in situations of uncertainty, social tension, or impending danger.

The same can be shown in humans who may bite their nails or pull at their hair in times of anxiety.”

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1812

Animals and Human Experience the Same Emotions

Animals respond to the environment much as humans do, reacting emotionally to others and even becoming stressed and anxious in times of danger.

These emotions have a marked effect on their behaviour but while researchers may never be able to know how animals actually feel, studies have found that there are definite behavioural similarities in emotional expression between animals and humans.

Studying animals is helping researchers, such as Dr Aureli, to understand more about the phenomena of emotions.

Though animals cannot express their feelings linguistically, researchers have found that like humans, their emotions can be expressed through actions.

Individual primates behave in different ways depending on the circumstances they find themselves in and the group members they interact with. For example, individuals who spend more time in proximity to one another will generally be friendlier and less aggressive to each other – showing that the animals form close bonds with some group members.

Dr Aureli explains: “Monkeys and apes behave as if they take into account the quality of social relationships, for example whether they are friends or non-friends. Emotion can mediate the assessment of one’s own relationships and guide animals’ decisions on how to interact with different partners under different circumstances.”

Dr Aureli’s work has also shown that primates behave as if they discriminate between the qualities of relationships of other individuals.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1813

Animals and Human Experience the Same Emotions

For example, following an aggressive interaction between two animals, a monkey may attack individuals related to the antagonist, or invite close associates to support it in overcoming the aggressor.

This further relates to human behaviour, where some humans will protect one another and act on their behalf if a friend is threatened or bullied.

Dr Aureli says: “Emotional mediation can also be used to gather information about the relationships between other group members and guide decisions about how to interact in complex situations involving multiple partners.

The framework of emotional mediation of social relationships could be particularly useful to explain social interaction when members of a society are not always together.”

He explains that this is what happens in humans living in small villages.

Everyone knows one another by sight or name, but the entire community is rarely all together and individuals spend most of their time in smaller sub-groups which meet, merge and divide with different composition.

Communities with similar characteristics have been found in chimpanzees and spider monkeys.

Dr Aureli continues: “This situation is particularly challenging for social decision making because updated knowledge of social relationships cannot be maintained as individuals spend extended periods separated from other community members.

Emotional experiences upon reunion can provide quick updates about possible changes in social relationships.”

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1814

Animals and Human Experience the Same Emotions

Dr Aureli adds: “The study of animal emotions provides powerful tools to better understand the regulation of social relationships in various social systems and the evolution of the human social cognition.

“Therefore, the way we usually operate in the social world may not be too different from what other animals do. The more we discover about how animals, especially monkeys and apes, use emotions to make social decisions the more we learn about ourselves and how we operate in the social world.”

Dr Aureli presents his research as part of BA Festival f Science session on 'Primate Social Cognition: What monkeys know and feel about each other'.

The session will focus on the use of innovative perspectives to investigate cognition, in the absence of language, which may be applicable to the study of humans.

OutDoorLinks: Dr Filippo Aureli http://cwis.livjm.ac.uk/bie/Research/Research_Staff/Bio_Anth/ Aureli.htm

BA Festival of Science in Dublin http://www.the-ba.net/the-ba/Events/FestivalofScience/

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1815

Perceived Causality as a Cue to Temporal Distance

Perceived Causality as a Cue to Temporal Distance

By Faro, David; France Leclerc,; Reid Hastie Source:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/psci/2005/

00000016/00000009/art00005

Psychological Science, Volume 16, Number 9, September 2005, pp. 673677(5) Abstract: The three experiments reported show that judgments of elapsed time between events depend on perceived causal relations between the events.

Participants judged pairs of causally related events to occur closer together in time than pairs of causally unrelated events that were separated by the same actual time interval.

The causality-time relationship was first demonstrated for time judgments about historical events.

Causally related events were judged to be significantly closer together in time than causally unrelated events.

In two subsequent experiments, perceived causality was manipulated by providing expert information and by asking the participants themselves to imagine causal relationships between the to-be-judged events.

Again, substantial and reliable effects of perceived causality were obtained.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1816

The subjective experience of pain: Where expectations become reality

Our results suggest that people use strength of perceived causality as a cue to infer temporal distance.

OutDoorLinks: David Faro http://home.uchicago.edu/~dfaro/res.html

The subjective experience of pain: Where expectations become reality

By Tetsuo Koyama, John G. McHaffie, Paul J. Laurienti and Robert C. Coghill Source: http://www.pnas.org/September 6, 2005 | vol. 102 | no. 36 | 12950-12955 Š 2005 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA Published

online

before

print

September

6,

2005,

10.1073/

pnas.0408576102 Our subjective sensory experiences are thought to be heavily shaped by interactions between expectations and incoming sensory information.

