Serotonin Synapse

What makes me happy?
This Chinese rap about Ben Cao Gang Mu (or Materia Medica), an ancient text of herbal medicine -- complete with scantily-clad ladies and the invaluable advice not to cut the deer horn too thin when preparing... well, some unspecified herbal remedy, I guess.

What makes me happier?
That I discovered it on the awesome (and heretofore unknown to me) blog of an erstwhile colleague and friend from my alma mater, "String between Pearls." This bloggeuse is one of the most impressively yet unassumingly intelligent people I have had the honor of knowing, and her knowledge of eunuchs alone is devastating in its berth.

Further Synapses

Saw this and couldn't pass it up:
Dr. Warren, the fighting doctor whose ideals proved stronger than any temptation, is an inspiration to all of us pre-meds.

(Via Pop Sensation)

Synapses

Some links to things published by other people that that I found strange and wonderful:

I do love my anatomical drawings, so this item got me extremely excited:
Memento Mori, Part I, a short chronicle of illustrations in anatomy books. In the spirit of the last post, I thought I'd mention Charles Estienne's 1545 De dissectione partium corporis humani, which supposedly

"includes a number of woodcuts of nude women that were, according to Rifkin, originally intended as ‘genteel humanist erotica’, but were altered by partial dissection and the inclusion of anatomical information relating to reproductive anatomy. Included are Bathsheba being spied upon by David (below), as well as the goddesses Venus, Antiope, and Proserpina. A good example of the complex relationships between art, medicine, books, and sex during the early modern era."

(Bookn3rd)

No, that is not what I meant by "extremely excited." Shame on you.
Although I must say that the concept of genteel humanist erotica (or Porno della Mirandola, if you will) is really rather intriguing.


Good news, everybody! If the image of me slavering over some vivisected Venus was too much for your prim sensibilities, then pop some blood pressure pills. Why's that, you ask? Well, apparently, beta blockers can wipe your memory! That's right, the utopia traditionally reserved for the likes of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet is now available to the public at large. The BBC reports that these pills, typically used to treat cardiac arrhythmia and severe hypertension, can also "erase bad memories." Scary, right?
Well, kind of. Researchers

"artificially created a fearful memory by associating pictures of spiders with a mild electric shock delivered to the wrists of the volunteers.... The researchers assessed how fearful of the pictures the volunteers were by playing sudden noises and measuring how strongly they blinked, something called the 'startle response.' The group that had taken beta blockers showed less fear than the group that had taken the placebo pill."

So, the startle response was dampened, but that makes sense because beta blockers are beta-adrenergic antagonists, meaning they block the hormone adrenaline from reaching the receptors it uses to initiate a neurologic response. Adrenaline is the big "fight-or-flight" hormone, so it's really no surprise that blocking its action could in some way alter the startle response.
The next day, those who had been administered the beta blocker still showed less inclination to run screaming from the room: "Study leader Dr Merel Kindt explained that although the memories are still intact, the emotional intensity of the memory is dampened." Well, that makes sense, too. If you are exposed to a frightening stimulus while under the effects of an adrenergic suppressant, you will have a softened fear response. Naturally, your memories of that fright will be less potent than if you had not be suppressed during the experience.

Now, if they could just find a drug that worked retroactively on memories of trauma...
Actually, nevermind. That would be positively terrifying. Perhaps it is my personal bias against memory alteration, but I find the possibility of even dampening memories to be rather scary. Now, perhaps sufferers of PTSD would disagree here, and I must admit that there is some merit to helping them ease their pain. However, the larger-scale and longer-term implications of altering memory still don't sit well with me. Maybe I'm one of those luddites who will stand in the way of better living through chemistry. I'm not exactly going for my pitchfork, but I will echo the cautionary words that so often accompany scientific advance: tread carefully, and with copious forethought, because if we rush headlong into something like this, we could end up forgetting why we were worried in the first place, and those are memories we don't want to lose.

Well, how very hypocritical of me: I've just finished berating the BBC for being sensationalist about a relatively banal study, and here I am spouting dire prophecies of woe unto the wayward Children of Bacon.* I'll cease.

