Backed by Science? Building a lucrative spiritual empire based on potentially “questionable” publications

 image from Google Scholar

Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is the founder of Trivedi Global, Inc., a provider of health and wellness products and services. His Google Scholar profile lists 795 publications with a collective citation count of 12,032 (as of July 31, 2024). This prolific output reached its peak in 2015, with 268 papers.

“How is this possible?” you may ask. Here's the reason. Only 17 of 795 articles are indexed in PubMed. All the others were published in journals that do not meet the quality standards of MEDLINE. {This is a fact.}¹

The National Library of Medicine decides whether a journal is included in MEDLINE (the source database for PubMed) based on:

• Scope and Coverage
• Editorial Policies and Processes
• Scientific Rigor/Methodological Rigor
• Production and Administration
• Impact

So-called “predatory” journals – first documented by librarian Jeffrey Beall – do not meet the quality standards for MEDLINE.

According to Wikipedia, predatory publishing “is an exploitative academic publishing business model, where the journal or publisher prioritizes self-interest at the expense of scholarship. It is characterized by misleading information, deviates from the standard peer review process, is highly non-transparent, and often utilizes aggressive solicitation practices.”

In such journals, the time between manuscript submission and acceptance for publication is alarmingly short, leading some to question whether adequate peer review had taken place.

Here are several examples for Trivedi et al. (2015). Note that time from submission to publication was 8-10 days.²

In vitro Evaluation of Biofield Treatment on Viral Load Against Human Immunodeficiency-1 and Cytomegalo Viruses
American Journal of Health Research (Volume 3, Issue 6)
Received: 9 October 2015 Accepted: 19 October 2015

Evaluation of Plant Growth Regulator, Immunity and DNA Fingerprinting of Biofield Energy Treated Mustard Seeds (Brassica juncea)
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Volume 4, Issue 6)
Received: 11 October 2015 Accepted: 19 October 2015

Agronomic Characteristics, Growth Analysis, and Yield Response of Biofield Treated Mustard, Cowpea, Horse Gram, and Groundnuts
International Journal of Genetics and Genomics (Volume 3, Issue 6)
Received: 12 October 2015 Accepted: 21 October 2015

Evaluation of Biochemical Marker - Glutathione and DNA Fingerprinting of Biofield Energy Treated Oryza sativa
American Journal of BioScience (Volume 3, Issue 6)
Received: 12 October 2015 Accepted: 21 October 2015

{Qualification: Science Publishing Group claims that articles are peer-reviewed, although some have compiled evidence to the contrary.}

Why is this important? When a company tries to sell products and services that are “backed by science,” we are free to evaluate the evidence for these claims.

My previous post introduced you to Mr. Trivedi and his Divine Connection:

“Guruji Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is an Enlightened and miraculous being with Divine Embodiment, gifted to transform living organisms at the genetic level & non-living materials at the atomic level. … Guruji’s Blessing has impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people globally, and has been validated globally with cutting-edge scientific research.” 

 

I read a 2023 paper, The role of biofield energy treatment on psychological symptoms, mental health disorders, and stress‐related quality of life in adult subjects: A randomized controlled clinical trial (indexed in PubMed), and found irregularities and questionable results. I’m confident that some of the reported data are physiologically impossible. Thus, I urged the journal to reconsider the paper and the publisher (Wiley) to retract it from the scientific literature {if warranted}.

The bottom line (so to speak) for Trivedi Global, Inc. is net revenue from sales of Remote Blessing Memberships:

1 Blessing, $250 per month (only $200 per month for blessings from his wife, Dahryn)
2 Blessings, $400 per month ($300 per month for Dahryn)
…
Daily Blessings, $2,000 per month

Path to Enlightenment Memberships
Platinum, $10,000 per month

Caveat emptor.

 

Footnotes

¹ Any statement in curly brackets is an effort to avoid a lawsuit. See Appendix.

² Other bursts of productivity include June 2021 (19 papers) and July 2021 (17 papers). Most of these reported findings from Sprague Dawley rats.

The Appendix provides links to previous news articles, blog posts, and lawsuits related to Mr. Trivedi, followed by an egregious example of self-citation (which artificially elevates the h-index).

 

Appendix

Mahendra Kumar Trivedi : Transform Your Life With The Science Of Miracles

Mahendra Trivedi along with other Trivedi Masters have the supernatural ability to transform living organisms and non-living substances through the power of their thoughts, known as The Trivedi Effect®.

Trivedi effect® – the Skeptic's Dictionary

TE is an “unknown” energy. Well, it was unknown until 1995, when Trivedi “received 'guidance' from Universal Intelligence that the gift he had been given was now to be used for the welfare of mankind.”

The Skeptic's Dictionary also mentions several “failed” experiments that were conducted at Penn State. The results were summarized by Dr. Tania Slaweki in May 2011:

Mahendra Trivedi was tested extensively at the Penn State University’s Materials Research Laboratory on several occasions from June – September 2009, and we did not observe any changes in materials or their properties as a result of his “blessings”.  We tested MANY solid, powdered and liquid materials, including radioactive materials.  “Blessed” samples were unchanged.  While there were sporadic changes to a handful of water samples as observed with 785 nm Raman spectroscopy, it must be understood that the changes (a) were not reproducible, (b) occurred sometimes to the blessed samples and sometimes to the control samples and (c) were most likely due to a problem we were having with an unstable laser source on the Raman spectrometer, which was knowen to fluctuate in intensity and produce the kinds of sporadic results that were observed.

Mr. Trivedi sued Dr. Slawecki (see PDF) for these and other statements, but the case was dismissed.

