week 3 - Neurobiology and Behavior

A recent article in the New York Times entitled "A Small Part of the Brain, and Its Profound Effects" by Sandra Blakeslee (2/6/07) describes the significance of a little-known piece of brain tissue called the insula. With still much to discover about this organ and how it connects to the rest of the brain and the body, it has recently been recognized as a possible key component in what it means to be human.

The insula appears to play an important role in the control and regulation of a whole host of desires, impulses, and emotions. Blakeslee notes, "For example, the insula 'lights up' in brain scans when people crave drugs, feel pain, anticipate pain, empathize with others, listen to jokes, see disgust on someone's face, are shunned in social settings, listen to music, decide not to buy an iten, see someone cheat and decide to punish them, and determine degrees of preference while eating chocolate."

Who knew that so many thoughts and behaviors were the direct result of a tiny mechanism found deep in the brain? Moreover, to what extent does this biological attribute eliminate personal choice and free will? More practical questions (already underway in the scientific community) consist of how one could potentially manipulate the insula in order to treat drug addiction, anxiety, eating disorders, etc.

This last class made me think of biofeedback treatments.  Biofeedback uses sensors to monitor electrical signals from muscles, skin temperature, heart rate, brain wave activity, and other processes in the body.  The information from the sensors is represented visually.  The patient then attempts to control the activity with his or her mind, training the brain to consciously monitor things it normally does automatically.  Biofeedback doesn’t work for all forms of paralysis, but it has been used to help people with muscle degeneration or mild injury to “relearn” how to control their muscles.  I think it’s also been used to help people learn to control their heart rates and blood pressure.  I remember reading an article a few years ago suggesting that biofeedback could help people control migraines and stress headaches.  There may be many things happening in the brain of which the “I-function” is not aware, but it seems to be possible to bring at least some of these processes to our attention and conscious control.  If this is the case, is it possible that some people’s “I-functions” naturally have more control/awareness than others’?

Congito ergo sum. Je pense alors, je suis.  I think therefore I am.          –Rene Descartes It would be extremely frustrating to be a quadriplegic like Christopher Reeves.  If someone kicked John Doe, a quadriplegic, in the shin, his leg would recoil, but the “I” wouldn’t know it happened (unless John watched that someone kick you).  His body would be able to move without him willing it to, but when he would try to move his leg, without the kicking input, nothing would happen.  John would have this body that is connected to him, and he relies on it to live, but he has no control over it.  His actions from the neck down are only be reflex, lacking intention.  Yes. I am perfectly normal. If I want to raise my hand in class, no problem, but my body carries out so many functions that I can’t control, and really, wouldn’t want to.   Like the peristalsis movements in my intestines, I’m just as well off not being aware of them.  So what is the extent of the ‘I’ function? How much territory to we want to have it cover? The word, intention: it has a lot to do with the ‘I’ function.  For example, I observe that Suzy Q takes a step forward.  I can think of two possible summaries for this observation.  1)    Suzy Q wanted to step forward. She did so with intention. 2)    Someone pushed her forward. Suzy Q put her foot out to keep herself from falling.  She did so without intention. It both cases, Suzy is aware that she stepped forward. She’s able to think about it. To process it.  What if she couldn’t process? Couldn’t think about her actions?  First of all summary 1 wouldn’t hold true. She wouldn’t have an ‘I’ function.  She couldn’t think, therefore she couldn’t be—if Descartes is right.  I think therefore I am.  What does this mean for those who can’t think? The brain-dead. Do they exist?

