Psychology Research

This quasi-facetious title is meant to highlight something essential to understanding childhood. Namely, that–more than anything else–what distinguishes children from adults is in their ability to control impulses. Put simply, the younger the child, the less developed the ability; the older, the greater the ability. And when the child eventually becomes an adult, presumably this capability has been more or less mastered. Fundamentally, civilizing or socializing children depends on the capacity of our institutions (particularly that of family and school) to teach them to curb or eradicate many of the behaviors deeply embedded in them. If, ultimately, they’re to function adequately in society, what–universally–is natural for them needs to be almost completely subdued. It’s almost mandatory that their original “biological scripts” be rewritten. If, specifically, they’re to fit in with others and, more generally, into society at large, they just can’t continue to do what their inborn nature might dictate. That is, from within the mind of a young child, if something is wanted it ought to be pursued–and immediately , too (and, further, with little or no regard for consequences). Additionally, if something is keenly felt , it should be acted out at once. So when angry, hit or scream. When sad, cry. When afraid, run or hide. When disgusted, make a face. Such impulsive acting-out is nothing more than being true to our inborn nature. In this respect, impulse and instinct are virtually inseparable. But unfortunately, we all learn over time that doing what comes naturally is, typically, not in our best interests, nor is it acceptable to the world around us. Well-adjusted behaviors–vs. developmentally normal but pragmatically “disordered” behaviors- -necessitate all sorts of self-imposed restraints (call them, if you will, “inner checks and balances”). So impulsive behavior, while it may be totally natural and reflective of where, in a sense, we should be at any particular stage of development, is nonetheless neither safe nor healthy for us–or even appropriate in helping us negotiate the difficult process of finding our proper place in society. And though our impulsiveness may to varying degrees be tolerated by our parents, it still needs to be taken charge of–or reined in–by them. If not, how will we avoid ultimately being rejected by those around us? After all, by definition unruly children don’t play by the rules. And generally they don’t share as much as they’re “supposed to” either. Nor are they very adept at suppressing their aggressive tendencies–or restraining or disciplining themselves. It’s simply not part of who they are. Again, impulsive behavior is innate–wired into us at birth. It can be seen as the pre-installed software that enables our organism to function. And since it’s how we’re “made,” it’s certainly nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about. The problem is that such impulsivity is primitive. It optimizes our chances of survival–but far more in the wild than in civilization. And this is exactly why, in the context of modern society, it warrants being viewed as dysfunctional, or “disordered.” For such impulsivity, pre-programmed as it is for another time and place, is precisely what gets in the way of our becoming fully socialized. If, finally, we’re to get along in the world, we have no choice but to adapt to what the world requires of us. And so, contrary to how we’ve been “constructed,” our unwary impulsivity needs systematically to be disciplined out of us. In fact, responsible parenting literally demands that parents bring this impulsivity under control–that they teach us to regulate (if not outright repress) it by correcting us almost every time we follow our internal dictates (i.e., what we’d do “naturally” if not subject to others’ reactions). For example, the constitutional inclination to cry or strike out when someone hurts us is automatic . . . until we’re motivated–through external conditioning–to inhibit such expression. Kids with ADHD represent a case in point here. Their marked inability to control their impulses can wreak havoc both on themselves and their relationships, as well as cause all sorts of problems for others, both at home and school (and anywhere else their wayward impulses might take them). Without malicious intent, their behaviors can easily end up being “anti-social–for example, heedlessly expressing their creativity through graffiti; or acting in public in rowdy, obstreperous, or otherwise obnoxious ways; or even punching out someone who’s just said something upsetting to them. In consequence, if such children are ever going to fit it (not to say, thrive), they’ll require an inordinate amount of parental training and discipline, and be subject to all kinds of behavioral modification. And if all this external regulation still fails sufficiently to reduce their maladaptive behaviors, they’ll also need to be put on medication–all in the expanded effort to bring their behavior up to acceptable childhood standards. But even these standards, though far more adaptive and age-appropriate, aren’t adequate to enable children to meet the demands that society will one day make on them. So all parents, if they’re to be responsible, need to set firm limits on their children when they’re behaving impulsively. And this impulsivity can include acting foolishly, imprudently, gullibly, mindlessly, rashly, and (as is so frequently the case with ADHD children) recklessly as well. Moreover, it’s only right that parents exert such authority. For unless their child’s impulsive, unrestrained behavior is brought under control, that child will have problems making (and keeping) friends, experience difficulty in applying themselves to anything that doesn’t “capture” their attention, will repeatedly antagonize others (most notably their parents–thus weakening this all-important attachment bond), and so on and so on.   Note: Part 2 of this post will deal with (1) how all addictive behavior–in the addict’s inability to control strong, though self-defeating, impulses–warrants understanding as a regression to (or fixation in) childhood; and (2) why it’s essential that parents learn to be as compassionate as possible when their children act impulsively.  

