Neurotheology
Over the last three decades researchers at a number of universities have studied meditators and people in prayer, or experiencing mystical experiences, and tried to pinpoint the region of the brain responsible for these experiences. Some researchers went as far as to suggest that there’s a specific region of the brain that’s responsible for direct communication with God, while others have been far more skeptical. One of my early teachers was convinced that mystical experiences were simply forms of temporal lobe epilepsy. I was just as convinced that he was wrong. But back then I was the student, and he the master. So I was put firmly in my place. Neuropsychologist Michael Persinger and his group at Laurentian University in Canada has reported that he can very precise magnetic fields to artificially stimulate regions within the temporal lobes to induce a state of “sensed presence.”
A new study conducted by Mario Beauregard and Vincent Paquette from Montreal has just been published in the journal Neuroscience Letters.
The investigators used functional MRI (fMRI) scanning in 15 Carmelite nuns to try to examine the brain processes underlying the Unio Mystica: the Christian notion of mystical union with God. This is the latest episode in a field that is becoming known as neurotheology.
The nuns were asked to relive a mystical experience rather than actually trying to achieve one. Rather than reveal a spiritual center in the brain – a “God spot,” as the popular press called it – the researchers found a dozen different regions of the brain were activated during the recall of the mystical experience. The experience was mediated by brain systems and regions that are normally implicated in emotion, self-awareness and body representation.
It is important to note that despite the title of the study – “Neural correlates of a mystical experience in Carmelite nuns” – this was actually an experiment on memory, and there were some technical objections to the study. There is a fine critique here.
There is also a point that I have brought up before: can we really try to reduce complex psychological and spiritual experiences to a groups or systems of neurons? My own view is that we are seeing necessary neurological correlates of an experience, but that these measurements tell us nothing at all about the key aspects of what the nuns remember: the sense of meaning, value and purpose that flow from the mystical experience.
Our Unique Brains
One of the fundamental tenets of the old self-help movement is that we all have the same brains and so we all have the potential to become a Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein or Michelangelo.
But is this really true?
I’ve talked a lot about the way in which genes in the brain do not so much determine your behavior, but instead predispose you to respond to the environment in certain ways. If asked the question, “Why has she got depression? Was it because of the abuse as a child, or because her grandmother had depression?” The answer is “Yes.” All of the above.
I’ve examined many hundreds of brain scans, and one of the most striking features of them is their variability. It’s a strange paradox: when we look at the nerves running to your fingers or your toes, they are pretty much in the same place in everyone. The veins and arteries are often in different places, but those peripheral nerves tend to stay put.
Yet when we get to the brain, things are very different. I’ve never seen two brain that look the same. This has been a big problem in research: how do you compare the brain of someone with depression with a healthy volunteer? We usually end up doing all sorts of sophisticated computer modeling to be able to compare two very different brains. This is also why we are a bit skeptical about people who claim to be able to diagnose illnesses based on brain scans. There is just so much variability.
This came up last week, when Grigory Perelman turned down a prestigious honor for his extraordinary work in mathematics. Here we have someone who’s brain works quite differently from other people. He has a very remarkable gift, but I doubt that anyone else could simulate what he has achieved.
I knew a woman who was employed as an air traffic controller by the Royal Air Force. Like all air traffic controllers, she had to have an amazing ability: to be able to tell – without instruments – where every plane was in the sky. With planes flying in different directions at 300-500 knots, the variables are staggering. Yet Veronica and her co-controllers could do it easily.
One of the reasons that I landed in the United States was that I was given a problem to solve. It had to do with measuring an inaccessible region of the brain that is mind-bogglingly important. World class investigators had been trying to solve the problem for four years. After years of playing chess, I have a reasonable ability to visualize things in three dimensions. That was all that it took to solve the problem. Within three weeks we started cranking out data that changed the way in which we think about major mental illness.
Could anyone model Grigory Perelman, or Veronica the air traffic controller or my modest efforts in brain imaging? Is that something that everyone can do?
The answer is almost certainly not.
Although we are forever being told that we can each be whatever we want to, that is not what the evidence says.
I am in no doubt that most people have the potential to perform far above their accustomed level.
But I’m just as sure that not everyone can do everything.