After class, I got to thinking about paralysis, and whether or not there were any special circumstances in which someone who was paralyzed learned to move their limbs again. Although I did not manage to find any article that specifically dealt with this issue, I found something perhaps even more intriguing. In the New York Times article Discovering that Denial of Paralysis is not Just a Problem of the Mind, I learned about a neuroscientist in Italy who did research on stroke patients who suffer from what is known as denial syndrome, a disorder where paralyzed patients fervently insist that they are not paralyzed. Whereas scientists once believed that this denial was simply a defense mechanism stemming from the devastating reality of paralysis, research now shows that denial syndrome is in fact a neurological condition which occurs when certain brain regions are affected by a stroke. Whereas a specific part of their brain can no longer allow them to move, there is another closely related region of the brain which remains intact and continues to tell them that their bodies are responding normally. As a result, if a patient with a paralyzed left arm is asked if he or she can raise or is raising their left arm, they will respond both times with yes. Apparently, patients who display this disorder suffer little to no injury to the supplementary motor area, the region of the brain involved in the mental simulation of movements. When these patients are asked to raise their arms, this region produces a familiar pattern of brain activation and shows more or less normal function. However, the regions of the brain that maintain awareness of the movements and carry them out no longer work. The conflict between these two regions creates a strong sense of having moved but no sense of awareness that forces the patient to enter into a state of complete denial, even going so far as to denying the fact that the motionless arm is theirs.

  This phenomenon got me thinking about the role of the I-Function box in our brains. Whereas we spoke about how it is possible to receive inputs and generate appropriate outputs without necessarily being aware of doing so (in the way that Christopher Reeves will move his foot if it pinched), in this situation it is possible to believe that we are generating outputs, to simulate an output in our brain, without having any concrete input or visible output. I understand that the I-Function contains the experience of inputs and outputs. Christopher Reeves cannot feel his foot and openly admits that he cannot move it and yet it still responds to stimuli; the example that I have presented seems to me to present another aspect of this problem in that in this situation patients believe they can move a foot that is clearly paralyzed. It is interesting for me to see the way in which awareness of movement and the sense of having moved can be located in separate regions of the brain.

I've been wondering about this division between our "inner selves" and our material bodies. When we're young, we may assume that while we sleep, our surroundings are born away by some entity, or that we ourselves go some place (I was thinking about Dylan Thomas' poem "Fern Hill"). Perhaps these childhood observations are suggestive of the real answer in some sense- in other words, while the inputs and outputs we associate with waking life are shut down (we 'move away from our surroundings'), we are disconnected from the materially observable world, and retreat into some other 'place'- which we learned in class was inner-neuronal activity ('we go someplace'). A related question is just where are our "selves" located within the nervous system. Are our inner selves related in some way to the function of our inner neurons or the i function? Also, how do we deal with the example of Christopher Reeve following his accident- was the unaffected region of his brain really the only remaining vestige of "Christopher Reeve", or do we also consider the regions of his body that he no longer controlled actively part of his self or being. If he loses all brain function but his body is kept alive, is he still really there? 

I read an interesting article about brain function and meditation. The article asked the question: Is the human brain capable of internally causing change to its structure and function without the use of external tools. If so, to what extent? They gave the example, if a piano player practices her arpeggios day after day then her brain begins to change so every time her index finger reaches for an arpeggio, the middle finger automatically follows and involuntarily plays at the same time. The brain was “re-wired” in a sense, so even when the piano player is not at the piano, her brain still correlates movement of the index finger with simultaneous movement of the middle finger. Her external actions caused a developmental alteration of the brain, producing new physical effects. Our input-output and box system fits nicely with this example. The input is practicing the piano, which leads to the change in brain structure development, which releases a changed physical output.

Scientists then asked, with the Tibetan Buddhist monks in mind, if your brain could change structure without an external input like practicing the piano. Could just sitting, meditating, and thinking alter brain structure? A study was held where scientists ran an fMRI on both a group of Buddhists Monks and a group of volunteers with jobs and families who said they meditated for about 40 minutes a day. In the group of moderate daily mediators, there were signs that showed evidence of increased grey matter in stimulated parts of the brain. It was mostly the right hemisphere that was affected, and more specifically the regions of the brain associated with attention: the main focus of meditation. When they ran the study on the monks, the change in brain structure was enormous. The change was, “of a sort that has never been reported before in the neuroscience literature.” (Science Journal)

Is meditation a form of “exercise” for our brain? To what degree are we capable of ‘conditioning’ our brains and what physical effects does this have our bodies? Where is this power of change coming from if there is no material, external influences? How can the mere act of thinking or meditating physically change our bodies, and how does this relate to our box, I-function, input-output system?

