Should reviewers be required to cite their sources?

When I got back from the IBAGS conference, I was greeted by an 'paper rejection email'.

Failure with a capital F (source)

I was disappointed of course, but I slept off my jetlag and then built my self-confidence back up by saving the universe. I will retool the paper and submit it somewhere else.

However, the reviews for this paper were particularly infuriating (aren't they always?). Here's a summary:

I say: "Thing X is true (citation, citation), so we did thing Y which uses thing X."

Reviewer says: "You act like thing X is true, but it's not (no citations)."

The reviewer did this for two specific aspects of the paper, saying that the basis for our model and our ideas just aren't true, but giving no citations. In both case, I have citations in the paper to back up my claim that these things ARE true.  

This particular form of irritating review has not happened to me before. I've always had well-cited responses to my claims. It's common courtesy to cite some papers when you say that someone is completely wrong about something, but I guess it's not required.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Has it happened to you? Am I just having the normal 'grrr' response to a negative review?

© TheCellularScale
 

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Dopamine and Reward Prediction Error

I am back from the IBAGS conference and full of new information! I plan to blog about tons of amazing things over the next month or so, but today we'll start with some foundation building.

Dopamine nails (source)

The IBAGS (international basal ganglia society) meeting is all about the basal ganglia (which includes the striatum), and as you may know, dopamine is a super important molecule for the proper function of the striatum (it is the dopamine cells that die in Parkinson's Disease).

There were many fantastic talks during the IBAGS meeting and almost a third of them showed the exact same figure on one of their slides. So much so that everyone would start to laugh when someone showed it. And as you may have guessed, it is about dopamine. Here it is:

Schultz 1998 Figure 2

This figure is the basis for the belief that dopamine represents a 'reward prediction error'.  Let me explain. The scattered dots on the lower half of each panel represent action potentials from individual dopaminergic neurons. The x axis it time in seconds. The black columns above them are a histogram showing how much firing is going on at each point in time. When the black columns are tall, there was more dopamine neuron firing. You can see that the height of the black columns matches up with the density of the scattered dots below them.

During 'reward learning', an animal is trained to associate a stimulus (like a tone or a flash of light) with getting a reward (like a drop of water or juice). These three panels show how dopamine responds to this whole process. The first panel shows that when there is no stimulus (CS) and the reward is a surprise, the dopamine neurons respond very strongly to it. The second panel shows that when there is a stimulus that tells the animal that a reward is soon to come, the dopamine neurons respond to the stimulus, but not to the reward. Finally the third panel shows that when there is a stimulus the dopamine neurons respond to it, but if the reward (R) never comes, the dopamine neurons actually stop firing when the reward should have happened.

What is so fascinating about this is that it shows dopamine neurons do not just fire in response to reward, they encode the actual reward with respect to the expected reward. In the author's words:

"Dopamine neurons report rewards relative to their prediction rather than signaling primary rewards unconditionally (Fig. 2). The dopamine response is positive (activation) when primary rewards occur without being predicted. The response is nil when rewards occur as predicted. The response is negative (depression) when predicted rewards are omitted. Thus dopamine neurons report primary rewards according to the difference between the occurrence and the prediction of reward, which can be termed an error in the prediction of reward..." Schultz 1998

This finding is so important to researchers now because it shows that dopamine neurons can encode learning rules. Dopamine neurons constantly and dynamically tell the rest of the brain which stimuli lead to reward, and which stimuli don't. The implications here for pathological learning are huge as well. Mis-signalling in dopamine neurons could lead to an inability to tell what is rewarding and what is not.

© TheCellularScale



Schultz W (1998). Predictive reward signal of dopamine neurons. Journal of neurophysiology, 80 (1), 1-27 PMID: 9658025

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Does Gestational Diabetes Cause Early Labor?

Having gestational diabetes (GD) during pregnancy can put you at high risk of pregnancy complications and some problems that affect your baby, particularly if this health metabolic condition is poorly controlled or left untreated! Does it also cause early labor? What you should do to keep your risk of pregnancy complications low if you have GD?



Fortunately, many cases of GD can be

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Research Says Self-Help Surfing and Reading Aid in Reducing Depression

Reading self-help books and browsing internet sites could be just what the doctor ordered to help with symptoms of severe depression, according to a new study published today in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).  

An international team of researchers seeking treatment options for depression – a debilitating condition that affects at least 14.8 million in the U.S. – conducted a meta-analysis of multiple studies involving 2,470 people with varying levels of depression and found that ‘low intensity’ treatment had significant effects on severely depressed people.

Treatment through websites and self-help books (also known as bibliotherapy) worked for both severely and less severely depressed patients, said the researchers, and they recommended these "low intensity" therapies as a first step and initial treatment for depression.

Psychologist Dr. Deborah Serani, author of Living With Depression, has researched bibliotherapy and the use of books and websites in treating depression and says this can help patients in several very important ways.

