Human Magnetoreception Research Resumes After 30 Years of Neglect

Robin Baker’s human magnetoreception experiments in the late 1970’s and 80’s were pioneering efforts that led to—30 years of basically doing nothing. Failure to replicate his results was the reason for this, but failure to replicate is common in neuroscience. The brain is complicated, and we don’t have a good understanding of it yet. Why failure to replicate led to scientists abandoning human magnetoreception, but not abandoning other fields like brain imaging, search for chemical imbalances, etc. probably requires a psychological explanation along the lines of Thomas Kuhn’s classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

While scientists abandoned the study of human magnetoreception, a small number of scientists continued studying nonhuman animal magnetoreception, making important contributions in experimental technique and understanding of biophysical mechanisms. These contributions, which were yet to be discovered at the time of Robin Baker’s pioneering experiments, along with general technological improvements, have led to much better experimental control than was possible during Robin Baker’s time. I’m pleased to be able to report two human magnetoreception experiments that make use of these scientific and technological advances, and have been published in science journals this year.

The first experiment, Chae et al., was done by a research group in South Korea. They did a modification of Robin Baker’s spinning chair experiment. In Baker’s original experiment, blindfolded subjects were spun around in random directions in a chair, and asked to say the compass direction they were facing. In this new experiment, the researchers created an artificial magnetic field using Helmholtz coils, and shielded subjects from external EMF’s using a Faraday cage. 41 subjects with no physical or mental disorders, ages 19-33 years, approximately evenly divided between men and women, were studied. Subjects were able to rotate their chairs instead of having the chairs rotated for them. They were asked, with eyes closed, to rotate their chair to face magnetic north or east. These magnetic directions were modified by the Helmholtz coils. Adding an operant conditioning component, some subjects were starved, and “rewarded” with candy if they faced the correct direction. The ambient light was experimentally controlled. Some subjects were blindfolded. The study made use of scientific advances in understanding of factors that can affect animal magnetoreception, including that some RF frequency EMF’s can affect magnetoreception, and that some types of magnetoreception requires low wavelength monochromatic visible light (i.e. blue or green, but not red or yellow). The authors concluded that starved men (but not women) significantly oriented toward magnetic north or east. This orientation was maintained under blue light, but not under long wavelength (> 500nm) light.

I have several issues with this experiment. One is that, like with many of the Robin Baker experiments, and unlike with most nonhuman animal experiments, there’s a lot of spread in the data. The highest r value (a measure of the variability, with a higher r meaning less variability) is 0.51, which isn’t very good. To get a visual idea, here’s a reproduction of the main results figure:

The blue dots represent data points, i.e. direction estimates. See how the blue dots in the supposedly significant D and H are spread around in a circle. If the subjects really were able to ascertain their direction, the dots would be congregated either at magnetic north or magnetic east. Results like these are invitations for failure to replicate, as happened with Robin Baker.

If you’re going to test light-dependent magnetoreception, why ask subjects to close their eyes? It drastically reduces the light hitting the retina, and may disable the light-dependent magnetoreceptor. There was no reason in this experiment for subjects to close their eyes, as the magnetic field was modified by the Helmholtz coils, and was invisible to the subjects.

It’s not a good idea to test human magnetoreception in only healthy subjects. Most people who have contacted me regarding purported magnetic sensitivity have some sort of psychological and/or physical problems. Just think about it—if you’re sensitive to magnetic fields, you’re not going to do well in modern society, with all the artificial magnetic fields that we’re forced to live with. You may have done well a long time ago, when we were hunter-gatherers, but not today.

I don’t see how starving humans and conditioning them using food adds anything of value to this experiment. If humans were able to ascertain compass direction, then it shouldn’t matter if they were starving or not.

Did any individuals exhibit special powers of ascertaining compass direction? The results were grouped, so I can’t tell. Anyone studying magnetoreception should look for individual differences and focus on those who are sensitive. This leads to my discussion of the second experiment, which did just that.

This Wang et al. experiment, done by a research group at Caltech headed by longtime magnetoreception researcher Joseph Kirschvink (joined with others at Princeton and the University of Tokyo), has been extensively reported in the science press (see this, and this for good nontechnical summaries). Instead of measuring navigational abilities like Robin Baker or the Chae et al. study mentioned above, this experiment looked at a drop in amplitude of the alpha EEG brainwave (known as alpha-event-related desynchronization, or alpha-ERD) in response to changes to external magnetic fields. It studied 24 adult males and 12 adult females, ages 18-68, “recruited from the Caltech population.” Subjects included people of European, Asian, African, and North American descent. Like with the Chae et al. experiment, a Faraday Cage was used to shield against external EMF’s. This experiment used a nested set of orthogonal, squared Merritt coils to modify the magnetic field surrounding the subject. An EEG was used to measure brainwaves, and current EEG analytical techniques were used to identify patterns. A battery-powered digital conversion unit relayed data over an optical fiber cable to a remote-control room. This room, ~ 20 meters away from the subject, had all power supplies, computers, and monitoring equipment. The paper goes into great detail on the experimental setup, to aid in future replication efforts. Participants sat with eyes closed, in total darkness during the experiments. Tests were run that varied inclination with declination constant, or varied declination with inclination constant. Each run was ~ 7 minutes long, with 8 runs in a ~ 1 hour session. There were sham runs (no changes) interspersed with real runs, and the experiment was conducted double blind. Here's a picture of the experimental setup:

The study reported alpha-ERD in 4 out of the original 36 participants (11%) that remained stable over time. The alpha-ERD occurred when inclination changed (i.e. from upward to downward, or vice versa). The alpha-ERD also occurred when declination changed counterclockwise, but only when the magnetic vector was pointed downward, as it does naturally in the Northern Hemisphere. There was no alpha-ERD when declination changed but the magnetic vector pointed upward, as it does naturally in the Southern Hemisphere. This asymmetry, along with other analysis, was used to rule out potential biophysical mechanisms such as the quantum compass and induction. The authors suggest magnetite as a likely biophysical magnetoreceptive mechanism, although this experiment wasn’t designed to prove this. None of the participants in the study could consciously distinguish between different magnetic field conditions.

This study needed a lot more information about the participants, especially the ones who had the strong responses. We are given no information about how they were selected. They were from the Caltech population. What does that mean? Were they students, professors, employees, or a combination of the three? The fact that someone is at Caltech at the time of the experiment tells me nothing of their background. They could have lived all their life in Sydney, and started at Caltech a month or two before the study. In that case, I’d expect their magnetoreceptor to be tuned to the Southern Hemisphere. Future human magnetoreception studies should have a detailed history of where and when a person lived. Many people move around a lot in their childhood, including from Northern to Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. We also need to know where they spent their adult life. If someone who spent their childhood in Cape Town but has lived in LA for 6 years, and has alpha-ERD responses at Caltech with downward inclination like in the Northern Hemisphere, then that would indicate that this response is capable of adaptation after childhood.

There should also be personality and clinical testing of participants to determine if the responders had any noticeable differences from the non-responders. That would aid in identifying other responders.

One flaw in this study is that it groups statistics between responders and non-responders. They did find significant ANOVA results, but what if there were only one or two responders instead of four? That’s a potential problem for replication. If they need more subjects for statistical power, they should find more responders, and group the responders together.

While the authors’ exclusion of the quantum compass (i.e. radical pair) biophysical process makes sense based on their data, it must be remembered that the experiment was done with eyes closed, in total darkness. The quantum compass is a light-dependent magnetoreceptive process. It’s possible that humans have this quantum compass, which was turned off under these experimental conditions.
The alpha rhythm is an awake, resting rhythm. The conditions of eyes closed and total darkness is somewhere in between normal waking behavior and sleep. Studies of normal alert waking behavior should involve eyes open and lights on. This would activate the light-dependent quantum compass magnetoreceptor, assuming humans have it.