However, the neural mechanisms supporting these interactions remain poorly understood.

By using combined psychophysical and functional MRI techniques, brain activation related to the intensity of expected pain and experienced pain was characterized.

Odds and ends - themes and trends

1817

The subjective experience of pain: Where expectations become reality

As the magnitude of expected pain increased, activation increased in the thalamus, insula, prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and other brain regions.

Pain-intensity-related brain activation was identified in a widely distributed set of brain regions but overlapped partially with expectation-related activation in regions, including the anterior insula and ACC. When expected pain was manipulated, expectations of decreased pain powerfully reduced both the subjective experience of pain and activation of pain-related brain regions, such as the primary somatosensory cortex, insular cortex, and ACC. These results confirm that a mental representation of an impending sensory event can significantly shape neural processes that underlie the formulation of the actual sensory experience and provide insight as to how positive expectations diminish the severity of chronic disease states.

To whom correspondence should be addressed Robert C. Coghill, E-mail: rcoghill@wfubmc.edu.

OutDoorLinks: Robert C. Coghill http://www1.wfubmc.edu/Nba/Faculty/Labs/coghill/Overview

Wake-Forest-Universit채t, Winston-Salem http://www.wfu.edu/

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1818

Fetal homologue of infant crying

Fetal homologue of infant crying Source: http://fn.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/90/5/F415 Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition 2005;90:F415-F418; doi:10.1136/adc.2004.062257 Š 2005 by Archives of Disease in Childhood Fetal and Neonatal Edition Abstract Four behavioural states are recognised in the human fetus and are comparable to those of the neonate: 1F (quiet sleep) 2F (active state) 3F (quiet awake) and 4F (active awake).

State 5, or crying, is not considered to have a fetal correlate.

In a study assessing the effects of exposure to tobacco and cocaine during pregnancy on fetal response and habituation to vibroacoustic stimulation, what appears to be the fetal homologue of crying was observed.

These behaviours were seen on ultrasound, and have been captured on video recordings and include: an initial exhalation movement associated with mouth opening and tongue depression, followed by a series of three augmented breaths, the last breath ending in an inspiratory pause followed by an expiration and settling.

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1819

Where Musical Refugees Can Thicken the Gumbo

This is the first report/video documenting these behaviours and suggests the possibility of a state 5F. Correspondence to: Professor Ed Mitchell, Email: e.mitchell@auckland.ac.nz OutDoorLinks: Ed Mitchell http://www.health.auckland.ac.nz/nutrition/research/paediatric.htm

Archives of Disease in Childhood http://adc.bmjjournals.com/

Where Musical Refugees Can Thicken the Gumbo

By KIRK JOHNSON Source: www.nytimes.com/September 15, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/arts/music/ 15musi.html?th&emc=th

LAFAYETTE, La., Sept. 10 - The rich musical culture of New Orleans, where so much of American music finds its taproot in the Africaninspired sounds of jazz, blues and rock, has been tossed to the four winds.

Some musicians, many of whom fled Hurricane Katrina without so much as their instruments, have headed west to Austin, Tex., or Los Angeles, others have gone north to Chicago, New York or Atlanta.

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1820

Where Musical Refugees Can Thicken the Gumbo

And many are landing here, nearer to home, in a place with its own deep musical traditions, anchored in the accordion-driven two-step Cajun sound called zydeco that harks back to 18th-century Nova Scotia. No one knows what will come of the dispersal of New Orleans's artistic life, or whether the thousands of musical transients will become transplants.

Like so much else in the aftermath of the hurricane, the question is unresolved.

But here in Lafayette, where Cajun French can still be heard in the street, the signs are bilingual and old French Canada is the musical touchstone, musicians - locals and evacuees - are expecting a flowering of creativity.

The things that have shaped musical expression since the first minor chord was plucked - longing, an aching for home, the need for paying gigs - are stronger now than ever, they say.

"There's a difference between New Orleans music and Lafayette music this will erase that boundary line," said Dickie Landry, a veteran saxophone player who lives here and was waiting backstage to jam with a band playing at an outdoor fund-raising concert for Hurricane Katrina victims in the center of town on Saturday. "The gumbo is going to get thicker," he said.

Other musicians say that whatever happens here or in recording studios in Los Angeles or Nashville, the old musical life of New Orleans will never be the same.

Many of the displaced musicians say that what made New Orleans special was the unbroken tradition of its musical heritage, extending back to the days before the Civil War, when slaves would gather on Sundays in places like Congo Square to play music in celebration or in mourning.

