Dr Shock’s popular posts from 2008 and a look ahead for 2009.

Two most popular posts according WordPress Blog Stats this year were Sex, Video Games and the Brain and How much Chocolate is Good for your Health? Popularity is probably mainly based on the title and keywords (or was it the picture?).

The first post discusses the differences between results of brain imaging in men and women while playing video games.

While playing video games on a computer men generally exhibit greater activation of the mesocorticolimbic reward circuitry and also greater connectivity. Male were more effective in gaining space and learned the implicit goal faster than females. This was the only observed gender difference in performance.

The second post is about researchers that propose chronic inflammation of tissues in the circulatory system is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. A marker for inflammation in the blood is called C-reactive protein. The researchers found a relationship between dark chocolate intake and levels of this protein in the blood of 4,849 subjects in good health and free of risk factors (such as high cholesterol or blood pressure, and other parameters).

These two posts are the top of the bill of 2008, at some distance also popular were a recent post about the disappointing results of Internet addiction research. Most of the critique on this research concerns the design of most of these trials.

previous studies have utilized inconsistent criteria to define Internet addicts, applied recruiting methods that may cause serious sampling bias, and examined data using primarily exploratory rather than confirmatory data analysis techniques to investigate the degree of association rather than causal relationships among variables.

From all the posts about neurostimulation the most popular is about TMS not being effective in depression treatment. It is a extensive review kind of post, the core being a placebo controlled trial comparing TMS with sham TMS for depression.

Rapid Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) to the left prefrontal cortex is not more effective than sham rTMS for depression. This was the result of a recent published randomized controlled trial with 4 month follow-up.

The use of computers and internet for ehealth is a subject close to Dr Shock’s heart. Gladly the post You’r never to old to learn computer skills was a favorite among the readers of this blog.

What posts were the most pleasurable to write for Dr Shock?

The post about empathy in the doctor patient relationship. This post was part of a series about patient doctor relationship and it’s different aspects such as education, self-disclosure to name a few. Follow the link for a summary of subjects concerning patient doctor relationship posts. The other post written with pleasure was about Why do psychiatrists like detectives?

Enjoyed blogging a lot, have learned even more form writing posts. I have neglected the developments of health 2.0 and medical education, will focus some more on that topic in the coming year 2009. Make medical education more fun for students and teachers. Suggestions for blogs, sites and social networks are very welcome. Already received a suggestion by Bertalan Besko on Twitter about Medical Education Evolution.

What did you like, enjoy would like to read more about? Please let me know in the comments.