“New findings from a Queen’s behavioural expert in eye/hand movement provide the first direct evidence that our brain patterns are similar whether we are actually doing something or simply watching someone else do it.

It’s an insight that could have significant implications for the assessment of people with various movement disorders such as some stroke victims, says Dr. Randy Flanagan, who conducted the study with Dr. Roland Johansson of Umea University in Sweden. The methods employed in the study could be used to determine whether people with impaired movement control also have problems understanding and perceiving the actions of others. The answer to this question will have implications for both diagnosis and assessment.

‘This helps to explain how we understand the movements of others,’ Dr. Flanagan says. ‘We perceive an action by running it at some covert level in our own system. An example would be when sports fans watch football on TV and move in anticipation of action on the screen.’ Although this theory is supported by previous neuro-physiological and brain imaging studies, until now there has been little direct, behavioural evidence.” EurekAlert!

There has been excitement in the neuroscience field for several years over the implication of the discovery of so-called mirror neurons in primates, about which I have posted before and which react when one is watching behaviors of others as other neurons do when the individual is performing an action. As a potential physiological basis for empathy if they operate in humans as they do in other primates, their development may have been important to making us human. The current study seems to offer parallels and may be empirical evidence that the mirroring circuitry exists in humans.

Dervala daydreams about Elvis.

I’m so glad I subscribe to the WSJ OpinionJournal if only because James Taranto is so much fun to laugh at. In today’s column, he is suspicious of reports that the French heat wave has killed 3,000 because he does not know what to make of the Health Ministry statement that this figure includes deaths “linked directly or indirectly” to the heat. It would seem to me someone who does not understand epidemiological methods is not qualified to comment on an epidemiological finding, but he takes exception to this information:

In a statement, the ministry said its estimate was partly drawn from studying deaths in 23 Paris regional hospitals from July 25-Aug. 12 and from information provided by General Funeral Services.

According to 2002 figures, the Paris regional hospitals that were surveyed could have expected some 39 deaths a day, the ministry said. But Tuesday, they recorded nearly 180, it said.

“We note a clear increase in cases beginning Aug. 7-8, which we can regard as the start of the epidemic of deaths linked to the heat,” the statement said.

Morgues and funeral directors have reported skyrocketing demand for their services since the heat wave took hold. General Funeral Services, France’s largest undertaker, said it handled some 3,230 deaths from Aug. 6-12, compared to 2,300 on an average week in the year–a 37 percent jump.

He says it does not establish a causal link between the heat and the deaths. Uhhh, calculating the “excess mortality” compared to some reference period when, you reason, the factor in question is the sole variable is the closest you can come to causality in epidemiology, and is a well-accepted technique for assessing the impact of a heatwave.

But his contorted reasoning thrusts his foot even deeper into his mouth with his next statement. He thinks the 3,000 figure was chosen to compete with the number of U.S. deaths on Sept. 11th, 2001. “A popular lunatic conspiracy theory on the “European street” has it that George W. Bush is to blame every time the weather is bad.” Oh, and the French Ministry of Health is a prime proponent of this lunatic theory? Sorry, James, there’s only one lunatic in this story, and he’s not in Paris.

By the way, in another story further down the page, Taranto derides Sen. John Kerry for being not only “haughty” but “French-looking.” Yes, that’s what he wrote.

“The specter of the Iran-Contra affair is haunting Washington. Some of the people and countries are the same, and so are the methods – particularly the pursuit by a network of well-placed individuals of a covert, parallel foreign policy that is at odds with official policy.

Boiled down to its essentials, the Iran-Contra affair was about a small group of officials based in the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that ran an “off-the-books” operation to secretly sell arms to Iran in exchange for hostages. The picture being painted by various insider sources in the media suggests a similar but far more ambitious scheme at work.

