Psychophysiology, 52 (2015), 6–7. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Printed in the USA. Copyright © 2014 Society for Psychophysiological Research DOI: 10.1111/psyp.12377
In Memoriam Enoch Callaway, III, (1924–2014): A pioneer in biological psychiatry ROY A. HALLIDAY and JUDITH M. FORD Department of Psychiatry University of California San Francisco San Francisco, California
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Enoch Callaway, MD was born into a distinguished medical family in La Grange, Georgia in 1924 and died on August 18, 2014 in Tiburon, California surrounded by his loved ones. He retained two things from birth until his passing at age 90, his gentle Georgia accent, and his marvelous sense of humor. Noch (“Notch”), as he was known by generations of colleagues, students and friends was an early member of SPR, and served as president in 1982. He was one of a group of young psychiatrists in post World War II who was interested in integrating psychiatry with the technical and theoretical advances in biology and medical sciences–a field that became known as biological psychiatry. Noch graduated from Columbia University in 1944 and obtained his M.D. from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1947. He completed his psychiatric residency at Worcester State Hospital, Massachusetts in 1948–49 and served as a Research Fellow at Worcester in 1949–50. He took advanced courses in mathematics and statistics at John Hopkins, and advanced training in psychiatry at the Baltimore Psychoanalytic Institute in 1957. Also in the early 1950s, he served in various psychiatric positions in the U.S. Navy. In 1958 he was appointed Director of Research for a new research wing of the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric (LPNI) Institute which eventually became the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco, continuing in that capacity and as Professor until 1986 when he moved to the San Francisco VA. An early adopter of technology, he installed one of the first in house computers on the UCSF campus, a DEC PDP-8. His biological orientation was a draw to many visiting scientists from around the world. Findings from the laboratories of these visitors, often in advance of publication, were an important research resource for LPNI scientists. He instituted an NIMH funded post doctoral training program which fostered the neuroscience careers of many SPR members including Dolf Pfefferbaum, Monte Buchsbaum, Manny Donchin, Tom Roth, and Judy Ford, to name a few. Noch’s research interests were wide ranging. He made important contributions to schizophrenia, attention deficit dysfunction, autism, developmental psychology, and the emerging fields of psychophysiology, cognition and psychopharmacology. One thread that runs through virtually all of his studies is a commitment to developing theories that generated hypotheses that could be experimentally verified, and lead to knowledge that would assist in the treatment of mental disorders. This theoretical emphasis is best seen in a series of studies carried out in the 1980s and early 90s that sought to link changes in the components of mental processes by varying task factors, to underlying neurotransmitter actions by varying doses of agonist and antagonists.
This paradigm was outlined in his 1982 SPR presidential paper (Callaway, 1983). He described studies in which normal women ages 30–40 and 60–75 were given three doses of the stimulant Ritalin or placebo on 4 different days, spaced a week apart. Subjects performed a task that independently varied stimulus and response complexity. Measures of reaction time (RT) and P300 latency of the ERP were collected. Ritalin speeded RTs in young subjects but had no effect on P300 latency. Ritalin did not speed P300 or RT in older women. Over the next few years the stimulant results were replicated several times and the paradigm extended to studying scopolamine, yohimbine, pimozide, clonidine, nicotine and cotinine. The results generally suggested that the approach of varying cognitive and 6
In Memoriam
7
pharmacological factors was a promising method for describing mental processes in terms of the pharmacological substrates. But, Noch pointed out that there were serious problems with the model underlying the interpretation of the data. For one thing, the interpretation was based on a serial model that assumed error free performance, and it focused on a single dependent variable, reaction time, to index information processing. A new class of theories, Parallel Distributed Processing Networks (PDP) was emerging, which promised a more complete account of the complexities of cognition. In particular, the late David Servin Schreiber had developed a PDP stimulation that predicted the effects of task factors in the Ericksen task and additionally predicted the stimulant effect found in the serial model paradigm and drug effects on speedaccuracy functions that had not been previously observed. Together with David, Noch enthusiastically threw himself