This study is very important in creating a magnetically-controlled condition that utilizes EEG, as this can be applied to sleep research. Ten years ago, I argued in my research paper that any studies on my magnetoreceptive abilities would require experimental control of my sleeping behavior. I couldn’t imagine at the time how this could be accomplished in a magnetically controlled way, especially EEG, which is critical in sleep research. Thanks to the Wang et al. experiment, it does appear now within reach. The kind of experimental controls used in this study can also be used in a sleep experiment. Some of the independent variables in sleep magnetoreception research include inclination and intensity, bed angle, bed time, and ferromagnetic materials near one’s head when sleeping. Bed angle (i.e. angle of the long axis of the bed relative to magnetic north), inclination and intensity can be manipulated by the Merritt coils. With EEG, bed time (i.e. the time when you initially go to sleep) can be precisely determined, along with the progression of sleep stages. Ferromagnetic materials can be introduced in the experimental chamber in a double blind manner to determine the effect on sleep. Dependent variables include subjective sleep quality, psychological state upon awakening (which is heavily dependent on sleep quality), and EEG.

I think from my own experience that human conscious perception of magnetic field changes requires prior sleep under similar conditions to the awake testing ones. That means that the subject will have to spend at least several nights sleeping in the experimental sleep apparatus prior to awake testing. It also means that magnetic changes need to be physically realistic. In the Wang et al. experiment, the inclination sweep was not realistic. It would require a Star Trek-type transporter to move physically that amount of inclination in that short a time. Realistic inclination changes that would maintain conscious magnetoreceptive responses are similar to those occurring while running, biking, or driving (not flying). Declination sweeps, however, are more realistic, as it only requires body rotation. In North America, both inclination and intensity are highly correlated, so physically-realistic changes would require changes in both at the same time, and in the same direction. Lastly, the subjective importance of bed time in my research seems to imply perception of geomagnetic diurnal variation. It’s possible that conscious perception of the artificially-generated magnetic field may require a time-dependent component similar to the natural field.

In summary, human magnetoreception research is back in business. While these two experiments are a start, and need to survive replication, they point the way to further experiments of sleeping and waking behavior. Under the right conditions, these future experiments can verify my hypothesis that some people are sleep sensitive to magnetic fields, that some people can consciously perceive magnetic fields, and this sleep sensitivity and conscious perception may be connected to symptoms of psychiatric disorders.

Get the Kids to Bed on Time

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, a new study of sleep habits in children found that children with regular bedtimes performed better on cognitive tests than children with inconsistent bedtimes. Boys and girls with regular bedtime at age 3 performed better on cognitive tests given at age 7 than children with non-regular bedtimes. Cognitive tests included tests of reading, math, and spatial skills. The mother reported whether the child went to bed on time or not. The mother also reported the time the child went to bed on a weeknight (while school was in session). Over 11,000 children participated in the study.

The study found that children’s bedtimes became more regular as they got older. 19.5% of 3-year-old children didn't have a regular bedtime. This dropped to 9.1% of 5-year-old children, and 8.2% of 7-year-old children not having a regular bedtime. Children who were more socially disadvantaged tended to have less regular and later bedtimes. The study controlled for confounding factors that could influence test performance, including mother’s age, birth order, family income, parental education, parental employment, discipline strategies, hours spent watching TV, whether the child has a TV in the bedroom, and whether the mother drank or smoked during pregnancy.

With one exception, early or late bedtime didn't significantly affect children’s test scores, after other factors were taken into account. Late bedtime at age 7 reduced girls’ reading scores. The paper didn't present results on the association between test scores and specific early or late bedtime ranges at ages 3 or 5.

After controlling for the various factors affecting cognitive test performance, not having a regular bedtime at age 7 was associated with lower test scores for girls, but not for boys. For both girls and boys, non-regular bedtimes at age 3 were associated with lower test scores at age 7. The size of the association is small (the authors quantify the size of the association in the Discussion section, but as I mention in the next paragraph I question their methodology). Non-regular bedtimes at age 5 were associated with lower reading scores in girls, and math scores in boys. Girls, but not boys, who never had regular bedtimes at ages 3, 5, and 7 had significantly lower test scores at age 7. Somewhat surprisingly, boys who didn't have regular bedtimes at any 2 of the 3 ages had lower test scores, but boys who didn't have regular bedtimes at all 3 ages did not have significantly lower test scores.

It must be remembered that this is only one study, and replication is required before scientific acceptance of the link between stable bedtime and cognitive test scores. The study used the mother’s self report about whether her child went to bed at a regular time. This is both prone to recall errors, and also is inherently subjective. What exactly is a “regular time”? One mother may say that a regular time is +/- 15 minutes from a target bedtime. Another mother may say that a regular time is +/- 30 minutes from a target bedtime. I had problems with the table presentation of the results. Regression beta coefficients were presented along with confidence intervals, but statistically significant results were presented along with nonsignificant results, and there were no indicators separating significant from nonsignificant. There was no overall R^2 reported. I also had issues with the statistical inferences. A regression beta value for a binary variable like non-regular bedtime can’t be translated into the usual interpretation of beta: 1 SD of change in independent variable corresponds to (beta) SD change in dependent variable, but that’s apparently what the authors did. (How did the reviewers and editors miss this?) In the Discussion section of the paper, the authors report on the size of the associations in terms of standard deviations of test scores. I’m assuming that they are using the beta scores to determine this (the numbers they quote match the beta scores). If they are, then the association sizes in terms of standard deviations of test scores that the authors report in the Discussion Section are incorrect.

Assuming the link between stable early childhood bedtimes and cognitive test scores holds, it’s interesting to relate this to my hypothesis about ideal bedtime that I report in my human magnetoreception research paper. I've found that I have an ideal bedtime that varies according to where I am located, and whether or not daylight saving time is in effect. In the summer in Salt Lake City, UT, my ideal bedtime is about 11:35 p.m. I feel best both when my bedtime is stable, and when it is close to ideal. I’m assuming that sometime in my childhood my ideal bedtime was “set”. I grew up in Northern New Jersey. My ideal bedtime there is about 10:35 p.m. when daylight saving time is in effect. Did I consistently go to bed around 10:35 p.m. when I was a young child?

Another important thing to consider is the effect of daylight saving time. I have found that there is a 2 hour ideal bedtime difference when the time changes. (The explanation for this is rather complicated and I won’t go into this here). Ideal bedtime in Northern New Jersey is 8:35 p.m. during standard time, and 10:35 p.m. during daylight saving time. Perhaps I went to bed around 8:30 p.m. as a young child (more realistic than 10:30 p.m.). This 2 hour difference affects the meaning of “stable bedtime”. A child who goes to bed at 10 p.m. in the summer and 8 p.m. in the winter has a stable bedtime with reference to the natural environment. A child who goes to bed at 8 p.m. year round has an unstable bedtime—he goes to bed 2 hours earlier with reference to the natural environment when daylight saving time goes into effect. Studies such as this one don’t take this daylight saving time factor into account.

It’s possible that stable early childhood bedtimes can affect future mental health, as it can affect IQ. Perhaps unstable early childhood bedtimes can lead to sleep or mood disorders later in life. What about unstable early childhood environments (e.g. frequently moving)? What about the magnetic characteristics of the child’s bedroom (e.g. compass orientation of bed, and artificial magnetic fields in the sleeping environment)? These are the kinds of questions that researchers should be asking as they explore different and previously unknown environmental effects on child development.

Pseudo Research Links Vaccines to Health Problems

A friend sent me a link to a website that spoke of a study that supposedly proves that vaccinated children are more prone to allergies and other health problems than unvaccinated children. This study, known as the Bachmair vaccination study,was not published in a peer-reviewed journal. It compares data drawn from an online survey to data from a different scientific survey of German children and adolescents. The online survey was taken from visitors to an anti-vaccine website. This supposed study includes no methods section and no statistical analysis. Online surveys are notoriously biased and unscientific. An online survey of visitors to an anti-vaccine website will be expected to have results that support an anti-vaccine viewpoint. Vaccines have saved millions of children from the ravages of communicable diseases. Perhaps vaccinated children do actually have more allergies, herpes, seizures, and migraines than unvaccinated children, as this study suggests, but it offers no proof. This pseudo research emphasizes the need for parents and concerned citizens to be critical readers of Internet sites.

