Neural and behavioral science senior seminar: reflections

As we complete our final semester I look back on this senior seminar as one of the most unusual and intriguing if not most educational classes I have taken.  While the individual topics certainly increased my experience in certain neuroscience topics I feel that it was the manner in which these topics were approached that was truly important.  Before delving into the ways my views have changed I first have to address the instructor, Paul.  While I appreciate the collaborative nature of the seminar, at the end of the day this was a class with a professor, and while Paul went to lengths to keep his personal opinions ambiguous (usually in order to foster further debate) his impact on the class cannot be discounted. 

                Firstly I recognize that the way the course was formatted was a conscious decision of Paul’s.  Besides the first topics which he selected the rest of the subjects were selected by students with almost complete freedom.  Thus I am confident that Paul true lessons were not based in a particular area of research but were instead the methods by which we evaluate a controversy or potentially important research.  In this regard I feel like this class has been very helpful.  We approached articles in a way I have never done before.  With a heightened suspicion of the author’s motives, methods and most importantly any potential conclusions that they make.  While the New York Time’s articles were an extreme example of this I have been surprised just how much creative license researches are permitted to take in connecting concepts with only scant evidence. 

                To me, the most beneficial part of the class was our attempt to view neuroscience in terms of its place in a subjective, religious and non-scientific word.  Viewed from within, neuroscience seems like a broad and sometimes unrelated field; however seeing how others use our findings (or erroneous popular impressions of our findings) to further their own agenda was both intriguing and unnerving.    Neuroscience attempts to fill one of the most philosophically troubling voids in our understanding of ourselves; the connection between what we are physically and who we are mentally.  This class’s greatest strength is that unlike traditional neuroscience courses that seek to fill this gap; we instead examined the void itself. 

Areas for further study:

Diffusion Tensor Imaging; we finally have a way to explore connectivity rather than activity.  fMRI has been a blessing in terms of its popular appeal and a curse in terms of its actual utility in answering neuroscience questions.  We are ready for imaging that can actually improve our understanding of brain interactions and hopefully avoids some of the processing folly that allows a dead salmon to have significant findings

Neuroscience as a life philosophy: Crazy stroke lady tried to use neuroscience in this manner.  While her connections were based on antiquated, now defunct, findings the use of neuroscience to moderate life views is very interesting.  We, as scientists, tend to be very uncomfortable with the application of findings to create pseudo-religious criterion to “improve our lives” but we must take care not to dismiss the desire of popular society for exactly that.  We cannot allow this field to wander so far from applicability that it takes a NYT’s reporters lack of understanding to be our only foray into pop-culture. 

Astrocytes:  (sorry couldn’t resist).  When 90% of our brains are 0% of an introductory neuroscience class something is missing from our picture.        

  Reflecting on this semester in the Senior NBS Seminar the idea that is most salient to me is the importance of shared subjectivity even in what we may tend to think is ideally a very objective practice in scientific study, as well as in the social function of people in general.  I don’t feel that the inherent subjectivity of even what is considered good science necessarily invalidates or problematizes those observations, but it helps to emphasize the importance of reproducing experimental results and communicating clearly both results obtained and the manner in which those results were obtained, so that the shared subjectivity of scientific inquiry involves the collaboration of as many perspectives as possible.  While we (being the scientific community at large) may prefer to phrase the qualities of good science in more certain terms it seems that what good science is about, in terms of this irreducible subjectivity, is attempting to provide as many variables in an observation as possible so as to investigate causality as confidently as possible and to provide as completely as possible all components of your own subjectivity in conjunction with each observation.  It is vital that your subjectivity and observations be understood so that those observations can be recontextualized to the subjectivity of others within the scientific community in order to determine the universality of that particular observation. 

Within the neurobehavioral sciences I am particularly interested in the following questions:

1. Non-specifically neuroplasticity and neurogenesis.  I am very curious as to the limits of the brain’s ability to adapt its function in response to damage or malfunction and for the brain to hone its function to maximize its ability to effectively perform frequently initiated tasks.   
2. What are the limits of current fMRI technology to represent complex and abstract functions within the brain?  This is tied into the notion of consciousness as a discrete and consistent pattern of neural activity, whether or not consciousness can be observed using an fMRI style examination of the brain is also an interesting question.
3. To what extent cosmetic manipulation of the brain whether via surgery or via pharmacological means will be tolerated by society, whether objections arise on moral grounds based upon the bounds of science or the bounds of humanity or the bounds of fairness. 

Our conversations regarding the effects of culture on cognition (shared subjectivity) and science stuck out to me the most from this past semester.  We addressed how mental illness fads, such as the one surrounding depression, could trigger higher levels of the illness just because people are more aware of and sensitive to it. Moreover, the concept of an illness is also culturally defined and we only see illnesses through the lenses established by society. We use science to defend and justify these labels that we create. Thus, in this way culture also shapes science research in determining its direction and adding a certain level of bias. I feel like people tend to see what they want to see, and while science follows an “objective” process, this can also hold true for science to some extent.