I was reading this (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/11/AR2007021100931.html) article in the washington post, and basically what it says is that a person's relationship behavior (& and future relationship failure) can be predicted at age 1 when a baby's reaction to her/his mother leaving and returning are observed. The more insecure you are as a baby, supposedly the more insecure you are in your early 20s in serious relationships.

While this study is interesting, it seems, to me, to be plagued with flaws. Exactly how do you define "insecure?" What is a relationship "problem" to some people may not be to others, and, likewise, certain problem solving skills may seem futile to some, but productive to others. Is there really a scale that evenly measure one relationship against another?

Which brings up another question - how can one measure behavior when, if we all have 10^12 neurons, there is so much possibility for behaving differently? How can behavior be made into a credible science when there are infinite possibilities for generalizations masquerading as truths?

     Last week we spent a great deal of time discussing the topographic organization of the brain.  I’ll admit, a lot of the specific names and regions overwhelmed me at first because I tend to compartmentalize in terms of “left brain”/“right brain” function.  Then I read through some of the articles in the January 29th issue of TIME featuring a “User’s Guide to the Brain.”  While I appreciate what we’re trying to accomplish in class by asking elemental questions like “if behavior is different, are the brains different too?” I have to step back and consider the opening article in TIME which states “trying to map the brain has always been cartography for fools.”  How can we truly pin down something so inconsistent?  I would go nuts if I had to write a paper on a book that kept changing its format as I was reading it– how can these scientists see any progress when dealing with the ultimate in incomprehensible shape-shifters?

     Someone in class brought up one of the newer studies about thought having the power to alter the physical layout of brain matter – how does this lend itself to topographic continuity at all?  Sure, we are learning more and more about the nature of memory and trauma but will we ever be able to draw clear border lines around areas of the brain according to function?  Is this a futile effort and we should throw our hands up now or will technology progress so much that one day we will be able to predict the movement of brain matter before it happens, according to some breakthrough mapping system?  This actually hurts my brain, just thinking about the advances that will be needed in order to “read a mind.”  For now, the brain reminds me of Alsace-Lorraine during WWII – what identification do you slap on a territory that’s changed hands so many times?  Crazy stuff, the brain rewriting itself…

Last week in the Science Times, I read a very interesting article about relating to brain and behavior. The article, by Sandra Blakeslee, focused on the relationship between the insula and addictive behavior, in particular, smoking. According to some researchers, if a procedure was developed that could simply change the insula without destroying it, addictive behavior could be “cured”.

The insula is located in the lateral sulcus region of the brain. It is thought to be responsible for a wide variety of things including, but not limited to, emotion, cravings, pain, empathy, morality and emotional response to music. This is clearly a very important section of the brain that cannot be manipulated without careful research.

The researchers argue that problems like drug addiction and eating disorders would be solved if a procedure was developed. This leads me to question the link between brain and behavior once again. If simply tweaking a part of the brain can stop all addictive behaviors, how much “control” do we really have over our actions? Do we control our brains or do our brains control us?

I recently read an article from the New York Times titled “A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close its Doors”.  The main focus of the article was the controversy that surrounded the lab and whether the study of ESP was “hard science”.  However what really piqued my curiosity in the article was a description of a routine experiment performed by the scientists in the lab.  After looking at an electric box that projected a random series of numbers just above and below 100, the person was asked to either think of high numbers or low numbers and continue looking at the box.  The scientists would then look for a correlation between the numbers being shown and what the person was told to think about.  Taking into consideration chance, the researchers found that 2 or 3 times out of 10,000 each person was able to change the outcome of the machine, implying that they were able to somehow communicate with the machine. 

I find it highly unlikely that humans are able to communicate with a machine in this capacity.  Just 2 or 3 times out of 10,000 doesn’t really convince me that the subjects were communicating with the machine.  How do we know that those 2 or 3 times can’t be attributed to chance or experimental error?  On the other hand, how do we know they aren’t attributed to chance?  If it isn’t chance, then maybe the people were communicating with the machine. 