Genetically-Engineered Flies Prove That a Human Eye Protein Has Magnetoreceptive Characteristics

The journal Nature Communications published an article this week that supports the hypothesis of human magnetoreception. Steven Reppert and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School did a study in which they genetically engineered fruit flies (Drosophila) to produce a human eye protein called cryptochrome. This protein is known to be important in circadian clock regulation along with light-dependent magnetoreception. Normal Drosophilia flies have magnetoreceptive ability that can be behaviorally tested in a lab. Flies that are genetically engineered not to produce cryptochrome lose their magnetoreceptive ability. In this experiment, flies that were genetically engineered to produce the human (not fly) version of cryptochrome had magnetoreceptive ability similar to normal flies.

It’s important not to get too excited about this experiment. The study did not show that humans have magnetoreceptive ability. It only showed that human cryptochrome can give magnetoreceptive ability to Drosophilia. The fact that humans have this magnetoreceptive protein doesn’t imply that any people actually use it for navigational purposes. It could be a vestigial protein, an evolutionary leftover that has no function, like the tailbone or appendix.

The authors of this study suggest that  “[a]dditional research on magnetosensitivity in humans at the behavioural level. . .would be informative.” I agree, and point to my paper as something I hope to guide future research.

Here are some links to nontechnical articles that talk about this experiment:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13809144
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/2068170/human_retina_can_sense_earths_magnetism/
http://www.geekosystem.com/flies-magnetic-fields-protein/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/science/28magnet.html?_r=1

Can Humans Perceive the Geomagnetic Field and Utilize it for Navigation? A Review of “Human Navigation and the Sixth Sense” by Robin Baker

As evidence has accumulated that many animals utilize the Earth’s magnetic field (aka the geomagnetic field) for navigation, it’s reasonable to wonder if humans also do so. Since some members of every group of vertebrates possess the magnetic sense, why shouldn’t humans? Aren’t humans animals? Doesn’t modern biology, including the subdisciplines of genetics, evolution, physiology and anatomy, neuroscience, etc., emphasize the link between humans and lower animals? How can animals have an entire sensory apparatus that nature neglected to grant to humans?

Robin Baker, formerly a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, asked these same questions over 30 years ago. He didn’t just ask questions, but conducted a pioneering research project to answer these questions. He wrote two books summarizing his research: Human Navigation and the Sixth Sense, at the beginning of his project, and Human Navigation and Magnetoreception, at the end. Having already read Human Navigation and Magnetoreception, I decided to read the earlier published book.

Human Navigation and the Sixth Sense focused on only one type of experiment, bus experiments (he would later add chair and walkabout experiments). It talked a lot about the animal magnetoreception research that motivated Baker to conduct his human research. A frequently-mentioned example was homing pigeon experiments. In these studies, researchers looked at homing success after release from a considerable distance, direction of vanishing point, i.e. the last observed position of the pigeon after release, and the pigeons’ directional preferences in an orientation cage. Experimental manipulations included altering the magnetic field surrounding the animal by means of coils and bar magnets attached to the head. Disruption in homing ability by means of magnets demonstrated that homing pigeons and other animals can perceive and utilize the geomagnetic field to navigate.

Since pigeons can find their way home after being displaced tens of kilometers, why not see if humans can do the same? Since a pigeon’s ability to find its way home is disrupted if a bar magnet is attached to its head, wouldn’t the same hold for a human? That’s the logic that motivated Baker, whose background is zoology, to apply to humans what researchers up to his time had only studied in animals.

How can you prove that humans use a “sixth sense,” i.e. a magnetic sense, to navigate? The simplest and most cost-effective way to transport people from home to the release point is by bus or van. People can make note of landscape details and roads traveled as they are driven around. If they are familiar with the area, they can make educated guesses about where they are based on what they observe.

To get around this problem, Baker decided to blindfold his subjects. Blindfolded subjects wouldn’t be able to observe landscape details. Unless they had an ability to navigate by feeling the twists and turns of the bus (i.e. an “inertial sense”), they would quickly get lost. By suppressing their visual sense, he believed, their magnetic sense would become activated.

Baker drove his blindfolded subjects between 6 and 52 km from the university, which was the “home” reference point. Some experiments involved transporting subjects in a van, and others a motor coach. Along the way, and after reaching the destination (the “release point”), subjects were asked to write down or say their estimate of direction of home and air-line distance from home, and to point to home. They had to do this while still blindfolded.

To summarize the results, Baker found that blindfolded subjects possessed a weak but statistically significant navigational ability. Bar magnets or helmets with electromagnetic coils disrupted this navigational ability. Baker concluded from these results that the blindfolded subjects’ weak navigational ability was due to a “compass in the head”, i.e. a magnetic sense.

Baker made frequent use of charts and diagrams in the book to present his results. Despite these visual aids, I found it hard to understand what was going on. Some of the results could have been more thoroughly explained. The biggest problem, however, was trying to connect the results to a coherent theory. On this conceptual level I found the book lacking.

Reading this book three decades after it was published, I have the advantage of knowing the subsequent bizarre history of the project. I was beginning high school the year the book was published, and don’t remember hearing anything about Baker’s human magnetoreception claims. I think it was publicized more in Great Britain than in the United States.

To summarize the history, after publishing this book and some articles, Baker continued his research project, trying additional types of experiments such as a spinning chair. In the spinning chair experiments, after being blindfolded and spun around, a subject indicated what compass direction he was facing. While Baker was continuing his research in the 1980’s, other scientists in Great Britain and the United States tried to replicate his results. They focused on his claim that blindfolded humans driven in a bus have a weak navigational ability to locate home. They didn’t use the bar magnets or electromagnets, but simply tried to replicate the “control” condition in which the purported magnetic sense was supposed to function. The majority of attempted replications failed. To add to the confusion, Baker claimed that the supposedly failed replications actually succeeded, but that the researchers drew the wrong conclusions from the data.

After Baker published Human Navigation and Magnetoreception in 1989, which was both an answer to critics and a summary of his completed research, he changed gears entirely. He moved on to popular science books on the evolutionary biology of sex, such as Sperm Wars. His latest book is a novel.

Once Baker left the human magnetoreception research field, no one else picked it up. It disappeared, as if it fell into a black hole. Unlike the animal magnetoreception field, which developed into a prolific research specialty, the human magnetoreception field went into a long-term coma after Baker left it.

There were fundamental problems with Baker’s experimental methodology that led to his failure to scientifically establish the existence of a human magnetic sense. One problem was that he blindfolded subjects. We now know the magnetic compass that birds and some other animals use for navigation is part of the visual system, and requires light. This is known as the “radical pair” mechanism. Blindfolding subjects will block such a compass, assuming that humans have one. To be fair to Baker, when he began these experiments over 30 years ago there was little evidence in favor of the radical pair mechanism.

Another fundamental problem was that Baker assumed that the magnetic sense was unconscious. Since we can’t ask animals what they feel or perceive, we don’t know if their magnetic sense is conscious. But the five “basic” senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) are conscious, so it’s difficult to accept the existence of an unconscious sense. It’s even more difficult to prove it, as Baker found out after publishing this book. Baker compares the magnetic sense to a sense of time, which is unconscious. But time isn’t an environmental stimulus that is sensed by a specific organ, as the geomagnetic field is believed to be sensed by the magnetic sense organ.

Baker made a crucial error in assuming that possessing the magnetic sense was normal and functional. According to Baker, “[I]f a sense normally exists, absence of that sense may have clinical side effects” (p. 123). He studied normal people, usually college students. He made no effort to isolate or identify people who had special abilities. As a result, the group composite navigational abilities he studied were weak, masked by considerable statistical noise, and difficult to replicate.

Another problem with Baker’s research is that he assumed that humans could utilize their magnetic sense to point toward home, or write down or say the distance from and direction toward home. It’s not clear that even animals that are known to possess the magnetic sense could do such things, if they had the brain capacity to do them. Animals are tested by measuring in what direction they move toward home. Moving toward home is not the same thing as pointing toward home, or telling what direction home is.

Baker assumed that magnetic home and the university were one and the same. But what if magnetic home was located far away from the university? How could the subjects’ magnetic sense guide them back to the university, if their magnetic home was located hundreds of kilometers away?

