Smelling Memories

What would life be like if we didn't have memory-storage capabilities?  All of our senses rely on our memory to a great extent, and without memory, life would probably be perceived as a chaotic, unpredictable tragedy of fragmented, unrelated events.  Evolution would likely not have been possible to produce the complex life forms that we see today.  Olfaction and pain sensory alone contribute a vast amount of information from the environment to the organism that serves to increase its survival.  It only seems natural that certain events that elicit pain would become associated and imprinted in the organism's memory to prevent such an event from happening again.  The same mechanism would apply for specific scents as well.  For example, we commonly associate certain scents with our surroundings or specific events, such as the aroma of grandmother's house from her terrific cooking or the aversive odor of vomit from that time you ate undercooked chicken.  There is plenty of evidence to suggest that olfaction and pain sensation has evolved across many, if not all, species in order to confer a selective advantage.  Surprisingly enough, even the sperm cells of many organisms find their target ovum through a process of "chemical smelling" called chemotaxis.  Olfaction, apparently, is a prominent part of life even before fertilization.

This video illustrates some of the complexity involved with olfaction and its ties to memory:

Individual differences also play a significant role in the formation of associations between certain scents and memory.  It is important to remember that not everyone may have the same emotion elicited by a specific scent because most people experience different things while immersed in the same scent.

It's interesting to me how different situations can create vastly different consciousnesses.  It's almost as if each of us is meant to peer through every corner of the universe and experience things differently.  Every memory has a smell to it, whether you acknowledge this fact or not.  All of this information is stored in your brain, and for what?  Why so, if we lose it all in the end anyway?  Why do I have to remember that the smell of roses reminds me of the first time I pricked my finger while I was learning gardening techniques from my grandmother?  Does this information only serve a purpose in the time being, or does it go beyond to realms unknown?

Truth Hurts

You're walking past several stores at the mall with your family and you can't help but notice that all of your family members have red beams of light projected onto their foreheads.  As you walk by each store, a new beam comes on.  After you're done with your shopping, you head home for a nice family dinner and your thermal-sensored television comes on so you can watch the much anticipated presidential debates.  As soon as you reach the table, the red beams of light are projected once again onto the foreheads of your family members while you watch and dine.  The younger children are playing with their food, the older children discuss the candidates' platforms, and you and your significant other mingle amongst yourselves about your financial standing and how you're going to make ends meet for the following month.  You choke midsentence after you look back up at your partner's forehead to see the glaring red beam.  You almost forgot that they were listening.  No, not your family members, but the others—the many neurodata aggregators that are constantly scanning, analyzing, and surveilling your every thought, intention, and behavior.  You excuse yourself and walk at a rapid pace to the bathroom.

"That was a close one!" you say to yourself in front of the mirror as you turn the faucet handle.  Your partner knocks on the door and you let them in as you dry your face from the quick face-wash.

"Are you alright?" your partner asks affectionately.

"Everything was going well!  I was doing just fine, but then I remembered what was going on and I freaked out.  I hope they don't pick up on it.  That would be my third investigation THIS YEAR!"

"Oh, honey!  Try to relax.  Ummm..."   Your partner looks around frantically shaking their arms in front of them.  "You choked, remember?  If they ask, you can just tell them you were overwhelmed by the conversation of our finances and you choked."

"I can't handle this anymore!" you half-scream.  "They tell us it's for our own safety; that it is meant to protect our freedom from terrorists and illegal foreign imposters.  But how do we know that?  How can we possibly know?  I can't keep these questions from running through my mind, and you know what the revision of the Bill of Rights states: 'The people are not permitted to question the governing authority on technologically improved homeland security measures.'"

"Honey, we've been gone from the dinner table for far too long.  Try to compose yourself.  Remember, just let your mind go blank and focus on the debates.  Don't let your thoughts wander where they don't like.  We must return now, or we will BOTH be summoned for questioning."