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1821

Where Musical Refugees Can Thicken the Gumbo

Some people will no doubt return to a rebuilt, restored New Orleans, they say, and some will not, but no New Orleans musician will be quite the same after the experience of the hurricane, and neither will the "New Orleans sound" that many musicians say was steeped in their bones.

"It's Armageddon for the culture," David Torkanowsky, a New Orleans pianist who lost just about everything he owns in the storm. "Never before in the history of this music has there been a complete and utter dispersal."

Mr. Torkanowsky is staying near Lafayette with a friend, Zachary Richard, who lives here and in Montreal and sings traditional Cajun music in French and English. They performed together here at Saturday night's benefit, with Mr. Torkanowsky accompanying Mr. Richard (pronounced ree-SHARD) on his song "Big River," written long before Hurricane Katrina, about a devastating flood on the Mississippi.

"Standing on the levee with the river raging," Mr. Richard sang to a hushed crowd, "I've got nothing left to lose."

When the song was over, the two men embraced and the audience roared.

Other musicians are more hopeful. Eddie Bo, a mainstay of rhythm and blues piano for half a century in New Orleans, was flying home from a tour date in Paris on the day the storm struck. Now he and two members of his band - the saxophone player Red Morgan and the drummer Dwayne Nelson - are together in exile, staying with friends near Lafayette. The band's guitarist is in Lafayette. The bass player is in Chicago.

Mr. Bo said he thought that much of New Orleans musical life would stay as close as it could to that city in the months ahead because going farther Odds and ends - themes and trends

1822

Where Musical Refugees Can Thicken the Gumbo

would be too jarring in a time of grief and loss, even if the opportunities were better elsewhere. As for the music, he said, it will no doubt evolve and change along the way, as it always has.

"Something good has got to come from this disaster," he said. "That's God's plan." Then he added: "And you can tell people we're available and looking for work."

At least one New Orleans native, Lenny McDaniel, has already decided to stay in Lafayette permanently. Mr. McDaniel, who said he managed to get out of New Orleans with his best guitar and his best piano, has taken an apartment here and plans to sell his house in New Orleans. It was not severely damaged by the hurricane, he said, but he thinks the city will never be the same.

"I'm a survivor," he said. "I don't have a lot of anything, but I've got my life and my dog. I think I'm going to do really well here."

Some of the shift to Lafayette, a city of 110,000 about two hours west of New Orleans, is coincidental: a healthcare organization for New Orleans musicians, called the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic, took up temporary residence here after the storm and has been reaching out to members. The clinic is sharing space with a sister organization called Health Care for Musicians.

The clinic's executive director, Michelle Gegenheimer, said she had no idea how many of New Orleans's 3,000 to 5,000 full-time musicians were here, but that more than 100 came by last week when she set up a booth

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1823

Where Musical Refugees Can Thicken the Gumbo

downtown. At an impromptu jam session in a downtown club earlier in the week, all eight musicians onstage were from New Orleans.

Programs specifically aimed at helping displaced musicians are being set up as well. Music Maker Relief Foundation, a nonprofit musician-support organization in Hillsborough, N.C., has started the New Orleans Musicians Fund (information at musicmaker.org <http://musicmaker.org/>

), and is sending money to help the clinic here in Lafayette.

Radio station WWOZ, an anchor of New Orleans musical culture, has set up a list on its Web site (wwoz.org <http://wwoz.org/> ), so that displaced musicians and fans can find one another in the post-hurricane diaspora.

What will happen to the music is anybody's guess. Some musicians say they think horn sections, which have fallen out of fashion in Cajun music in the last generation or so, could make a comeback through New Orleans horn players, ushering in a new era of Cajun funk. Others say that urban soul and country Cajun exuberance could spawn some new child altogether.

Mr. Morgan, who has played saxophone in Mr. Bo's band for 40 years, said everyone has embarked on a new journey since the hurricane. But improvisation, he said, is the same: a musician marching off into the unknown, hoping for the best.

The issue is where you come out at the end, he said, and whether a path can be found to resolve the musical line you are on in a way that works.

"You wind up being right because of how you resolve it," he said. "You just have to know inside you that the place can be found."

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1824

Keyboard Acoustic Emanations Revisited

Keyboard Acoustic Emanations Revisited Source: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~zl/doc/f27-zhuang-v2.pdf ABSTRACT We examine the problem of keyboard acoustic emanations.

We present a novel attack taking as input a 10-minute sound recording of a user typing English text using a keyboard, and then recovering up to 96% of typed characters.

There is no need for a labeled training recording. Moreover the recognizer bootstrapped this way can even recognize random text such as passwords: In our experiments, 90% of 5-character random passwords using only letters can be generated in fewer than 20 attempts by an adversary; 80% of 10-character passwords can be generated in fewer than 75 attempts.