Taken collectively, what these officials describe and what is already on the public record suggests the existence of a disciplined network of zealous, like-minded individuals. Centered in Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith’s office and around Richard Perle in the Defense Policy Board in the Pentagon, this exclusive group of officials operates under the aegis of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.” AlterNet

Poindexter quits Pentagon research post AP/Salon

“Few orchestras play the works of contemporary classical composers, and almost no one buys their albums. Is their music uninspired—or do we simply not get it?

…in the world of music, contemporary classical composers inhabit a dissonant ghetto all their own. Few people listen to them, few critics review them and few people understand them. Western classical music as a whole makes up only 3.5 percent of the world’s total music market (contemporary works aren’t broken out separately). In 2002, classical-album sales were down 17 percent. Orchestras rarely feature contemporary works. “If you go to a museum or dance company, the balance between old and new is completely different,” says Nicholas Kenyon, the BBC’s controller of the Proms, live events and television classical music. But is that because new music is uninspired, or just not as familiar to us as Mozart? Are the composers to blame—or are we?” MSNBC

Addendum: As Abby points out in the attached comment, if you are interested in ‘new music’, do not skip the excellent NPR American Mavericks series, to which I have previously blinked. You can listen to a streaming version of the programs over your net connection.

David Brooks: “Maybe it’s time to admit the obvious. We don’t really care about diversity all that much in America, even though we talk about it a great deal. Maybe somewhere in this country there is a truly diverse neighborhood in which a black Pentecostal minister lives next to a white anti-globalization activist, who lives next to an Asian short-order cook, who lives next to a professional golfer, who lives next to a postmodern-literature professor and a cardiovascular surgeon. But I have never been to or heard of that neighborhood. Instead, what I have seen all around the country is people making strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves.

…

Look around at your daily life. Are you really in touch with the broad diversity of American life? Do you care? ” The Atlantic

“…researchers believe as many as 17 mysteriously dead whales are floating over a 125-mile stretch of ocean in Canada and the United States. In addition, three other dead whales have been spotted much closer to the New England coast, and scientists are attempting to test them for possible connections to what has become the largest mass death in this region involving large whales since 1987.” Boston Globe

Bizarre gruesome postscript on the controversial plan to cryogenically preserve the all-star’s remains. Read it before you go with Alcor Life Extension! “The silver can containing Williams’ head resembles a lobster pot and is marked in black with Williams’ patient I.D. number, A-1949, according to the SI story. Williams’ head has been shaved and drilled with holes. Verducci also reports that, before the head was placed in its present location, it was accidentally cracked as many as 10 times due to fluctuating storage temperatures…Two dime-size holes were drilled into the head to observe the brain condition and, more important, to insert sensors that could detect cracks during the freezing process. But after “a huge crack” occurred in the head in April and nine more cracks were reported in July, Williams’ head was removed from its original container and eventually placed in its current “neuro-can.”” Sports Illustrated [via Daily Rotten]

US Forces Say Believe Saddam Near Tikrit: “A senior U.S. commander said on Thursday he had good reason to believe Saddam Hussein was around his hometown of Tikrit and would be caught ‘sooner rather than later.'” Reuters

When did we start treating children like children? “A good deal of our intellectual life in the past half century has been ruled by the following pattern: First, a French person, with great brilliance and little regard for standards of evidence, promulgates a theory overturning dearly held beliefs. Second, many academics, especially the young, seize on the theory and run with it, in the process loading it with far more emotional and political freight than the French thinkerr—who, after all, was just “doing theory”—had in mind. Meanwhile, other scholars indignantly reaffirm the pre-revisionist view, and everyone calls for more research, to decide the question. In the third stage, the research is produced, and it confuses everybody, because it is too particular, too respectful of variation and complexity, to support either the nice old theory or the naughty new one.