The Trivedi Defect, by Mike Mosedale (Minnesota Lawyer, July 2015) – journalist Dennis Lang is sued.

 ...case dismissed (Techdirt, July 2016).

 

Driving up the h-factor

Self-Citations from: An Impact of Energy of Consciousness (The Trivedi Effect®) on the Physicochemical, Thermal, Structural, and Behavioral Properties of Magnesium Gluconate. Biomedical Sciences. Vol. 3, No. 2, 2017, pp. 42-54.

19 citations of their own work. 

Publishers {considered by some to be “predatory”} are listed below each reference in red.

[23] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Shettigar H, Bairwa K, Jana S (2015) Fourier transform infrared and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopic characterization of biofield treated salicylic acid and sparfloxacin. Nat Prod Chem Res 3: 186.

International Online Medical Council (IOMC)

[24] Trivedi MK, Patil S, Shettigar H, Bairwa K, Jana S (2015) Effect of biofield treatment on spectral properties of paracetamol and piroxicam. Chem Sci J 6: 98.

Hilaris Publisher (OMICS Group)

[25] Trivedi MK, Tallapragada RM, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Latiyal O, Jana S (2015) Potential impact of biofield treatment on atomic and physical characteristics of magnesium. Vitam Miner 3: 129.   

Hilaris Publisher (OMICS Group)

[26] Trivedi MK, Nayak G, Patil S, Tallapragada RM, Jana S, Mishra RK (2015) Bio-field treatment: An effective strategy to improve the quality of beef extract and meat infusion powder. J Nutr Food Sci 5: 389.  

Longdom Publishing (OMICS Group)

[27] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Bairwa K, Jana S (2015) Spectroscopic characterization of disodium hydrogen orthophosphate and sodium nitrate after biofield treatment. J Chromatogr Sep Tech 6: 282.

Longdom Publishing (OMICS Group)

[28] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Sethi KK, Jana S (2016) Isotopic abundance ratio analysis of biofield energy treated indole using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Science Journal of Chemistry 4: 41-48.

Science PG (Science Publishing Group)

[29] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Panda P, Jana S (2016) Evaluation of the isotopic abundance ratio in biofield energy treated resorcinol using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry technique. Pharm Anal Acta 7: 481.  

Walsh Medical Media *

[30] Trivedi MK, Tallapragada RM, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Mishra RK, Jana S (2015) Spectral and thermal properties of biofield energy treated cotton. American Journal of Energy Engineering. 3: 86-92.

Science PG

[31] Trivedi MK, Nayak G, Patil S, Tallapragada RM, Latiyal O, Jana S (2015) Characterization of physical and structural properties of brass powder after biofield treatment. J Powder

Metall Min 4: 134

OMICS Publishing Group

[32] Trivedi MK, Nayak G, Patil S, Tallapragada RM, Latiyal O, Jana S (2015) Evaluation of biofield treatment on physical and structural properties of bronze powder. Adv Automob Eng 4: 119.

OMICS Publishing Group

[33] Trivedi MK, Tallapragada RM, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Latiyal O, Jana S (2015) Evaluation of atomic, physical, and thermal properties of bismuth oxide powder: an impact of biofield energy treatment. American Journal of Nano Research and Applications. 3: 94-98.

Science PG

[34] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Gangwar M, Jana S (2015) Evaluation of vegetative growth parameters in biofield treated bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) and okra (Abelmoschus esculentus). International Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences 4: 688-694.

Science PG

[35] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Mondal SC, Jana S (2015) Evaluation of plant growth regulator, immunity and DNA fingerprinting of biofield energy treated mustard seeds (Brassica juncea). Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries 4: 269-274.

Science PG

[36] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Mondal SC, Jana S (2015) Effect of biofield treated energized water on the growth and health status in chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus). Poult Fish Wildl Sci 3: 140.

Longdom Publishing

[37] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Gangwar M, Jana S (2015) Antibiogram and genotypic analysis using 16S rDNA after biofield treatment on Morganella morganii. Adv Tech Biol Med 3: 137.

OMICS Publishing Group

[38] Trivedi MK, Patil S, Shettigar H, Bairwa K, Jana S (2015) Evaluation of phenotyping and genotyping characteristic of Shigella sonnei after biofield treatment. J Biotechnol Biomater 5: 196.

OMICS Publishing Group

[39] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Shettigar H, Gangwar M, Jana S (2015) Antibiogram of multidrug-resistant isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa after Biofield Treatment. J Infect Dis Ther 3: 244.

OMICS Publishing Group

[40] Trivedi MK, Branton A, Trivedi D, Nayak G, Mondal SC, Jana S (2015) Antibiogram of biofield-treated Shigella boydii: Global burden of infections. Science Journal of Clinical Medicine 4:121-126.

Science PG

[44] Trivedi MK, Mohan TRR (2016) Biofield energy signals, energy transmission and neutrinos. American Journal of Modern Physics 5: 172-176.

Science PG

* Walsh Medical Media (WMM) presents peer-reviewed original research and analysis that deals exclusively with the treatment of schizophrenia and related psychoses and is directly relevant to patient care through…
https://www.walshmedicalmedia.com/publish-with-us.html

Figure 4 (Trivedi et al., 2024): Proposed schematic representation explains how biofield energy transmission forms quantum entanglement that leads to positive outcomes of this therapy. PPR, Practitioner-patient relationship; PPQE, Practitioner-patient quantum energy entanglement; E, Energy; h, Planck ’ s constant; v, Frequency.  © 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

The Miraculous Guru with an h-index of 62

 

Guruji Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is an “Enlightened and miraculous being” with a Google Scholar page, an h-index¹ of 62, and 12,031 citations of his work. Most of these are self-citations from a tangled collection of predatory journals that publish questionable papers without proper peer review (e.g., Science Publishing Group).