Based on my own research, I have come to the conclusion that the magnetic sense is a conscious sense, based on feelings, dysfunctional, and possessed by a minority of people. These magnetically perceptive people feel differently if they are north or south of magnetic home. Magnetic home is not the same as actual home. The location of magnetic home, which is a north-south transition, is based on where and when a person grew up.

While for pigeons and migratory birds the magnetic sense is normal and functional, for modern humans in developed countries it isn’t. Feeling depressed if we’re north of home, or manic if we’re south of home, provides no navigational benefit. Familiarity with the area, maps and GPS devices can tell us where we are relative to home with much more precision than our magnetic sense does. Also, the fact that we travel so much and live much longer than our primitive ancestors did makes it likely that magnetic home and actual home will be separated by a considerable distance. Our magnetoreceptive feelings interfere with our ability to function in the modern world. In fact, they interfere to such an extent that most people with these feelings are diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and prescribed medications.

Baker’s research paradigm of driving subjects around in a bus can be modified to test these human navigational abilities that I assert are based on a magnetic sense. I talk about experimental methods in depth in my research paper, but I’ll summarize them here. Instead of blindfolding subjects, which blocks their visual-based magnetoreceptor, the bus windows should be covered. The internal bus lights will provide subjects with the light they need to activate their magnetoreceptor. Since the magnetoreceptive feeling of being north or south of home is greatly enhanced by looking directly at the early afternoon sky, a sunroof should be installed that is usually kept closed. When opened, subjects will be able to look at the sky without seeing landscape details. Subjects should then be driven to areas close to their magnetic home. Since magnetic home is different for each person, only one person at a time should be driven around in the bus. By looking at the sky through the open sunroof, the subject can then indicate where he is relative to his magnetic home. Since he’ll have no knowledge of what direction north or south is, he won’t be able to point to home, as in Baker’s experiments. He also won’t be able to estimate distance to home, since the feelings aren’t capable of being converted to distance. All that his magnetic sense can tell him is whether he is north of, south of, or in his magnetic home.

This experimental methodology is more a series of in-depth case studies than a group experiment. While labor-intensive, the only equipment needed is the bus. Although case studies provide limited generalizability, the navigational ability should be strong and reliable enough that it can be replicated.

For any scientist contemplating doing these above-mentioned bus experiments, an important question is: how do I select individuals with this ability? I mention some tests that can be done in my Are You Sensitive page, but I admit that I don’t know how this magnetic sense functions in other people. As with any new research area, the initial experiments will require adaptability and persistence, along with the willingness to take risks and accept failure.

Robin Baker was a pioneer, but most pioneers fail. Human magnetoreception has always been a controversial subject, one that few researchers dared to touch. Several centuries ago, Mesmer became a famous fraud by claiming that humans possess a magnetic sense, and today we call a hypnotized person “mesmerized”. I give Baker credit for jeopardizing his career by being the first person to systematically study the human magnetic sense. The world (especially the magnetoreceptive psychiatric population) now desperately needs a scientist with the courage to follow in Baker’s footsteps and restart human magnetoreception research. With the improved knowledge of animal magnetoreception that we possess today, along with my human magnetoreception hypothesis, this new research could lead to the breakthrough that Baker was denied.

Are Scientists Objective and Rational? A Review of “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas S. Kuhn

We think of science as a rational, empirical alternative to religion and spirituality. The scientific method is a common denominator for all the different fields in science. Science is the basis for technology, which has improved the standard of living for billions of people. In the developed world, we pride ourselves on public policy being guided by science rather than superstition or tradition.

While science is objective and rational, what about scientists? Are scientists a bunch of supermen not subject to desires, wishes, and prejudices that non-scientists experience? Or are they human beings, with the same frailties and failings that other humans have? Thomas S. Kuhn takes up this question in his almost 50-year-old classic book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The question is still relevant today, as science impacts the daily lives of more people in the world than it ever has before.

The question I ask in the title to this review can be rephrased as: Is scientific advancement always linear and progressing at a constant rate, or is it characterized by long fallow periods interrupted by occasional revolutions? The media and textbooks favor the former interpretation. Almost every day, the media reports on some new study or experiment that adds to our scientific knowledge. Science textbooks give students the sense that past historical controversies are irrelevant, and they should focus on solving problems. Past controversies and changes in beliefs are usually only studied by science historians.

Kuhn sees the linear model of scientific advancement as flawed. It doesn’t reflect the reality of science history. Science history, like art, political/economic, technology, and religious history, is characterized by occasional bursts of radical change (i.e. revolutions) surrounded by long periods of stability. Unlike these other fields, however, which all past civilizations possessed in some form, science is much newer and for over four centuries monopolized by Europeans.

Kuhn gives a detailed account of how scientific revolutions happen. To understand revolutions, you need to first understand “normal science,” which is what Kuhn describes as everyday science. Normal science is what most scientists do most of the time. It consists of puzzle solving, of determination of significant fact, of matching facts with theory, and articulation of theory. Examples include determining structural formulas, specific gravities, the speed of light, and arriving at quantitative laws. Normal science is guided by “paradigms,” constellations of beliefs, values, and techniques that are shared by members of a scientific community. A paradigm accepted by all members of a scientific discipline is a prerequisite for normal scientific work. Fundamental disagreements are characteristics of early stages of scientific development, which go away with the adoption of a shared paradigm. An example is the field of optics before and after Isaac Newton. Before Newton, “though the field’s practitioners were scientists, the net result of their activity was something less than science” (p. 13). Because there was no shared paradigm, everyone writing on optics had to articulate the foundations of his viewpoint. After Newton, scientists accepted his theory of light, and normal scientific optical work began.

A contemporary example of a pre-scientific field is clinical psychology. Psychodynamic therapies differ on fundamentals with cognitive, behavioral, family, sociological, and biological therapies. There is no shared paradigm uniting those who practice these different styles of therapies. As a result, clinical psychology has not made the progress characteristic of mature scientific disciplines like biology, chemistry, or physics.

Newton’s particle theory of light was eventually replaced with newer theories. The first theory to replace it was the wave theory, which derived from the optical writings of Young and Fresnel in the early nineteenth century. This was then replaced in the twentieth century with the contemporary theory of light as photons, with some characteristics of waves and some of particles. This theory derived from the work of Planck, Einstein and others. Each of these changes in theory was an example of a scientific revolution, a topic to which Kuhn devotes most of his book.

Scientific revolutions begin with “anomalies”, experimental results that violate a paradigm-induced expectation. Anomalies usually come about as a result of normal scientific work. One famous example is the late-nineteenth century crisis in physics that led to Einstein’s relativity theory. The wave theory of light, which became the paradigm of the nineteenth century, held that there must be a mechanical ether through which light propagated. All other waves traveled through some medium, and light was no exception. Anomalies arose, however, when both celestial observations and terrestrial experiments failed to find any drift of light through the ether. These anomalies provoked a “crisis”, an unstable condition in which a new paradigm has a good chance of acceptance. Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which he published in 1905, was a direct response to this crisis. This theory led to a new physics paradigm not only about the nature of light, but also about relative space, mass, and motion.

The above analysis is compatible with objective and rational scientists. When they practice normal science scientists are objective. After a new paradigm is accepted, and the crisis which led to it is resolved, scientists are objective. It is in their response to anomaly, and their resistance to change during revolutionary periods, that scientists reveal that there are only human.

When anomalies happen, such as the problems verifying an ether medium through which light travels, scientists have a few options:

1) They can stick with the current paradigm, and either ignore the anomalies, or try to come up with theories explaining the anomalies. Many times these theories are competing. Sometimes these theories and revisions of theories create a confusing mess, such as the modifications to Ptolemaic astronomy that occurred during the Middle Ages.

2) They can abandon the current paradigm in favor of a new one. This presupposes that some creative individual or group of people has put forth an alternative.

When a new paradigm is offered to the scientific community, it usually has not been verified, and doesn’t fit the existing facts and observational data better than the old one. For example, Copernicus’ heliocentric theory did not explain existing astronomical data better than Ptolemaic geocentric theory. It took years for Einstein’s theory of relativity to be experimentally verified.