Recent histories of the family have followed this itinerary.” The New Yorker

Jerome Groopman: Can Hypochondria Be Cured?:

“Studies show that at least a quarter of all patients report symptoms that appear to have no physical basis, and that one in ten continues to believe that he has a terminal disease even after the doctor has found him to be healthy. Experts say that between three and six per cent of patients seen by primary-care physicians suffer from hypochondria, the irrational fear of illness. The number is likely growing, thanks to increased medical reporting in the media, which devotes particular attention to scary new diseases like sars, and to the Internet, which provides a wealth of clinical information (and misinformation) that can help turn a concerned patient into a neurotic one. Nevertheless, hypochondria is rarely discussed in the doctor’s office. The ‘‘worried well,’’ as sufferers are sometimes called, typically feel insulted by any suggestion that their symptoms have a psychological basis. Most patients are given a formal diagnosis of hypochondria only after ten or so years of seeing physicians, if they get such a diagnosis at all.” The New Yorker

Groopman writes this wonderful series for the magazine in which he considers area of medical controversy with compassion and insight. I was particularly interested in his take on this topic on the border of psychiatry and ‘real’ medicine. In hypochondriasis, patients are essentially exploiting the phsician’s fallibility and wish to be reassuring for unconscious reasons; a non-psychiatrist grappling comfortably with the problem would have to be penetrating about the limitations of the doctor’s art as well as intuitive about unconscious process — no mean feat. Groopman profiles a primary care physician who is, and then turns to a depiction of the work of neuropsychiatrist Brian Fallon (whom I knew way back when before either of us went to medical school). Because it is anathema to suggest to a hypochondriacal patient that it is psychological at root, this quintessentially psychiatric problem is rarely treated by psychiatrists. Fallon has an interesting take on it, having struggled to get referrals of patients considered hypochondriacal by his non-psychiatric colleagues to study.

Fallon has reconceived hypochondria as a heterogeneous disorder: some sufferers are indeed obsessive-compulsives, whereas others are experiencing a prolonged reaction to a traumatic event, like the death of a loved one. He also believes that people who are labelled hypochondriacs can behave in diametrically opposite ways in terms of seeking medical care. For some, the fear of illness is so great that they avoid all doctors. These patients indulge in the fantasy that if a doctor doesn’t examine them, then the illness won’t appear. Another group needs to see doctors constantly, even when these visits cause more anxiety or humiliation.

What this heterogeneity hints at is that the hypochondriacal ‘label’ may have something, or as much, or more, to do with the distasteful reaction her physicians have to such a patient as it does to the underlying process in the patient herself. (This is a familiar problem in psychiatry as well, which I refer to as ‘diagnosis by countertransference’, usuallly seen when a disagreeable or difficult patient is labelled with borderline personality disorder. In my teaching and supervision with regard to both hypochondriasis/somatization and borderline personality dynamics, it is one of the most difficult issues for trainees to dea with.) Groopman’s article ends with a patient’s summation of perhaps the best approach to treating such difficult cases:

‘‘Hypochondria is not at all funny, like people think,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s not a ‘Seinfeld’ episode. It’s a horrible, horrible way to live.”

“Concerns over transatlantic relations, American attitudes toward the United Nations Security Council, and the future of multilateralism stem from a single, overarching issue of the post–Cold War era: the issue of international legitimacy. When the United States wields its power, especially its military power, will world opinion and, more importantly its fellow liberal democracies, especially in Europe, regard its actions as broadly legitimate? Or will the United States appear, as it did to many during the crisis in Iraq, as a kind of rogue superpower?” — Robert Kagan, The Carnegie Endowment, Foreign Policy Ultimately a wimpy article, the main point is that the ‘legitimacy’ of our foreign policy will be judged by (drumroll) how things turn out on the ground (stability, democracy) in Iraq and the region. In the broadest terms, if the US is not invested in ‘legitimacy’, the points are moot. [Raise your hand if you think BushCo care about the stability and democracy of Iraq. I thought so.] There is no discussion of the consequences of pursuing rogue foreign policy in the modern world or how to enforce international accountability on a state like the US acting in illegitimate ways.