In some ways, I think social influences on human behavior and thinking is larger than the biological/neural determinants. For example, if the biological determinants of depression constitute the largest component of determining if someone has depression, then we wouldn’t have witnessed this sudden surge in depression rates in recent years. There is the argument that people’s neural structures may have changed to become more prone to depression, but I think culture has played a large role in bringing about this phenomenon. Similarly, while in our discussion of the neurological basis of pair bonding we discussed the biological components of mate finding and attraction, I think people tend to use social guidelines more in their search for love than their biological signals. While we may be unconsciously attracted to the pheromones of a good potential match, I think these instincts are largely overridden by desires and images of love created by society.

Thus, this shared subjectivity created by society/culture plays a very significant role in how people think and what direction science goes. This brings me to another interesting point covered during the semester, which was the individuality of the brain. No matter how much we try to localize function to areas of brain, can we ever really generalize these findings across all people? Maybe people just have different neural networks that can give rise to similar processes (and a shared subjectivity) in different, unique ways.

While culture is important because it gives us a method in which to think about things, it is also a disability in that it is hard to go outside of this shared subjectivity and see things in a different way. I think this class was a great exercise in doing exactly this—trying to see things from perspectives that are not normally taken and to challenge the accepted.

My questions:

1. Can depression be subdivided into smaller categories? Or is it the smallest category which we can use to describe a group a symptoms? Is depression an individualized condition and are we moving farther away from finding effective treatments by trying to develop generalized diagnoses and treatment plans? (This question applies to all major mental illnesses but i just wrote it in the context of depression).

2. Pheromones vs. social guidelines in finding love. I dont know how ethical this kind of research would be, but do relationships that start from pheromone compatibility do better than those that are established following social guidelines (finding someone who is attractive and a good mate in terms defined by society). THis would speak to the effectiveness of our innate ability to find a good mate.

3. How does consciousness arise? What makes the different levels of consciousness possible (unconscious, the state of sleeping, etc.)?
 

Right off the bat I was struck by our conversation about shared subjectivity.  It had never occurred to me that the world as we perceive it is simply a subjective construction of reality.  I feel that this realization poses huge limitations/difficulties on the study of the brain.  For example, what does an fMRI really tell us if we all construct a slightly different reality?  This seems particularly problematic for comparing fMRI results from different subjects.  Another topic that I was intrigued by was the concept of gaining a function in response to a disability – in particular the possibility that this is due to inhibitory mechanisms.  The brain normally must inhibit a certain amount of stimuli, but some disabilities may turn off these inhibitory functions.  I found this particularly interesting in light of my thesis research (I was sick Monday so I did not get to talk about this in class).  My research studies the role of microRNAs in hematopoietic stem cells.  microRNAs function to repress gene expression posttranslationally by binding and inhibiting the translation of mRNAs.  Thus, they are essentially inhibitory mechanisms in cells.  microRNAs were only identified recently, but they have been found to be ubiquitous in the cell.  I am fascinated by the possibility that the body – both cells in the brain and elsewhere – may rely more on inhibitory mechanisms than activating mechanisms.  I was also interested in the idea of consciousness, and what possible neural mechanisms (or not) lead to consciousness.  This is always an intriguing yet frustrating question – because it seems impossible that the processes inside and between a group of cells can lead to consciousness.  Finally, I found myself concerned by our discussion of the process of research science and what material is taught in schools.  It seems inevitable that some voices may be “louder”, people will publish false or exaggerated data, and that we will teach concepts that are plain wrong in school.  However, what choice do we have?  We must attempt to progress and teach what we find particularly important and novel at the time.

My questions/future research:

1) I think that it is particularly important that we study the role of inhibitory mechanisms in the brain.  It may not seems as interesting at first – but it may be just as important to recognize what regions of the brain are not active during a particular task (like with fMRI) as what areas are.

2) Although this is hard to study, it would be intriguing to look further into consciousness.  Can we replicate consciousness in a machine?  Are animals/infants conscious?  Are there certain neural mechanisms that are essential to consciousness, while others can ablated while retaining consciousness?

3) Lastly, (although I wasn’t as struck by this conversation), I feel that it is important that we further characterize and explore depression because it is such a prevalent problem in our society.  What exactly is depression?  Is depression just a fad?  Should depressed people be medicated?  Is there an evolutionary benefit of depression?

