Day: February 10, 2010

The Sociology of Neuroscience: A Call for Papers

Volume 11 of “Advances in Medical Sociology” will be dedicated to the theme Sociological Reflections on Neuroscience. You should send abstracts detailing potential contributions by next Monday, February 15th, 2010. Details on abstract submission are at the bottom of the post.

Sociological Reflections on Neuroscience will be edited by Ira van Keulen (Rathenau Institute) and Martyn Pickersgill (University of Edinburgh). Here’s the call for papers:

The Advances in Medical Sociology book series seeks submissions for a new volume on sociological reflections on the neurosciences. Neuroscience is an increasingly influential and prestigious branch of biomedicine, gaining ever more traction within a variety of policy, professional and public cultures. In some respects, neuroscientific ideas and concepts are replacing genetics as a paradigm for understanding the body, the mind and social order, and the relationships between these domains.

Neuroscience therefore demands attention from sociologists. However, to-date, debate around the ‘new brain sciences’ has been limited within sociology, and it has mostly been ethicists who have opened up discussions on the important ethical and epistemological issues neuroscience raises. As a consequence, many of the discussions on the social, ethical, legal and policy implications of the rapidly growing field of the neurosciences have been primarily speculative and theoretical. Thus for this volume of Advances in Medical Sociology: Sociological Reflections on Neuroscience we are specifically looking for articles based on empirical research, from socio-historical analysis to ethnographic research, from surveys to in-depth interviews.

This edited volume of Advances in Medical Sociology aims to be a benchmark text in sociological analyses of neuroscientific research and practice. Accordingly, we call for papers addressing a wide variety of issues pertaining to the sociology of neuroscience, including – but not limited to – the following topics:

1 Knowledge representation in (medical) neuroimaging studies.

2 Changing perceptions of neurological conditions (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease) and ‘cognitive functions’ (e.g. attention, memory) within the clinic and in wider society.

3 The neuroscientific (re)construction of psychopathology (e.g. autism, ADHD, depression).

4 The links between neuroscience, clinical practice and subjectivity (including the politics and meanings of ‘neurodiversity’).

5 The rise of novel clinical neurotechnologies (e.g. neurofeedback, deep brain stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation).

6 Representations of the (diseased) brain within and beyond the media.

7 Changing perceptions of the mind-body relationship.

8 The governance and regulation of medical neuroimaging (including the development and implementation of clinical neuroethics).

9 The international production and flow of neuroscientific concepts, knowledge and technology.

10 Neuroscientific understandings of ‘sociological’ terms and concepts such as gender and racism.

This list should be treated as suggestive rather than prescriptive, and we welcome papers that with other germane issues (such as the degree to which longstanding sociological concepts like ‘biographical disruption’ and ‘medicalisation’ have explanatory or descriptive power in thinking about neuroscience, and the potential contribution neuroscience might make to sociology).

Potential contributors should email a 300-500 word abstract by Monday February 15th 2010 to: socofneuroscience@rathenau.nl. Informal enquiries to this address are also welcome. Name and institutional affiliation of author(s) should also be supplied, including full contact details of the main author. Proposals will be reviewed by the editors, and authors notified by 5th April. The deadline for full submissions (7500-8500 words) will be 1st September. Publication of the volume is expected in late 2011.

Wednesday Round Up #102

Top of the List

ScienceDaily, Ancient Human Teeth Show That Stress Early in Development Can Shorten Life Span
George Armelagos, a professor of mine at Emory, is featured in Science Daily with some excellent work showing how stressful events occurring early in life, as indicated by tooth enamel, can mean a shorter life span.

Susan Carey, The Origin of Concepts
The Harvard professor has a video lecture over at Cognition & Culture, where she discusses her new book The Origin of Concepts

Jane Brody, Rules Worth Following, for Everyone’s Sake
Michael Pollan’s new book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, is reviewed very favorably over at the NY Times. I also liked his earlier interview with Tara Parker-Pope, where he presented this book as the practical version of Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Anthropologists could pay great heed to what he says:

I’ve spent 10 years looking at agriculture, food and health. I’ve done it mostly as a reporter with a lot of research and adventures and explorations. At the end of the day people want to know what to do with this information. What’s the practical import of what you’ve learned? It’s the question I always get when I’m speaking to readers… I kept hearing the word pamphlet, and I wanted to write a book that would reach as many people as possible. It’s a real radical distillation of everything I’ve been working on. It’s really just to help people to act. It’s about daily practice more than theory.

Frans B. M. de Waal, The Evolution of Empathy
How empathy is essential to who we are, in the context of apes and other animals also exhibiting this trait.

Vaughan Bell, Death of a Gladiator
A gladiator graveyard is discovered in Turkey. Really cool research on how scientists determine the gladiators’ cause of death, with a focus on traumatic brain injuries.

Owen Slot, A Great Sporting Achievement
“Why the key to becoming a successful athlete is using less, not more, of your brain.”

Mind

Daniel Carlat, Lilly: “Execute the *%#&*! out of them!”
How drug companies manipulate science and doctors in order to sell their drugs.

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #102”

Cross-Cultural Psychiatry: A Special Report from Psychiatric Times


Psychiatric Times issues periodic special reports, and the latest one features a wealth of articles and ideas on cross-cultural psychiatry.

Ronald Wintrob, chair of the World Psychiatric Association–Transcultural Psychiatry Section, writes the Introduction to Cross-Cultural Psychiatry for this special report. He notes how migration has increased over the past 20 years, and that 12.86% of the US population are immigrants. Psychiatrists have put increasing effort into engaging these populations.

One of the most practical applications of cultural psychiatry to clinical practice in all fields of medicine is the open-ended questioning of patients and their families about their personal and family background characteristics. This includes identifying features of race, ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic class, relevant immigration history, experiences of acculturative stress, and personal and family aspirations. A discussion of these background characteristics can lead naturally to the clinician’s exploration of the presenting clinical symptoms and history. Knowledge of the patient’s background will increase rapport with patients and families and aid the process of collecting a more reliable history. In addition, it will improve the likelihood of treatment adherence. This process has been described as “cultural case formulation.”

Three main articles comprise the special issue:

Religion, Spirituality, and Mental Health by Simon Dein, senior lecturer of anthropology and medicine at University College London. This piece provides an in-depth examination of what is currently known about the relationships between religion and mental health, and also includes a handy set of four check points that summarize the main themes of the article.

Cultural Considerations in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, by Toby Measham, Jaswant Guzder, Cécile Rousseau, and Lucie Nadeau, all in the department of psychiatry at McGill, which presents a series of guidelines and suggestions for how to handle cross-cultural issues in practice with children and adolescents

Cultural and Ethnic Issues in Psychopharmacology, by Keh-Ming Lin, professor emeritus in psychiatry at UCLA. This piece goes from the placebo effect to genetic variation, and argues that “cultural and ethnic influences… should be regarded as central in determining the success of treatment interventions.”

Under the whole category of cross-cultural psychiatry at Psychiatric Times, you can also find other articles, including this one by J. David Kinzie on A Model for Treating Refugees Traumatized by Violence.

Link to the Introduction to the Special Report on Cross-Cultural Psychiatry.