In this podcast, a story about obsession, creativity, and a strange symmetry between a biologist and a composer that revolves around one famously repetitive piece of music.

Anne Adams was a brilliant biologist. But when her son Alex was in a bad car accident, she decided to stay home to help him recover. And then, rather suddenly, she decided to quit science altogether and become a full-time artist. After that, her husband Robert Adams tells us, she just painted and painted and painted. First houses and buildings, then a series of paintings involving strawberries, and then … “Bolero.”

At some point, Anne became obsessed with Maurice Ravel’s famous composition and decided to put an elaborate visual rendition of the song to canvas. She called it “Unraveling Bolero.” But at the time, she had no idea that both she and Ravel would themselves unravel shortly after their experiences with this odd piece of music. Arbie Orenstein tells Jad what happened to Ravel after he wrote “Bolero,” and neurologist Bruce Miller andJonah Lehrer helps us understand how, for both Anne and Ravel, “Bolero” might have been the first symptom of a deadly disease.

ᔥRadiolab podcast

The psychological impact of the Olympics on athletes and fans revealed

In an Olympic and Paralympics themed issue of The Psychologist, which is published today (Thursday 28 June), Dr Christian Jarrett looks at the effect competition can have on sporting performance and explains how athletes manage intense pressure.

He’ll also look at how psychology can shed light on some of the great Olympic rivalries and how fans are affected by the highs and lows of watching our national sporting heroes in action.

Dr Jarrett, a Chartered Psychologist and editor of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, says: “Legends will be born and dreams will die this summer as London becomes a crucible for the ultimate sporting competition. The pressure will be intense.

“I’ll be asking how the athletes will cope and whether the heat of competition can lift our sporting heroes to new heights or stifle their promise.”

ᔥBritish Psychological Society

Social interactions during adolescence can affect health many years into adulthood, according to research published in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The study was led by Per E. Gustafsson at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Sweden.

The researchers from Umeå University and Stockholm University used data from a long-term study monitoring social relationships and health over 27 years, from age 16 to 43, for over 800 participants. They found that problematic peer relationships in adolescence, as measured through teachers’ assessments, were correlated with all components of metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of metabolic and cardiovascular issues including obesity and high blood pressure, in middle-age.

Results showed a dose-response relationship between peer problems in adolescence and metabolic syndrome in middle-age, corresponding to 36% higher odds for the metabolic syndrome at age 43 for each SD higher peer problems score at age 16. The association remained significant after adjustment for health, health behaviors, school adjustment or family circumstances in adolescence, and for psychological distress, health behaviors or social circumstances in adulthood. In analyses stratified by sex, the results were significant only in women after adjustment for covariates.

The effect was particularly noticeable among females, with the most unpopular and introverted at 16 more than three times as likely to be in bad shape at 43.

The researchers said the results can’t be easily explained why the effect was stronger in females, but suggested it could be because men and women had “different life course pathways”.

Peer problems were significantly related to all individual components of the metabolic syndrome. These results suggest that unsuccessful adaption to the school peer group can have enduring consequences for metabolic health.

ᔥUmeå University