Guruji Trivedi claims to have the ability to harness his own...

...biofield energy to change the behaviour and characteristics of living organisms including soil, seeds, plants, trees, animals, microbes, and humans, along with non-living materials including metals, ceramics, polymers, chemicals, pharmaceutical compounds and nutraceuticals, etc.

The paper quoted above, Biofield Energy Signals, Energy Transmission and Neutrinos, was published in the American Journal of Modern Physics (Science PG) and explains how “neutrino oscillations” can account for his seemingly supernatural powers:

Based on the information available on neutrino oscillations and biofield and brain computer interface (BCI), Mr. Trivedi’s experimental results are explained by certain postulates. The neutrino oscillations require energy. This is possible by extraordinary individuals, who can negate all stray thoughts (as in meditation or intense concentration) and focus these in a single intended direction. Often, such individuals in this state emit radiation known to be halos (could be linked to photon emission). The thoughts are thus a focused beam of neutral neutrinos and can change into positive and negative on interacting with a receiver object composed of atoms and ions and replicate the original signals and thought pattern as observed in BCI and other psychic phenomena.

{Physicists, please post your comments.}

Mr. Trivedi has also published in journals from reputable publishers. One of my favorites is “A transcendental to changing metal powder characteristics” in Elsevier's Metal Powder Report. I found another in Wiley's Journal of General and Family Medicine. I have reprinted my Letter to the Editor and Publisher below, formatted for the blog.²

-- start of letter --

July 23, 2024

Dr. Okayama and the Editorial Staff of the Journal of General and Family Medicine,  

I am writing about the legitimacy of an article published in the journal:

Trivedi, M. K., Branton, A., Trivedi, D., Mondal, S., & Jana, S. (2023). The role of biofield energy treatment on psychological symptoms, mental health disorders, and stress‐related quality of life in adult subjects: A randomized controlled clinical trial. Journal of General and Family Medicine, 24(3), 154-163.

 

In this paper, the first author (Mahendra Kumar Trivedi, also known as “Guruji” on the Divine Connection website) makes extraordinary and unvalidated claims about his ability to change the state of matter – and the mental and physical health of human volunteers – via transmission of his thoughts (described as “blessing” throughout the manuscript). A peer-reviewed journal that accepts such declarations without incontrovertible scientific evidence, which was never provided, has compromised its scientific reputation. Furthermore, the study’s design is flawed and much of the data contained in the paper is implausible and inauthentic.

I am an established scientist who runs a research lab, and as I will outline below, it is ethically mandatory for the Journal of General and Family Medicine to reconsider this paper and for Wiley to retract it from the scientific literature for the following reasons.

1. The paper contends that the “randomized controlled clinical trial” (p. 154) used a placebo control condition when it did not. An experimental design that uses a no-treatment group does not control for expectation effects. Although the Abstract mentions that the placebo group was assigned to “naïve attunement” (p. 154), this procedure was not explained. It appears that the control group received no treatment or manipulation at all, and therefore cannot be considered “a placebo group” (see quote below). 
   
   

“Besides, the placebo control group subjects did not receive any blessing or attunements.”  (p. 156)




2.  The Psychological Questionnaires Scoring (PQS) used to assess mental health was “…prepared in-house with few modifications based on the standard scientific literatures, done by renowned experienced psychologists and psychiatrics, who were involved in this clinical trial study” (see p. 156). These individuals were not named, so we must assume they were authors. Although there are widely accepted standardized questionnaires that could have been used in the study, a more important concern was that the raw scores were not reported. Each symptom category consisted of only two questions, with a possible range of scores from 2 – 14. All measurements from the No-Treatment Group were on the first day of the study, Day 0 (baseline), with no follow-up. In contrast, measurements from the Biofield Energy Therapy Group were obtained on Day 90 (after treatment on Day 0) and on Day 180 (after a second treatment on Day 90). Significance for all 14 symptoms was p <0.0001, but the raw scores were not reported for either group. And we don’t know how scores for the No-Treatment Group might have changed over time. For example, Table 2 reports lower scores (a negative Mean ± SD) for the symptom “Stress and confusion” for the Treatment Group at 90 and 180 days, compared to the baseline No-Treatment Group (on Day 0).
90 days          −4.086 ± 0.7664

180 days         −6.114 ± 0.7230



3. Table 3 lists measurements for the functional biomarkers, which are the clearest evidence for unverifiable data (or error). Many of these are highly implausible, because their values are out-of-range of typical physiological levels (to an extent beyond what is seen in pathological conditions). It is unclear why these values were considered an improvement in overall health and quality of life (p. 154, 161). Concrete examples are given below.


                      No-Treatment       Treat, Day 90              Treat, Day 180

Oxytocin       88.05 ± 6.39    451.44 ± 32.93***    257.46 ± 27.62***
(pg/mL)

***p<0.001 vs. Controls
normal values, mean = 145.0 pg/mL, SD = 52.9 (Hoge et al., 2008).


17-β-estradiol  97080 ± 10140  134300 ± 17520   100250 ± 12120
(pg/mL)

Estradiol values were collapsed across male and female participants (both aged 20–45 years) and were converted from ng/mL {perhaps the units listed in Table 3 were wrong}

normal values
Male: 10 to 50 pg/mL
Female (premenopausal): 30 to 400 pg/mL

https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/tests/estradiol-blood-test 

 

The reported levels of plasma catecholamines (below) are well beyond pathological levels, according to two separate sources.

