Are Some Anxiety Disorders Connected to Magnetoreception? A Review of “Phobias: Fighting the Fear” by Helen Saul

I came across the book Phobias: Fighting the Fear after doing a Google search on “human magnetoreception.” This 306 page book is an excellent summary of the status of scientific knowledge of anxiety disorders at the beginning of the 21st century. Helen Saul (the author) is a scientific journalist, and writes for a general audience. The book is comprehensive in scope, as revealed by the chapter titles:  “History,” “Evolution,” “Genetics,” “Neurophysiology,” “Behavior,” Cognition,” “Personality and Temperament,” “Gender and Hormones,” “Light and Electromagnetism,” and “A Physical Problem.” Those who want to check her sources can consult the “Further Reading” section at the end of the book.

One thing I gleaned from this book is the wide diversity of anxiety disorders. It’s likely that syndromes that are combined together into a single disorder (e.g. panic disorder) have different etiologies. Since we can only diagnose anxiety disorders based on symptoms, we are certainly combining different disorders into one “package.” It is similar to headaches. A headache is a symptom, but it can be caused by many different things (migraines, tension, stroke, brain tumor, etc.) Similarly for panic disorder and other anxiety disorders.

The main reason I read this book was for the information included in the “Light and Electromagnetism” chapter. Saul begins the chapter with a section called “Mary’s Story.” Mary Dwarka is an agoraphobic housewife who developed an original hypothesis about her disorder. (Agoraphobia is a fear of public places and open spaces, sometimes associated with panic attacks.) Dwarka believes that agoraphobia is basically a travel disorder, a disruption of our navigational ability. People suffering from this disorder get disoriented when trying to use modern transport systems. “It could be due to the magnetic fields set up by subway or electric train systems, the artificial lighting on almost all public transport, or even just the sheer speed and distances covered. Whatever the underlying reason, it is the disorientation, rather than anxiety, that triggers the panic reaction” (p. 228). Agoraphobics are also upset by the lack of an escape route. If you’re on a train, you can’t get off until it stops at the next station. If you’re traveling in a car on a highway, you have to wait until the next exit to get out. Our Stone Age ancestors wouldn’t have been so confined as they wandered through the forests and jungles. Dwarka attributes the fact that women are 2 to 3 times more likely than men to have agoraphobia to fluctuating hormones. Her symptoms, as those of some other women, went into remission during her pregnancy.

Saul then summarizes Robin Baker’s human magnetoreception research. Baker, working in the 1970's and 1980's, was a pioneer in the study of human magnetoreception. It must be remembered that Baker studied normal subjects, and wasn’t specifically interested in the application of magnetoreception to psychiatric disorders. Saul mentions his research as support for Mary Dwarka’s hypothesis.

Saul next turns to the effects of light on anxiety disorders. She mentions the research of Arnold Wilkins, who studied the effects of fluorescent lights on several medical conditions, including epilepsy. Some people are very sensitive to fluorescent lighting, TV’s, and strobe lights. This sensitivity can take the form of seizures.

Agoraphobics are sensitive to sunlight. The Greek physician Hippocrates wrote of sunlight sensitivity 2400 years ago. A third of agoraphobics wear sunglasses or prefer to go out in the dark. Many are particularly sensitive to fluorescent lighting. Wilkins found that strip lights, glare, bright sunshine, and sunlight broken by trees or railings are troublesome for agoraphobics.

Saul mentions some alternative magnetic treatments like Empulse and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Both of them seem to help some people with anxiety disorders, but evidence is not conclusive. It must be remembered that they produce artificial magnetic fields that are many times more powerful than the geomagnetic field. They are as unnatural as drugs.

My human magnetoreception hypothesis combines the two threads in the “Light and Electromagnetism” chapter. Like Mary Dwarka, I believe that some psychiatric disorders are connected to navigation and magnetic fields. Some cases of agoraphobia  + depression may be magnetoreceptive in origin. Agoraphobia is a positive symptom, and is a signal that you are south of magnetic home. Depression is a negative symptom, and is a signal that you are north of magnetic home. Dwarka is correct in saying that some agoraphobics become disoriented from modern transport symptoms. The speed and distance traveled, along with the artificial lighting, are disorienting. For people who are sensitive to the geomagnetic field, modern travel exposes them to far greater magnetic field differences than our Stone Age ancestors experienced. Evolution has not adapted humans to handle these differences.

