➜ Our brains, and how they're not as simple as we think - the danger of "folk neuroscience"
We all think the brain is amazing. But are we doing it justice? Neuroscience has given us great insight, but misusing neuroscience can do great harm.
Vaughan Bell has a must-read column at The Guardian detailing how modern neuroscience’s creep into popular culture has turned complex science into headline cliches, added “scientific” fuel to the fire of stereotypes, and obscured how little we really know about the brain.
We need to continue to respect the complexity of this science, instead of distilling it to a tasteless extract.
As neuroscience has gained authority over previous ways of explaining human nature, it is not surprising that people will be compelled to use it if they want to try and make persuasive claims about how people are or should be – regardless of its accuracy. Folk neuroscience has become Freud for Freud-phobes, everyday psychology for the sceptical, although in reality, rarely more helpful than either.
I recommend the whole piece, but especially his list of these popular misconceptions:
The “left-brain” is rational, the “right-brain” is creative
The hemispheres have different specialisations (the left usually has key language areas, for example) but there is no clear rational-creative split and you need both hemispheres to be successful at either. You can no more do right-brain thinking than you can do rear-brain thinking.Dopamine is a pleasure chemical
Dopamine has many functions in the brain, from supporting concentration to regulating the production of breast milk. Even in its most closely associated functioning it is usually considered to be involved in motivation (wanting) rather than the feeling of pleasure itself.Low serotonin causes depression
A concept almost entirely promoted by pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s and 90s to sell serotonin-enhancing drugs like Prozac. No consistent evidence for it.Video games, TV violence, porn or any other social spectre of the moment “rewires the brain”
Everything “rewires the brain” as the brain works by making and remaking connections. This is often used in a contradictory fashion to suggest that the brain is both particularly susceptible to change but once changed, can’t change back.We have no control over our brain but we can control our mind
The mind and the brain are the same thing described in different ways and they make us who we are. Trying to suggest one causes the other is like saying wetness causes water.
You Wish Your Neurons Were This Pretty
When Greg Dunn finished his Ph.D. in neuroscience at Penn in 2011, he bought himself a sensory deprivation tank as a graduation present. The gift marked a major life transition, from the world of science to a life of meditation and art.
Now a full-time artist living in Philadelphia, Dunn says he was inspired in his grad-student days by the spare beauty of neurons treated with certain stains. The Golgi stain, for example, will turn one or two neurons black against a golden background. ”It has this Zen quality to it that really appealed to me,” Dunn said.
![scienceisbeauty:
A blue laser light delivered via optic fiber to the brain selectively activates a virus-targeted neural system. Specificity is obtained by previously microinjecting a tiny quantity of virus containing RNA instructions for builidng photoreceptor molecules into a brain structure under anesthesia and laser probes are implanted in the brain to selectively activate the cells expressing the virus. […] These techniques can painlessly control ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ or other emotional processes.
Source](http://24.media.tumblr.com/750e5f7a3cdb226cc00844383832a080/tumblr_mim33nJcXh1qaityko1_500.jpg)
A blue laser light delivered via optic fiber to the brain selectively activates a virus-targeted neural system. Specificity is obtained by previously microinjecting a tiny quantity of virus containing RNA instructions for builidng photoreceptor molecules into a brain structure under anesthesia and laser probes are implanted in the brain to selectively activate the cells expressing the virus. […] These techniques can painlessly control ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ or other emotional processes.
Scientists record the first video of thoughts forming in the brain
Japanese researchers have recorded a real-time video of thoughts forming in the brain of a live animal as it stalks its prey. The breakthrough was made possible by using zebrafish — a species with a translucent head — and a fluorescent protein that lights up when single neurons are activated. And this study may give rise to an entirely new way to study and track brain patterns in living creatures.
The study, which now appears in Current Biology, was conducted by a team of researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Genetics in Shizuoka Prefecture.
In order to create the visual effect, the scientists used green fluorescent proteins (GFPs) which light up when calcium concentrations arise. Scientists typically use custom-made GFPs to create an image of cellular activity in real time — but until now, it hadn’t been attempted on live fish as they freely move about.
Once the GFP was developed (a genetically engineered protein called GCaMP7a), the team tested it on genetically modified zebrafish larvae, that were between four and seven days old. At this stage in their life they are still transparent, allowing the scientists to peer non-invasively into their brains.
The researchers were particularly interested in the zebrafish’s optic tectum, the area where its visual processing takes place. The researchers created a special transgenic zebrafish that expresses the protein in this particular region.
Once the fluorescent microscope was set up, the scientists conducted a series of different experiments designed to stimulate the fish’s visual processors. The first experiment involved a dot on a screen that the fish watched move back and forth, and the second involved a paramecium — a tiny organism that the zebrafish preys upon.
When the fish watched these stimuli move, the neurons flashed like waves across the brain — a pattern of lights that the scientists say corresponds to the neurological activity linked with visual processing.
And in fact, when the paramecium was motionless, the scientists recorded no activity. Incredibly, the scientists were able to track these patterns when the fish were immobilized — and also when they were allowed to freely swim around searching for prey.
Moving forward, the scientists hope to observe and map the neural activity across the entire brain, including the areas required for learning and thinking.
Check out the entire study here.
My friend Jason Wu sent me this link recently.
http://thebeautifulbrain.com/2011/11/interview-gallery-greg-dunn/
Dunn’s work is somewhere between Cajal and Hokusai with the contemporary materiality of Murakami’s gold plated wall pieces.
This one’s title is Hippocampus II. Soothing my eyes right after the thought-provoking memory lecture by Alison Adcock, MD, PhD
