Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Brainiacs On Parade

I continue to read the brain book and I continue to have my mind blown.

One major theme that runs throughout the book is that the conscious you, the you you believe is you, is merely the tip of the iceberg. There is so much activity going on behind the scenes in our brains that consciousness is an incredibly tiny aspect of the whole works. It may be that we have even less control of our conscious mind than we think. That there are all kinds of functions and analysis and sifting of input and analyzing and re-analyzing going on, and that what we interpret as conscious decisions are just the end result of what our brain has figured out. Almost like our brain controls our consciousness and that the consciousness itself is not independent or not as independent as we think it is.

The chapter I just read suggests that "you" are what your brain is, and if your brain changes, you change. This challenges the concept of having a soul. I am not comfortable with this idea because I have a romanticized opinion of what the soul is, but I at least have to consider this theory.

Your brain is affected by genetics and environment before you even have a chance at influencing it. Your parents get drunk, you are conceived and BOOM. You have a set of rules right there. The mix of your parents genetic makeup creates your genetic blueprint and has direct impact on your brain.

In addition, where you are raised and how you are raised have consequences. The foods you are fed as a kid, the chemicals that are in the water you drink and the stuff that is in the air around you all have an effect on your brain. If your parents are loving there is an effect; if they are monsters, there is an effect.

There are so many variables to consider and all of this happens when the conscious mind has little input or control. But all of it shapes and influences how your brain works and affects your outlook on life. Because of this, brains are vastly different and everybody is not created equal. I can dig that concept. It explains a lot. Could be a clue as to why some people are natural a**holes and others are a joy to be around.

Tumors in the brain can have direct consequences on how a person acts. There is a case of a normal guy who suddenly became a pedophile. When they checked him out, he had a tumor. After it was removed, he returned to his normal life. The tumor came back and suddenly he was back into pedophilia.

In 1966, Charles Whitman killed his wife and mother, then climbed up into a tower at the University of Texas with an assortment of weapons and killed 15 people and wounded 30 others before he himself was killed. He left notes with his mother's and wife's bodies essentially saying I don't know why I did this. He left a note requesting that his brain be examined after his death. Doctors found a tumor but never agreed about whether that was the cause of his shooting spree.

The point is that our ability to detect tumors is crude right now. We might be able to detect tumors the size of a pencil point but even smaller tumors could impact brain function, along with genetic mutation, brain damage, small strokes, and hormonal imbalances that may be undetectable today.

Epilepsy used to be considered demonic. Psychiatric patients used to be treated with deprivation and torture. We learned more about how the brain functions and developed more humane and effective treatments.

Egas Moniz invented frontal lobotomies and got a Nobel Peace Prize for doing so. That blows my mind. Lobotomies are no longer all the rage but that is no comfort to Randall P. McMurphy.

The point is there may be things going on in our brains that we cannot even detect and yet these things may have a direct impact on who we are and what we do. In the future as we continue to refine our diagnostic techniques we may look back on the 21st century as a most barbaric and cruel era. I already do anyway but that's a topic for another day and time.

One thing the author said gave me hope. He says we can train our brains. In some cases peoples' anti -social behavior can be eradicated by changing brain patterns. I'm not talking shock therapy here, I'm talking mental exercises that re-wire your brain.

That's exactly what I need to hear. Right now my brain is a big bowl of mush. It sloshes around when I shake my head.

But I am doing mental push ups, baby, in training for the famous final push. So stay tuned and I'll, ahh, what I'll do is, ahh, I'll try to - wait a minute - what was I saying?





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