                             No-Treatment      Treat, Day 90            Treat, Day 180


Norepinephrine     4540 ± 140      9240 ± 570***     8920 ± 570***
Dopamine             382.44 ± 6.5   1662 ± 102.3***   2000 ± 0.0***
(pg/mL)



A) normal values

Norepinephrine (pg/mL)
Seated (15 min):    177.5 to 811.2 pg/mL

Dopamine (pg/mL)
Seated (15 min):    > 36.7 pg/mL

NOTE: Small increases in catecholamines (less than 2 times the upper reference limit) are usually the result of physiological stimuli, drugs, or improper specimen collection. Significant elevation of one or more catecholamines (2 or more times the upper reference limit) can result from a neuroendocrine tumor.

https://ltd.aruplab.com/Tests/Pub/0080216


 

B) normal values

Norepinephrine    70 to 1700 pg/mL
Dopamine             0 to 30 pg/mL

Higher-than-normal levels of blood catecholamines may suggest:

Acute anxiety
Ganglioblastoma (very rare tumor)
Ganglioneuroma (very rare tumor)
Neuroblastoma (rare tumor)
Pheochromocytoma (rare tumor)
Severe stress

https://www.ucsfhealth.org/medical-tests/catecholamine-blood-test





In the final example, Klotho is an anti-aging biomarker, but the values are much below normal.

                       No-Treatment       Treat, Day 90            Treat, Day 180
Klotho            2.25 ± 0.04      11.09 ± 0.39***     17.67 ± 0.99***
pg/mL

normal values α-Klotho (pg/mL)

                                    Mean    SD     Ref Interval (5th–95th %ile)
Age 18–35 (n = 167)     932.6    575.6    392.6    2291.8


Espuch-Olivet et al., 2022.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9101232/




4. The paper presents supernatural phenomena as real (p. 155, emphasis is mine): 

“The Trivedi Effect® is a unique and scientifically proven phenomenon in which a healer can harness the inherent intelligent energy from the universal energy field and transmit it anywhere on the planet through neutrinos (biophotons).6 A renowned religious spiritual healer using biofield energy to transform the characteristics and behavior of living beings and nonliving materials through unique (thought intention) biofield energy transmission process by his physical presence and long-distance (distant healing) to heal the physical body and mind and bring emotional and spiritual balance.7” 
• The Trivedi Effect® has not been scientifically proven. Citation #6 provided no data to support this.
• There is no justification given for neutrinos to be equated with biophotons.
• It is possible that “ultraweak photon emissions” can be imaged from the human body, according to Kobayashi et al. (2009), but no evidence for this was provided in the current paper. 
  


5. On its website, Wiley endorses the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and provides links to the Core Practices for journals and publishers:

https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/editors/committee-on-publication-ethics-cope-101

 

As I have demonstrated, the claims in Trivedi et al. (2023) are beyond the realm of empirical science, and a reputable medical journal should not publish them. Wiley, as a supporter of COPE, should subscribe to ethical standards in peer review and follow the official guidelines for considering whether a retraction is appropriate. 

Sincerely,

[my real name]

 

Links and References

ARUP Laboratories. Catecholamines Fractionated, Plasma. https://ltd.aruplab.com/Tests/Pub/0080216 [retrieved on 07/22/2024]

COPE. Retraction guidelines. https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines [retrieved on 07/23/2024]

Divine Connection. Guruji Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is an Enlightened and miraculous being with Divine Embodiment, gifted to transform living organisms at the genetic level & non-living materials at the atomic level. https://divineconnection.org/about-guruji-trivedi [retrieved on 07/22/2024]

Espuch-Oliver, A., Vázquez-Lorente, H., Jurado-Fasoli, L., de Haro-Muñoz, T., Díaz-Alberola, I., López-Velez, M. D. S., ... & Amaro-Gahete, F. J. (2022). References values of soluble α-klotho serum levels using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in healthy adults aged 18–85 years. Journal of clinical medicine, 11(9), 2415. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9101232/

Hoge, E. A., Pollack, M. H., Kaufman, R. E., Zak, P. J., & Simon, N. M. (2008). Oxytocin levels in social anxiety disorder. CNS neuroscience & therapeutics, 14(3), 165-170. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1755-5949.2008.00051.x

Kobayashi, M., Kikuchi, D., & Okamura, H. (2009). Imaging of ultraweak spontaneous photon emission from human body displaying diurnal rhythm. PLoS one, 4(7), e6256. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0006256

Mount Sinai. Estradiol blood test. https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/tests/estradiol-blood-test [retrieved on 07/22/2024]

UCSF Health. Catecholamine blood test. https://www.ucsfhealth.org/medical-tests/catecholamine-blood-test [retrieved on 07/22/2024]

THE WILEY NETWORK. Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE) 101 For Editors. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/editors/committee-on-publication-ethics-cope-101

-- end of letter --

 

Footnotes

¹ The h-index is a metric that considers an author's productivity and the citation impact of their publications. [ADDENDUM July 30 2024: according to Wikipedia. Others say it's easily manipulated (see first comment).]

² The tables are not pretty.

Why are "Love Languages" so popular, when they're completely inaccurate?

I joined an online dating site a few months ago.¹ Besides being asked about my sun, moon, and rising signs (?), I was puzzled by the following question.²

My love language? I'm supposed to choose only one answer? 