That’s why scientists cannot choose between competing paradigms based on fact or logic. Many times new theories have an esthetic appeal to some scientists. These scientists help promote the new theory, and bring a greater likelihood that experiments or observations will be done to verify the theory.

Most scientists will stick to the current paradigm, even if it has many anomalies. This is due to the fact that they are human, and most humans resist change. This can be seen in nonscientific contexts. Contemporary American political life is characterized by widespread corruption, inefficiencies, and indebtedness. But due to inertia, it’s very hard to enact even the most basic and obvious reforms. From an external, objective perspective, this resistance to change is irrational, just as scientists sticking to flawed paradigms are irrational. But most people will defy logic and reason in order to maintain stability.

There are some scientists who will embrace a new paradigm. These people have different personalities than most—more open to new experience, more novelty seeking, and less bound to tradition. The most extreme examples are scientists who come up with the new paradigmatic theories. They are usually very young or new to the field. Einstein was in his mid-twenties and not yet a professional scientist when he published his paper on the special theory of relativity.

Let me use a current example to illustrate Kuhn’s thesis. I previously mentioned clinical psychology as pre-scientific field, one that has competing paradigms and theories. This is true when one looks at clinical psychology as a whole, including both psychologists and psychiatrists. Let me focus, however, on psychiatry, i.e. medical doctors who specialize in mental health. They have a shared paradigm, the biochemical/drug theory, which states that mental disorders are caused by chemical imbalances that can be treated by drugs. It’s rare to find a psychiatrist who has time or inclination to provide any kind of talk therapy. Most of them are now pill pushers, who restrict patient interaction to brief sessions, primarily to make diagnoses.

This wasn’t always the case. In the middle of the twentieth century, psychiatrists had a much different paradigm, Freudian psychoanalysis. They spent their time in lengthy analytical sessions with patients. When psychiatric drugs were first introduced in the 1950’s, they were a novelty, and most psychiatrists continued doing psychoanalysis. But over the next few decades, psychiatrists eagerly embraced the new biochemical/drug paradigm. It isn’t hard to understand why. Psychiatrists are trained as medical doctors, which means that they have to take the same biology, chemistry, and physics classes that other doctors take. They had extensive knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry that was wasted when they became psychoanalysts. By prescribing drugs to treat mental disorders, however, they got to be “real” doctors. They could put their medical knowledge to use in their professional life, something that they couldn’t do when they were psychoanalysts.

Over the next half century, the biochemical/drug paradigm developed anomalies. These anomalies were summarized by Robert Whitaker in his recent book Anatomy of an Epidemic. The chemical imbalance theory, i.e. that schizophrenia is caused by too much dopamine, and depression by too little serotonin, was never verified. Scientists haven’t made much progress in understanding the cause or pathophysiology of mental illness. Diagnosis is still based on symptoms due to a lack of any reliable or valid lab tests. Drugs that seem to help patients in the short term, have a much more problematic long-term outcome. As newer drugs began to be prescribed more frequently, patients seemed to function worse than they ever did before, many of them becoming permanently disabled and unable to work. Corruption became endemic, with many leading psychiatrists becoming paid spokesmen for drug companies.

In spite of these anomalies, most psychiatrists (and biological mental health researchers) continue to support the biochemical/drug paradigm. Part of the reason for this is the normal resistance to change that I described above. Another reason is that there has been no newer biological paradigm for mental illness. According to Kuhn, “a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternate candidate is available to takes its place” (p. 77).

There’s no way to predict how long the wait will be for an alternate candidate. In the case of the crisis in physics about the nature of light, a new theory became available within decades. It took over a millennium for an alternative to the geocentric Ptolemaic theory to arise.

The reason why we can’t predict when an alternate paradigm will come forward is that scientific creative achievement is not linear and progressive. As Kuhn describes in his book, scientific progress is characterized by long sterile periods of pre-science or normal science, interrupted by occasional revolutions. Many times these revolutions are the result of individual creative genius, as in the case of Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein. Understanding the psychological characteristics of creative individuals, and the social characteristics of societies that promote create achievement, is beyond the scope of this book. For a psychological perspective, I recommend Eysenck’s Genius or Simonton’s Origins of Genius. For a sociological perspective, I recommend Murray’s Human Accomplishment.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is only about 200 pages, and not difficult to read. I’m not interested in the philosophy of science, and sections devoted to philosophy I found boring. I’m more interested in historical examples, and found the historical sections more interesting. A problem is that Kuhn briefly goes over some of the older theories and experiments, and I would have preferred to see a more thorough explanation, including illustrations. Another problem is that Kuhn’s examples are exclusively in the physical sciences, and I would have liked to see more biological and psychological examples.

Notwithstanding these limitations, this book is a classic in the history and philosophy of science. I recommend it to anyone interested in science and creativity.

Robert Whitaker Debates Academic Psychiatrist Andrew Nierenberg at Massachusetts General Hospital

When I first reviewed Robert Whitaker’s book Anatomy of an Epidemic, I was disappointed to find very few reviews or discussions by members of the psychiatric establishment. I was curious about their perspective on Whitaker’s assertions concerning the deleterious long-term effects of psychiatric drugs. It seems that the situation has changed somewhat now. On January 13, Whitaker was invited to speak at the famed “Ether Dome” at Massachusetts General Hospital, but with a catch—he had to consent to be rebutted by one of the members of the faculty there, Dr. Andrew Nierenberg. There’s an excellent article about the debate, along with some fascinating comments. Whitaker also reports on the debate in his blog.

It seems that some leading psychiatrists are taking his arguments seriously, although they still strongly disagree with him. My own perspective is that people need to make informed decisions about their treatment, which means that they should understand the risks of taking drugs, along with the benefits. From a scientific perspective, I hope that Whitaker’s book spurs new research on long-term drug outcomes, studies that are not funded by drugs companies. I agree with Marlene Freeman, an associate professor of psychiatry in the audience: “Well-designed studies to really answer the questions you raise are very expensive, she told Whitaker. If you could take some of your passion to the National Institute of Mental Health and get them to fund some of them, ‘We’d be very grateful.’”

Thoughts on the One Year Anniversary of Harrymagnet.com

The Harrymagnet.com site went live on October 25, 2009. The content on the site represented a summary of 2 years of my own independent research. This research suggests that I have the ability to perceive the Earth’s magnetic field, and that this ability directly influences how I feel. My psychiatric symptoms (OCD + tics + mild chronic depression) are navigational tools, directing me toward magnetic home. I had observed magnetic home (aka “The Happy Zone”) in Utah and North Carolina. By recording GPS coordinates and observing how my magnetic home moved in response to things like changes in bedtime and bed angle, I had acquired a great deal of data. I wrote a research paper that presented the data with my analysis. Before going public with the data, I first contacted some researchers, sending them my abstract and asking if they wanted to read the full paper. I found it difficult to select researchers to query, as I wasn't aware of anyone doing research in the navigational aspect of human magnetoreception. (Robin Baker studied this in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but has since moved onto other things). Only one (a British researcher who specialized in parapsychology research) asked to see the paper, and he didn’t provide any feedback.

Disappointed by the lack of interest in this initial query, I decided to adopt the pseudonym “Harry Magnet,” purchase a domain name, and put the research paper and some other information on the website. I had two goals in doing this:

1. Since I had no idea who might be interested in studying human magnetoreception, instead of my trying to find them, I’d let them find me.
2. I wanted to find out if there were other people with similar magnetoreceptive abilities as mine.

I utilized Google Adwords to market the site, along with sending select queries to additional researchers. After some time, my site became listed in the first 3 pages of relevant search results, such as “human magnetoreception” and “human magnetic sense.” Some people clicked on my Two Mysteries multimedia article by doing a Google image search.

After a year, I haven’t made much progress in either of my goals. Only one researcher has given me any feedback about my paper, an American psychologist named Jorge Conesa-Sevilla (whom I had queried). No one has expressed any interest in researching the human magnetoreception phenomena I describe in my paper. There may be some people conducting research without telling me, but I have no reason to believe that any such research is happening.