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The applications of our most modern technologies are extending to areas of much ethical controversy.  Researchers are now using fMRI scans to detect deception and truthfulness among human subjects, and the current debate on these measures is centered on whether or not such lie detection technologies should be implemented in the judicial system and used by citizens in society.  Surely, this may prove a tremendous leap for mankind, but which direction is it likely to take?  Will the future hold a better society, or a less stable one?  I suppose the outcome would depend on the accuracy of such technologies and whether or not the authorities would uphold the integrity necessary for such a new technology to function as it is intended.  In all honesty, if this technology were ordained by the supreme court for use in the court system, it would be interesting to see Casey Anthony retried by such an fMRI screening (just food for thought).

The video I inserted below brings up interesting research findings on this topic.  The most important piece of ongoing research is the Crime Scene Recognition study currently run by Dr. John-Dylan Haynes and colleagues of the Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging in Germany.  This study looks at the spatial and contextual memory of the people in question of a criminal act.  Using fMRI scans, these researchers have found that scanning the brains of potential criminals for weapon or crime scene recognition via memory responses can shed light on the actual criminal. The researchers base their analyses on the brain activation patterns that are indicative of memory recognition or recall when the subjects are presented with virtual images of the crime scene or the weapons used.

This technology may begin to reshape our society in the very near future with applications beyond our current comprehension.  It would be wise to keep a vigilant eye out for future supreme court rulings as to the extent of the uses of such invasive technology.  As stated in the video, this technology may not apply to the Fifth Amendment, but instead be used to acquire evidence for court trials.  We can see in today's society that data aggregation has become quite the popular tool for marketing companies over the Internet.  Many social networks are now being used to aggregate data based on what you search or type out to better accommodate you with ads pertaining to what you prefer according to your data file.  The video also points out the potential uses of such technologies for marketing companies, and that makes me feel rather uneasy.  What would be next?  Would the Department of Homeland Security begin to use such technologies across cities and towns to better monitor for "domestic threats?"  I wouldn't doubt it for a second.  While this may prove beneficial, it sounds strikingly familiar.  Does George Orwell's "1984" ring any bells?

Another question of significance to this topic involves the accuracy of such readings on people with amnesia or alzheimer's.  Would these technologies still be able to read the minds of these individuals and detect memory recall for crime scene or weapon recognition?

In a world so complex with billions of people, each one containing his/her own brain filled with intentions, thoughts, and memories (whether implicit, explicit, or both), it is important to consider where the boundaries of mind-reading technologies should be placed.  If the freedom to privacy within our own minds is taken from us, then what freedom is left?  What kind of world would it be if we were pressured to be near 100% truthful?  What kind of lives would we live and to what extent would this technology impact humanity?

The ideal future with such technologies implemented in society would only use them for evidence acquisition, and nothing else.  But the ideal is hardly ever a realistic outlook.  Corporations and government departments are likely to grab a hold of such technologies and use them for their own gain, whatever that may be.  Prepare for change and remain informed.  

The most liberating truth is a painful one.

Brain Lateralization

The human brain is divided into two hemispheres: the left and the right.  Each of these hemispheres specializes in specific functional capability.  For example, the textbook outlines the well-known research of Paul Broca and his findings on Broca's area in the left temporal lobe as the site of articulate speech.  Without this contribution to science, we might have been far behind in our understanding of the functional lateralization of the human brain.

It was interesting to learn about Dr. Jill Taylor's experience on the stroke that occurred in the left hemisphere of her brain.  Many of her descriptions resembled the descriptions of people under the influence of psychotropic drugs, and I found this odd.  There is a rather disappointingly small body of research on the effects of psychotropic drugs on speech, and because of this I can't make a scientific statement on this subject, but what I can say is that there may be a relationship between psychotropic drugs and speech.  What that relationship is, I'm not sure, but many people who have used psychotropics report similar experiences to Dr. Taylor's experience, and I find this fascinating.  There definitely needs to be more research that uses neuroimaging techniques to study the effects of psychotropics on different brain sites.