Steve Livingston writes: If many students are off-peak in their circadian rhythms early in the morning, and thus have a harder time learning, doesn’t it also stand to reason that many first-period teachers are equally off their game? Adults aren’t immune to being tired in the morning; in fact, it seems that they are more susceptible to the cognitive effects of sleep disruption. If true, then the engagement/communication/patience of teachers and the attention paid/information retained by students are reduced — a pedagogical ‘double whammy’. Many instructors complain about morning lectures full of sleepy students — I did it myself when teaching introductory psychology at 8:30 AM as a grad student — but rarely do we consider that we may be leading (failing?) by example. Very good points, though in fairness, there are important differences between adults and adolescents. In adults the tendency for the internal circadian clock to drift ever later is not as strong as it is in teenagers. One also expects adults to have a better understanding of the consequences of staying up until 2 AM watching TV. It is also probable that those teaching at 7:30 tend to be more alert in the morning (“larks”) than in the evening (“owls”). Broadly speaking, one can categorize people as larks or owls, with larks ready to bravely face the new day the moment the alarm goes off in the morning, while owls grumble in disbelief, roll over and bury their heads ever deeper into their pillows in a futile attempt to make it just GO AWAY so they can catch a few more hours of sleep. In the evening, the situation is reversed: larks yawn and zone out just as owls begin to really come into their own. While it is true that many people find themselves in situations they did not anticipate when first choosing their professions, one may assume that there is some degree of self-selection at work when it comes to making this choice (and sticking with it), and that most hard core owls soon realize that waking up at 6 AM five mornings a week in order to be ready for that 7:30 class just isn’t for them. The question remains whether we want the school day planned in such a way so that our children’s learning is optimal, or so that it is merely acceptable, while making sure that parents are able to get to work on time. It should be recognized that these (and other) conflicting needs result in a compromise which is not always to the children’s advantage.

Evolutionary Novelties ponders placentas : For me one of the most visceral confirmations of the common descent of humans and other mammals came while witnessing the birth of my children. Having grown up on a small farm, I have vivid memories of the birth of kittens, lambs, and goats; and after the births of my children, I was struck by the similarity of human placenta and umbilical cord to those of other mammals. Given common descent, how did something as complex as the mammalian placenta originate in the first place? The answer, according to research published last summer in Genome Research, involves the evolutionary mechanisms of co-option and gene duplication. The post then reviews a recent paper that examined the placenta’s genomic evolution by looking at the mouse genome, which has been thoroughly mapped. The visceral re-enforcement of common ancestry I felt when seeing a human placenta and umbilical cord extends to the genes used in developing placentas, which themselves have ancient origins, and are shared across many organisms. Definitely worth a read. Read the comments on this post…

It is astonishing how young a woman may be and yet be thought of as old, and how old a man may be and yet be thought of as young. I’ve been considering it. A lot. This started after I had my gallbladder removed, although I don’t think that everyone necessarily experiences this as a side effect. When I was recuperating (already I’m introducing a wonderfully youthful phrase, right?), I caught the end of one of the world’s best movies, SUNSET BOULEVARD.  Enthralled, I watched it for the twentieth time, but–and this is the crucial factor–for first time in about ten years. Let me ask you: without checking– no Googling now, no going to IMDB–how old would you say Norma Desmond is?  C’mon, be honest? When she’s clutching her neck, gritting her teeth, having lost her mind over her younger lover, saying in her delirium, “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille,”  How old do you think she is meant to be? Ready? Norma Desmond is 50. Gloria Swanson, when she played the character, was fifty. You don’t believe me? Here’s what William Holden says to her: “Joe Gillis: There’s nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you’re trying to be twenty-five.” She shoots him pretty soon afterwards. BANG. BANG. BANG. As far as I’m concerned, the fact that she only fires three shots shows enormous, not to say superhuman, self-restraint. I would have murdered anybody who said that to me a whole bunch more, then revived him, and then murdered him again. And I would have been confident  that had I been tried to a jury of my peers–my actual peers–not only would I be acquitted, I’d be thanked individually by each and every one of those women.  