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February 06, 2006

Mapping The Mind

MAPPING THE MIND by Rita Carter

I came up with some questions while reading this book. What’s the relationship between brain and mind? Is mental illness physical condition rather than sickness of the soul? Would it be possible to make a complete brain map that tells us different functions of different brain parts and their relationships? It just scares me what we call ‘spiritual experience’ might be actually heavily related to physical conditions of brain.

In the introduction the author mentioned that if brain maps are complete, it may even be possible to alter individual perception to the extend that we could, if we chose, live in a state of virtual reality, almost entirely unaffected by the external environment.

The nature of human brain had been inferred only by observing its effect. But in 21st century, “functional brain scanning(MRI, fMRI, PET, NIRS, EEG, etc.)” opened a whole new era in this area of study. This book is particularly interesting because it contains many pictures and actual episodes which give us more sense of understanding how scientists have been researching in this area.

The images I showed at the class was some of the particularly interesting visuals that tell us some important insights how our brain works.

Neural Connections that have different density according to ages.
- “By the age of six, human beings are at the maximum density of neural connections. Thereafter they decrease again as unwanted connections die back.”
- The greatest amount of extra 'music' area of brain is found in those who started to play earliest( suggesting that the difference is at least partly acquired by experience )
- Some animals show permanent disfuction in their perception when their experience was blocked in their infantry period.

Drawing test( copying a picture )for patients with single hemisphere damage(left or right)
- Left hemisphere damage: The outline is fine but details are neglected.
- Right hemisphere damage: Shows only the details.

Brain scanning when watching a big ‘L’ letter which consists of many little ‘D’ letters.
D
D
D
D
DDDDD

- When focusing on the big ‘L’ : Right hemisphere is active.
- When focusing on the little ‘D’ : Left hemisphere is active.

The self-portrait of Durer
has been split and the two halves matched with mirror images of themselves.
The difference between the two brain hemispheres reflected in the drawing of the face.

How the genders differ psychologically.
Women
 score better than men on some language tasks
 show a faster rate of language development
 have a lower risk of developmental dysphasia
 score better than men on some tests of social judgement, empathy and co-operation
 are better at matching items
 are better at tests that involve generating ideas
Men
 perform better than women on mathematical reasoning tasks(especially geometry and mathematical word problems)
 score higher at tests that involve distinguishing between figure and background
 find it easier to rotate objects in their mind’s eye
 are better at hitting targets

When asked to think of something sad women generate more activity in their emotional brains than men. This suggests that women may have stronger emotional reactions to self-generated thoughts and memories.

Brain chemicals
- work in widely spread but fairly specific brain locations and may have a different effect according to where it is activated.
- Dopamine, Serotonin, Acetylcholine, Noradrenaline, Glutamate, Enkephalins and Endorphins
- Cocaine creates euphoria by blocking receptors in brain cells which normally mop up excess dopamine.

Specific part of brain deals with specific function.
- Temporal lobe : Personal memories are stored.
- Hippocampus : Memories about general things

Amygdala
- Source of negative emotions of anger,fear and sadness.
- It is just amazing to even think about that all the negative emotions are coming from one place of my brain.

The connection between mania, depression and creativity.
– Example. The creative life of Robert Schumann
- The chart that shows the opus numbers of his works and when they were composed. His musical output can be seen to correspond with the ebb and floe of his moods.
- He composed most when hypomanic and least when depressed.

Synaesthesia
- Artists have often tried to represent synaethesia.
Rimbaud assigned colours to the five vowels, translating impressions into visual ones and Whistler and Mondrian were among those who tried to paint sound. Wassily Kandinsky places images on musical staves.
- Coloured hearing : The writer Vladimir Nabokov ‘saw’ the sound of each letter as a different colour or texture.
- Brain scanning images show the extra extent of activity in the brains of people with synaesthesia compared to normal people.

Count ‘F’s in this sentence below.
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

- Most people only see four of them because the brain processes short familiar words as a single, whole, symbol rather than breaking them down into smaller units as they do with longer or less familiar words. The two types of words are thus probably processed in different brain areas.

Primary colors , Primary emotions
- Just as three primary colours can produce almost infinite range of hues, so as a handful of basic emotions are mixed to produce complex feelings.

Direct Experience vs Indirect Experience
- When someone making faces of extreme disgust, it triggers brain activity in the same area that lights up when disgust is experienced directly.

Insanity, lack of physical condition?
- The brain of murderer shows significant lack of activity compared to a normal brain.

Posted by doox at February 6, 2006 02:46 PM

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Posted by: sfisher at February 6, 2006 06:38 PM

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