into the PDP effort. New computer simulations were developed, new experiments were designed, and additional measures of motor preparation and execution following on the work of Mike Coles and his colleagues were added to the P300 latency measures. Pilot studies produced encouraging results. A review of the PDP simulation of drug effects including a re-analysis of the earlier amphetamine, clonidine and scopolamine data are found in Callaway, Halliday, Naylor, Yano and Herzig (1994). Unfortunately, despite excellent priority scores, the proposals to fund these new projects went unfunded in the funding crunch of the 1990s, and the lab was forced to close. Noch retired from the VA in 1994 and turned his attention to the medical technology company he helped to found (Neurobiological Technologies Inc.-NTI). But even in retirement from psychiatric research, Noch remained active in psychiatry seeing patients privately and in a community clinic where he was the self-described “Free Psychopharmacologist”. Along with his work at NTI, he wrote “Asylum: A Mid-Century Madhouse and its Lessons about Our Mentally Ill Today”, a book describing his days as a resident at Worcester State Hospital and what that training taught him about today’s mentally ill. A 2012 botanical murder mystery novel called “The Mating Flower” grew from his interest in botany. Nothing was off limits for Noch. His last paper was published in 1999 in the magazine California Fly Fisher entitled“ Two Psychiatrists Look at Their Obsession” (i.e. fly fishing). In addition to his residency memories, in 1975 he published a book on Evoked Potentials and Individual Psychological Differences, and with Dietrich Lehman edited a volume of the proceedings of a NATO conference in 1978. In 1979 he was an editor along
with Patrica Tueting and Steven Koslow of a NIMH volume, “Event Related Potentials in Man” which critically assessed the status of the ERP over many of its applications. Noch was the recipient of many awards including Award for Lifetime Contributions to Biological Psychiatry (1996), George N. Thompson Ward Society of Biological Psychiatry (1991), Distinguished Life Fellow, American Psychiatric Association (1982), and the George Elliot Royer Award, University of California (1981). In addition to his SPR presidency, he was elected President of Biological Psychiatry in 1983. He served on numerous editorial boards and in a variety of capacities in a number of neuropharmacology societies. He was a dedicated therapist, and an inspiring and generous teacher to generations of medical students, residents, graduate and post-doctoral students. He always characterized these relationships as collaborations and fondly recalled these relationships as being some of his best work. He was always open to criticism, new ideas and alternative explanations–no matter the source, and freely acknowledged the contribution of all those involved in his studies including senior authorship if you did more than half of the work. And even then the rule was often ignored. Besides his research on brain electrical activity and neurotransmitters linked to understanding mechanisms of cognitive problems Noch was interested in, researched and published about a wide range of things reflecting his diverse interests and curiosity. In describing his research career he wrote: “I have been easily distracted, and unrelated topics including ethnobotany, parallel distributed processing networks, vitamins in autism, eye movement desensitization and reintegration, prevented me from singleminded pursuit of my main line of research! And then I have always loved seeing patients, which has taken its share of my energy. But all told, I have had fun, and I hope done more good than harm.” Noch was a regular tennis doubles player, fly fisherman, and community garden advocate. In his 60s he turned to wind surfing on San Francisco Bay and when his health no longer permitted it, became an active kayaker. He was an avaricious reader, elegant writer and an early music enthusiast who played recorder in a chamber group well into his late 80s. The history of psychopharmacology in Noch’s own words can be read in an interview by Thomas A. Ban in the history section of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology website. Noch Callaway had a long and productive life and brought joy to many of us who had the good fortune to share part of it with him.
References Callaway, E. (1983). The Pharmacology of Human Information Processing. Psychophysiology, 20, 359–370. Callaway, E., Halliday, R., Naylor, H., Yano, L., & Herzig, K. (1994). Drugs and Human Information Processing. Neuropsychopharmacology, 10, 9–19.
American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. (1999, December 13). Thomas Ban Interview with Enoch Callaway III, Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology. Retrieved from http://www.acnp.org/ programs/history.aspx
This document is a scanned copy of a printed document. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material.