Gary Chapman has been a pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, NC for 50 years. In 1992, he published a book based on his experience of advising heterosexual couples on the best ways to have a harmonious marriage. His notion of 5 Love Languages is based on conservative Christian gender roles, although subsequent editions are “less blatantly misogynistic.” Nonetheless, the popularity of his ideas extends well beyond this initial demographic and has (ironically) invaded very Queer spaces.

Anyone can take the The Love Language® Quiz. I quit after the first question because it forces you to choose between “a loving note/text/email for no special reason” and a hug. Under any and all circumstances. 

Even my cat has more than one love language. There are three, which vary according to her needs:³

• petting
• play
• food

And as humans, why must we limit ourselves to the five choices above, when the possibilities are endless? Here are some examples.⁴

New Love Languages
by James Folta and Kasey Borger

Deciding Where to Eat
Let your stressed-out partner know you’re for real by choosing a spot to eat. This is a love language that every single person desires, but almost no one can express. Looks like it’s frozen pizza again.

Talking About Your Commute
There is an extremely high concentration of individuals with this love language in New York and LA. Going on and on about trains, or highways, or traffic, or “I think it took me 25 minutes last time, but this time it took 35 — weird” is the only way this group can show their sweetie they care.

Explaining How You Feel About Facebook
Some people can only express their love by unpromptedly exclaiming that they’re going to delete their Facebook, and for real this time. Studies show this can be hard to discern as a love language because it is insufferable.

 

...and my personal favorite:

Replying to But Not Liking Tweets
This is a dark and horrific way to express affection, but we must begrudgingly acknowledge it.

Love Languages on a Likert Scale

As any decent social psychologist will tell you, The Love Language® Quiz has poor psychometric properties, meaning that the validity and reliability of the measurement instrument is very low. A remarkable number of studies have investigated the concept of love languages, and there is no empirical support for the idea, as recently reviewed by Impett, Park, and Muise (2023). A major issue is the way that Chapman frames his questions (as forced choices between two options). Instead, rating each item on continuous Likert-type scales reveals no correlation between scores on the quiz and scores on the continuous measure. “These findings discount the notion that each person has a primary love language and illustrate that people value all five love languages but perhaps in different contexts,” said Impett and colleagues.

So why are Love Languages so popular?

“If I had to pick one reason why I think many couples find Chapman’s book to be helpful,” says [co-author Haeyoung Gideon] Park, “it is not because they learned their own or their partner’s love language but because it gets people to identify any currently unmet needs in their relationship and opens up lines of communication to address those needs.”

 

Footnotes

¹ I'm not saying which one. I'm in a demographic that absolutely no one cares about.

² Clearly, I do not belong in my own demographic.

³ Sometimes, she enjoys more than one at the same time (e.g., petting while eating).

⁴ When forced to choose, my preferred love language is Sarcasm and Hyperbole, which does not make me popular with the online dating set.

Reference

Impett EA, Park HG, Muise A. (2023). Popular Psychology Through a Scientific Lens: Evaluating Love Languages From a Relationship Science Perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2023 Dec 7:09637214231217663.

 

- click to enlarge Table - 

 

Table 1.  Impett, Park, and Muise (2023).

I'm thinking about moving this blog...

 ...to another platform.

 

Hi, it's been a while. I haven't written anything this year. My last post was December 31, 2022.

The main reason is that I've had to deal with more loss and grief in my life. Someone close to me was diagnosed with cancer, endured months of radiation and chemotherapy, and died anyway.¹ I've also had some deflating garbage to wade through at work. My enthusiasm for doing anything has been rather low.

Besides all that, Blogger is a terrible platform for blogging. The interface changed a while a back and ever since then, composing in the little box has been unpleasant. It takes forever to get the formatting and spacing right. I could modernize the look from a “classic” theme ² to one that has a “Layout” view...

 

...but that doesn't improve the writing experience.

So. I already have a WordPress blog. I may start posting there. The old neurocritic.blogspot.com site would become an archive of posts from 2006 – 2022.

 

The bigger question is whether I have anything relevant to say any more. 

 

Footnotes

¹ ...less than three months later. If you ask me, the cause of death WAS the treatment (and its side effects). 

² “Hey there, 2004 wants their Rounders template back.” An SEO Guy even blogged about 11 Huge Reasons to AVOID Blogspot in 2023.

³ There are other platforms, sure. In a hilarious meta-example, a post on Medium provided a tutorial on Substack, which started as a platform for e-mail newsletters (whether monetized or not). But it also has a very blog-like look — here's Margaret Atwood's, for example. Now they have Substack Notes, which is in the running as yet another Twitter replacement. Here's a thread on dumplings.

Neuroscience Trend Forecasters

As 2022 draws to a close, the SNL Trend Forecasters have agreed to divulge their predictions for the most — and the least — exciting research fads for the New Year.

The Neurocritic: How do you guys predict today's most popular neuroscience trends? 

Trend Forecasters: Oh, well we have 4,000 computers, they're all big they all make charts and they beep LOUD.

TN: Let's get started!

In: posterior cingulate cortex

Hey Posterior Cingulate — we see you! You're fresh, you're mysterious, you're misunderstood. But we know you exist far beyond the default fashion mode. The new tripartite view proposes...

...that the broader PCC region contains three major subregions — the dorsal PCC, ventral PCC and retrosplenial cortex — that respectively support the integration of executive, mnemonic and spatial processing systems. This tripartite subregional view reconciles inconsistencies in prior unitary theories of PCC function and offers promising new avenues for progress.