Perhaps more disappointing to me is the lack of feedback among people with similar magnetoreceptive abilities. I created an Are You Sensitive page, with some simple steps that people could take to verify whether or not they are magnetoreceptive. I provided several ways for people to provide feedback, including Facebook, anonymously commenting on my blog, and also contacting me directly. I only heard back from two people, who provided information suggesting that they may be magnetoreceptive, but I was unable to follow up with them.

I thought that my website might generate some online buzz, but there have only been two sites I’m aware of that have mentioned me. One, a bipolar discussion forum, talked about me soon after my site became live. Another, a mental health blog, mentioned one of my book reviews. While I’m grateful to these authors for their mentioning me, I was hoping for a great deal more buzz after a year.

I’m not currently doing Google Adwords. I get only a handful of daily hits to my site and blog. Otherwise, nothing. To what do I attribute my lack of success?

One observation I’ve made is that while it’s easier than ever to publish, it’s harder than ever to get anyone to read what you publish. The Web has allowed anyone with a computer and Internet connection to have a voice. While this democratization of publishing is a good thing, it has created a situation in which there is so much content that it’s very hard to distinguish the few gems from the mass of irrelevant, poorly written, and useless body of information. I imagine that the few people who have clicked on my site take a cursory look and then say to themselves, “Harry Magnet, who’s he? Why should I spend my time reading this stuff?” They then leave the site.

This is where a middleman can be very useful. A creative person cannot achieve eminence alone. He needs a middleman, an intermediary to tell people that his idea is important and worthy of notice. In the past, publishers and agents served this gatekeeping role, but today it is very hard for someone without a name to get published. I didn’t even try.

The problem with my project is that all my results are based on subjective experience. That’s why I’d never get published by a peer-reviewed journal, or book or magazine publisher. The middleman I need at present is a scientist willing to research human magnetoreception, to put to the test the claims I make in my research paper. Successful results, published in a peer-reviewed journal, would bring me attention and support.

As I said above, I’m not aware of anyone in the world studying the navigational aspects of human magnetoreception. That implies that if I want to find someone to research this, I’d need to convince him to go beyond his narrow subspecialty and begin a new field of research. It’s hard to find such a person, even though there are people studying related phenomena such as the human magnetic sense, and bioelectromagnetics. Scientific research in general has become very conservative, with few people daring to study new things. Curiosity was the primary motivator of the great scientists of the past, and I need at least one scientist to become curious enough about my project to risk defying conventional wisdom.

Another potential middleman is a practitioner willing to work with me to try out my techniques on other people. I’ve made some changes to my sleeping behavior and environment that have helped me feel better. Others can make similar changes. I have no credentials and cannot be an independent practitioner, but I’d like to work with someone. This will likely be someone I meet locally, as it is hard to try these techniques from a distance.

My experience the past year has convinced me that it was a mistake to rely solely on online media to spread my message. I should have focused more on developing local connections. One reason for this is that although I have a presence on Facebook, I have little interest in acquiring virtual friends. I prefer face-to-face interaction, and have a difficult time trusting or befriending people I haven’t met in person. Due to my exclusive use of online media, I haven’t made any progress on answering these important questions:

• Who else has magnetoreceptive abilities like mine?
• What psychiatric disorders are connected to magnetoreception?
• How different are others’ magnetoreceptive experiences compared to mine?

I’m going to be leaving North Carolina soon, and I’m not sure yet where I’ll end up living. Wherever it is, I’ll try to network with other people with psychiatric disorders, along with practitioners and researchers. I’ll keep the website, Facebook page, and blog up, and utilize it both as something to refer my local connections to, along with having an online presence. Hopefully by the time of the second year anniversary of Harrymagnet.com, I’ll have more positive results to convey.

Do Psychiatric Drugs Do More Harm Than Good? A Review of “Anatomy of an Epidemic” by Robert Whitaker

The idea that people with psychiatric disorders should “take their meds”, that these meds control their symptoms, that they’d better off on than off their drugs, is a noncontroversial position today. Decades of advice from doctors, nurses, therapists, academics, and drug company spokesmen have pushed people with disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, and anxiety to take prescribed medications. We think of someone who decides not to take medications as acting in an irrational manner. Patients who are hospitalized don’t have a choice—they must take their medications.

Is this virtually monolithic societal support of the use of psychiatric drugs a group delusion, similar to the delusions that (nonmedicated) schizophrenics experience? Robert Whitaker takes up this question in his book entitled Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.

Whitaker has two main points in the book. One, is that there has been an epidemic of mental illness in America in the recent past. There is twice the rate of disabled mentally ill in 2007 compared to 1987, and six times the rate compared to 1955. This trend is even more obvious for children, where the number of disabled mentally ill children multiplied thirty-five fold between 1987 and 2007.

Whitaker bases these claims of an epidemic on SSI (Supplementary Security Income) and SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) statistics. He compares these figures in 2007 and 1987 to hospitalization figures in 1955 (most disabled mentally ill in the 1950’s were cared for in state and county mental hospitals). These SSI and SSDI figures are not true prevalence figures, of course, since there are people disabled by mental illness not on these programs, and people on these programs who aren’t truly disabled. Since diagnostic criteria for mental illness has changed significantly in the past half century, it’s impossible to arrive at a true prevalence figure. But his general point of a mental illness epidemic is hard to deny, considering that America spent $25 billion in 2007 on antidepressants and antipsychotics. If there was little or no mental illness, why are doctors prescribing so many pills?

Whitaker’s second point is much more controversial. He says that this epidemic of mental illness is, in large part, caused by the very drugs that are being used to treat psychiatric disorders! Whitaker presents evidence in his book that psychiatric drugs do more harm than good when looked at from a long-term perspective. He acknowledges that these drugs make the patient better in the short term, such as the 6 week period in which clinical trials of new drugs occur. But, looked at over the period of years, not weeks, patients do better off drugs than on them.

Whitaker uses several pieces of evidence to craft his argument. One, is that the epidemic of disabling mental illness occurred during the period in which psychiatric drugs were used. During the early phase of psychiatric drugs (mid 1950’s through the mid 1980’s), antipsychotic drugs were used primarily on people with schizophrenia. Anti-anxiety and antidepressant drugs were prescribed for people with anxiety and depression. Lithium was used as a mood stabilizer for people with bipolar disorder. Most of these early drugs (with the exception of the anti-anxiety drugs) had terrible side effects, such as tardive dyskinesia for the typical antipsychotics. These side effects limited the number of people willing to take these drugs. (The anti-anxiety drugs Miltown and Valium were very popular, especially among women, but also very addictive.) Studies showed that those on the drugs, including the anti-anxiety drugs, had worse long-term outcomes than those off the drugs. These studies were never widely publicized, and doctors continued to prescribe the drugs to adults (children rarely were prescribed drugs in this period, with the exception of Ritalin for ADHD).

The second period, beginning with the FDA approval of Prozac for depression in 1987, saw the release and aggressive promotion of “second-generation” psychiatric drugs, which included SSRI antidepressants (e.g. Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil), and atypical antipsychotics (e.g. Risperdal, Zyprexa, and Seroquel). Drug companies heavily marketed these drugs both to the public and to doctors, with the help of academic leaders in psychiatry. This period also saw a major increase in the diagnosis and drug treatment of pediatric psychiatric disorders.

The second-generation drugs had fewer and less-severe side effects than the older drugs, but weren’t any more effective than these drugs. They still had some serious side effects, however, such as increased risk of suicide for Prozac, and weight gain for Zyprexa. These adverse effects were generally swept under the rug as the pharmaceutical marketing machine (with the aid of drug-money soaked academic psychiatrists) promoted them as miracle drugs.

The release of the psychiatry reference manual DSM-III in 1980 led to a major change in diagnostic criteria, leading to more reliable diagnoses based on symptoms. The DSM-III (followed by the DSM-IV in 1994) made psychiatry appear more scientific and objective, since it dispensed with vague Freudian notions like “neurosis.” But the problem was that it wasn’t accompanied by any breakthroughs in the understanding of the biology of mental illness. The “chemical imbalance” theory, i.e. that schizophrenia was a result of too much dopamine, and depression a result of too little serotonin, was demolished by research findings. But drug companies and psychiatrists continued to tell people that this imbalance theory was true. Whitaker makes a good argument that the drugs actually cause chemical imbalances, not treat them. These iatrogenic (drug-caused) imbalances force people on the drugs to continue taking them, as they get terrible withdrawal symptoms if they try to stop. Getting children addicted to these drugs was a pharmaceutical marketing home run, as the kids would be hooked for life, a reliable long-term source of income.