Our attack uses the statistical constraints of the underlying content, English language, to reconstruct text from sound recordings without any labeled training data.

The attack uses a combination of standard machine learning and speech recognition techniques, including cepstrum features, Hidden Markov Models, linear classification, and feedback-based incremental learning.

To read more, go to Fulltext PDF <http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~zl/doc/f27-zhuang-v2.pdf> OutDoorLinks:

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1825

The Cognitive Consequences of Concealing Feelings

Homepage Doug Tygar http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~tygar/

Homepage Li Zhuang http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~zl/

The Cognitive Consequences of Concealing Feelings

By Jane M. Richards Source:

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/faculty/

Richards/jmrhome/richards04.pdf

ABSTRACT When emotions arise, we are not powerless to overcome them: Adults actively regulate the extent to which their emotions are experienced and expressed in everyday life.

Often, these efforts are aimed at looking and feeling better.

However, theories of self-regulation and emotion suggest that some forms of emotion regulation may have unintended consequences for cognitive functioning.

This article reviews studies that link expressive suppression, which involves concealing outward signs of emotion, with degraded memory, communication, and problem solving.

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1826

The Cognitive Consequences of Concealing Feelings

Explanations for these consequences are considered, along with the possibility that not all forms of emotion regulation are cognitively costly.

Recent research suggests that reappraisal, which entails changing how we think about an event to neutralize its emotional impact, leaves cognitive functioning intact.

Thus, the cognitive consequences of keeping oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cool may vary according to how this is done.ticularly common staple in our emotionregulatory repertoire.

For example, undergraduates who kept diaries of their emotion-regulatory experiences over 14 days reported inhibiting outward signs of emotion one quarter of the time (Gross, Richards, & John, in press).

Similarly, researchers have shown that more than one third of individualsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; efforts to deceive others involve inhibiting feelings (DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996).

In view of increasing evidence that emotional and cognitive processes are tightly intertwined in everyday life (Damasio, 1994), researchers have begun to examine whether concealing feelings influences our ability to perform common cognitive tasks, such as forming memories and communicating with other people.Typically, people conceal feelings to foster the illusion that they are calm, cool, and collected. But impression management is not all that matters in emotional situations. Peak cognitive performance is also important.

OutDoorLinks: James Gross

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1827

The song of the dunes as a self-synchronized instrument

http://psychology.stanford.edu/~james/

Jane Richards http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/HomePage/Faculty/Richards/jmrhome/jmrhome.html

The song of the dunes as a self-synchronized instrument Authors: S. Douady, A. Manning, P. Hersen, H. Elbelrhiti, S. Protiere, A. Daerr, B. Kabbachi Source: http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/nlin.AO/0412047v1 Nonlinear Sciences/nlin.AO/0412047 version 1 Since Marco Polo it has been known that some sand dunes have the peculiar ability of emitting a loud sound with a well defined frequency, sometimes for several minutes.

The origin of this sustained sound has remained mysterious, partly because of its rarity in nature.

It has been recognized that the sound is not due to the air flow around the dunes but to the motion of an avalanche, and not to an acoustic excitation of the grains but to their relative motion.

By comparing several singing dunes and two controlled experiments, one in the laboratory and one in the field, we here demonstrate that the fre-

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1828

Music in Early Childhood Day

quency of the sound is the frequency of the relative motion of the sand grains.

The sound is produced because some moving grains synchronize their motions.

The existence of a velocity threshold in both experiments further shows that this synchronization comes from an acoustic resonance within the flowing layer: if the layer is large enough it creates a resonance cavity in which grains self-synchronize.

Fulltext in PDF go here: http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/nlin.AO/0412047v1

OutDoorLinks: StĂŠphane Douady http://www.lps.ens.fr/%7Edouady/

Nonlinear Sciences, abstract http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/nlin.AO/0412047v1

Music in Early Childhood Day Source:

http://www.menc.org/connect/conf/natl06/

2006earlychildhood.html

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1829

Intelligence as Smart Heuristics

A special one-day conference for early childhood educators and caregivers featured at the 60th MENC National Biennial In-Service Conference Salt Lake City, Utah / Saturday, April 22, 2006 A day of sessions that will help early childhood educators and caregivers incorporate music into the daily routines of children, aiding them in the development of musical skills.

Propose a Session: Click here for the Session Proposal Application and Room Requirements Forms. <http://www.menc.org/connect/conf/natl06/EarlyChildhoodDayApp.pdf>

Registration for Music in Early Childhood Day is complimentary to registered attendees of the 60th MENC National Biennial In-Service Conference.