There is often a subtle subtext here: if you have not achieved everything that you want, it is because you have failed. And that’s wrong. Human potential is magnificent, but there are almost certainly some neurological constraints on what each of us can achieve. The key to much of our work is to see how we can expand beyond those neurological limitations.
There’s a terrific discussion of some of these issues by Steven Pinker from Harvard.
Memory and Anticipation
“Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.”
–Lucius Annaeus Seneca (a.k.a. Seneca the Younger, Spanish-born Roman Philosopher and Statesman, c.4 B.C.E.-A.D. 65)
We are all aware that memories of powerful and in particular disturbing emotional events – such as an act of violence or the unexpected death of a loved one – are more vivid and deeply imprinted in the brain than mundane recollections of everyday matters. When I was sixteen years old I was in a head-on car crash: I can still recall the number of the license plates of the car that was driving down the wrong side of the road as it barreled into us. But particularly positive emotions are also remembered in far more vivid detail, and those memories are less likely to be lost. This all makes good sense from an evolutionary perspective: we need to be able to remember things that carry a strong emotional charge.
Colleagues at the University of Wisconsin in Madison have found that the mere anticipation of a fearful situation can activate two memory-forming regions of the brain: even before the event has occurred.
The investigators used functional MRI scans with 40 healthy participants who viewed aversive or neutral pictures preceded by predictive warning cues. Previous research reported sex differences in the way in which memory and emotion interact: in women, memory associations were found with a region called the left amygdala. But the association was with the right amygdala in men. This new study refines these findings: they were confined to the ventral amygdala during picture viewing and delayed memory.
Both men and women who had previously been given an indication that gruesome pictures were going to be shown were more likely to remember them.
What this means is that the act of anticipation may play an important role in whether the memory of a tough experience remains fresh and vivid. This makes sense based on our own experiences of events: do you remember the fear associated with a visit to the dentist that built and built before you got there? That anticipation can itself modify the memories of an event.
The findings are published in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They have important implications for the treatment of some psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social anxiety that are often characterized by flashbacks and intrusive memories of upsetting events
We have long known that our memories are not like some video recording forever preserved within our neurons. Some memories are false, many change over time and others lose their emotional charge. It is possible to implant false memories in people, and by re-writing our own life stories we can change the narrative of our lives and how we react to life events.
Samuel Johnson once said that, “The true art of memory is the art of attention.”
I’m quite sure that he is correct, and this research proves it. I’ve always been blessed – or cursed – with a prodigious memory, to the extent of being able to remember the lab values on every patient that I ever saw during my clinical years, and when I was younger being able to read pages of a textbook from memory. I’m quite convinced that my memory is no better than anyone else’s: I’m just a little better at using it.
The trick to using my memory was discovering at an early age that I could remember virtually anything if I really focused my attention on it. So I would focus on the book to the exclusion of everything else for a minute or two. Rest for a minute and then do it again. To this day, that is the best technique that I know for laying down long-term memory. My father also had this faculty, and when I was a youngster he would tell me not to write down things like shopping lists or to construct “To do” lists. He told me that, “if you really have to remember things you will. And if you’re not interested in something you don’t need a “to do” list.”
I only use lists if I have to do something tedious. This is a good test for you. If something that you are doing really engages your attention it is likely one of your core desires, and there is no need to be writing down a list of things to do. If it does not, and you have to write everything down, it’s probably not a core desire. You may still need to write down an action plan, but that’s to get your creative juices flowing, not to stimulate your memory.
I have developed quite a number of techniques for improving memory and concentration. Some are home grown, others modified from methods and techniques that others have taught me. I’ve been collecting and testing them for years. I’m doing a lot of flying this week, so I shall have the time to be put some of them together into a free report. I shall let you know when it’s ready and if you ask, I shall send you a copy.
There is one important reason for writing down thoughts once you have done something, and that is to help them be part of your legacy. That’s a topic to which we are going to return many times in the next few weeks.
“What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.”
–Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (English Statesman, Novelist and, in 1868 and from 1874-1880, British Prime Minister, 1804-1881)
Monkey See, Monkey Do
This is the title of a short article on mirror neurons in New Scientist.