Maybe they would throw me a parade. When I was ranting about this to my friend, Santa Fe artist Ines Kramer (( www.InesKramer.com ) but since we’ve known each other since junior high, however, I usually just call her Ines), she immediately started her own list. Said Ines in yesterday’s email: “‘I’m older than Norma Desmond’ is the name of a fab new game. I’ve begun thinking of others.” I think she’s right. These are the folks who came to mind for Ines; she figured out she is older than: Baby Jane Ralph Cramden Miss Jean Brodie Butch Cassidy Ethel Mertz Once I saw Ethel Mertz on Ines’s list, I instantly thought of Edith Bunker (alliteration will do that to a girl). It took a little while, but I figured out that since Edith’s character was meant to have graduated from high school in 1943, and the show debuted in 1971, Edith was (wait for it) 46. I’m going to say this again, okay? Ready? Edith Bunker was 46. I am SIX YEARS OLDER THAN EDITH BUNKER. I don’t know how old Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show was meant to be, but I’m probably older than she is. Once parting shot before I go: I was desperately, pathetically grateful to discover that I am still younger than the old Italian ladies in the movie MARTY–but not by much:   “Aunt Catherine: So I’m an old garbage bag put in the street, huh?… These are the worst years, I tell you. It’s going to happen to you. I’m afraid to look in a mirror.  I’m afraid I’m gonna see an old lady with white hair, just like the old ladies in the park with little bundles and black shawls waiting for the coffin.  I’m fifty-six years old. And what am I gonna do with myself? I’ve got strength in my hands. I want to clean. I want to cook. I want to make dinner for my children.  Am I an old dog to lay near the fire till my eyes close? These are terrible years, Theresa, terrible years… It’s gonna happen to you. It’s gonna happen to you!”  And you want to know what’s really amazing? The actress who said those words, Augusta Ciolli, was only 54 when MARTY was filmed. It’s not that I’m bitter, though. Really. Who else can we think of? Help me out, seriously. Give me some more examples, please. Trust me, there will be more about this in a later post.

It’s an epidemic.  Everywhere I look I find normally calm, compassionate friends and colleagues foaming at the mouth whenever the word “octuplets” is mentioned.   ”You have an illness,” I say.  “Own up to it- it’s the first step towards recovery.”  Alas, if it were only so easy. Anger, Hatred, Moral Outrage! The accusations and recriminations flow one after another, with pressured speech. “That woman is so irresponsible!” “How is she going to take care of all those babies?” “Why should I have to pay for her crazy actions!” “She’s crazy! She’s had plastic surgery to look like Angelina Jolie.” “The doctor who did this should go to jail!” “Disgusting use of our health care dollars!” For those of you unaware of this case because you are living in a cave in Afghanistan waiting for Osama bin Laden and his dialysis machine to return to select you for the glory of a suicide mission, here is what you need to know. An unmarried woman in California allegedly underwent in-vitro fertilization (IVF), had six embryos implanted, and somehow delivered eight babies, all of whom have so far survived (A scientific miracle!). She already had six children at home, all conceived via IVF. So, baby (ies) make 14. Everyone involved in the case has been interviewed by People, Dr. Phil, etc, except for the studly tail-wagging sperm that could create eight babies from six embryos (Another miracle). It’s hard to know why a particular story captures the imagination the way this one has. My opinion is that the reasons are deeper than those usually expressed. I don’t find the common arguments particularly compelling. To begin, no law was broken; none of my angry friends live in California, and will not be contributing one cent directly or indirectly to care for her children; and I have sympathy for a woman who actually loves and wants her children, even if the numbers are beyond anything I can imagine. As for wanting to look like Angelina Jolie, this seems an indicator of good mental health- I’d be worried if she strove to look like Renee Zellweger. Let’s not forget that there are millions of unwed mothers (often just kids themselves) on welfare with multiple children, unplanned and unwanted, who became pregnant the old-fashioned way. Is that somehow better? And what about the deadbeat dads who flit from woman to woman without taking any financial or parental responsibility for their offspring? Less objectionable? I don’t think so. Not long ago a man in his early 40s came to my office. He proudly told me he had 12 children from seven different mothers. What did he want? A vasectomy(!). I have no idea whether or not he supports any or all of his children, so I’m not criticizing, but just pointing out that Octo-mom may not be so beyond the pale. If only one birth had resulted from the six implanted embryos (as apparently happened with an earlier IVF cycle), leaving her with a final tally of seven children, would her behavior have been any less crazy? I believe the passion engendered by this case comes from being forced to confront the fact that reproductive science has brought us to a place where traditional notions and experience are inadequate to deal with some of the issues that arise. How do we apply a sense of what is right or wrong when we’ve never even considered the possibility before? Frankly, it is a testament to the integrity of the clinicians and scientists involved in IVF centers in this country that cases like this one are so rare, because the potential for crazy stuff is a daily hazard.  