I am sensitive to bright sunlight, as are many agoraphobics. I attribute this sensitivity to the fact that the sunlight activates my limited functionality GPS. This internal GPS tells me if I’m north or south of magnetic home.

One problem with the book is that it is entirely text. Saul is an excellent writer, and I didn’t have a problem following it, but I have a background in psychology. Saul would have made the book accessible to a wider audience if she had included some pictures, charts, and tables.

I winced when I read the sentence: “I. P. Pavlov . . . was an early learning theorist in the 1940s whose dogs famously heard a bell before receiving food” (p. 139). Pavlov died in 1936.

I recommend this book as a readable introduction to the science and treatment of anxiety disorders. I commend Saul for her willingness to talk about subjects like light and electromagnetism, subjects that mainstream scientists avoid like the plague.

The Difference Between Magnetoreception and Bioelectromagnetics

Earlier this month, I did a search in Pubmed on the term “magnetoreception”. An article came up which described an experiment on humans. The abstract ended with the following sentence: “Magnetoreception may be more common than presently thought.” The implication is that humans may have magnetoreceptive abilities.

The experiment involved studying how exposure to low-intensity, low-frequency magnetic fields can alter pain sensitivity in humans. Subjects were exposed to acute thermal pain while lying in an fMRI machine. Experimental subjects received the magnetic field exposure (which involved different magnetic fields than the fMRI machine normally produced), while control subjects didn’t receive this. The fMRI machine imaged both experimental and control subjects’ brain activity. Significant differences in activity were found in various brain regions in the experimental versus control group.

I would classify this experiment as an example of a bioelectromagnetic phenomenon, but not as a magnetoreceptive phenomenon. Bioelectromagnetics is the study of how electromagnetic fields interact with living beings; magnetoreception (aka magnetoception) is the study of how animals utilize magnetic fields for orientation. There has been much more research on bioelectromagnetics than on magnetoreception. One familiar bioelectromagnetic research area is the possible increased cancer risk from cell phone radiation.

Magnetoreception involves the perception of magnetic fields for orientation, i.e. to alter behavior. Some animals (e.g. migratory birds) navigate partially based on information in the geomagnetic field. Magnetoreception is basically a “sixth sense,” similar to vision or hearing, in which sensory information is processed by the brain to produce a perception. In this case, the perception is some sense of where the animal is, where it needs to go, and how to get there (i.e. an internal GPS, possibly combined with an internal compass).

To my knowledge, there has been only one research project involved in understanding whether or not humans have magnetoreception. This was undertaken by Robin Baker at the University of Manchester in the 1970’s and 1980’s (summarized in his book Human Navigation and Magnetoreception). Baker did a variety of studies designed to ascertain whether or not humans have magnetoreceptive navigational abilities. I talk about his research in my scientific paper. It’s difficult to summarize his results; a fair assessment is that he was unable to convince the scientific community in the existence of human magnetoreception.

For two years, I studied what I believe to be my own magnetoreceptive abilities. Unlike Robin Baker, who studied a weak orientational ability (involving internal GPS and compass ability) in normal subjects, I focused only on a limited-functionality GPS ability that was directly connected with my psychiatric symptoms. My research revealed that my symptoms (negative versus positive) indicate whether I’m north or south of (magnetic) home. I claim no compass ability at all. I can’t tell whether I’m facing or moving north, south, east, or west. All I can do is feel whether I’m north or south of magnetic home. To get to magnetic home, I need to utilize external navigational aids (e.g. maps, roads, technical GPS, etc.).