It was during these last 25 years of widespread prescription of psychiatric drugs that the disability numbers soared. These drugs didn’t seem to be helping people over the long term, or else why would they be forced to go on disability? Large numbers of children started becoming disabled. According to Whitaker, the second-generation drugs had as dismal a long-term effect on patients as the first-generation drugs. The problem for society was that many times more people were taking them than took the earlier drugs. The few academic psychiatrists who questioned the efficacy of drugs were stripped of their positions and funding, and marginalized. Millions of dollars in drug money flowed to virtually all the academic leaders in psychiatry.

Whitaker weaves in anecdotes along with his research findings, enhancing the readability of his book. Some of the stories are haunting, such as the case of “Jasmine,” a girl prescribed an antidepressant for bed wetting in fifth grade. The agitation she got from this drug led psychiatrists to put her on a drug cocktail that included Zyprexa. She was hospitalized in high school, and the drug merry-go-round to which she was subjected fried her brain, leaving her perpetually psychotic and mute. Of course, Jasmine is an exception, and most children and adults on drugs have much more positive outcomes, but the reader is left to wonder, “what would have happened if she never got on drugs the first place?”

Whitaker provides examples of how drugs used to treat one condition (e.g. Ritalin for ADHD) led to some children developing manic symptoms, which led them to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which led them to receive drug “cocktails” including powerful and harmful antipsychotics. They end up on a long-term trajectory of serious physical and mental problems, an outcome which probably would have been much more benign if they hadn’t been prescribed any drugs in the first place.

My own experience with psychiatric drugs was generally a positive one. I didn’t start on drugs until I was 27. I had many years of dysfunctional behavior, of cognitive and emotional problems. Virtually any intellectual activity at all (e.g. reading or writing) would trigger horrible “states” that would last for days. These “states” would include severe obsessions, difficulty concentrating, emotional suppression, and tics. Although I had a job, I was working well below my ability, and had little social life. It was under these conditions that I decided to try Anafranil, a drug used to treat OCD, and it did help improve my functioning for a while. I tried combining Anafranil with many other drugs that were less helpful, although I usually never took more than two at a time. Being very sensitive to side effects, I stuck to low or moderate dosages. After ten years of Anafranil, I felt that it was no longer needed, and convinced my psychiatrist to allow me to stop taking it. I followed up with 3 years of low doses of Xanax, then got off medication completely. I’ve been basically medication-free for 3 years. I think the late onset of starting with drugs, the small number and doses of drugs, and the eventual getting off drugs made me one of the few long-term medication success stories.

Whitaker is not anti-drug, and acknowledges that “there is a place for the drugs in psychiatry’s toolbox” (p. 333). But he wants psychiatrists to “think about the medications in a scientifically honest way and to speak honestly about them to the public” (p. 333). Certainly the vast majority of drug prescriptions are unnecessary and possibly harmful. After reading this book, (although Whitaker doesn’t suggest this) I think that a strong case can be made to outlaw prescribing psychiatric drugs for children. If they cause more harm than good in the long run, then it is children who have the most to lose by taking these drugs. Exceptions can be made for children already on drugs, and for the few children who are completely out of control, and whose behavior cannot be managed by any other means. Psychiatrists would howl about any such legislation, but let them (and their drug company masters) put forward studies that show children benefit long-term from drugs. If Whitaker is right, and there are no such studies, then let’s ban the prescribing of drugs for children.

I found this book to be one of the most powerful and thought-provoking books I’ve read in years. I recommend it to anyone concerned with the mental illness epidemic that plagues our country.

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.

Are We Overmedicating Our Kids? A Review of "We’ve Got Issues" by Judith Warner

Judith Warner answers the controversial question of whether or not children are being overdiagnosed and overmedicated in her new book We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication. One interesting thing about the author that motivated me to read this was that she changed her mind on this question during the course of writing the book. At first, she held the view that kids were being overmedicated by their affluent, competitive, perfectionistic parents. She changed this view 180 degrees in the course of researching the book. The book argues that mentally ill kids are in fact undertreated and undermedicated. Most parents are very reluctant to drug their children, and do so only as a last resort. Many children with mental health issues (about 70%) are not being treated, partly due to parental neglect or opposition, but mostly due to lack of quality, affordable mental health providers and resources in many communities.

Warner first tackles the question of whether or not there is in fact an epidemic of pediatric mental illness. There’s no question that in recent decades there has been a massive increase in both diagnosis and medication treatment. Since the early 1990’s, the number of children receiving diagnoses of mental health disorders has tripled. From 1991 to 2006, there was a 3,500 percent increase in autistic children participating in special-education programs. Prevalence of depressed children has increased from near zero in the early 1970’s to between 2 and 15 percent today. Before the mid-1990’s, there weren’t any children diagnosed with bipolar; today prevalence is up to one percent. Prevalence of ADHD went from 1.5 to 2 percent in the mid-1970’s to about 8 percent today.

With the increased diagnosis, comes increased medication usage. Prior to the 1990’s, kids usually weren’t prescribed antidepressants or antipsychotics. Now 1 to 2 percent of kids are prescribed antidepressants. Atypical antipsychotic drugs, which can cause serious metabolic changes and weight gain, were used by over half a million children in 2003. Ritalin and other stimulant use has skyrocketed along with the increased number of children diagnosed with ADHD.

Warner argues that much of the increase is due to changing diagnostic patterns; what she calls “increased visibility.” Many children who suffered from mental illness in the period from 1945 until 1980 were, depending on the symptoms, punished for misbehavior or conduct disorder, kicked out of school, institutionalized, or labeled as retarded. They weren’t diagnosed with psychiatric disorders because there were no effective treatments (this was a time when psychoanalytic techniques were dominant). Quoting Edward Shorter, “Physicians prefer to diagnose conditions they can treat rather than those they can’t” (p. 46).

Warner tackles the contentious issue of the fortyfold increase in juvenile bipolar disorder diagnosis between 1994 and 2003. She presents evidence skeptical that many of these children in fact have bipolar: the connection between the doctors promoting the diagnosis and the pharmaceutical industry; the fact that mood disorders occur predominantly in women, but juvenile bipolar is largely diagnosed in boys; and that the symptoms of extreme irritability that the supposedly bipolar children have is not a valid predictor of adult bipolar disorder. On the other hand, children diagnosed with bipolar disorder do have serious problems, and probably need some type of medication.

Warner also presents research that indicates that there has been in fact an increase in mental illness prevalence separate from changing diagnostic standards. For example, one study found that successive generations of Americans born after World War II seemed to have a greater incidence and earlier onset of depression. Anxiety seems to be increasing, also, as the number of teens between the ages of 14 and 16 who agreed with the statement that “Life is a strain for me much of the time” quadrupled between the early 1950’s and 1989.

The truth is that there’s no way to know if actual prevalence of pediatric mental illness has increased. According to Warner, “The research that could provide solid answers—epidemiological studies conducted in a parallel manner over time, asking the same questions, looking for the same disorders, using consistent language and definitions—for the most part doesn’t exist” (pp. 56-57).

My view is that she’s right, we can’t be sure of this. But it does seem that something in the environment is making kids more depressed, anxious, and autistic than before. Warner focuses on the post-World War II period, in which parents of young children today grew up. But what about if you go further back in history? It must be remembered that psychiatry, clinical psychology, and other mental health professions didn’t exist before 1900, nor did any mental health treatments. If there were so many mentally ill children (and adults) back then, wouldn’t someone have noticed it? There was no safety net; people had to pull their own weight or starve. If there were as many children and adults with disorders back then, and no way to treat them, wouldn’t society have come to a standstill?