The ethical questions are really challenging. The woman had six of her embryos stored in a frozen state. If some of my froth-addled commentators had their way, she should never have been implanted with any of them. But to whom do they belong, if not the woman? Who is to say what should happen to the embryos, if not her? The doctors? The government? Her church or community? Who decides how many children are enough- two, four, six? One, as in China? Does the calculus change for a single mom versus a married couple? A rich couple versus one on state assistance? And what if fertility treatment is required? Is having children a right? Does it change if a person pays with their own money for infertility treatment? It’s a brave new world, folks. Let’s not be too quick to judge. And if you think these issues are tough to handle, just wait until cloning arrives!

A sixth of a GCSE in 60 minutes? : Later this year, pupils from Monkseaton high school will file into their new lozenge-shaped school and take their seats before a giant video wall in a multipurpose hall. Here, they will receive a unique lesson: an intense PowerPoint presentation, repeated three times, and interspersed with 10-minute breaks of juggling or spinning plates. After one hour of this study, the pupils will be primed for one sixth of a GCSE. In theory, following this “spaced learning” method, a teenager could sit a GCSE after just three days’ work. It is a vision of the future that may horrify many parents, teachers and the educational establishment. It challenges how we teach our children and casts doubt on GCSEs and, perhaps, the validity of our entire school system. But teachers and thinkers from around the world are making a pilgrimage to Monkseaton to investigate spaced learning, which has been devised and tested in this tatty state comprehensive over the last four years. —————————————– A series of careful trials yielded fascinating results: 48 year 9 pupils who had not covered any part of the GCSE science syllabus were given a complete biology module in a 90-minute spaced learning lesson. A week later, they took the relevant GCSE multiple-choice exam (a year earlier than normal). Twelve months on, the same set of pupils took another GCSE science paper after a conventional four months of study. While average scores for the second paper were higher (68% versus 58%), more than a quarter of the pupils scored higher after spaced learning than through conventional study. Despite studying for just 90 minutes with spaced learning, 80% of the class of 13- and 14-year-olds got at least a D grade. ———————————————- Monkseaton’s futuristic new school opens in September. It will be where Kelley hopes to expand spaced learning, in classrooms that won’t be square (“We don’t have to have schools built in squares,” he says) and will feature special intensive lighting to boost teenagers’ concentration and wakefulness. Kelley has studied research on teenagers’ circadian rhythms that shows they get going later in the day than adults – hence those epic teenage lie-ins – and hopes to start lessons at the more teen-friendly hour of 10.30am. ——————————————— I’m inclined to believe that there must be more to making memories stick than findings derived from dissecting a rat’s hippocampus. Scientists would probably say that is because – despite my GCSE refresher – I don’t fully understand the complex advances in neuroscience. Whatever the truth of it, something special is happening at Monkseaton. And if other teachers and academics open their minds to it, this may be just the beginning of a revolution in our classrooms. Read the comments on this post…

Two hundred years ago on February 12, Adam Gopnik writes in Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life , two pebbles — Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln — were dropped into the sea of life. Their ideas and forms of eloquence have redirected the currents of humanity. One current of Darwin’s thought is well-known. His theory of evolution by natural selection would require new genesis stories about the origins of life forms, less arrogant notions about man’s place in the great chain of being, and a rethinking of our species as one in flux—and with rather hairy relatives. Less well-known is a second current of Darwin’s thought — his conception of human nature. Think of Darwin and "survival of the fittest" leaps to mind, as do images of competitive individuals — collections of selfish genes — going at one another bloody in tooth and claw. "Survival of the fittest" was not Darwin’s phrase, but Herbert Spencer’s and that of Social Darwinists who used Darwin to justify their wished-for superiority of different classes and races. "Survival of the kindest" better captures Darwin’s thinking about his own kind. In Darwin’s first book about humans, The Descent of Man , and Selection In Relation to Sex from 1871, Darwin argued for "the greater strength of the social or maternal instincts than that of any other instinct or motive." His reasoning