I've recently joined a biopsychology news alert service run by a well-known neuroscientist and sometimes TIPS member. For the moment, I've been sworn to secrecy as he switches from manually subscribing people to Majordomo. In the meantime, I'm forwarding this as an example of the kind of great stuff he's been digging up. In a few weeks I should be able to tell you how to subscribe. I take the credit (or the blame) for the subject title above: this is the real one below. -Stephen Absinthe Was a Toxic Cocktail for The Likes of Picasso and Van Gogh Carl T. Hall, [San Francisco] Chronicle Science Writer Saturday, March 25, 2000 Absinthe, the emerald-green liqueur that was popular in fin-de-siecle Paris and is now enjoying a watered-down comeback, contains a neurotoxin that may account for some of the addled behavior of Vincent Van Gogh, scientists said yesterday. Using lab mice to solve a century- old riddle, researchers reported that a substance called alpha-thujone -- the active ingredient in what some cognescenti call ``La Fee Verte,'' or ``the green fairy'' -- can lead to the out-of-control firing of brain cells. A similar misfiring is found in some forms of epilepsy. Other symptoms long linked to absinthe consumption include addiction, hallucinations and delirium. Many late 19th century and early 20th century creative geniuses had a strong taste for absinthe, and became well-practiced in its elaborate mystique and rituals -- typically involving perforated spoons, water and sugar in a sidewalk-cafe setting. Besides Van Gogh, other famous imbibers included Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso. Many immortalized the beverage in paintings, notably Toulouse-Lautrec, who favored diluting his in cognac rather than water, forming a deathly concoction he called an ``earthquake.'' Now, it appears some of their more curious, if not self-destructive, psychiatric symptoms may be explained by absinthe's activity on a special type of receptor responsible for controlling the excitation of brain signals. Known as the GABA receptor, it is a key component in the brain's delicate system of self-control. Heavy consumption of the high- potency liqueurs common in Van Gogh's day ``would have greatly disrupted the nervous system,'' said John Casida, a professor of toxicology and environmental chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. Casida and colleagues at UC Berkeley and the Northwestern University Medical School summarized their findings in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A separate report on the same material is scheduled for Monday during the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, which convenes this weekend in San Francisco. Whether the latest findings explain Van Gogh's psychiatric symptoms and more extreme behavior -- which ultimately led to his infamous ear-slicing and suicide -- is a matter of conjecture. But Van Gogh experts said yesterday the new biochemical evidence certainly sheds some important light on one of history's most intensely creative periods. ``Old absinthe was bad stuff,'' said Dr. Wilf Arnold at the University of Kansas Medical Center, author of the book ``Vincent Van Gogh: Chemicals, Crises and Creativity.'' ``There is finally a good scientific reason to explain the toxicity,'' he said. He noted that Van Gogh appears to have suffered a congenital condition called acute intermittent porphyria, whose psychiatric conditions can be drug induced. Others who lacked such predispositions, including Van Gogh's onetime roommate Paul Gauguin, may have been able to drink more absinthe than Van Gogh with much less severe results, Arnold said. Absinthe's active ingredient, which comes from an extract of the wormwood plant, has been linked to psychiatric illness, convulsions and even death since the 1850s. Nobody could determine just how the drug affected the brain. As a result of health concerns, the drink was banned shortly after the turn of the century in France and many other countries, including the United States, where it is still outlawed. But today, green-colored absinthe beverages, some containing 55 percent alcohol, are sold legally in parts of Europe and Canada. Their potency, however, is much reduced: less than 10 parts per million of the active ingredient versus 260 parts per million in ``old absinthe,'' according to some recent studies. ``It's quite trendy in the U.K. at the moment,'' said Sue Hill, office manager at a British absinthe dealer called Sebor Absinthe, which advertises on the Internet. She added that the company's Web site gets a steady stream of orders, perhaps 20 or so daily, from would-be absinthe drinkers in the United States. (c) 2000 San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/03/25/MN101563.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at: http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