Another way to look at things is the flip side of mental illness: creativity. Many mentally ill people are also creative. Many creative achievers of the past had mental illness. While there is no consistent way we’ve diagnosed mental illness over time, creative achievement is, by definition, public and visible. Michelangelo, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein and others achieved things that make them household names today; there are no contemporary equivalents. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the rate of creative achievement in the arts and sciences declined precipitously in the 20th century, to near-zero today. People who would have achieved in the past are not achieving. There are many explanations for this, but one is that they are acquiring severe, debilitating mental illness that prevents them from achieving. Another explanation, that they are taking emotion and motivation-blunting drugs, is something that I’ll discuss below.

Warner next makes her central argument, bolstered by a variety of anecdotes and quotes from parents, doctors, and researchers. She argues that most parents don’t want to medicate their children, that they usually try a variety of useless alternative treatments before reluctantly agreeing to medication, and that they are usually pleased by the results. While medications don’t work miracles, and some of them produce side effects, they result in improvement. Children who were unable to cope or function in school can now function at a tolerable level. We should stop blaming parents and doctors for overmedicating children, and instead focus on the large percentage of children who, for various reasons, are denied effective treatment for their mental illness.

I found it interesting that Warner didn’t include any examples of cases in which medications did more harm than good. She didn’t include any examples of parents who were eager to use medication on their children. While she says that she couldn’t find such examples, a reviewer indicated that this is an example of her selection bias. There’s no evidence in the book that she took a random sample of medicated children and then tracked down and interviewed the parents. She’s a popular writer, not a researcher, so she can be excused for this unscientific methodology, but the reader must be wary of any generalizations that she draws.

It isn’t hard to find examples of unhappy results from pediatric use of medications. Stephany, the author of the blog Soulful Sepulcher, writes poignantly about her daughter, currently institutionalized, who is such an example. I would have preferred to seen a more balanced presentation from Warner.

Of course, the fact that some children don’t excel with medication isn’t an argument that medication is ineffective. No treatment is successful 100% of the time. All drugs have side effects, and sometimes the side effects are worse than the treatment effect. Another reviewer is critical of the scientific evidence that Warner presents in favor of medication use. Warner says that there are treatments for kids that “actually work” (p. 211), that allow children to “improve and live their lives to the fullest” (p.210). Warner is basing these Pollyannish assessments on short-term measures of success, especially in school. The reviewer is skeptical about how much we know about the long-term effects of drugs on children’s developing brains.

My view is that we can’t be sure of the long-term efficacy of drugs unless we do longitudinal studies, comparing control versus experimental (drug) groups, that extend up to about age 50. The reason for such a long time frame is that by the age of 50, we should know whether or not someone has been successful in his or her career. What if children on drugs do well in school, but not so well in their adult life? Since most of the drugs (except Ritalin) haven’t been used in children for more than 20 years, we’re being premature about declaring a success.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t prescribe these drugs in children, although I do think that they should be a last resort, after every type of therapy has been tried. We also need to distinguish between the more serious types of disorders and less serious ones. For less serious childhood disorders, the ones in which children can function in some contexts (e.g. home) but not in school, I think we need to think about changing the school environment. The typical public school classroom is OK for an average student, but ones with special needs and/or abilities don’t thrive there. There are some special education classes, but to get a child into them a parent has to have significant time to deal with public school bureaucracies, or money to get into a private school program. Warner mentions this in her book; these services are effectively denied to the lower middle and working classes. We need to try to expand these services, and also think about coming up with less expensive alternatives that focus on vocational or artistic training.

As I mentioned earlier, psychotropic drugs are one of the causes of the lack of creative achievement in arts and sciences today. The legal, prescribed ones blunt emotions and motivation. The illegal ones can cause destructive addictions. Even if a child does better in school while taking drugs, will he contribute more to society than he would have otherwise? In another blog post, I mention that our society has a narrow (academic) definition of talent, that lacks context and empathy. Both context and empathy are necessary for good decision making, and in recent decades America’s political and economic leadership has made some poor decisions. Probably some of these deficits are due to the effects of drugs on people. These effects are hard to quantify, and won’t show up in a typical study, but they are incredibly important for society.

For the more serious types of disorders, in which the child can’t function anywhere, medications are an unfortunate necessity. Warner admits in her book, echoing many parents, that medication is not going to make these kids successful. It may make them less disabled than they would have otherwise been. The most important thing for us to do is to find out genetic and environmental causes of serious psychiatric disorders, to prevent them from happening in the future.

On the environmental side, we’ve covered just about every base imaginable, including diet, chemicals, vaccines, infections, etc. One thing we haven’t looked at is the effect of artificial magnetic fields. The reason for this is that scientists don’t think that humans have the ability to perceive magnetic fields. I present evidence in my research paper contradicting this. I found that I’m sensitive to artificial magnetic fields when sleeping, but not when I’m awake. If I’m sensitive now, as an adult, I was probably much more sensitive as a child. My hypothesis is that some children with serious psychiatric disorders are sensitive to artificial magnetic fields, especially when sleeping. My hypothesis would explain the increased prevalence in recent decades of serious pediatric psychiatric disorders. When I was growing up in the late 1960’s through mid 1980’s, the only artificial magnetic fields I had to worry about when sleeping were the innerspring mattress, steel bed frame, steel building structure, and a fan that I used in the summer to keep cool. Today, we have wireless Internet, home security, cordless phones, cell phones, baby monitors, computers, widescreen TV’s, iPods, central air, etc. Many of these devices and appliances emit strong magnetic fields, and are kept on while sleeping. It would be easy to test my hypothesis. Start turning things off, change to a non-magnetic bed, and see if the disturbed child becomes a little less disturbed. See if he can sleep better, which will make him function better the next day.

In conclusion, I found Warner’s book to be well written, with a lot of useful information for those interested in pediatric mental health. Its major flaw was a lack of balance in presenting evidence in favor of medication use in children.

Antidepressants Are No Better Than Placebo

Newsweek’s cover story reinforces what researchers concluded in a recent article in JAMA—that for the vast majority of patients, antidepressants are no better than placebo. In fact, antidepressants are worse than placebo, because they have side effects. Only for patients with more severe forms of depression do these pills have any significant benefit.

Considering that 2008 antidepressant sales in the U.S. were $9.6 billion, it seems that if one wants to control spiraling health care costs, substituting sugar pills for antidepressants would be effective. If anything, we’re going in the opposite direction. Antidepressant users doubled in the 10 years from 1996 to 2005. Aggressive marketing by Big Pharma to both doctors and customers has expanded antidepressant use, even while the evidence of their effectiveness has been seriously questioned. As the Newsweek article states, “antidepressants are basically expensive Tic Tacs.”

Antidepressants are also used to control OCD. I feel that my OCD/tic disorder was helped by Anafranil, an older antidepressant. While this benefit could be due to the placebo effect, I doubt it. I think that from a biological perspective OCD is more similar to severe depression than to anxiety disorders, with which it is classified by the current DSM. Both OCD and severe depression are helped by antidepressants.

The distinction between antidepressant effectiveness in severe and light/moderate depression reinforces my view that a more individualized/case-by-case approach is needed for psychiatric disorders. As Dr. Klitzman says in a separate Newsweek article, paraphrasing Tolstoy, “every unhappy individual is unhappy in his or her own way.” It’s possible that light/moderate depression is a reaction to negative life events, while serious depression, OCD, and bipolar disorder are something completely different.

My human magnetoreception hypothesis connects these serious disorders with the Earth’s magnetic field. Since magnetoreception is dependent on childhood experience, i.e. where and when someone grew up, each of these magnetoreceptive people needs to be tested and evaluated individually. While the same drug may work in many people, the location of their magnetic home will vary based on their childhood experience. Also, their sleeping behavior and environment is likely different, so recommendations on changing this behavior and environment need to be tailored to the individual circumstances. This is similar to psychotherapy, in that therapy needs to be cognizant of the individual’s background, interests, intelligence, and personality.

In conclusion, we need to stop prescribing antidepressants to people for whom they have no benefit over placebo. For those with more serious disorders like severe depression, OCD, and bipolar disorder, antidepressants and other medications are useful. In the future, if my human magnetoreception hypothesis is confirmed, there will likely be more effective treatments that combine behavioral changes and futuristic devices.