Wednesday Round Up #7

Iraq and War Trauma

Thom Shanker, Army Worried About Rising Stress of Return Tours to Iraq
More tours, more anxiety, depression and stress…

Emory Wire, Fellowship Project Explores PTSD’s Effect on Families
Returning home and the ravages of post-traumatic stress; see Erin Finley’s description of her research here

Leslie Kaufman, After War, Love Can Be a Battlefield
“He used to tell jokes and funny stories and now he doesn’t do that anymore. I could tell he was different right away, but I thought it would pass.”

Dana Foundation, The Brain Injured Soldier
Two-part series of podcasts, with an accompanying press release

Jared Tanner, Traumatic Brain Injury: A Silent Epidemic
Covers brain injuries in general in the US—IEDs work similar and equally glaring damage in Iraq

Ginger Campbell, Treating Vets with Mirrors
Mirror box therapy and Iraq veterans who are amputees

Sharp Brains, TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), Iraq and Neuropsychology
Good coverage, with links, about the problem

Associated Press, Army Creates New Unit to Help Wounded Soldiers Get Better
“Warrior transition units” and a “culture of healing within this organization”

William Grimes, Empathy for the Brain, After Insult and Injury
Review of Michael Paul Mason’s book Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath

Susan Okie, Traumatic Brain Injury in the War Zone
New England Journal of Medicine article on the how’s and the recovery from this type of injury

Theo Francis, Pentagon Seeks Battlefield Device to Diagnose Brain Injury
A camera and eye-tracking device to be developed; article also has good links to relevant work

RAND, Invisible Wounds of War
New study by the research group: “Psychological and cognitive injuries, their consequences, and services to assist recovery.” Comprehensive report on the overall problem

Mental Health

Stephen Dubner, How Much Progress Have Psychology and Psychiatry Really Made? A Freakonomics Quorum
A great discussion, with varying viewpoints and supporting evidence

Christopher Lane, Are We Really That Ill?
The DSM-IV gone wild! Mission creep with the psychiatric diagnostic manual

Vaughan Bell, A Small Dose of Freud
Freud and what has stood the test of time and what has not

Katherine Hobson, Sweet Tooth? You’re Still Not a Sugar Addict
Cravings as situational and culturally shaped—the sensory experience matters!

Neuroscientifically Challenged, Epigenetics and Alcoholism
Changes in gene expression in the brain linked to withdrawal

Brain-Related

Judy Skatssoon, Culture Wires Your Brain
Some recent roots to ideas covered in this blog, based on an interview with Juan Dominguez

BusinessWeek, The Business Brain In Close-Up
Neuroleadership—hyped and hip

Gary Marcus, Total Recall
The vagaries of memory, and the desire for a computer chip implant

Laura Freberg, More Evidence That Toy Choice Is Not All About Socialization
Wheeled cars, plush toys, and Smash the Daddy

NeuroDojo, Mind Readings Almost There
Video with Christopher deCharms: fMRI in real-time

LiveScience, 10 Things You Didn’t Know About You
A fun little list

LiveScience, Bad Habits: Why We Can’t Stop
“No bad behavior vaccine”

Anthropology-Related

Experientia, Video Ethnography and Its Ethics
Will business use video ethnography in ways never intended?

Putting People First, Design for the Next Billion Customers
Ethnography, rethinking assumptions, and emerging markets

Kate Zernike, Pamperers
Pamela Paul’s Parenting Inc: “my generation of parents has fallen into the grips of Big Baby”

Jon Marks, Ventriloquists for Darwin
Darwinists or Creationists, Who’s Worse? Plenty of commentary

Alok Jha, Sex: It’s Written All Over Your Face
“men and women could generally judge who would be more interested in a short-term fling”