Pier Ferrari at the University of Parma, Italy, and colleagues tested 21 newborn Macaques by holding each in front of a researcher who made various facial expressions.
The article has links to two movie clips showing the young Macaques beginning to imitate the researcher.
The study indicates that the capacity for imitation occurred earlier in the primate evolutionary tree than previously thought, and before the rhesus monkey ancestor split from the human lineage, about 25 million years ago.
Yet another apparently characteristic that was thought to be uniquely human, that was then found to be shared by young apes, and is now shown to be an even more general attribute of sentient creatures.
We have recently been doing some informal expriements with a kitten and an older cat that seem to have remarkable powers of mimicry. Not at the same level as the Macaques, but still mimicking head position and mouth opening. I cannot find any published research on mimickery in cats, but I shall ask around and report back.
When Being First Is Not the Only Thing
Regular readers and anyone who’s looked at my blogroll, knows that I like Zach Lynch’s consistently insightful blog.
He has been working on a project for four years, and now it appears that someone is coming out with some of the same ideas in a book that is due to arrive in late September.
This does not look to me like plagiarism. Once a new idea is out there, it quickly spreads, and people will run with it.
You might be interested to see some of the comments that I made on Zach’s site.
The other book may be superb. But the important point is that although being first is the only thing in competitive games, in the world of ideas that will help us, being first is not the only thing.
Being correct is the only thing.
Dementia
I have written about Alzheimer’s disease in the past, but it is important for everyone to know that not all dementia, and certainly not all memory loss, is Alzheimer’s disease.
There is a brief article on the Psychiatric Resource Forum website that will point you toward some extra resources.
Our biggest interest is always in ensuring that someone who seems to be developing a dementing illness doesn’t actually have one of the large number of remediable causes of cognitive decline, such as depression, an underactive thyroid, vitamin B12 or folate deficiency, or an unusual condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus.
Parkinson’s Disease, Allergies and Inflammation
The symptoms of Parkinson’s disease have been reported throughout history, but it was first described in the modern era by the great Scottish neurologist James Parkinson in 1817. Even after all these years, we still do not know all that much about what causes it. There’s an interesting study in the August issue of the journal Neurology, which is the official publication of the American Academy of Neurology.
Investigators from the Mayo Clinic used what is known as a case-control design (196 cases and 196 matched controls). What they found was that people who suffered from hay fever or allergic rhinitis, are 2.9 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease over a 20-year period.
The researchers did not find any association with autoimmune illnesses such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, pernicious anemia or vitiligo. They also did not find any association with asthma.
In addition, people who developed Parkinson’s disease used anti-inflammatory agents less frequently than controls, although this result was not statistically significant. The results may support the hypothesis that there is an inflammatory component in the causation of Parkinson’s disease.
You may ask, “Why on earth would anyone even look at a link like this?” The answer is that there have been previous reports of an association between the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and lower rates of Parkinson’s disease in men but not in women and Alzheimer’s diseases.
This study does not suggest that hay fever causes Parkinson’s disease: it provides evidence for an association between the two. Parkinson’s is probably a group of illnesses with different causes. However, if chronic inflammation around the upper airways could produce inflammation in the brain, we might have a whole new way of preventing a degenerative brain disease.
In a future posting I’ll talk about some natural methods for reducing the burden of inflammation in your body.
Science, Quantum Mechanics and Mystical Experience
I’ve had a very long standing interest in altered states of consciousness.
For me this has never been an academic exercise. Though I grew up at a time when meditation and mysticism was all the rage, I was actually trying to make sense of some of my own experiences. Since early childhood I’d had all manner of odd experiences that in later life I learned were the norm. It’s just that most people ignore or forget their experiences or are "trained" not to talk about them. In the mid-1980s I lectured on the subject of mystical experiences at the Society for Psychical Research and the College of Psychic Studies in London. (I recently discovered that there are still tapes of those talks available after all these years!)
As part of another project, I recently analyzed most of the world literature on altered state of consciousness in all the languages that I can read, and found over 2,800 valuable papers. There is a huge amount of research going on.
I’ve also come across a number of short but very interesting interviews with a number of original thinkers in the field of consciousness, including Huston Smith, Daniel Dennett, Freeman Dyson and a number of other thinkers. If you have any interest in consciousness you will probably find something to interest you here.