The most important aspect of my research is not that it will provide an awesome new navigational tool for humans. The modern technical GPS is great as a navigational tool, and my internal GPS is no match for it. The significant part of my research is that it provides an explanation for the environmental cause of psychiatric disorders. Right now, this environmental cause is unknown, and as a consequence we’re unable to effectively treat mental illness, or to prevent new cases from happening. Drugs treat symptoms, and can help many people function better, but they are no cure. To find a cure (or way to prevent psychiatric disorders from happening), we must understand the environmental cause. My hypothesis is that psychiatric symptoms are navigational tools, the human equivalent of the animal instinctual response to being north or south of home. This hypothesis can be tested (I describe some experiments in my scientific paper), and if confirmed, can hopefully lead to a future in which schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are as rare as smallpox and polio are today.

A Memoir of How I Developed the Concept of Psychiatric Symptoms as Navigational Tools

Arguably the single most important finding of my human magnetoreception research project is the concept of psychiatric symptoms as navigational tools. Negative symptoms (i.e. depressed mood) tell me that (magnetic) home is south of my current location, and positive symptoms (i.e. tics) tell me that (magnetic) home is north. In my site and research paper, I don’t give many anecdotes related to my development of this idea. I intend to fill in this gap in this post.

One of the strangest things about psychiatric disorders is that although they are considered to be diseases, they don’t share many of the characteristics of diseases. For one thing, there’s no obvious pathophysiology, i.e. physiological changes associated with the disease. This is not the case for some other well-known brain diseases. Multiple Sclerosis is characterized by plaques in the white matter of the brain. Parkinson’s Disease is characterized by loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Both of these diseases are degenerative—i.e. the patient gets worse over time. Psychiatric disorders, on the other hand, are not degenerative. Take as an example John Nash, the subject of the book and movie “A Beautiful Mind.” His schizophrenia gradually improved over time, so that by his mid-fifties he could function reasonably well.

While psychiatric disorders are not typical diseases, I don’t agree with Szasz’s infamous 1961 book that mental illness is a myth. As someone who suffered from mental illness for over 20 years, and having seen how mental illness has wrecked lives and destroyed relationships in my own family, I know how dysfunctional it is. It’s just not in the same category as other diseases.

My concept of psychiatric symptoms as navigational tools helps explain this puzzle of mental illness. Psychiatric symptoms are the human equivalent of the animal instinctual response to being north or south of home. Long ago during human evolution, our ancestors probably utilized these symptoms for navigation. Since our primitive ancestors never ventured far from their birthplace, didn’t live very long, and had no exposure to artificial magnetic fields, their symptoms were never too intense. They were strong enough to guide them north or south toward home, but not strong enough to incapacitate them.

At some point, the knowledge of psychiatric symptoms as navigational tools was lost. This probably occurred well before the advent of civilization and written language. Some cultures and tribes considered these symptoms to be the result of evil spirits or demons. Others, like the ancient Greeks, took a more naturalistic approach. Today, the dominant theory is that psychiatric disorders are a result of a chemical imbalance. This imbalance is brought on by a combination of genes and environment. Both the genes causing mental illness and the environment trigger or triggers are unknown (as of 2009).

I accept the premise that genes are part of the cause of mental illness. My human magnetoreception hypothesis explains the environmental trigger. People with psychiatric disorders are unwitting navigators, whose symptoms are guiding them to their (magnetic) home. Since knowledge of the navigational function of psychiatric symptoms has been lost, the navigators (and everyone else) attribute their symptoms to some type of biochemical disease process.

How did I arrive at the startling conclusion that the symptoms of my psychiatric disorder were navigational tools? Before embarking on my geomagnetism research project in late 2007, I had studied psychology, and had gotten a second bachelor’s degree in this subject (my first was in physics). From my study of psychology, I knew about positive and negative symptoms, primarily as they applied to schizophrenia. I thought that I had negative symptoms, in the sense of a chronic mild depression (i.e. dysthymia) and lack of motivation. I also had positive symptoms, in the sense of tics, hypomania, and anxiety. But I had no idea that these symptoms were navigational tools until late 2007, when I began to drive around Utah and surrounding states, paying attention to how I felt differently in different places.

Since many of my readers may not be familiar with the geography of the Western U.S., I’m including a map with some key places I visited coded with letters. Here’s what happened at each of these places.

