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This article first appeared in the Psychiatric Times. Learn about Brain Rules here.

I am a fan of the television show Deadliest Catch—a documentary series that follows the travails of deep-sea fishermen in the Bering Sea. (Actually, it is mostly about deep crab fishing.) Living in Seattle, I have actually seen some of the boats filmed on the show.

The variety of equipment the fishermen use to capture sea life is extraordinary. Trawlers and purse seiners—boats that use long-line nets and gill nets—make it possible to catch thousands of fish at a time. I am constantly struck by the comparison between these large, industrial efforts and the “weekend” fishermen that Seattle also has by the thousands. The amateurs use simple fishing poles to catch one fish at a time. Where the Deadliest Catch boats are based, you can often see both styles side by side.

I mention these 2 contrasting styles of fish harvesting because there is a comparison that I would like to make in this month’s column and in the next. It is not much of a stretch to say that isolating the genes responsible for complex behavioral disorders can seem like fishing expeditions (complete with analogous net comparisons). There are giant efforts that deploy the molecular equivalent of purse seiners designed to snag large groups of genes that share a potential involvement in whichever presenting behavior is under study. These efforts can be contrasted with technologies that use the equivalent of small fishing poles, the goal of which is not to catch large, glittering groups of nucleotides but single genes, one at a time.

In this column and the next, we will tackle one of the most slippery issues in the behavioral sciences: the genetic basis of autism.

Download the PDF of the complete article

This article first appeared in the Psychiatric Times. Learn about Brain Rules here.

The transition to parenthood is filled to the brim with behavioral extremes. Parents who are otherwise emotionally stable are in one moment thrilled and happier than they have ever been and confused and fearful the next. A friend of mine once theorized that these reactions occur because “parenting is an amateur sport” played by persons who are highly motivated to do the right thing but who often have no idea what that right thing is.

For some couples, the transition to parenthood is not filled with this rich mixture of great perplexity and great joy. For them, parenthood is mostly filled with sadness and even despair. Postpartum depression was originally coined to describe this experience in the mother, although it is becoming clear that fathers can experience very similar emotions too.

Is there a molecular basis for postpartum depression—at least for the type that mothers experience? Recent findings, which I describe here, may answer this question. First, we will focus on several background behavioral and molecular issues and then move on to some interesting data about births in genetically manipulated laboratory animals.

Download the PDF to read the complete article

People sometimes make New Year's resolutions for the wrong reason.

John Medina knows a lot about how people operate. He doesn't make resolutions, but he does have some advice for anyone who wants to have a better life in 2009. Take care of your brain.
--Read Jerry Large's column in the Seattle Times

--Excerpt below from Compete.com interview

Given the 12 Brain Rules, what advice do you have for marketers?

Three pieces of advice:
1. The brain is not interested in learning. And it is not interested in buying. It is interested in surviving.

2. It fleshes out this pre-occupation by creating and responding to two internal motivations, both strikingly Darwinian. The brain is interested in anything that will provide it a benefit. And it will do whatever it can to avoid pain.

3. Both motivations are related to a single goal: passing our genes onto the next generation. That sounds like it all comes down to sex, but it really comes down to endurance – in terms of millions of years. We barely survived our womb in the Serengeti, but we did so because of the overwhelming dictatorship of these twin interior forces.

Each time Suzanne Corkin met H.M. during one of his visits to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she would ask him if they had met before. He would smile and say yes, and when she asked him where he would reply, “In high school.” They did not actually meet until he was in his late 30s, but they worked together for nearly five decades, and the last time they met he still failed to recognise her. The most she ever elicited in him was a sense of familiarity.
Economist Obit

John Medina explains how H.M. helped us understand how memory works (watch on You Tube).

Watch the introduction to the Brain Rules DVD below in HD (or here). The DVD is included with every hardcover book.



Below is the exercise segment in HD. You can also view it here. To learn more about how exercise boosts brain power, check out the exercise tutorial.