The researchers suggested that these findings implied that it is also possible for people to control other aspects of their lives such as being able to cure disease in oneself and others.  This part of the research makes more sense to me.  As mentioned by Dmckeever people can experience different levels of pain from the same procedure.  To what extent can a positive attitude or “mind over matter” mentality change our perceptions of our experiences?  If we are able to control our own experiences and behaviors, are we able to influence others’ as well?

All this talk of brain = behavior and location of the neurons that cause pain has me thinking of the phenomenon of “mind over matter.” From my experience, adopting such a theory does work. When I tell myself that something isn’t painful, I overcome the pain. I can handle it without reacting/flinching. Example: I had two friends that got tattoos at the same time; one giggled and said it tickled while the other said it was the most painful thing she had experienced in her life. If all of our behavior comes from the brain, how can we account for the differences in pain tolerance between people? How can we account for the different ways people deal with/react to pain? Is it a difference in structure or pathways that accounts for these differences among people? I find it very difficult to deny the power of the mind in dealing with pain because all my life I have seen people overcome great pain with mental strength. I am really posing a question for thought: if Emily Dickinson is right, then are these differences in tolerance and reactions, which could be grouped in with all other behavior, simply a product of the structural make-up of the brain?

In class, I was interested by the ideas of “leaving one’s body” and dreams allowing the nervous system to take over with no input and no outputs. Instead of inputs from the environment controlling behavior, only the inner neurons’ patterns of activity conduct behavior. Does this inner activity in our nervous system relate to our inner self? Are inner selves all the same since we all have an I function or are they different because the patterns of neuron activities are too complex to recreate in two people? I lean towards the latter. There is something more to the behavior than inputs, conscious or unconscious, followed by outputs. This may be explained by the I function. There seems to be a unique factor about the I function that contributes to defining us as human beings and as individuals.

     Ever since Thursday’s lecture I’ve been thinking about the example of the poor decapitated frog twitching his hind leg after being tickled; the capabilities of the spinal cord alone continues to amaze me. I understand how this mechanism works using the concept of topographic organization of the spinal cord, but it appears that all of these output movements (of the examples we were given) are reflex and defensive responses. They are actions that would commonly be called involuntary. In the example of quadriplegia, Christopher Reeves withdrew his foot when touched, but was not able to reproduce the motion when asked. So in an isolated spinal cord it would seem that in order to get a fixed response the right sensory stimulus must be applied.         

         The mechanisms of the spinal cord and corresponding extremities are enough to sustain life (with a supply of nutrients and oxygen) however; they seem to be lacking the experience aspect of living. In the above example of the frog, one could consider the reflex as being an experience, but it is limited in the sense that if you tickle the frog in the same way it will most likely produce the same twitching behavior. It would seem logical to me to assume that if the same stimulus was applied under the same conditions to produce an identical behavior then the same neural pathway must have been used. This descriptions seems comparable to a machine, and machines are not usually thought of as experiencing. If the spinal cord alone is not capable of experiencing (in the sense of perceiving and relating) then it must be the brain working in concurrence with the spinal cord to create this sensation of experience.

         When the body encounters some external stimulus it will elicit a response in the nervous system; if your hand is stocked sensory neurons send the ‘signal’ to the upper part of your spinal cord, which then returns a signal to the motor neurons in your arm, most likely causing you to retract it. I would like to propose that after the signal goes to the spinal cord, a signal is not only sent to the motor neurons, but also to the brain. It is in the brain where the electrochemical information is ‘interpreted’ so that you are able to make a connection between the shock and the pain in your hand, and possibly produce a behavior in addition to the reflex (verbally expressing that pain for example).

         It is still unclear to me what the actually process of experiencing is; this is merely an interpretation of information. I am also unclear on how information is stored in the form of memory. In general people learn from experience, but in what form is this experience stored? And are there other forms of learning behaviors? Babies seem to be able to learn behaviors through imitation, is there specific neurons responsible for this type of learning as opposed to experiential learning? So many questions so little time.