Do You See What I See?

Upon learning about brain development and plasticity, it was interesting to contemplate the future possibilities in brain treatment and modification.  There are many diseases and traumas (Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's, comas, strokes, hemorrhages, etc.) that can damage the brain indefinitely, leaving victims with impaired brain functions, such as memory loss, speech impediments, and vegetative mind-states.  However, many advancements in stem cell research are paving a promising path toward finding ways to cure or improve the crushing effects of such diseases/traumas.  For example, researchers have recently found the proper factors to induce human stem cells to differentiate into dopaminergic neurons—the neurons that are degenerated by Parkinson's Disease in the brain.  Findings of this magnitude can have tremendous impacts on treatments of all kinds in the future.

The manner in which different brain regions specialize on different sensory information was rather intriguing as well, such as Broca's area being the center for language production.  What I found more interesting was the binding problem, which questions how various brain areas integrate sensory information to produce a perception of a single object.  In other words, how do we know that what we see is also what we hear?  At first, many scientists believed that the information would converge at various association centers within the brain.  It wasn't until later that researchers debunked the hypothesis of data convergence at association centers because they found that few neurons combine one sense with another.  So the question remained—how do we know that what we hear is coming from what we see?

After inquiring the binding problem, I'm driven to go a little further and contemplate the variations across consciousness.  What happens when someone has a mental ability most others don't, and how does this difference in mental ability affect that person's consciousness and perception of reality?  A recent analysis on synaesthesia—a condition caused by an unusually high number of connections between two areas of the brain's sensory cortex, making the senses inseparable—demonstrates the different kinds of associations one sensory datum can elicit on the perception of the observer.  For instance, a synaesthetic individual may perceive a certain color when shown a specific number, or the individual may experience a certain taste or smell that is triggered by a specific sound.  Another way to think of synaesthesia is that it is the predisposition to have extra pathways between areas of the brain, thereby making it easier for these individuals to associate one set of sensory information with different regions of the brain.  Synaesthesia serves as a great example for the evolutionary changes occurring in human consciousness.  Not all humans fall under this condition, and even those that do vary in their perceptual capabilities.

This is where the boundaries of reality blur when it comes to consciousness because one is left to wonder what reality really is and whether we all experience it similarly.  Without a doubt, most of us share common perceptions upon which we are able to build on the reality that we perceive, but what of those people who we categorize as "abnormal," such as schizophrenics?  I can say with absolute certainty that the reality schizophrenics perceive is much different than the one that I perceive, but is that because my reality is real and theirs is less so?  Is it that dopamine imbalances occurring in their brains causes their reality to be less real than my own?  I think not.  Perceptions are highly varied across the human species with reason, both good and bad.  Perhaps we're each meant to explore reality in different ways and perceive different aspects of it, each of us representing one piece of the multi-dimensional puzzle that is reality.  Conceivably, what may be real to me may not yet be real to you, and vice-versa, the point being to communicate the differences and fill the gaps between them.  Do you see what I see?