The NY Times published an excerpt from Luke Dittrich's book on HM which had a heavy focus on Suzanne Corkin's treatment of Henry Molaison during the decades which she had him under her charge. Perhaps most disturbing about the account is that Corkin's activities is the claim that she destroyed testing results and other papers related to HM. Dittrich has a personal interest in this story because it is his grandfather, a neurosurgeon, was the person who conducted the surgery on HM which resulted in his amnesia. Traditionally, it has bas been presented that this surgery destroyed key areas of HM's hippocampus but new post mortem studies of HM's brain indicate additional damage to the prefrontal context that was not previously detected or acknowledge -- which may fundamentally change the story of why HM's memory functioned in the way it did.
It should be noted that what was published was an excerpt from a book Dittrich has written and which is being published by Random House. I emphasize this point because a groups of about 200 cognitive/neuroscientists have written to the NY Times to complain about the article, including MIT which plays a curious role in all of this -- Corkin worked with HM at MIT. The response to the Dittrich article has been written on the Scientific American website by Sharon Begley and, frankly, the people responding come off not looking so good. Here is a quote that serves as an example: | It is highly unusual for so many prominent scientists to take |a newspaper to task over a book excerpt, especially when they |do not also contact the publisher (Random House). One |scientist criticizing the Times said they hadn't thought of that. Well, Duh! |The scientists also complain that the newspaper did not |fact-check the excerpt. In a statement, however, a spokesperson |for the paper said the excerpt "was thoroughly vetted and |fact-checked by the [Sunday] magazine's staff." Perhaps the responders can question whether the fact-checking was adequate but claiming that none was done when in fact it was done -- which undermines the points being made as well as raising questions about the accuracy of other statements that they made. Perhaps they were in too much of a hurry to write a response and did not "fact check" their own comments? Anyway, I am sure that all Tipsters have already the NY Time article by Dittrich on HM because they are always on top of the latest science news but for those who off hiking for the past week and cut off from civilization or meditating in a meditation center or whatever, here is a link to the Dittrich article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/magazine/the-brain-that-couldnt-remember.html?_r=1 And here is a link to the SciAm article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mit-challenges-the-new-york-times-over-book-on-famous-brain-patient/# So, some people may have to update their notes on HM and the implications of the research done on him, that is, it is now less clear what they mean. On the bright side, it does provide a new case to review when we cover research ethics. ;-) -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=49174 or send a blank email to leave-49174-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