OutDoorLinks: 60th MENC National Biennial In-Service Conference http://www.menc.org/

Intelligence as Smart Heuristics Source: Pressinformation University of Flensburg/21.09.2005

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1830

Intelligence as Smart Heuristics

http://www.uni-flensburg.de/~raab/pub/ Raab_Gigerenzer_intelligence_as_smart_heuristics_2003_bookChapt er_Sternberg_cognition.pdf

Abstract Intelligence is thought of as an assembly of â&#x20AC;&#x153;factors,â&#x20AC;? either one (g), a few, or many.

This tool-driven metaphor (factor analysis) has its limits because it does not describe how cognition translates into behavior.

We propose a new view of intelligence that provides the missing link in terms of heuristics. Human intelligence, in our view, is modeled by an adaptive toolbox that contains building blocks for heuristics to direct search for information, to stop search, and to make a decision.

Smart search rules describe how people find the few relevant pieces of information, in memory or in the outside world. Stopping rules describe a primary function of cognition, to ignore or discard irrelevant information.

Decision rules translate the information searched in memory or in the outside world into behavior, such as what profession to choose or what products to buy. The adaptive toolbox embodies an ecological, not logical, view of rational behavior. The building blocks can be recombined to form new heuristics, which are rational to the degree that they are adapted to the structure of environments in which they are employed.

Contact:

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1831

Encoding of learned importance of sound by magnitude of representational area

Prof. Dr. Dr. Markus Raab, Email: raab@uni-flensburg.de Julia Boecker, Email: presse@uni-flensburg.de OutDoorLinks: Intelligence as Smart Heuristics - Fulltext in PDF http://www.uni-flensburg.de/~raab/pub/ Raab_Gigerenzer_intelligence_as_smart_heuristics_2003_bookChapt er_Sternberg_cognition.pdf

Markus Raab http://www.uni-flensburg.de/~raab/

Gerd Gigerenzer http://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/mitarbeiter/home/gigerenzer.htm

Robert Sternberg http://www.yale.edu/pace/teammembers/personalpages/bob.html

Encoding of learned importance of sound by magnitude of representational area in primary auditory cortex

By Richard G. Rutkowski and Norman M. Weinberger Source: www.pnas.org/ September 20, 2005 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/102/38/13664?etoc

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1832

Encoding of learned importance of sound by magnitude of representational area

Š 2005 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA We hypothesized that learning-induced representational expansion in the primary auditory cortex (AI) directly encodes the degree of behavioral importance of a sound.

Rats trained on an operant auditory conditioning task were variably motivated to the conditioned stimulus (CS) through different levels of water deprivation.

Mean performance values correlated with deprivation level, validating them as a measure of the overall control and, therefore, behavioral importance of the CS. Electrophysiological mapping revealed expanded representations of the CS, compared with other frequencies in experimental subjects, but not in naive or visually trained controls that received noncontingent CS tones.

Importantly, representational area showed a significant positive correlation with mean performance levels for only the CS band, with significant effects for relative area in contrast to only modest changes in absolute area.

CS representational expansion was asymmetric into high-frequency zones, thus performance level also was significantly correlated with the relative anterior-posterior location of the enlarged representation. An increased representation of low frequencies, related to the acoustic spectrum of the reward delivery equipment, also was discovered in both experimental and control trained subjects, supporting the conclusion that behaviorally important sounds gain representational area.

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1833

Encoding of learned importance of sound by magnitude of representational area

Furthermore, there was a surprising reduction in total AI area for the experimental and control groups, compared with untrained naive subjects, indicating that the functional dimensions of AI are not fixed.

Overall, the findings support the encoding of acquired stimulus importance based on representational size in AI. To whom correspondence should be addressed Norman M. Weinberger, E-mail: nmweinbe@uci.edu.

OutDoorLinks: Norman M. Weinberger http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/neurobio/Faculty/Weinberger/weinberger.htm

Requirement for high-level processing in subliminal learning Source:

http://cns.bu.edu/~aseitz/pubs/

Seitz_Lefebvre_Watanabe_Jolicoeur05.pdf

We are constantly learning new things as we go about our lives, and refining our sensory abilities.

How and when these sensory modifications take place is the focus of intense study and we report here that even subliminal learning, which occurs without awareness of what is learned, requires high-level processing.

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1834

Encoding of learned importance of sound by magnitude of representational area

Some researchers have proposed that sensory plasticity can only take place on features a person attends to but others have shown sensory improvements can occur for unattended features. In the latter case, subliminal motion vectors were learned when they were temporally correlated with the targets of the subjectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s task.

This led to the view that successful recognition of the tasktargets triggers a diffuse learning signal that enables learning of features temporally correlated with the task-targets. We have directly tested this proposition to ascertain what level of processing is required for this subliminal learning.