Foster et al. (2022)

 

Out: anterior cingulate cortex

Get behind me, you tired brain region. Think you can do everything? Well the list of your supposed functions is wildly implausible. We've looked at PubMed and found mental fatigue, prediction of non-violent felony rearrest in women, amyloid-β-related increases in empathic concern, experimental odontogenic pain, gravitational perception, chronic itch, RDoC social constructs, and modulation of synaptic plasticity in exercise interventions for post-stroke pain.

 

 

In: claustrum

Claustrum, we're in love with you and it's not only because of the holidays. You're connected to everything and everyone.

Santa Claustrum

 

Initial speculation claimed you were responsible for consciousness (Crick & Koch, 2015), but subsequent studies in human epilepsy patients showed no alterations in consciousness with unilateral or bilateral electrical stimulation (Bickel & Parvizi, 2019). Instead, you're critical for cognitive control. The fresh functional model is called network instantiation in cognitive control (Madden et al., 2022).

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine ... now posit that Crick may have been incorrect: They developed a new theory — built on data — that the claustrum behaves more like a high-speed internet router, taking in executive commands from “boss” areas of the brain’s cortex that forms complex thoughts to generate “networks” in the cortex.

 

The most exciting recent work (in mice) has shown that claustro-cortical circuits are organized into functional modules (McBride et al., 2022)...

• Frontal areas are more inhibited, while posterior areas are more excited
• Upper layers are more excited, while deeper layers are more inhibited 

...and connect cortical network motifs (Qadir et al., 2022)

• Frontal cortices are synaptically connected to posterior cortices through claustrum
• Two claustrum projection neuron subtypes support trans-claustral circuits
• Trans-claustral circuits resemble a frontoposterior cortical network motif

Out: reinforcement learning and mesolimbic dopamine

 

Your superiority complex is tired, temporal difference error. We know you consider yourself the “biggest success story in computational neuroscience.” But every week a new finding prompts a mathematical tweak and an update of your impenetrable model.

‘teaching signal’ ‘learning model’ ‘model-free’ ‘cached values’ ‘ramps’ ‘bumps’ ‘belief states’ ‘vector RPE’ ‘DA dip of disappointment’

Go to bed, TD. You have to get up early. For a flight TO HELL!

 
 

In: HippoCamera

You spent years developing your brilliant smartphone app that improves memory in older adults, drawing on the basic science of hippocampal replay (e.g., speeding up 24 sec video clips by 3×).

Martin et al. (2022)

Autobiographical memory cues are created by recording an 8 sec audio cue to accompany a 24 sec video recording of a daily event, which is rated for significance. In your recent paper, fMRI scanning occurred after a two week or 10 week intervention. In comparison to baseline (non-reviewed) events, repeated replay of autobiographical memory cues enhanced episodic recollection and increased the differentiation of activity patterns in the hippocampus in older adults (Martin et al., 2022). Bravo, HippoCamera! Take a bow Barense, Honey, and Martin!

 

Out: Brain Behavior Quantification and Synchronization (BBQS)

BRAIN Initiative,² you're so far behind the times that YOU ARE OUT. Didn't you get the memo that Neuroscience Needs Behavior back in 2017? Or read the review on Quantifying Behavior [in worms and flies] to Solve Sensorimotor Transformations, which covered papers going back to 2008 and earlier? The patented HippoCamera was developed behind your back with funding from the Canadian government and private foundations. And the clever use of remote memories recorded by the 1 Second Everyday app (Bainbridge & Baker, 2022) was funded by NIH Intramural funds. The fact that you waited until 2023 to fully announce BBQS projects in humans and non-humans speaks volumes to the value you place on understanding behavior. GO TO BED!

In: neuropeptide maps of human prefrontal cortex

One recent uptick in human brain complexity was revealed from analysis of postmortem tissue in 17 subregions of prefrontal cortex (PFC). Zhong and colleagues (2022) found that 60 neuropeptides and 60 neuropeptide receptors are expressed in at least one of the PFC subregions. The data are freely available and incorporated into the Human Protein Atlas — which has about 5 million individual web pages. The authors encouraged efforts to explore these neuropeptide receptors as potential targets for drug development in neurology and psychiatry, which has been neglected by pharmaceutical companies in recent years.


Out: functional neuroimaging in psychiatry 

You're a failure, psychiatric neuroimaging!! Nour, Liu, and Dolan wrote a 20 page paper detailing your many shortcomings and faults. For instance, explanatory aspirations in resting-state studies are laughable:

“...bridging a gap between descriptive accounts of neural data and psychopathology requires a model that relates network properties ... to specific computational processes. Absent such a model, we argue that further large-scale data collection will be insufficient to yield breakthroughs in probing a fundamental understanding of cognition or psychiatric illness.”

 We needn't go further than listing other direct quotes from their paper:

• “...functional neuroimaging plays no role in clinical decision making.”

• “While the computational psychiatry literature has identified associations between model-informed neural activity and psychiatric variables, effective clinical translation has been lacking.” 
  

• “Casting a cold eye on the psychiatric neuroimaging literature invites a conclusion that despite 30 years of intense research and considerable technological advances, this enterprise has not delivered a neurobiological account (i.e., a mechanistic explanation) for any psychiatric disorder, nor has it provided a credible imaging-based biomarker of clinical utility.”

 

Ouch! You've done nothing for us, psychiatric neuroimaging. You haven't even embraced the correct level of analysis (i.e. manifolds). GO TO BED!