I hope my links have brightened your otherwise dreary existence.


*That's Francis Bacon (the father of empiricism), definitely not Roger Bacon (the alchemist who had a talking brass head), and most likely not crispy-fried strips of pig (which are delicious, but not very scientific).

A Valentine's Day reading from everyone's favorite Textbook of Medical Physiology

(Via Morbid Anatomy)


Two disclaimers:
1. I realize it is no longer Valentine's Day. I spent that special day in the warm embrace of my one true love, organic chemistry. We shared a romantic dinner of cold pizza and Chinese delivery -- yes, both: it was a special day, after all -- and muttered sweet nothings about the reactions of carbonyl compounds.

2. I also realize that, having already seen how the physiology text handles race, rousting out its views on gender seems somehow unfair. Still, I decided that the traditions of Valentine's Day dictated that below the belt was fair game, so I went for the low blow. I realize I was not entirely alone in this kind of endeavor. Nor, I am sure, was I alone in my ultimate disappointment with what came after. I was sure that the chapter called "Sexual Functions in the Female" would provide some juicy tidbit of ignorance or chauvinism, so, like a hormone-drenched seventh grader with his new life sciences textbook, I flipped right to the back to look at the good stuff, and maybe learn something important about girls in the process. And as I was those many years ago, so again was I chagrined at the lack of suitable material. So, I apologize for not being able to present anything quite as interesting as the stoic Amerindians of yesteryear. What follows are some quotes that struck me as somewhat noteworthy.

"The Female Climacteric. The term 'female climacteric' means the entire time, lasting from several months to several years, during which the sexual cycles become irregular and gradually stop. In this period the woman must readjust her life from one that has been physiologically stimulated by estrogen and progesterone production to one devoid of these feminizing hormones.... The loss of the estrogens often causes marked physiologic changes in the function of the body, including (1) 'hot flashes' characterized by extreme flushing of the skin, (2) psychic sensations of dyspnea, (3) irritability, (4) fatigue, (5) anxiety, and (6) occasionally various psychotic states. These symptoms are of sufficient magnitude in approximately 15 per cent of women to warrant treatment. If psychotherapy fails, daily administration of estrogen in small quantities will reverse the symptoms..."

Do you get the sense that he's talking about his ex-wife here?
Also, psychotherapy? Seriously? No offense to the brotherhood of St. Sigmund, but I'm not sure that talking to a shrink is going to stop your hot flashes. In fact, the whole passage somewhat reeks of the kind of condescension usually reserved for perceived psychosomatic disorders. Mind over matter, ladies! Readjust your lives to cope with the loss of your breeding potential and that shortness of breath (dyspnea) will melt away. Sure, you're "devoid of these feminizing hormones," and thus the very reason for your existence has been eliminated, but I'm sure there's a bridge club or sewing circle out there for you somewhere.
One wonders if the menopausal female still experiences penis envy. Sorry, it's hard to resist taking swipes at the Freudians. Probably because my parents never loved me.

But Valentine's Day is about the blossoming fertility of young love, not the creeping decrepitude of senescence! Let us turn the page (literally) to see what is said regarding...

"THE FEMALE SEXUAL ACT
Stimulation fo the Female Sexual Act. As is true in the male sexual act, successful performance of the female sexual act depends on both psychic stimulation and local sexual stimulation.
The psychic factors that constitute 'sex drive' in women are difficult to assess. The sex hormones, and the adrenocortical hormones as well, seem to exert a direct influence on the woman to create such a sex drive, but, on the other hand, the growing female child in modern society is often taught that sex is something to be hidden and that it is immoral. As a result of this training, much of the natural sex drive is inhibited, and wheher the woman will have little or no sex drive ('frigidity') or will be more highly sexed probably depends partly on a balance between natural factors and previous training."

I'm not sure what to say about that. So I'll keep reading. Lets' see...

"massage, irrigation, or other types of stimulation of the perineal region, sexual organs, and urinary tract create sexual sensations. The clitoris [italics theirs] is especially sensitive for initiating sexual sensations...."

Hmmm... Blah blah blah nervi erigentes, blah blah blah sacral plexus... mucus, mucus, mucosa...