In Memoriam Enoch Callaway, III, (1924–2014): A pioneer in biological psychiatry ROY A. HALLIDAY and JUDITH M. FORD Department of Psychiatry University of California San Francisco San Francisco, California
bs_bs_banner
Enoch Callaway, MD was born into a distinguished medical family in La Grange, Georgia in 1924 and died on August 18, 2014 in Tiburon, California surrounded by his loved ones. He retained two things from birth until his passing at age 90, his gentle Georgia accent, and his marvelous sense of humor. Noch (“Notch”), as he was known by generations of colleagues, students and friends was an early member of SPR, and served as president in 1982. He was one of a group of young psychiatrists in post World War II who was interested in integrating psychiatry with the technical and theoretical advances in biology and medical sciences–a field that became known as biological psychiatry. Noch graduated from Columbia University in 1944 and obtained his M.D. from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1947. He completed his psychiatric residency at Worcester State Hospital, Massachusetts in 1948–49 and served as a Research Fellow at Worcester in 1949–50. He took advanced courses in mathematics and statistics at John Hopkins, and advanced training in psychiatry at the Baltimore Psychoanalytic Institute in 1957. Also in the early 1950s, he served in various psychiatric positions in the U.S. Navy. In 1958 he was appointed Director of Research for a new research wing of the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric (LPNI) Institute which eventually became the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco, continuing in that capacity and as Professor until 1986 when he moved to the San Francisco VA. An early adopter of technology, he installed one of the first in house computers on the UCSF campus, a DEC PDP-8. His biological orientation was a draw to many visiting scientists from around the world. Findings from the laboratories of these visitors, often in advance of publication, were an important research resource for LPNI scientists. He instituted an NIMH funded post doctoral training program which fostered the neuroscience careers of many SPR members including Dolf Pfefferbaum, Monte Buchsbaum, Manny Donchin, Tom Roth, and Judy Ford, to name a few. Noch’s research interests were wide ranging. He made important contributions to schizophrenia, attention deficit dysfunction, autism, developmental psychology, and the emerging fields of psychophysiology, cognition and psychopharmacology. One thread that runs through virtually all of his studies is a commitment to developing theories that generated hypotheses that could be experimentally verified, and lead to knowledge that would assist in the treatment of mental disorders. This theoretical emphasis is best seen in a series of studies carried out in the 1980s and early 90s that sought to link changes in the components of mental processes by varying task factors, to underlying neurotransmitter actions by varying doses of agonist and antagonists.
This paradigm was outlined in his 1982 SPR presidential paper (Callaway, 1983). He described studies in which normal women ages 30–40 and 60–75 were given three doses of the stimulant Ritalin or placebo on 4 different days, spaced a week apart. Subjects performed a task that independently varied stimulus and response complexity. Measures of reaction time (RT) and P300 latency of the ERP were collected. Ritalin speeded RTs in young subjects but had no effect on P300 latency. Ritalin did not speed P300 or RT in older women. Over the next few years the stimulant results were replicated several times and the paradigm extended to studying scopolamine, yohimbine, pimozide, clonidine, nicotine and cotinine. The results generally suggested that the approach of varying cognitive and 6
In Memoriam
7
pharmacological factors was a promising method for describing mental processes in terms of the pharmacological substrates. But, Noch pointed out that there were serious problems with the model underlying the interpretation of the data. For one thing, the interpretation was based on a serial model that assumed error free performance, and it focused on a single dependent variable, reaction time, to index information processing. A new class of theories, Parallel Distributed Processing Networks (PDP) was emerging, which promised a more complete account of the complexities of cognition. In particular, the late David Servin Schreiber had developed a PDP stimulation that predicted the effects of task factors in the Ericksen task and additionally predicted the stimulant effect found in the serial model paradigm and drug effects on speedaccuracy functions that had not been previously observed. Together with David, Noch enthusiastically threw himself into the PDP effort. New computer simulations were developed, new experiments were designed, and additional measures of motor preparation and execution following on the work of Mike Coles and his colleagues were added to the P300 latency measures. Pilot studies produced encouraging results. A review of the PDP simulation of drug effects including a re-analysis of the earlier amphetamine, clonidine and scopolamine data are found in Callaway, Halliday, Naylor, Yano and Herzig (1994). Unfortunately, despite excellent priority scores, the proposals to fund these new projects went unfunded in the funding crunch of the 1990s, and the lab was forced to close. Noch retired from the VA in 1994 and turned his attention to the medical technology company he helped to found (Neurobiological Technologies Inc.