[In again: manifolds]

In: Synchron

Synchron, all the other billionaires are backing you, to the tune of $75 million! In a remarkable advance towards greater independence for paralyzed persons, the Stentrode, an endovascular brain computer interface (BCI), received Breakthrough Device designation from the FDA in August 2021. 

 

Stentrode™ (endovascular implant)

 

The minimally invasive BCI was developed with funding from DARPA (among others), and initial results from sheep were reported in Nature Biotechnology (Oxley et al., 2016). Its placement in the superior sagittal sinus (via the jugular vein) produces high-fidelity recordings from motor cortex without the need for risky cranial surgery. The brain.io™ motor neuroprosthesis transmits cortical signals from the Stentrode to a receiver implanted in the chest, and a machine learning algorithm decodes the neural activity and translates the signals to digital commands.

 

Oxley et al. (2021)

 

Two paralyzed participants with ALS achieved typing click selection accuracy of 93% within 86 days and 71 days of machine-learning supervised training (Oxley et al., 2021). Typing rate was relatively slow (13.8 and 20.1 correct characters per minute, respectively) in comparison to some other BCI cases, but those all entailed craniotomies.¹ Nonetheless, both participants were able to text, e-mail, browse the internet, shop online, and manage finances (Oxley et al., 2021). The COMMAND Early Feasibility Study is an ongoing clinical trial of the Synchron device that will enroll six patients.

In: Mastodon

Because everyone needs an alternative social media site.

Out: Neuralink

Neuralink, you're out! So go back to hell. Stop flaunting your wealth, Neuralink. We all know you have to die for your hubris. You think you'll have FDA approval in six months, but that's what you said in 2019. Many of your claims are sheer fantasy, like you'll be able to cure everything from addiction to strokes.

from Neuralink Progress Update, Summer 2020

 

Your Fall 2022 update was more technically impressive, but still claimed your device will be able to restore vision — prompting eminent vision scientist Brian Wandell to call out this BS:

He [Musk] specifically said this would work for the congenitally blind because they still have a visual cortex.

Two hundred years of experiments on site restoration in human, and many fundamental cellular experiments of visual development and the limits of adult plasticity, show this is false.

Potential ethical concerns have been noted by UPenn Prof Anna Wexler. Finally, you're under investigation for possible animal welfare violations. Neuralink, if I see you in the street I'll stab you in the face.

 

What are your favorite neuroscience trends for 2023? What should be kicked to the curb?

 

Footnotes

¹ Most notable was BrainGate participant T5, with an astonishing 90 characters per minute. Two microelectrode arrays were implanted in the hand area of the precentral gyrus, and neural activity produced by imagined handwriting was decoded and translated into text in real time (Willett et al., 2021).

² hat tip to Drug Monkey.

References

Bainbridge, W. A., & Baker, C. I. (2022). Multidimensional memory topography in the medial parietal cortex identified from neuroimaging of thousands of daily memory videos. Nature Communications, 13(1), 1-16.

Bickel, S., & Parvizi, J. (2019). Electrical stimulation of the human claustrum. Epilepsy & Behavior, 97, 296-303.

Calhoun, A. J., & Murthy, M. (2017). Quantifying behavior to solve sensorimotor transformations: advances from worms and flies. Current opinion in neurobiology, 46, 90-98.

Crick, F. C., & Koch, C. (2005). What is the function of the claustrum?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 360(1458), 1271-1279.

Foster, B. L., Koslov, S. R., Aponik-Gremillion, L., Monko, M. E., Hayden, B. Y., & Heilbronner, S. R. (2022). A tripartite view of the posterior cingulate cortex. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 01 Dec 2022.

Han, J. J. (2021). Synchron receives FDA approval to begin early feasibility study of their endovascular, brain‐computer interface device. Artificial Organs, 45, 1134-1135.

Krakauer, J. W., Ghazanfar, A. A., Gomez-Marin, A., MacIver, M. A., & Poeppel, D. (2017). Neuroscience needs behavior: correcting a reductionist bias. Neuron, 93(3), 480-490. 

Madden, M. B., Stewart, B. W., White, M. G., Krimmel, S. R., Qadir, H., Barrett, F. S., ... & Mathur, B. N. (2022). A role for the claustrum in cognitive control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Martin, C. B., Hong, B., Newsome, R. N., Savel, K., Meade, M. E., Xia, A., ... & Barense, M. D. (2022). A smartphone intervention that enhances real-world memory and promotes differentiation of hippocampal activity in older adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(51), e2214285119.

McBride, E. G., Gandhi, S. R., Kuyat, J. R., Ollerenshaw, D. R., Arkhipov, A., Koch, C., & Olsen, S. R. (2022). Influence of claustrum on cortex varies by area, layer, and cell type. Neuron (Nov 4).

Nour, M. M., Liu, Y., & Dolan, R. J. (2022). Functional neuroimaging in psychiatry and the case for failing better. Neuron, 110(16), 2524-2544.

Oxley, T. J., Yoo, P. E., Rind, G. S., Ronayne, S. M., Lee, C. S., Bird, C., ... & Opie, N. L. (2021). Motor neuroprosthesis implanted with neurointerventional surgery improves capacity for activities of daily living tasks in severe paralysis: first in-human experience. Journal of neurointerventional surgery, 13(2), 102-108.

Qadir, H., Stewart, B. W., VanRyzin, J. W., Wu, Q., Chen, S., Seminowicz, D. A., & Mathur, B. N. (2022). The mouse claustrum synaptically connects cortical network motifs. Cell Reports, 41(12), 111860.