Enjoy!
Blueberries
One of the principles of integrated medicine is that anything that’s good for you should have more than one benefit. So omega-3 fatty acids may help with cardiovascular health, mood, memory, attention deficit disorder, as well as the health of skin and bones.
Another one is the blueberry. I’ve been sufficiently impressed by the data on the health benefits of blueberries to have been a regular grower and consumer for years. They contain a number of potentially healthful compounds including polyphenols and anthocyanins, which can help modulate and balance the free radical systems of the body. Remember what I said recently about the value of keeping some free radicals in the body? The last thing that we want to do is to be rid of all of them!
There is reasonably good evidence that regularly eating blueberries can support cardiovascular health and there have been suggestions that they may reduce the risk and aggression of cancers of the prostate and colon.
There is also some evidence in animals that some of the components of blueberries may reduce inflammation and the effects of strokes – interruptions to the blood flow in the brain.
As a consumer, I’ve been carefully watching the growing evidence indicating that blueberries – or some of their constituents may have effects on animal cognition, brain aging and the normal neuroprotective mechanisms in the hippocampal region of the brain.
We do not yet have proof that these same effects occur in humans, and there are always three questions when we look at nutritional data:
- Can we extrapolate from the animal to humans? Mice are not men
- Are the amounts of blueberries or blueberry extracts even close to what humans could consume without spending all day eating, or getting a terribly upset intestine? There have been countless reports of the benefits of supplements that had to be taken in the most enormous doses to do any good. I’ve mentioned before the problem of L-arginine, which is sold as a “Natural Viagra.” Except that you need to take around nine grams for it to do much good, and most supplements contain less than a tenth of that. Regular readers will also remember my report concerning an article on coffee and sex. It was said that coffee would raise a woman’s libido. And indeed it does, if she drinks at least ten large cups of coffee at once. And coffee is a marvelous diuretic.
- When extracts are used, are we sure that we are getting the correct ingredient of the fruit? Many beneficial fruits contain just the right combination of nutrients to help us, so each can be taken in a small dosage or concentration. As with so much in integrated medicine, combinations are key. Take out one extract of a fruit, and you may lose the clinical effect that you wanted.
All that being said, the evidence is becoming progressively more interesting, and there is enough suggestive evidence for me to keep packing away the blueberries.
And just to show that I leave no stone unturned when checking the literature on your behalf, I rejoiced to learn that supplementing the diet of Arctic char with various supplements – including blueberries – improved the quality of his, ahem, semen. I do not know how this information will help any of us yet. Neither do I really know why a fish would want to eat blueberries or any of the other supplements that they were tried on. Though I’m sure that people have often asked similar off the wall questions about some of my research….
Yet Another Piece of Research on the Dangers of Multitasking
Time has published another article on one of my “favorite” topics: the dangers of multitasking. I’ve written several items about this pernicious problem.
The new study from UCLA, is in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The investigators recruited a group of volunteers, all of whom were in their 20s. They had them work on a simple categorization task, in which they were asked to sort a stack of cards into different piles depending on the shapes printed on them. The volunteers then repeated the experiment with a second set of cards, this time while also listening to a set of high- and low-pitched beeps through a headphone and counting up all the high-pitched ones. As they worked, the subjects also underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging that enables us to follow brain blood flow.
In both versions of the test, the subjects did equally well on the categorization task, making about the same amount of errors. But when the investigators later asked the volunteers more-analytical questions, asking them details about the patterns of the cards and ways in which they could be categorized, the subjects showed a far more flexible understanding of those cards they had sorted without the distraction of the beeps.
When not distracted, the hippocampus of the brain, which is involved in creating short term memories and in constructing a map of external space, was actively engaged. When distracted by beeps, a less sophisticated part of the brain – the striatum – took over the task. This is one of the brain regions normally dedicated to mastering repetitive motor task or simple habits.
The practical consequence of this is that if you need to learn new information that requires analysis, you should not be doing anything else at the same time.
It may be that some people with attention deficit disorder will behave differently: there is some data that a proportion of them learn better if there are external distractors.
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