-NTI). But even in retirement from psychiatric research, Noch remained active in psychiatry seeing patients privately and in a community clinic where he was the self-described “Free Psychopharmacologist”. Along with his work at NTI, he wrote “Asylum: A Mid-Century Madhouse and its Lessons about Our Mentally Ill Today”, a book describing his days as a resident at Worcester State Hospital and what that training taught him about today’s mentally ill. A 2012 botanical murder mystery novel called “The Mating Flower” grew from his interest in botany. Nothing was off limits for Noch. His last paper was published in 1999 in the magazine California Fly Fisher entitled“ Two Psychiatrists Look at Their Obsession” (i.e. fly fishing). In addition to his residency memories, in 1975 he published a book on Evoked Potentials and Individual Psychological Differences, and with Dietrich Lehman edited a volume of the proceedings of a NATO conference in 1978. In 1979 he was an editor along
with Patrica Tueting and Steven Koslow of a NIMH volume, “Event Related Potentials in Man” which critically assessed the status of the ERP over many of its applications. Noch was the recipient of many awards including Award for Lifetime Contributions to Biological Psychiatry (1996), George N. Thompson Ward Society of Biological Psychiatry (1991), Distinguished Life Fellow, American Psychiatric Association (1982), and the George Elliot Royer Award, University of California (1981). In addition to his SPR presidency, he was elected President of Biological Psychiatry in 1983. He served on numerous editorial boards and in a variety of capacities in a number of neuropharmacology societies. He was a dedicated therapist, and an inspiring and generous teacher to generations of medical students, residents, graduate and post-doctoral students. He always characterized these relationships as collaborations and fondly recalled these relationships as being some of his best work. He was always open to criticism, new ideas and alternative explanations–no matter the source, and freely acknowledged the contribution of all those involved in his studies including senior authorship if you did more than half of the work. And even then the rule was often ignored. Besides his research on brain electrical activity and neurotransmitters linked to understanding mechanisms of cognitive problems Noch was interested in, researched and published about a wide range of things reflecting his diverse interests and curiosity. In describing his research career he wrote: “I have been easily distracted, and unrelated topics including ethnobotany, parallel distributed processing networks, vitamins in autism, eye movement desensitization and reintegration, prevented me from singleminded pursuit of my main line of research! And then I have always loved seeing patients, which has taken its share of my energy. But all told, I have had fun, and I hope done more good than harm.” Noch was a regular tennis doubles player, fly fisherman, and community garden advocate. In his 60s he turned to wind surfing on San Francisco Bay and when his health no longer permitted it, became an active kayaker. He was an avaricious reader, elegant writer and an early music enthusiast who played recorder in a chamber group well into his late 80s. The history of psychopharmacology in Noch’s own words can be read in an interview by Thomas A. Ban in the history section of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology website. Noch Callaway had a long and productive life and brought joy to many of us who had the good fortune to share part of it with him.
References Callaway, E. (1983). The Pharmacology of Human Information Processing. Psychophysiology, 20, 359–370. Callaway, E., Halliday, R., Naylor, H., Yano, L., & Herzig, K. (1994). Drugs and Human Information Processing. Neuropsychopharmacology, 10, 9–19.
American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. (1999, December 13). Thomas Ban Interview with Enoch Callaway III, Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology. Retrieved from http://www.acnp.org/ programs/history.aspx
This document is a scanned copy of a printed document. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material.
