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I have been most struck by our discussions of gain-of-function versus loss-of-function.  Cases like Jill Bolte Taylor, Unraveling Bolero, and savants illustrate the fact that new cognitive abilities may be unlocked as a result of brain damage, even though we generally think of damage as causing only loss.  We might still classify these abilities as abnormal, but we need to recognize them as potentially useful functions of the brain.  When the brain “recovers” a lost function, it may be more likely that it is reconstructing it out of existing functions.  Understanding this is an important part of treating people with brain damage.  We’ve also discussed subjectivity a lot.  A person’s interpretation of a particular aspect of cognition might be very different from society’s interpretation as a whole.  The particular set of emotional and psychological symptoms that one person might classify as “generalized anxiety disorder” might be classified as “motivation to succeed” by another.  Differences like this should make us reevaluate the way we think about psychological disorders and cognitive states.  Our discussion of love is also a good example of these kinds of subjective differences.  Do we define love as the specific neural activity we observe in most people who claim to be in love?  If so, can we then tell people who do not fit this neurological pattern that they are not in love, no matter what they say?  Or do we define love as whatever cognitive state you’re in when you claim to be in it?  In which case, we lose a lot of scientific rigor in studying it.  In the case of something so psychologically complex, I think that’s okay.

My questions:

1.      1. What is intelligence?  Is it theoretically possible to “see” intelligence through highly advanced imaging?  Can people of supposedly differing intelligence be told apart and classified through such imaging?

2.      2. What is the extent of neuroplasticity?  Can a lost function truly be recovered exactly as it was before, or will it just be a similar function made by adapting other functions?  How often do markedly differently functions emerge as a result of this adaptation?

3.      3. Is it theoretically possible to observe the mind by observing the brain?  We’ve talked a lot about consciousness in this class, and whether or not we can account for it just by looking at physical neurons.  And presumably, being “watched” (through imaging) will change the way you’re thinking, because you know you’re being watched.  Is there an uncertainty principle here?  Does the very act of observing consciousness change consciousness?