Category: Links

Four Stone Hearth #95

Afarensis has put together an outstanding addition of anthropology’s blog carnival Four Stone Hearth. The Four Stones refer to anthropology’s four fields – archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology – and the hearth to how they come together to create a holistic approach to understanding humans in varying times and spaces.

Michael Tomasello and cultural diversity, chimpanzee culture, neuroarchaeology!, and much more. Plenty for the readers of Neuroanthropology to enjoy.

Link to Four Stone Hearth #95.

St. Patty’s Hearth


Ad Hominin just hosted the anthropology carnival Four Stone Hearth, the Saint Patrick’s edition.

Ad Hominin features a new list of 100 Best Anthropology Blogs for Students from OnlineDegrees.net You can find a lot there if you’re not familiar with anthropology online. [Link severed due to problems with target site.]

Then you get archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology – something from all the major sub-fields, including abbeys, dispersal of early Homo, Siberian languages on the verge of extinction, and educational malpractice.

So go enjoy Four Stone Hearth #88.

EvoS: Evolution, Addiction and the Encultured Brain


Two weeks ago I had a wonderful visit to EvoS, the Evolutionary Studies Program at Binghamton University. Leslie Heywood, a gifted writer and a true interdisciplinary scholar, invited me to Binghamton. She really enjoyed herself at our Encultured Brain conference, and wanted me to share my work with the EvoS program.

It was a very stimulating visit, and given their technology gurus there, I can share with you two key parts of it.

First there is the video of my lecture on Evolution, Behavior and the Encultured Brain. You don’t actually get to see me, however – you see my Powerpoint slides and hear my accompanying lecture. In the talk I cover a lot of my work on evolutionary theory and addiction, and then discuss how that work has lead me to neuroanthropology and how neuroanthropology works as a good complement to evolutionary biology.

I also took part in a podcast, where I got involved in a great discussion with students at Binghamton about my research on substance use and abuse in Colombia. So in the podcast I range more widely over my work, in particularly discussing some of the cultural anthropology work I have done. So you can also get the Daniel Lende podcast.

They also had a page providing a brief introduction to my talk, and there you can access the pdf of my Evolutionary Medicine and Health chapter “Evolution and Modern Behavioral Problems: The Case of Addiciton.”

Two by Four Stone Hearth


We’ve been a little lax about posting links to the great anthropology carnival Four Stone Hearth. So we’re going to take a swing at updating you about the last two editions.

A Very Remote Period Indeed hosted Four Stone Hearth #85: Cold Wind Edition. Amidst the January cold came archaeological delights like ancient pants and prehistoric footwear to keep you warm, as well as Melville Herskovits in the history of anthropology, the place of linguistic anthropology at the hearth, and much, much more.

Over at Testimony of the Spade we have Four Stone Hearth #86: Amazing Stories Edition. It’s worth a visit for the great covers from fantastical fiction. But you can also find musings on the paleolithic diet, a bronze age halberd, dance and trance, and once again, much, much more!

Link to Four Stone Hearth #85: Cold Wind Edition

Link to Four Stone Hearth #86: Amazing Stories Edition

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.

SlowTV: Mind and Its Potential


The Mind and Its Potential Conference was hosted in Sydney, Australia back in November.

Mind & Its Potential is your opportunity to hear the world’s top scientists, psychologists and philosophers explain how to apply the new science of the brain in education, medicine, business and your life.

After we previewed it, Paul wrote up a nice review of the conference. Now SlowTV is featuring the videos of several of the talks.

Michael Valenzuela, Neuroplasticity and the ‘Use it or Lose it’ Brain

“Dr Michael Valenzuela describes the concept of neuroplasticity in the brain. He cites the tangible benefits that mental and physical activity have on the development and ongoing functioning of the brain to demonstrate how our neural pathways work on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis.”

Dr Daniel Siegel MD on We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Neuroscience of Social Emotion.

Here Siegel speaks about “Interpersonal Neurobiology…an interdisciplinary view of life experience that draws on over a dozen branches of science to create a framework for understanding of our subjective and interpersonal lives.”

Baroness Susan Greenfield, The Brain, the Mind and Life in the 21st Century.

“A lively presentation” on “mind function and dysfunction in the modern world,” i.e., technology is killing your brain, but within the broader context of how the brain helps you be you (snarky, I know, but actually it’s a good presentation on relating plasticity with individuality and experience up until 14:50 or so).

And a group discussion featuring Susan Greenfield, Daniel Siegel, Michael Valenzuela, and Jane Burns that is hosted by Alan Saunders, Changing the Brain: Mind over Matter?

“This expert panel addresses how recent discoveries in neuroscience have changed the way we conceive of brain function. Recent thinking proposes that the brain is an infinitely malleable organ, constantly changing and heavily influenced by its surroundings and by the functions that it is required to perform.”

As a bonus, you can also get Prof Jason Mattingley on SlowTV speaking on What Can Neuroscience Tell Us about Consciousness?

“Mattingley looks at the different understandings of consciousness and what the field of neuroscience can add to our collective understanding of how the mind works.”