was disarmingly intuitive: in our hominid predecessors, communities of more sympathetic individuals were more successful in raising healthier offspring to the age of viability and reproduction — the sine qua non of evolution. One year later, in The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals , Darwin countered creationists’ claims that God had designed humans with special facial muscles to express uniquely human moral sentiments like sympathy. Instead, drawing upon observations of his children, animals at the London zoo, and his faithful dogs, Darwin showed how our moral sentiments are expressed in mammalian patterns of behavior. In his analysis of suffering, for example, Darwin builds from pure empirical observation to a radical conclusion: the oblique eyebrows, compressed lips, tears, and groans of human suffering have their parallels in the whining of monkeys and elephants’ tears. To be a mammal is to suffer. To be a mammal is to feel the strongest of Darwin’s instincts — sympathy. The expression of sympathy, Darwin observed, was to be found in mammalian patterns of tactile contact. Inspired by this observation, Matthew Hertenstein and I conducted a recent study of emotion and touch that was as much a strange act of performance art as hardheaded science. Two participants, a toucher and touchee, sat on opposite sides of a barrier that we built in a laboratory room. They therefore could not see nor hear one another, and could only communicate via that five digit wonder, the hand, making contact on skin. The touchee bravely poked his or her arm through a curtain-covered opening in the barrier, and received 12 different touches to the forearm from the toucher, who in each instance was trying to communicate a different emotion. For each touch, the touchee guessed which emotion was being conveyed. With one second touches to the forearm, our participants could reliably communicate sympathy, love, and gratitude with rates of accuracy seven times as high as those produced by chance guessing. Sympathetic touches are processed by receptors under the surface of the skin, and set in motion a cascade of beneficial physiological responses. In one recent study, female participants waiting anxiously for an electric shock showed activation in threat-related regions of the brain, a response quickly turned off when their hands were held by loved ones nearby. Friendly touch stimulates activation in the vagus nerve, a bundle of nerves in the chest that calms fight-or-flight cardiovascular response and triggers the release of oxytocin, which enables feelings of trust. Research by Darlene Francis and Michael Meaney reveals that sympathetic environments — those filled with warm touch — create individuals better suited to survival and reproduction, as Darwin long ago surmised. Rat pups who receive high levels of tactile contact from their mothers — in the form of licking, grooming, and close bodily contact — later as mature rats show reduced levels of stress hormones in response to being restrained, explore novel environments with greater gusto, show fewer stress-related neurons in the brain, and have more robust immune systems. Were he alive today, Darwin would likely have found modest delight in seeing two of his hypotheses confirmed: sympathy is indeed wired into our brains and bodies; and it spreads from one person to another through touch. Darwin, the great fact amasser that he was, would no doubt have compiled these new findings on sympathy and touch in one of his many notebooks (now a folder on a laptop). He may have titled that folder "Survival of the kindest." © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

How do you decide how dangerous a sex-offender is? Certainly all cases of sexual assault are appalling, but clearly some incidents are worse than others. In some places, teenagers who photograph themselves naked and send the pictures to their friends can be prosecuted as purveyors of child-pornography. While we may want to intervene in these cases, surely the action shouldn’t be as drastic as when we’re dealing with an adult who’s a serial child rapist. There are miles of gray area between these two extremes, and psychologists are often called on to make the tough judgment of how dangerous a individual might be. One common test is to attach a monitor to the offender’s penis and then show them images of children and adults. In principle, true pedophiles will be more aroused by the children’s pictures. But a convict applying for parole has a good reason to try to fake his response, and some people are inevitably misclassified, with potentially disastrous results. Other methods, such as the Implicit Association Test, have also been tried, but these are also potentially subject to manipulation. So a team led by Anthony Beech decided to see if a different test could be used: The Rapid Serial Visual Presentation test, or RSVP. As we discussed on Monday, in an RSVP test, a distracting word or image is presented in a series of similar displays. If the viewer’s attention is attracted by the distractor, he or she is more likely to miss a later image. As an example I’ve modified Monday’s task. Can you spot the words naming a color (like blue, red, or green)? Ignore all the other words. Click here to view the movie (QuickTime required) Instead of words, Beech’s team used photographs. They recruited convicted child molesters and other non-sex-related felons (from British prisons) to volunteer for their test. The volunteers were looking for four types of pictures: children or animals (the distractors), and chairs or trains (the targets). The rest of the pictures were neutral scenes or objects. The photos flashed by at a rate of ten per second, in sets of 11. At a random point one of the distractors would appear, just like in the example above. Two to three images later, the target appeared. Then respondents had to say what the distractor was, what the target was, and which direction the target was facing (left or right). Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