"The lubrication in turn is necessary for establishing during intercourse a satisfactory massaging sensation rather than an irritative sensation, which may be provoked by a dry vagina. A massaging sensation constitutes the optimal type of sensation for evoking the appropriate reflexes that culminate in both the male and female climaxes."

I wonder who did that research? And what did the grant proposal look like?
But wait. What's this? What does our guidebook have to say about that most mysterious sacrament, that sangraal of intercourse, the female orgasm? Well, a lot (three paragraphs) about how it's probably really important for fertilization, but they're not really sure how or why: "information on this subject is scanty," they conclude.

However, there is one final paragraph, one sentence long, that will also serve to close this post:

"In addition to the effects of the orgasm on fertilization, the intense sexual sensations that develop during the orgasm also pass into the cerebrum and in some manner satisfy the female sex drive."

Hm. Who knew?

Excerpt from the TEXTBOOK OF MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY by Arthur C. Guyton, M.D., 4E (1971)

The professors at Goucher have been spring cleaning, so there are tables full of free textbooks all over the science building. A slave to my compulsive acquisition of codices, I have been leaving school with a heavier backpack every day. Yesterday, I picked up a copy of the 1971 Textbook of Medical Physiology, and began flipping through it during an especially boring session of MCAT review. So, while my friends and colleagues were pretending to be interested in how to write scientific notation, I discovered the joys and foibles of obsolete medical science. I would like to share one particular section which appealed to my Imp of the Perverse. What this means is another non-notebook post-- enjoy them while they last.

"Chapter 50: Somatic Sensations

II. Pain, Visceral Pain, Headache, and Thermal Sensations

[...]

METHODS FOR MEASURING THE PERCEPTION OF PAIN

The intensity of a stimulus necessary to cause pain can be measured in many different ways, but the most used methods have been pricking the skin with a pin at measured pressures, pressing a solid object against a protruding bone with measured force, or heating the skin with measured amounts of heat. The latter method has proved to be especially accurate from a quantitative point of view.

Figure 50-1 illustrates the basic principles of a heat apparatus used for measuring pain threshold. An intense light is focused by a large condenser lens onto a black spot painted on the forehead of the subject, and the heat intensity delivered by the light is controlled by a rheostat. In determining the subject’s threshold for pain, the intensity of the heat is increased in progressive steps, and the length of time required for the forehead to heat sufficiently to elicit pain is recorded for each heat intensity. These data are then plotted in the form of a “strength-duration curve” to express pain threshold, as follows.

[…]

By far, the greatest number of subjects perceive pain when the skin temperature reaches almost exactly 45 °C, and almost everyone perceives pain before 47 °C. In other words, it is almost never true that some persons are unusually sensitive or insensitive to pain. Indeed, measurements in people as widely different as Eskimos, Indians, and whites have shown no significant differences in their threshold for pain. However, different people do react very differently to pain, as is discussed below.

[…]

THE REACTION TO PAIN

Even though the threshold for recognition of pain remains approximately equal from one person to another, the degree to which each one reacts to pain varies tremendously. Stoical persons, such as members of the American Indian race, react to pain far less intensely than do more emotional persons."

There are probably many things to say about this bit of medical arcana, and many questions to ask about the minds behind this research. I imagine that, as children, they enjoyed pursuits that involved ants, a magnifying glass, and the smell of baking chitin in the morning. But my thoughts are perhaps more preoccupied by questions about the kind of individual who decided to strap a series of Caucasians, Indians, and Eskimos into a forehead-burning apparatus and then assessed the quality and intensity of their yelping. Of course, it might seem that the study suggests that the diversity of the world is best represented by two different Native American peoples and "whites." However, this is actually because Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and Polynesian Islanders feel no pain. Or maybe they just don't exist.

Regardless, what it really leaves me with is the mental image of Iron-Eyes Cody with a quarter-sized black spot on his forehead and that single tear trembling on his eyelid. "Stoical" indeed.

(Ironically, both the PSA and the 4th edition of the textbook were from 1971, although whether the pain study appeared in the 1956 first edition is unknown. The forehead-burner seems to have been invented in 1940, so it is possible.)