It's also important to consider the evolutionary pathways that have led to the lateralization of the human brain.  There are many other species that demonstrate brain lateralization as well, and understanding the function of brain lateralization in less complex organisms may give rise to a greater insight in our understanding of functional lateralization in our own brains.  This review over several research articles is highly informative on numerous pieces of evidence that support the hypothesis that brain lateralization and asymmetry has evolved across many terrestrial and marine species.

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?

To Use, or Not to Use, That is the Question

Learning about drugs' effects on the brain was very intriguing.  The way that cocaine blocks the reuptake transporter of dopamine in the presynaptic terminal thereby increasing the stimulating effects of dopamine; the way that nicotine increases dopamine release in the pleasure center of our brain—the nucleus accumbens; the indirect process through which cannabinoids increase the effects of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens by inhibiting gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)—a common inhibitor of dopamine in the synapses of neurons; the resemblance of most hallucinogens to naturally occurring neurotransmitters, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and serotonin, and the profoundly different effects each type of hallucinogen has on perception.  I like to learn about the different physical effects that drugs have on our brains, and how those effects are transcribed in our perceptions of reality, our behaviors, and our consciousness.

The best definition for consciousness that I have encountered is that it is awareness of awareness.  That being said, I'm led to wonder: how exactly did consciousness arise in the human species?  How did we come to be aware of our awareness?  When did we develop a concept of the self and the other, and how did this happen?  When I think about these questions, it makes sense to me that language and consciousness must have arisen together.  Without words, we have no way of formulating ideas or concepts, and for this reason, they are inseparable and must have given rise to one another.

There is a building body of evidence that supports the hypothesis that we may have evolved a consciousness by using mind-altering drugs, such as hallucinogens, that occur in the natural environment.  "Food of the Gods" by Terrence McKenna outlines details of his own research on ancient cultures, tribal civilizations, and their use of hallucinogens to support this hypothesis.  Apparently, there are many ancient civilizations that deified the cow and hallucinogenic mushrooms.  McKenna believes that back when our species were primarily nomads, the humans of that time began to follow herds of cows in the grasslands of Africa to feed on them.  Consequently, humans must have encountered the mushrooms that grew on the dung of the cows they would follow and eaten them as well.  These events, McKenna believes, must have catalyzed the evolution of the human brain and, subsequently, human consciousness. McKenna argues that the visual acuity caused by the psilocybin in the mushrooms conferred an adaptive advantage in the hunting abilities of those humans who ate them compared to those who did not ingest or respond well to the effects of psilocybin.

Studies on chimpanzees have also demonstrated that they too have learned to take advantage of the bioactive properties of plants.  Dr. Richard Wrangham, a primatologist for Harvard University, was the leading researcher of such findings in the 1970's.  In one of his articles, Wrangham discovered that chimpanzees would ingest the juices of the leaves of specific plants, or eat the bark of certain trees to alleviate themselves of parasites in their digestive tracts.  Perhaps we too, at some point in our evolutionary path, experimented with multiple types of plants to conceive of their beneficial properties and used them under necessary circumstances.

Next, I would like to bring up a stringent point in my discussion.  The topic on drugs and drug research is a highly controversial one that brings many issues, both ethical and moral, into a muddy stigmatic stir.  I think it's time that we really begin to straighten a few of those things out, otherwise we cannot expect any kind of advancement that drug research can offer.