Our health isn’t just affected by the things we do after we’re born – the conditions we face inside our mother’s womb can have a lasting impact on our wellbeing, much later in life. This message comes from a growing number of studies that compare a mother’s behaviour during pregnancy to the subsequent health of her child. But all of these studies have a problem. Mothers also pass on half of their genes to their children, and it’s very difficult to say which aspects of the child’s health are affected by conditions in the womb, and which are influenced by mum’s genetic legacy. Take the case of smoking. Doing it while pregnant is bad news for the foetus, and studies have suggested that children whose mothers smoke during pregnancy are more likely to be born prematurely, be born lighter, have poorer lung function, and be more likely to die suddenly before their first birthday. More controversially, they may even show higher levels of behavioural problems including autistic disorders and antisocial tendencies. Biologically, these results make sense, but many of these risks can be inherited too. For example, genetic factors can strongly influence both a person’s susceptibility to nicotine addiction and their propensity for violent behaviour. A mother’s genes could also affect the birth weight of her child. To untangle these influences, the ideal experiment would involve randomly implanting foetuses either in the wombs of their own mothers, or those of unrelated women.   That’s possible in animals but deliberately doing so in humans would be both unethical and impractical. Nonetheless, Frances Rice from Cardiff University realised that this experiment was actually well underway. Since the advent of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) technology in the late 1970s, many mothers have nourished babies in their womb, who weren’t genetically related to them. Here was an ideal chance to study the effects of conditions in the womb, without any confusion caused by shared genes. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

  Read more about neurological Lyme disease here Robert Bransfield is a psychiatrist with a practice in Red Bank, New Jersey, along the sleepy Navesink River, just inland from the glitz and neon of the Jersey shore. Tall and professorial, with a charm and humility so natural it catches you by surprise, Bransfield seems an unlikely rebel, but experience with patients at the heart of the Lyme epidemic has left him little choice. The first Lyme disease patient he brought back from the brink worked as an assistant to a veterinarian, making her risk for exposure especially high. Late in the summer of her twenty-second year, she developed the classic symptoms of Lyme disease and was treated with oral antibiotics. When they didn’t make a dent in her condition, her doctor placed her on intravenous Rocephin and she appeared to get well. But almost two years later, she came down with a new set of symptoms, this time psychiatric. Not only was she irritable and anxious, she also began to check things obsessively and eventually descended into a deep depression. Her psychiatric symptoms were so numerous, in fact, it was impossible to label her as having just a single disorder. She developed mania with rapid mood swings, from grandiosity to sudden tearfulness; paranoid delusions; auditory hallucinations; verbal aggressiveness; and violent impulses. She also suffered cognitive dysfunction, including trouble in spelling, writing, and verbal fluency. Despite hospitalization and treatment with "every psychotropic imaginable," says Bransfield, the patient declined, her depression becoming so severe that she tried to kill herself. "This was very different from run-of-the-mill bipolar disorder," Bransfield said. "She kept getting worse, and she had physical symptoms, too. It forced the question: Could it be a reoccurrence of Lyme disease? She was so depressed I believed suicide was inevitable, so with no other option in sight, I began seeking a physician willing to treat her with antibiotics for Lyme disease. No one was willing to take the responsibility, so I wrote the order for intravenous Rocephin myself. It was a lifesaving decision. The patient responded to the treatment and today remains mentally and physically well." Bransfield described the case in the medical journal Psychosomatics in 1995, and it didn’t take long for other Lyme disease patients to beat a path to his door. As a result of the influx, Bransfield reports he’s found a connection between Lyme disease and aggression in a small but significant