A) Salt Lake City, Utah (SLC). This was my home during this initial stage of my research project. I used how I felt here as a reference point, to compare to how I felt in the other places.

B) Rock Springs, Wyoming. This was the first place I drove to in search of a geomagnetic explanation of why I felt differently in different places. I drove here on September 20, 2007, because I knew that it was higher in total intensity and inclination than SLC, and I expected that being higher in these two magnetic factors would make me feel better. I stayed in a motel here, and felt in prepeak. I felt more focused and motivated than I did in SLC. At the time, I didn’t know that there was a peak, and that it was only one meter north-south distance. On hindsight, if I had known about the effects of circadian rhythm on peak location, I would have gone to bed an hour later, which would have pushed the peak far south of Rock Springs. I was phase advanced at the time, but didn’t know it.

C) My next trip was to Idaho Falls, Idaho, on September 26, 2007. I wanted to go north to see if even higher total intensity and inclination would make me feel better than I did in Rock Springs. What I found, however, was that in Idaho Falls I felt depressed, unmotivated, and unfocused. These are what I would later call “negative symptoms,” or symptoms of being in the Negative Zone, the area north of magnetic home.

D) Based on the negative symptoms I felt in Idaho Falls, I decided that I needed to drive south, to attempt to feel the way I did in Rock Springs. By using the magnetic model calculator, I found that Twin Falls, Idaho had similar total intensity and inclination to Rock Springs. I drove down to Twin Falls on September 27, but didn’t feel as well as I did as in Rock Springs. I stayed overnight a few nights in Twin Falls, driving to some of the small towns north and northeast of this city. I felt in prepeak in Rupert (about 75 km east/northeast of Twin Falls), but negative symptoms in Minidoka (about 23 km northeast of Rupert). On September 28, I distinguished between a “Northern Effect” and “Southern Effect,” which I would later change to “Negative Zone” and “Positive Zone.” I speculated on the implications of this for bipolar disorder. I also observed that the feelings go away temporarily while I’m driving (something I would later realize was applicable to sleeping near a cardinal bed angle {N-S or E-W}. The feelings don’t go away when driving if I sleep near a 45 degree bed angle).

The next day (September 29) I found the peak near Twin Falls. By making frequent stops while driving, I realized that the prepeak feelings occurred in a narrow north-south distance range, 2 to 3 kilometers.

E) Wanting to find the peak closer to Salt Lake City (A), I drew a line between Rock Springs (B) and Twin Falls (D), and predicted that the peak should be near Bear Lake. This high elevation, relatively undeveloped resort lake near the Utah/Idaho border had inspired me in September 2006 to write a mystery short story set there. See the pictures below.

In early October, 2007, Bear Lake inspired me to further develop my concept of the psychological magnetic map. It was near the Bear Lake Marina that I first walked the peak. I walked too fast, however, missing the most intense part of the peak (see video). At the time I estimated that the peak was between 30 and 60 meters north-south distance (later revised down to one meter). By walking east and west of the peak, and holding a compass, I realized that the peak extended approximately along a line of magnetic east-west.

By stopping in Laketown and Round Valley, two towns just south of the lake, and then stopping in Logan, which is a further distance southwest of the lake, I began to conceptualize the distinction between the Happy Zone and the Positive Zone. Just south of the peak is the Happy Zone, in which I’m largely free of symptoms, but if I go further south I run into the Positive Zone, in which I feel positive symptoms (i.e. tics and involuntary body movements).

I returned to Bear Lake on October 11, eight days after my previous visit. I found that the peak had moved south 0.9 km in the eight days. This was before I controlled for bed angle, and was likely due to a combination of Bed Angle Drift (BAD) and secular change. Much of my later research involved doing quantitative analysis of the various factors that were associated with peak movement north or south.

The above description covers the initial stages of my research project, in which I identified that my symptoms were navigational tools, leading me to magnetic home. I also found that there was a peak, a short distance of intense feeling that was a north-south transition between different symptom clusters. In future posts I’ll discuss some other anecdotes associated with this project.