First of all, the author of our physiological psychology text has misinterpreted the finding of a study on the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—the active ingredient in marijuana leaves—on rats.  In the study, the control rats learned to press a lever for food on a fixed-interval schedule of 30 seconds.  The rats that were under the influence of marijuana, however, would press the lever sooner than the rats that were in the control condition.  For example, instead of waiting the 30 seconds to press the lever, the rats in the experimental condition would press the lever every 10-15 seconds.  Both the author and the researchers used these findings to support the common notion that "time passes more slowly" when under the influence of marijuana.  In other words, they went as far as to say that the 10-15 seconds felt like 20-30 seconds for the rats under the influence of THC.  But how can they know what the rats are feeling?  I don't understand the premises these scientists have used to come to such an immeasurable conclusion about the results.  Studies in biochemistry have shown that THC signals the pancreas to produce more insulin which causes tissues in our bodies to metabolize more glucose from our blood.  This sudden increase in glucose metabolism decreases our blood-glucose levels which, in turn, sends another signal to our brain to tell us that we are hungry and need more glucose.  I am convinced that the rats in the previous study have no concept of time, but simply a serious case of the "munchies."

I contend with the notion that "time passes more slowly" when under the influence of marijuana, but I believe there is a specific neural mechanism at work for such an experience to be perceived.  This process definitely requires further research, and it would help if researchers would expand their knowledge in other fields of science to make more well-rounded conclusions about their results.  A misinterpretation of results in this particular type of research can have grave consequences.

Secondly, I would like to enlighten my audience with a research article on the hallucinogenic effects of dimethyltryptamine (DMT) on human subjects by Dr. Rick Strassman.  This study was not necessarily revolutionary, as investigations on the effects of hallucinogens on humans have been done before, but it placed a prominent foot in the door since the popularity of research on hallucinogens over the last 50 years has rapidly declined due to social stigma.  Strassman does a wonderful job at articulating the significance of modifying drug research if we wish to learn more about our consciousness and its evolutionary development.  Moreover, he has refined the methodical approach to acquiring test subjects for safer practice of drug administration, and he highlights the importance of drug research in the psychotherapeutic arena.  Surely, we can follow Strassman's steps and find a happy medium in drug research.

Lastly, I would just like to add that I neither advocate nor denounce the use of drugs.  Drugs have imposed a very important advance in our lifestyles by bettering our health and increasing our longevity. It is important to understand that drugs are not meant to be abused, or you may fall victim to a long, torturous path of addiction that may prove fatal to your well-being.  And remember: just because you can't develop a biological addiction to certain substances, it doesn't mean that you are invulnerable to psychological addictions.  Be wise and be safe.  ¡Hasta la vista!

Ready...Aim...Fire!

Neurons are by far the most spectacular types of cells in the human body.  Without neurons, we would not be able to see, taste, smell, touch, hear, feel, or even think!  Neurons make up the most integral part of our bodies that allow us the complexity of human thought, behavior, communication, and emotion.  And yet, it continues to baffle me how complex human behaviors can be reduced to electrochemical gradients that allow neurons in our nervous systems to communicate with one another at astonishingly high speeds. 

It's interesting that neurons, like just about everything else in life, need dualistic properties to function.  For instance, during a resting potential, the inner membrane of the neuron has a negative charge and the extracellular space outside the neuron bears a positive charge.  Without this resting potential, the momentary reciprocal in electrochemical charge across the membrane would not occur, and communication between neurons would not be possible.  I like the way this video animates the exchange in electrochemical charge of the membrane during an action potential:

The most interesting aspect of neural functioning would be the work on mirror neurons by Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues.  This review of several studies on the mirror system has compiled a subsantial amount of noteworthy findings on these peculiar networks of neurons along with great insight on the functions they serve.  The mirror system is a mechanism that allows one set of neurons to transform our sensory input into a motor format within another set of neurons.  This mechanism between mirror neurons enables us to understand what others are doing, including their intentions and feelings, by internalizing the observable input and interpreting it when we imagine ourselves performing the behaviors we observe.  The studies on mirror neurons highlight the physiological perspective on social cognition, which is the aspect of psychology that focuses on how people interact with others in social situations.  Researchers in this field have also found that children with autism tend to have less activation in the motor neurons that internally mirror the acts of the people they observe.  It is thought that this inactivation is responsible in part for the inability of autistic children to understand others' intentions.  The long and elaborate process we use to interpret and understand people involves a vastly complex mechanism that astounds me and leaves me to wonder what other neural processes remain hidden from us. 