We used the attentional blink paradigm: an imbalance in identification accuracy of two masked targets presented in rapid succession; the first target is seen but the second not. The attentional blink is mostly studied within the context of a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP).

Our results have potentially important implications for other types of learning and attentional processes. They help reconcile results of subliminal learning with attentional learning theories.

Subliminal learning may involve attentional processing, but attention does not need to be directed to a feature for that feature to be learned.

This is consistent with data indicating that attention involves multiple, but distinct, subsystems and findings that an array of different processes are limited by the blink.

While some of these attentional systems are featurally specific, others are not and may account for subliminal learning.

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1835

Memorising and reminiscing makes your brain work faster

This unification of these two lines of research is an important step toward increasing our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie our ability to direct attention to important environmental factors and to learn from them.

To Read Fulltext in PDF got to <http://cns.bu.edu/~aseitz/pubs/ Seitz_Lefebvre_Watanabe_Jolicoeur05.pdf>

OutDoorLinks: Aaron Seitz http://cns.bu.edu/~aseitz/

To Read Fulltext in PDF got to <http://cns.bu.edu/~aseitz/pubs/ Seitz_Lefebvre_Watanabe_Jolicoeur05.pdf>

Memorising and reminiscing makes your brain work faster Source: http://www.alphagalileo.org/28 September 2005 http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=508068

Pedagogues and psychologists involved in education are striving to make training more efficient. To achieve this, it would be useful to understand what happens in a traineeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brain during learning.

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1836

Memorising and reminiscing makes your brain work faster

Only neurophysiologists can sort that out, however, not everything is clear to them yet.

Thus, it can be expected that memorizsation and reminiscence processes (which make the essence of training) should be reflected in changes of the brain’s electrical activity nature. It means that these changes may be recorded with the help of the most traditional brain investigation method - Electroencephalogram (EEG).

The research carried out by physiologists of the Institute of the Human Brain (Russian Academy of Sciences) in St. Petersburg and the Institute of Cognitive Neurology (Modern Academy of Humanities) in Moscow involved 57 persons under investigation – students of the Modern Academy of Humanities aged 17 to 20.

They were to learn seven pairs of words – in Russian and in Latin which was previously unknown to them.

Each pair of words was presented on the monitor screen for 5 seconds.

The students were tested in a minute and a half – Russian words were shown to them and they had to recollect the Latin equivalent.

Experimenters recorded students’ EEG through 19 electrodes laid on the head skin in three states: at rest, while memorising information and when extracting the information from memory.

Having analysed the findings, the researchers singled out several frequency ranges where the brain operates.

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1837

Memorising and reminiscing makes your brain work faster

These are the theta (4 to 7 Hz), alpha-1 (7 to 10 Hz), alpha-2 (10 to 13 Hz), beta-1 (13 to 18 Hz), beta-2 (18 to 30 Hz) and gamma (30 to 40 Hz) ranges.

In three different states, the researchers compared the brain’s electric activity power in all of these ranges. It has turned out that in the course of word memorising and recollection, the alpha-range power decreases on the greater part of the cortex surface.

The alpha rhythm is most distinctly expressed when a person is in a calm wakeful state, but any mental load results in its depression.

The reverse situation is observed as regards to fast rhythms of the brain.

When the students fulfill a task, power increases in the beta-2 range and particularly in the gamma range (which is the highest frequency range), this happening across the entire cerebral cortex surface.

Physiologists believe this is non-random. They assume that fast cerebral activity correlates with active memory use.

The EEG power increases particularly in quick ranges, just as the alpharhythm power decreases – when information is extracted from memory.

It can be assumed that this process is more “power-consuming” than that of memorisation.

Under the same conditions, the researchers analysed another EEG parameter - spatial synchronisation, which shows to what extent various areas of cerebral cortex work synchronously at rest and at mental load.

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1838

Memorising and reminiscing makes your brain work faster

The main result is as follows – synchronisation increases in all frequency ranges if memory is actively used.

That means that in the course of task solution different areas of cerebral cortex start working in coordination, and the entire brain works as a single whole.

Bonds occur not only between different areas of the cortex in one hemisphere, but interhemispheric bonds are also formed. The process is most evident when information is being extracted from memory.

So, the researchers have obtained trustworthy correlations between active memory state and the EEG characteristics. However, there is still a question the researchers cannot yet answer unambiguously.

To what extent the phenomena observed – increase of fast frequencies’ power and spatial synchronisation – are really connected with memory mechanisms, and to what extent they simply reflect the brain transition to more active state?

The reply is to be provided by future investigations.