group. He had one Lyme disease patient who’d become so paranoid that he assaulted five police officers in an episode of rage, and Bransfield admitted him to the hospital’s psychiatric unit. During the hospital stay the patient made his way to the river behind the facility to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July and was so startled by the sound that he jumped into the river. A fourteen-year-old boy in Bransfield’s study repeatedly attempted to choke his mother to death, destroy his house, knock over furniture, and kick and punch holes through the walls and doors. A woman, age forty, became so enraged when a garbage truck cut her off on the road that she followed it back to the station, honking her horn and screaming all the way. In fact, she "was so crazed," she reported, that she felt like choking the driver to death. Bransfield says that in each and every case, the aggression resolved when these patients were treated for Lyme disease. Hoping to spread the word, he’s even testified in court when he believes defendants have been adversely influenced by Lyme disease to commit a crime. In 2001, he spoke out on behalf of a young man, age twenty-two, who attacked his neighbor with a medieval ax. It was partially treated, late-stage Lyme disease with brain involvement, including seizures that caused loss of memory and episodes of missing time, which led to the violence, Bransfield said. Despite his testimony, the young man was found guilty. Bransfield has had more success testifying for a few women arrested for shoplifting. "These cases involved encephalopathy," Bransfield says. "The women were in such a fog they’d be holding something they hadn’t paid for, without even realizing it, and would walk right out of the store. When the guards stopped them they were so confused they weren’t able to explain what had gone on." Bransfield has also been following another thread-the theory that Lyme disease and autism are somehow linked. The idea derives in part from observation: Women with Lyme disease seem to be having more than their share of autistic offspring, he reports, and when children with autism get Lyme disease, their autism gets worse. Bransfield says that ten of the fifteen top Lyme states-including Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania-are also most endemic for autism. And he and his colleagues say they’ve found compelling evidence in studies of blood. In one study he references, 22 percent of autistic subjects tested positive for Lyme disease. In another, it was 20 to 30 percent. Other infections, especially mycoplasma, he adds, may be involved. As the theory gains traction, families with autistic children have formed organizations and held conferences, testing their children for Lyme disease and seeing if treatment can help. Is Lyme disease causing the autism? "Not exactly," Bransfield believes. Instead, the children are already immunologically vulnerable, and a multitude of triggers, be it Lyme borreliosis or a chemical sensitivity, might set them off. To see if the theory holds, Brian Fallon has launched an epidemiological study comparing the rate of autism in two heavily Lyme-endemic areas in New Jersey and Connecticut to areas where Lyme is rare. Psychiatrists like Bransfield remain light-years apart from those clasically trained in infectious disease and some other medical specialties, who, by and large, do not see subjective cognitive or psychiatric symptoms as signs of Lyme. But the issue is one of perspective. Those first describing Lyme disease in the early literature were trained in rheumatology and dermatology. The ‘objective signs’ they recognized -palpably swollen joints, antibody production, and an erythema migrans rash-derived from the specialty-specific training they had. Later, neurologists added their specialized ‘signs’ to the mix: cranial nerve palsy, gross meningitis, and measurably damaged nerves. By these standards, virtually one hundred percent of those treated for Lyme disease are cured, but that ignores the fact that a huge number of patients still have cognitive problems, fatigue, pain, and mood swings. Because those symptoms weren’t objectified early in the history of the disease, by the specific specialties first involved, they were never added into the calculus for dignosing the diease. But psychiatrists –more of them each day– feel that signs and symptoms of psychiatric disease are highly relevant, even if rheumatologists and l neurologists still lack of appreciation for these other ways of defining illness and objectifying signs and symptoms of disease. You don’t need to be a scientist or doctor to observe the obvious: If one doctor offers no relief, patients will seek help from someone with a different perspective or point of view.  Because patients stay with doctors based on treatment outcome-and because outcome varies so widely depending upon whom you talk to-it is impossible to say that doctors across the specialties are seeing the same kind of patient. Even if the precipitating infections were once identical, is it now the same disease?   Read more about neurological Lyme disease here Adapted from Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic . Pamela Weintraub is senior editor at Discover Magazine   © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.