One of the main things I realized through our discussions this semester is that perhaps we are too attached to the scientific method and the idea that "hard science" trumps all else. When I entered this class in January, I would have been the first person to call out a study for not containing the appropriate controls or not having a large enough sample size. But our discussions on the subjectivity of many illnesses (such as depression, anxiety, and stroke) have caused me to reevaluate my stance. The sessions we spent debating Jill Bolte Taylor's experience of stroke, which was dominated by her urging to "step to the right of our left brains" to experience nirvana were especially influential in helping me to recognize the value of the subjective experience. Although her book has many things that are scientifically a bit off or rooted completely in personal experience, I realize that her memoir is still a valuable contribution to the study and treatment of stroke. Also, the psychology of love discussion where we voted on the best science article (the oxytocin/vasopression article vs. the gay albatross article in the New York Times) made me recognize that even if we do follow the scientific method (as did the oxytocin/vasopression article), if we cannot communicate our findings appropriately, convincingly and even interestingly, our work will not have that much of an impact (evidenced by the gay albatross article being perceived as more interesting and having a larger impact than the oxytocin/VP pair bonding article). With my slowly coming to terms that there is an irreducible subjectivity of science, I have begun to realize that the scientific method is not the be all and end all that I once thought it was.

I am also extremely intrigued by the "ability within disability" issue that served as the focus of many of our discussions in seminar. I am fascinated by how depressed patients may be more accurate in identifying things or more likely to spend time alone and make discoveries (a la Darwin) and how anxiety prone individuals are often higher achievers (better grades, many CEO's suffer from anxiety). Although depression and anxiety are undoubtedly extremely difficult for those who suffer from them, I enjoyed thinking about these illnesses  from a different perspective than they would be viewed in an abnormal psych class. My questions:

1. Over the next few years, I would like to learn more about how the brain does or does not recover after illness. Jill Bolte Taylor obviously recovered fully from her stroke- she is a world renowned speaker, has written a novel etc. But why do some individuals with similar afflictions not recover as much as Taylor, if they recover at all? And what are the mechanisms for recovery? Are old circuits simply reformed? Or are new circuits formed differently than the circuits that were destroyed in the illness but still allow for the same functions performed by those old circuits?

2. I'd also be interested in learning about the underlying mechanisms of savant syndrome- for example, what gives Wiltshire his amazing memory? Is it because he lacks faculties in other areas, so his brain is compensating? Or is it simply that the areas in his brain that are normally used for social interactions, for example, are grossly underused and thus essentially "taken over" by memory mechanisms, for example?

3. I'd also be interested in to what extent specific memories could actually be manipulated- which would hopefully allow for the successful treatment of PTSD and other related conditions. We know that the formation of memories requires protein synthesis, but I doubt that we'd be able to pinpoint the protein or circuit responsible for a particular memory, because memories are inextricably intertwined with thoughts, emotions etc. Could we selectively edit one specific memory without destroying or "deleting" other things in the brain?

 Like Melissa, the issue of consciousness was one that seemed to pervade most of the topics we discussed. The question of consciousness was present in addressing some of the most abstract questions (e.g., whether one can know the emotional state of another and make judgments about the correctness of their self-reports), some of the most mechanistic questions (e.g., whether consciousness must be involved in relocating function from one set of circuits to another), and some of the most technological (e.g., whether fMRI can lend insight into mental states). These three examples just scratch the surface of a growing body of research that is increasingly pressured to deal with the notion of consciousness; some of the "hardest" sciences are beginning to require an articulation of the floofiest concepts in order to even approach usefulness. This tension is also apparent in another topic that stuck out to me: the irreducibility of neuroscience. I had not previously considered how disastrous the consequences might be if neuroscience turned out to be fundamentally irreducible. Moreover, I had not realized how true this probably is. Neuroscience fundamentally assumes that the trends, associations, and mechanisms that it discovers generalize, that what it finds is not confined to a single experiment. Thus, implicit in the very endeavor is the identification and prediction of patterns, of similarities between disparate entities. But it seems, based on our discussion of religion and shared subjectivity, that these patterns are inherently fraught; there will always exist some diversity among these trends. This illuminated for me a fundamental tension in neuroscience between its hope of categorizing/explaining all things and its inability to understand each instance. Rather, it turns out that maybe neuroscience is a lot like laws of nature (e.g., gravity): we observe general trends, but have no necessary reason to believe that they could not be broken, or why they are so.

These thoughts informed my questions that should be addressed in the future:

1. Can consciousness be given an appropriate neural explanation? We think of the study of the brain as a study of the mind, but is this misled? Might it turn out that the mind contains socially-contingent or floofy features which cannot even in principle be reduced? If so, what will the usefulness of neuroscience turn out to be?

2. Can neuroscience account for the diversity in trends? Will it be able to formulate "laws" that can eventually explain even the most disparate circumstances? Or will it eventually give up? And if so, how will this affect our notions of religion, of consciousness, or of self?

3. And now for something completely different: I'll be interested in learning how neuroscience develops the concept of free will. Some of the most accomplished neuroscientists, who know best how every behavioral nuance can be explained by neurons, simply assume that free will must exist. But what does it mean if every action, every thought is the necessary result of preceding causal factors? Why stop at the insanity defense? How do we reconstruct free will out of the reductionist rubble of neuroscience?