Further information: S.G. Danko, Ph.D. (Engineering) Academician N.P. Bekhtereva, Institute of the Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences; St. Petersburg, Email: dnk@ihb.spb.ru; L.M. Kachalova, Ph.D. (Biology) Institute of Cognitive Neurology, Modern Academy of Humanities, Moscow

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1839

Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme

Email: lefi@muh.ru OutDoorLinks: Modern Academy of Humanities, Moscow, http://www.muh.ru/

Institute of the Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences; http://www.ihb.spb.ru/

Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme

By Jennifer Viegas Source: abc.net.au/3 October 2005 http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1473208.htm

Dolphins are the only mammals other than humans to recognise rhythms and reproduce them vocally (Image: iStockphoto) Scientists have taught dolphins to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music, resulting in an extremely high-pitched, short version of the Batman theme song.

The findings, outlined in two studies, are the first time that nonhuman mammals have demonstrated they can recognise rhythms and reproduce them vocally.

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1840

Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme

"Humans are sensitive to rhythms embedded in sequences of sounds, but we typically consider this skill to be part of processing for language and music, cognitive domains that we consider to be uniquely human," says Professor Heidi Harley, lead author of both studies.

"Clearly, aspects of those domains are available to other species."

The studies will be presented at the joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and NOISE-CON 2005, which runs from 17 to 21 October in Minneapolis.

Learning to sing Harley, who is associate professor of social sciences at the New College of Florida in Sarasota, says that both studies tested dolphins at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida.

The researchers first had an adult male bottlenose dolphin position itself in front of an underwater sound projector, called a hydrophone, that produced six different 14 kiloherz, 4 second rhythms.

The dolphin was rewarded for performing a certain behaviour to each rhythm. For example, when rhythm 1 played, it waved its pectoral fin and when rhythm 2 played, it tossed a ball.

The various rhythms were played at different frequencies and tempos to ensure the dolphin was recognising rhythms instead of just frequencies or sound durations.

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1841

Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme

Another adult male was trained to produce similar rhythms using a pneumatic switch, essentially a small, air-filled ball connected to a computer that then generated sounds whenever the dolphin pressed the switch.

"The dolphin was reinforced for producing a specific rhythm to a specific object," says Harley.

"For example, when we presented him with a Batman doll, he received a fish for producing a specific rhythm, in this case, a short sound and then a long one."

"If you recall the original Batman TV series musical intro you'll probably remember the way they sang 'Bat-maaaaaaaan'," she adds.

The dolphin spontaneously vocalised to the rhythms, so the researchers started to reward the male with fish whenever it matched its 'singing' to the rhythms.

By the end of the studies, the scientists could show an object, such as the Batman doll, which represented a certain rhythm-vocalisation combo to the dolphin, and it would create the correct sounds both vocally and using the switch.

Batmaaaaaaan Gordon Bauer, associate professor of psychology at the New College of Florida who did not work on the studies, says, "This is the first report, to my knowledge, of a nonhuman mammal's ability to discriminate rhythmic patterns."

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1842

Integration of touch and sound in auditory cortex

But Bauer doubts that dolphins realise they are producing what people consider 'music'.

"I think music is a human construct," he says. "I doubt that it has pertinence to animals, although the elements of music, such as pitch, time, timbre, rhythm, etc, may be incorporated into animal communication."

Harley agrees, and hopes the everyday vocalisations of dolphins will be analysed in terms of their rhythmic content.

In the near future, she and her team are planning to test the dolphins on their ability to recognise recordings of their own rhythms by having them associate their own sound creations with identifyin OutDoorLinks: Heidi Harley http://www.ncf.edu/PublicAffairs/Documents/Harley.htm

Integration of touch and sound in auditory cortex

By Kayser, C., C. Petkov, M. Augath and N. Logothetis:.

Source: <http://www.kyb.mpg.de/publication.html?publ=3549> Abstract: Our different senses provide complementary views of the environment, and integrating information across senses is necessary for disambiguating sensory objects and for reliable interaction with these.

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1843

Integration of touch and sound in auditory cortex

Contrasting this belief, we demonstrate multisensory integration in areas proximal to primary sensory areas - in the so called auditory belt. Supposedly, multisensory information is integrated only by higher cortical association areas.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of macaque monkeys, we quantified the integration of simultaneous audio-visual and audio-tactile stimulation in anaesthetized animals at 4.7Tesla.

Technically, integration was assumed if the response to the combined stimulus was stronger than the sum of the responses to individual stimuli.

Integration of auditory broad-band noise with tactile stimulation of hands and foot was found at the posterior end and along the lateral side of the auditory belt in six animals.

This integration occurred only for temporally coincident stimuli and obeyed the principle of inverse effectiveness: integration was stronger for less effective stimuli.