•  “They help with psychoeducation, which is a hallmark first step in understanding illness,” she says. “Books and websites explain information in easy to understand terms and can be accessed at any time, helping to make people feel less alone in their struggle.”

•  “They aid in reducing stigma by addressing the myths of mental illness, thereby allowing a depressed person to not feel shame about having this illness. It also invites readers to find global, local or online resources and support should they want to be part of a self-help community.”

•  “They also provide hope, especially when self-help books and websites detail personal stories of children or adults, and even high profile celebrities, who've moved through their depression successfully." 

For more, read here

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Honoring a Legend

The Cellular Scale is at the International Basal Ganglia Society meeting this week (#IBAGS2013), and finally has internet!

Sunrise over the Gulf of Aqaba (I took this picture)

It's already been two days of conferencing, and I plan to mainly write some follow up posts when I get back. But I will just briefly mention the "Lifetime Member" lecture that was given on the first evening of the conference.

Mahlon Delong (source)

This year's lifetime member is Mahlon DeLong.
I've written before about deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a treatment for Parkinson's Disease, and DeLong has done some fascinating work that has lead up to DBS in the  subthalamic nucleus (STN).

One particular treat was to see a video during the talk of the very first attempt at alleviating Parkinson's symptoms through a subthalamotomy, the lesion of the subthalamic nucleus.

A Parkinson's Disease monkey was given the subthalamotomy on only one side of the brain and the video shows Mahlon DeLong interacting with the monkey and noting that it's treated side is less stiff than the untreated side. A second video shows the monkey later able to move its arm with no problems.

It was exciting to see this sort of 'moment of discovery' from 1989. There were no cries of "Eureka!" or anything it was more of a 'hm, interesting' tone. You actually hear his post-doc on the video saying
(paraphrasing from memory) "the right side has better tone, at least Mahlon thinks so" and then start laughing.

(source)

One other cool thing about Dr. DeLong is that he is Muhammad Ali's physician.

© TheCellularScale

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Conference Time

I am at the international Basal Ganglia society meeting this week. I will probably blog about some of the great new research that I learn about, but not for a week. The internet here is pay-for and buggy, and all my blogger information is all suddenly in Hebrew (I am actually typing this right to left for some reason). So I'll be away from twitter and blogger for about a week. But I'll have tons of cool stuff to write about after that .

The Cellular Scale

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March 1st is International Self-Injury Awareness Month

What do Singer, Fiona Apple; Comedian, Russell Brand; Actress, Drew Barrymore; Actor, Johnny Depp; Actor, Colin Farrell; Actress, Megan Fox; Actress, Angelina Jolie; Singer, Demi Lovato and Princess Diana have in common?

Before finding emotional health, they struggled with self-injury.

Self-Injury is a deliberate, non-suicidal behavior that inflicts physical harm on one's body to relieve emotional distress. Self-injury has a paradoxical effect in that the pain self-inflicted actually sets off an endorphin rush, relieving the self-harmer from deep distress. It's important to note that self-injury does not involve a conscious intent to commit suicide - and as such, the clinical term for this behavior is called Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI), NSSI can take many forms from cutting, picking, burning, bruising, puncturing, embedding, scratching or hitting one's self, just to name a few.

In its simplest form, NSSI is a physical solution to an emotional wound. Generally, it is a deliberate, private act that is habitual in occurrence, not attention-seeking behavior, nor meant to be manipulative. Self-injurers are often secretive about their behaviors, rarely letting others know, and often cover up their wounds with clothing, bandages, or jewelry.

Symbolically speaking, deliberately injuring one's self can be viewed as a method to communicate what cannot be spoken. With self-harm, the skin is the canvas and the cut, burn or bruise is the paint that illustrates the picture. Most individuals who self-injure are struggling with emotional expression. This clinical experience is known as Alexithymia - the inability to recognize emotions and their subtleties and to understand or describe thoughts and feelings. Many other self-harmers are struggling with internal conflicts, may have anxiety, depression, may have experienced physical or sexual abuse, or other more serious psychological concerns.

Statistically speaking, approximately 4% of the population in the United States uses NSSI as a way of coping. Individuals who self-injure are represented in all SES brackets in the United States with the behavior usually starting in adolescence. Girls and women tend to self-injure more than boys and men, but this may be represented by the fact that females tend to turn to professional help more than males.

Those Who Self-Injure Are Often Trying To:

* Distract themselves from emotional pain

* End feelings of numbness

* Offset feelings of low self-esteem

* Control helplessness or powerlessness

* Calm overwhelming or unmanageable feelings

* Maintaining control in chaotic situations

* Self-punish, self-shame or self-hate

* Express negative thoughts or feelings that cannot be put into words

* Self-nurture or self-care

For more help and resources, reach out to Self-Injury Outreach and Support  and To Write Love on Her Arms


 

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