MIND MATTERS: How Mind and Brain Interact to Create our Conscious Living

Michael Gazzaniga

A current (1988) update on the findings of brain surgeons, especially in the area of split brain research and the role of the ‘interpreter’ - which is a left brain function which co-ordinates internal/external stimuli and, utilizing the brain's stored experiences as a computer would, selects from available options the chosen ‘best response’ to solve the entity’s problems. The effect of genetics can intervene - how our brains’ computers are wired; what diseases we have inherited (heart/Huntington’s/anxiety/neuroses) – and which wield tremendous power over our minds and bodies, yet through control of internal modules and chemical secretions geared to fighting off disease and modifying mood, the ‘interpreter’ still makes its influence felt.

Through recorded research and case studies the author makes the case that the mind (interpreter) has the power to achieve physical and mental homeostasis, the goal being to maintain health and restore health (sometimes despite medical intervention).

Memory:

Short-term memory amounts to a photograph image which fades quickly. In some fashion, the mind screens the images, selects those which it wants to file, and via the hippocampus these images are encoded and sent off to various parts of the cortex where, hopefully, they can be retrieved from storage as required. As people age, the initial encoding process slows down, so that second images 'mask' out an earlier input before it can be filed and therefore it is lost - a disastrous effect on elder peoples' ability to learn new information. Generally, older people tend to look at the ‘whole’ picture, rather than try to memorize specific details.

Intelligence:

· In the Nature vrs. Nurture debate, extensive testing of identical twins, raised separately, confirmed the long-held feeling that genes (heredity) has more to do with intelligence than subsequent rearing, although the latter can have an affect also, to a lesser degree (say thru providing better education/stimulating environment).

· All brains are 'wired' differently, and it is their circuitry which comes down to them, thru countless generations, thru the genes.

· Nerves are function-specific, i.e. they grow to their destination points with their function (arm, finger, etc.) already specified; sectioning of nerves to animal limbs and connecting them to different limbs results in commands going to the wrong limb.

· If a limb is cut off, the brain area which formerly controlled that limb is 'reassigned' to other functions.

· Conduction velocity (how fast an electrical impulse travels down a nerve) varies genetically.

Crazy Thoughts:

Schizophrenia is a disease wherein the brain's interpreter goes wild in its attempts to bring order out of, usually, inner brain generated chaos. Where an interpreter is strong, it will create a satisfactory world around itself; - even if to outsiders it appears the person is only delusional and bizarre, the resulting world is meaningful to the victim. (These bizarre thoughts and interpretations become memories stored in the brain – the longer the disease progresses, the harder it is to find them all and eradicate them.) Interestingly, the background psychological histories of most schizophrenics are identical to those of others who are completely normal (nothing externally exceptional has made them ill, it is more a function of circuitry and circumstance, say an overabundance of brain dopamine, together with an inferior support system to monitor and condition one's moods and reality perceptions). When the normal mind is allowed to entertain for long periods of time, erroneous data about people, power, sex, social relations, it begins to construct strange theories about reality, and when we don't correct others' false assumptions, we are in effect contributing to their ever-deepening set of delusions of the world.

Anxieties:

People develop theories about why they feel the way they do, and those theories become beliefs. These beliefs, if erroneous, can be destructive as they evolve into phobias.

Depression:

· The genetic links are clear. During the brain's development, at which time it is under direct genetic control, something like a time bomb is established in the brain’s circuitry. At some later point, the error in brain formation results in the onset of endogenously (internal) produced depression.

· Manic-depressive - lithium 'clips' either swing. Treatment is ongoing, rather than episodic.

· Situational depression is real, but the chronic depressive drug program is not as effective, thus it is a different problem. As soon as the situational depressives see a way out of their 'box', they improve.

· A major factor in the creation of chronic depression is an inferior education (leads to low income, reduced future prospects and no apparent exit from an economic condition within a culture which prizes material wealth).

Addiction:

Data suggesting 60-70% of smokers return to smoking, after rehab programs are erroneous in that only the 10% of hard core smokers go into rehab in the first place - the other 90% stop on their own because they make that decision for themselves. The same applies to other substance abusers (opium, cocaine, marijuana, alcohol) - one day they say "What the hell" and quit by themselves (92% of the 10% of Vietnam veterans quit by themselves on returning to civilian life.)

· Studies of adopted children reared apart from their alcoholic parents show them to be 5 times more likely to become alcoholics than are adopted children of non-alcoholic parents.

Love:

· People who are passionately in 1ove secrete a chemical called phenylethylamine, which produces an amphetamine-like high that is interpreted as “being in love”. It has certain addictive qualities (species generational reasons) and when love is spurned or lost, the victim may go into a ‘withdrawal’ state, translated psychologically as the broken heart. (Chocolate is high in phenylethylamine.)

· Companionate love is self-balancing and enduring.

Sleep:

YR 1 YR 2 TEENS/ADULTS 60’S

Sleep States - REM % 80 35 25 20

- 2 50

- 3 12

- 4 12

REM is common to only warm-blooded animals, and appears to be the time when practicing/rehearsal of survival techniques is conducted. (Brain waves slow down, heart rate increases, blood pressure drops, muscle tone (except eyes) is lost, snoring stops, body temperature tends to that of the surrounding environment, and gastrointestinal activity ceases). REM generates the most vivid dreams. Stage 4 is a slow wave sleep, and the non-REM states are when anxiety attacks, nightmares and sleepwalking occur.

· More energy is metabolized by the brain during sleep than in the same number of hours awake. A theory is that sleep is so necessary because this is the time of day when the various levels of consciousness access the circuitry to do their testing, filing and systems integration.

Stress:

Under stress, the body does not respond well to disease. The immune system is inhibited and memory and thinking can be impaired. However, when people have arranged their lives and minds so that they feel in charge of events, the situations that typically give rise to stress in others find these people seemingly thriving on these trials/challenges. Their mental attitude has channeled what might be a negative, destructive situation into a perception of positive opportunity wherein mind, brain and body can join interactively.

Healing:

The various levels of the mind/brain work effectively in managing the disease process, secreting chemicals to attack unwanted viruses, tumors and bacteria, but this process breaks down when the mind views the world as stressful. Stress generates natural steroids which handicap the attack on disease. Placebos have a 20-40% positive effect in drug tests and disease alleviation, perhaps through the mind activating its own analgesic system using the body's own opiates. (This may be the basis for the alleviation offered by homeopathic medicine.)

· An example of the mind-body connection is the effect hypnosis can have on reducing or removing warts in specific areas.

· Positive thinking in mental health has its limitations.

· One of the unexpected adverse long-term effects of outside psychological intervention may be to lessen patients' sense of control of life's events (the counselor is taking care of the problem, so patients don't have to learn how themselves). This follows the “learned helplessness” syndrome.

· Sometimes when the interpreter notes fatigue where there has been no exertion, and cannot tolerate undertaking some action, it is because it senses that within the body there is serious illness to which it must focus its remaining energies.

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