Voxels with significant integration responded to auditory alone stimulation but only few to tactile alone. Combining visual and auditory stimulation in different paradigms we could not find robust multisensory integration in auditory cortex.

Further, audio-tactile integration was mostly limited to auditory cortex and much weaker in nearby multimodal areas such as the claustrum.

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1844

Music for those who have never heard it

Our findings demonstrate that multisensory integration can occur early in the processing hierarchy - one processing stage above primary auditory cortex.

Further, this multisensory integration occurred pre-attentive - as demonstrated in anaesthetized animals.

Such early integration might be necessary for quick and consistent interpretation of our world and might explain multisensory illusions where a stimulus perceived by one modality is altered by a stimulus in another modality.

More Information: Dr. Christoph Kayser, E-Mail: christoph.kayser@tuebingen.mpg.de OutDoorLinks: Dr. Christoph Kayser http://www.kyb.mpg.de/~kayser

Max-Planck-Institut f端r biologische Kybernetik T端bingen http://www.kyb.mpg.de/

Music for those who have never heard it

By Mick Hamer Source: Mick Hamer/www.alphagalileo.org/19 October 2005

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Music for those who have never heard it

http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=508410

An implant that will allow deaf people to hear music clearly is on its way.

The cochlear implant being developed by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, UK, will enable deaf people to hear sounds over a wide range of frequencies.

Existing implants respond to a limited range of frequencies, concentrating on those prominent in the human voice. While they allow people to hear speech, they are not good for listening to music.

Conventional hearing aids, meanwhile, simply amplify sound rather than making it clearer. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The typical deterioration in the sensory receptors of the inner ear results in distortion of sound, even when it comes from the most sophisticated hearing aids available,â&#x20AC;? says Angela King, senior audiologist at the Royal National Institute for the Deaf in London.

The prototype, developed by Markys Cain and colleagues at NPL in collaboration with the Institute of Nanotechnology in Stirling, UK, has four bar-shaped elements that vibrate in response to sound.

Each is coated with a film of polyvinylidene fluoride, a piezoelectric material. By adjusting the length and diameter of the elements, the researchers have tuned each to resonate at a different, narrow range of frequencies.

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Music for those who have never heard it

When a sound, such as a musical note, causes one of the elements to vibrate, the flexing of the piezoelectric material produces a small voltage.

This is transmitted directly to the auditory nerve in the cochlea.

Unlike conventional implants, it does not require an external power supply.

The prototype is about 2 centimetres square at present, but the researchers have teamed up with the nanotechnology group at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire, UK, to create a version that will fit into the ear.

“We would need 10 resonating elements for speech and 20 or maybe more for music,” says Bill Nimmo, a member of the NPL team. “The challenge is to miniaturise the elements so that they still resonate at audible frequencies.”

This means a commercial implant is likely to be at least 10 years away.

But once complete, the hearing aid will give people manual control over the frequencies they hear, enabling them to tune in to individuals in a crowded room and filter out the background chatter.

OutDoorLinks: Markys Cain http://www.npl.co.uk/materials/functional/us.html

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) http://www.npl.co.uk/

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Experimental neurophysiology

Experimental neurophysiology Souce:

<http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/thbio/

group/neurophys/index_d.html>

The Experimental Neurophysiology group represents the scientific culture of functional, integrative and cognitive neuroscience in the lab. The main focus of the group is neuronal plasticity, learning and aging. In particular, we are interested in understanding the relation between perceptual learning and brain plasticity.

Methodologically, we use a broad repertoire of psychophysical tests to quantitatively assess perceptual and sensorimotor performance.

Brain reorganization in humans is studied in collaboration with the Department of Neurology and the Department of Radiology at the Ruhr-University Bochum using fMRI, EEG and TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation).

Electrophysiological investigations and recordings of optical intrinsic signals in selected animal models provide details about mechanisms of plastic changes bridging the level between single neurons, neuron populations and cortical maps.

Conceptually, we study forms of use-dependent plasticity occurring under everyday-life conditions such as in musicians or elderly people.

In addition, we develop new stimulation procedures (so-called "unattended activation based learning" protocols such as "tactile coactivation") that allow a targeted modification of brain activation, and by that a targeted modification of sensorimotor performance.

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This article can be cited as

More Information: Prof. Dr. Martin Tegenthoff E-Mail: martin.tegenthoff@ruhr-uni-bochum.de Associate Professor Dr. Hubert R. Dinse E-Mail: hubert.dinse@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de OutDoorLinks: Department of Neurology and the Department of Radiology at the RuhrUniversity Bochum http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/thbio/index_d.html

This article can be cited as Doch, T. (2005) Odds and ends - themes and trends. Music Therapy Today Vol. 6, Issue 4 (November). available at MusicTherapyWorld.net

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