Zhong, W., Barde, S., Mitsios, N., Adori, C., Oksvold, P., Feilitzen, K. V., ... & Hökfelt, T. (2022). The neuropeptide landscape of human prefrontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(33), e2123146119.

 

Frankenstein's Hand

Just in time for Halloween, I had a hideous surgery to repair a fractured elbow. This entailed receiving a nerve block that made my hand feel like a dead appendage, which was quite spooky indeed.

 

 Spooky Dead Hand

  

I'm supposed to keep the arm elevated above my heart (which isn't conducive to sitting here and typing), so that is all for now.

 

Happy Halloween!

Actual e-mail sent to the post-op contact person the night of my surgery:

 

Read more »

"And then a Plank in Reason, broke,"

 “I am dead.”

 

In terms of possible delusions in living human beings, Le délire des négations — the nihilistic delusion that one is dead — evokes the most harrowing existence imaginable. The French neurologist Jules Cotard first described the syndrome that bears his name (1882, English translation):

I hazard the name of delirium of negations to designate the state of the patients ... in whom the negative disposition is carried to the highest degree. [They are] asked their name – they have no name; their age – they are ageless; where were they born – they were not born; ... if they have a headache, stomach ache, pain in some part of their body – they have no head, no stomach, some even have no body... For some the negation is universal, nothing exists anymore, they themselves are nothing.

 

Cotard presented the case of Miss X, a 43 year old woman with severe “melancholic anxiety” who tried to end her own life (1880, English translation):

...She affirms that she has neither brain nor nerves, nor chest, nor stomach, nor intestines; all that remains is the skin and bones of the body, disorganized (these are [her] own expressions). This delirium of negation extends even to the metaphysical ideas which were formerly the object of [her] firmest beliefs; She doesn't have a soul, God doesn't exist, neither does the devil. Miss X… being no more than a disorganized body, does not need to eat to live, she cannot die a natural death, she will exist eternally unless she is burned, fire being the only end...

Cotard delusion has been observed in a wide variety of psychiatric and neurological conditions, including psychotic depression, schizophrenia, encephalitis, subdural hemorrhage, arteriovenous malformations, migraine, Parkinson's disease, stroke, and epilepsy (Gerrans, 2022). From a neurobiological perspective, it's nearly impossible to construct a unified theory of the dysfunctional brain systems that underlie the delusion. Hence, some studies have focused on patients who manifest Cotard delusion after stroke, brain injury, or anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis for clues on potential brain regions that may be implicated in these cases. 

Two new papers describe the role of depersonalization — an estrangement from one's body or self — in Cotard delusion (Davies & Coltheart, 2022; Gerrans, 2022).

Absence disembodies — so does Death
Hiding individuals from the Earth
Superposition helps, as well as love —
Tenderness decreases as we prove —

– Emily Dickinson

One prominent account of Cotard holds that people suffering from the delirium of negation are completely devoid of emotional responses. The nihilistic delusion is an attempt to make sense of this anomalous experience. Davies and Coltheart (2022) are critical of this view because there's no evidence that emotional reactivity is abolished in Cotard delusion. They also cite 12 case reports of patients who show a variety of affective states that collectively encompass anxiety, fear, guilt, distress, paranoia, aggression, agitation, anguish, despair, euphoria, grandiosity, irritability, sadness, and worry.

An alternate account places the anomalous experiences of depersonalization and derealization, rather than lack of emotion, as the central “surprising events” that trigger nihilistic delusions (Billon, 2016; Davies & Coltheart, 2022). These patients describe phenomena such as “I feel myself detached from my own body” and “feelings of unreality and difficulties in deciding whether events ... were real or just imagined”. The injured brain areas in these patients included insular cortex and right temporal-parietal regions.

A Death blow is a Life blow to Some
Who till they died, did not alive become —
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, Vitality begun.

– Emily Dickinson

In contrast, Gerrans (2022) proposes that depersonalization and Cotard delusion result from different ruptures in the sense of self. He provides an extensive and accessible review of the interoceptive active inference model and predictive coding of bodily states in the anterior insula cortex. Depersonalization may arise from imprecise interoceptive predictions, but reality testing remains intact. On the other hand, Cotard delusion represents a complete rupture from reality.

Within this framework, depersonalisation experience involves a selective failure to annex a class of experience to a largely intact hierarchical self-model. The Cotard delusion is a result of the destruction or degradation of that model. It is consistent with this view that there can be overlap between symptoms of depersonalisation disorder and Cotard syndrome, especially while the delusion develops because of nature of self-modelling. However the delusion reports the experience of human life without an intact regulatory self-model whereas in depersonalisation the self-model is largely intact.

A key component of the “depersonalization first, Cotard second” view should account for why the former is relatively common, while the latter is quite rare.

 

References

Billon, A. (2016). Making sense of the Cotard syndrome: Insights from the study of depersonalisation. Mind & Language, 31(3), 356-391.

 

Cotard, J. (1880). Du Délire hypocondriaque dans une forme grave de la mélancolie anxieuse, mémoire lu à la Société médico-psychologique dans la séance du 28 juin 1880, par M. le Dr Jules Cotard.

Cotard, J. (1882). Du délire des négations. Arch de Neurol, 4, 282-296.

 

Davies, M., & Coltheart, M. (2022). Cotard delusion, emotional experience and depersonalisation. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 1-17.

 

Gerrans, P. (2022). A vessel without a pilot: Bodily and affective experience in the Cotard delusion of inexistence. Mind & Language.

 

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

By Emily Dickinson

 

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading - treading - till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum -

Kept beating - beating - till I thought

My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race,

Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down -

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing - then -