Mind/Matter?

Of all aspects from this week's readings, I must admit the "hard problem" of philosophy caught my interest the most: what exactly is the purpose of consciousness?  Psychologists tend to be more concerned with the relationship between mental experience and brain activity.  In psychology, this is called the mind-body problem, as proposed to us by the philosopher Rene Descartes of the 17th century.  "I think, therefore I am" was his famous philosophical statement, and Dualism his theoretical tribute to the mind-body problem which suggests that the body functions like a machine following the laws of nature and that the mind, or soul, operates independently from nature and is seated at the pineal gland of the brain.  There is a fundamental problem with Descartes' premises, however.  One can easily refute the mind's independence from nature with practically endless piles of empirical data, from Pavlov and Skinner's findings on conditioning behavior to modern technologies, such as fMRI, that are currently being used to illustrate the associations between brain activity and mental experience.  Of particular significance to this topic is a recent study conducted by the University of Southern California.  The idea behind the study was that certain types of eye movements are characteristic of particular disorders.  The researchers asked their subjects to watch 15 minutes worth of video clips and used eye-tracking data with machine learning technology to predict with relatively high accuracy which of their subjects were classified as having either Parkinson's disease (PD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).  This type of innovative technology along with others (MRI, fMRI, PET, MEG, etc.) can give us further insight to the dependent relationship of both mind and body.  For example, a person with ADHD surely views the world differently from someone without the disorder precisely because the disorder has molded and distorted the mind of the disordered individual.  Any advantage or disadvantage set by nature will affect the mind of any being, and whether the effect inflicts the conscious or the unconscious mind is of a more profound and controversial matter.

Finally, and most importantly, I can get to the central issue at hand: what is the purpose of consciousness?  With the rapid advances in technology of this age, we are becoming more and more acutely aware of the association between the mind and the body.  If indeed they are inseparable, then should we dare to entertain the possibility of life after death?  I like to think so.  I believe there is so much more to nature than we can possibly fathom at this point in time.  

One of my favorite writers is Terence McKenna who happened to be a rather well-known ethnobotanist until his untimely death in April of 2000.  In one of his documentaries he expressed his beliefs about the extra-dimensional workings of nature and stated: "Nature is some kind of minded entity.  Nature is not simply the random flight of atoms through electromagnetic fields.  Nature is not the despiritualized  lumpen matter that we inherit from modern physics, but it is instead a kind of intelligence, a kind of mind."  I contend with his beliefs to a high degree.  From what I understand, nature has an order—a structure or form if you will—and out of these forms all of life is rendered to achieve certain functions.  One of the forms that I find most convincing of such convictions is the apparent construct of the cosmos, as we know it, and its striking similarity to the shape of a neuron:

Currently, I hold to the idea that a collective consciousness exists and that nature is the entity to which it belongs.  Each living creature contributes with the use of its senses what it can to this collective consciousness and feeds it with the experience that it craves.  This feed, in turn, builds it up and continues to shape nature and vice versa.  I suppose you can call this minded entity of nature God.  In saying this, I admit that I am both an evolutionist and a creationist.  My theories are not set, however.  They are still evolving as time progresses, and I will make sure to keep you posted on them as they change.

We may never come to understand fully the purpose of consciousness while we are alive, but surely we all come to discover its purpose on our final day.  During our seven-minute process of death, after our hearts have stopped beating, we will experience the mitosis that severs the mind from the body.  Will our consciousness survive the pitfall of death?  Will we be born to a higher state of existence?  I suppose we'll find out...someday. Until then, I guess our minds will continue to probe and dissect the mind of nature, or the nature of mind.