Week 12 - Neurobiology and Behavior

The dream theory that most appeals to me is the idea that the brain uses REM sleep to run system-checks, to go over recent memories and lay down the tracks for them.  But the higher areas of the brain, the interpretive parts, attempt to apply meaning to this neural static, creating an illogical story that seems perfectly valid when we’re still asleep.  I can’t see how dreams themselves serve any purpose.  It seems most logical to me that they are the byproduct of other neural processes.  This may also explain why certain dream themes are so common in most people.  Certain memories (such as actually forgetting a test) and certain practical real-world fears are thought of frequently, and therefore have strong memory tracks.  When the brain attempts to apply meaning to its own meaningless signals, these “well-worn” tracks are often used as the basis for the story created.

Two things came up while thinking over last thursday's class.

First, we were discussing sleepwalking as an activity not controlled by the i function when Paul mentioned that this brought up an interesting legal issue. Although the issue was mentioned in passing, the general opinion given was that there should be a separate category for "sleepwalking criminals", or in other words, those individuals whose bodies engaged in criminal actions without input from their ifunction. While I would definitely agree that a separate category should be used when sentencing, I think it's important to realize that such individuals represent a special danger to those around them, and further that, on average, those individuals convicted of crimes while permanently or temporarily insane (without proper mediation of activities by their i functions) spend comparably more time confined in mental institutions than individuals convicted of the same crime spend in jail. If, in fact, the offenders could not adequately control (to the extent that they did not engage in criminal action) their bodies through their i function (they could not prevent themselves from committing crimes, and as far as they are concerned, they did not commit crimes), then who's to say their ifunction will be able to prevent future criminal activity ("sleepwalking murder" was brought up in class)? It seems that, without control of their body through the ifunction, that a 'criminal's' actions are non-predictable unless the underlying condition is treated (is this something that can be done with success?). For this reason, we should have some sort of confinement facility at least nominally for the purpose of correction (this term is loosely refers to correctional facilities as they exist).

Second, I was thinking more about neuron plasticity as it relates to learning and memory, and ultimately, to personality (students made the point that our tendencies were the way that people define themselves). If in fact our experiences and memories change and condition us (permanently alter the structure and interface of our neurons) to exhibit personal tendencies, beliefs and personality traits, then shouldn't we consider the ultimate source of these things-neuron plasticity- to be the thing that 'makes us who we are'? Further, if we can remove the cumulative effects of neuron change over time and experience, shouldn't the person lose all vestiges of their personality and memory? I realize some aspects of behavior are inborn (the fear response of mice to cats, and of other species to stay still in times of fear and perceived danger, for instance), but the defining features of individuality (in the context of being some distinct person/personality) seem to be linked ultimately to neuron plasticity and accumulated changes to ones neurophysiology with experience over time.

Do we tend to dream in the first person or the third person?  I cannot remember most of my dreams, but I seem to recall that I have dreamed in both a narrative and first person format, but is one more frequent than the other?  What mechanism controls whether we will dream in the first-person or as an observer?  It seems that first person dreaming reflects our subjective identity, while in third person dreaming is indicative of our mind’s ability to represent our Self as an object.  Does how we dream then reflect our state of mind?  That is, does a first person dream suggest that one is accepting one’s place in a situation, while a third person dream suggests that one is analyzing and trying to make sense of one’s place in a situation?  Do different forms of dream narrative correspond to different kinds of dreams/different situations in the dream? 

When looking over my notes I came across two statements that drew my attention: “there are certain tasks that cannot be accomplished unless the brain has a representation of itself as an object” and “with damage to the neocortex one may lose the ability to perceive and will movement”. With all the suggestions of imagination and ‘filling in’ it got me thinking; I have a distinct idea of myself, as an image and/or feeling that may not be indicative of my present state/body. How is it that I came to for this image in my head? It’s not a direct result of sensory input because I can be looking directly at some part of my body, and have a completely different perception of what I’m actually seeing. I can also picture myself actively moving while sitting here typing this blog, however I sometimes fid it difficult to imagine myself doing a particular act while actually producing the same motion. This self-image or corporeal awareness can obviously be independent of sensory perception, but how then do we go about creating this image, which is constantly changing. Furthermore, if self-image were completely independent of sensory experience why are those images bounded by our perceived reality and not totally outlandish? I can’t say this with any certainty, but the very question suggests that the body/self image is most likely bounded by sensory input, possibly in that the functions that allow us to create an image of ourselves, independent of the ‘outside’ world, were initiated by sensory experience. Therefore what ever comes from those functions must be bounded by what could possibly be perceived. It’s my theory, and this is based on very little, that we begin to develop a corporeal awareness at infants when we mimic the movements and gestures of others.

As for the second citation from our notes, “with damage to the neocortex one may lose the ability to perceive and will movement”, what would be the implications of ones self perceptions with damage to the neocortex, would ones corporeal image permanently change? 

I wrote my last paper about dreams and I was fascinated by what I found out. I think it is amazing that each of us have such different waking lives but surprisingly similar dream lives. “Although the variability of dream content is large, typical dream themes that occur quite often and are reported by many people can be identified (e.g. being chased, falling, flying, failing an examination, being unable to find a toilet or restroom)” (Ciric). These are the most common dream themes but themes also differ across gender. “Some major findings…have been: women’s dreams contain more explicitly mentioned emotions, more dream characters, especially familiar dream characters and show a higher incidence of indoor settings, household objects and references to clothing. Men’s dreams on the other hand, are characterized by more physical aggression, sexuality, achievement themes and the occurrence of weapons. Another gender difference is the proportion of male and female dream characters. Whereas male characters dominate men’s dreams (67%), the ratio is balanced in women’s dreams (48%)” (Piel). Although there are obviously differences, I am surprised at how similar they are. We are taught to think that we are unique and different, but how different can we really be to have similar dream states?

It boggles my mind that we so rarely see sleep as the utterly bizarre thing that it is. This comic describes it perfectly for me:

http://www.xkcd.com/c203.html

I often wonder what is going on in my brain when I go to sleep, how much control I'm giving up. While the I-Function is active during REM sleep, most of us still can't control what we think or see (and no one can control their movements, since we can't move at all). How can only part of the I-Function be active? How can the I-Function be turned off? It seems almost impossible to conceive of, since we generally have such a cohesive experience of reality. How can we be fractured and broken down in this way, in terms of patterns of action potentials in the neocortex? But that's how it is, amazingly enough. How in the world did this type of system emerge? How did the storyteller come into play, in a system that emerged with no guidance?

I've heard it suggested that dreams are the brain's way of making sense of random signals induced during sleep. The storyteller in us acts even during certain times of the sleep cycle to make sense of what input we receive (both from the sensory system and input generated within ourselves) to make a coherent case. Where does that drive come from? Why do we put so much of ourselves into describing and rationalizing the world?

I posted previously on depression but i read this article on smoking titled The Claim: Acupuncture Can Help You Stop Smoking, that seemed rather interested and could be applied to mood and emotions in a sense.  O'Connor states, "According to those who endorse it, the technique helps stimulate the release of endorphins and other brain chemicals, blotting out cravings and easing the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal."  However it is not always effective and he later states, "And because the effects of different techniques vary from one person to the next, most scientists recommend combining interventions, particularly those that involve behavioral modification and nicotine replacement."  However, what about the mental addiction that is apart of it, the mood that people who smoke are placed in when they engage in the act, that they become addicted too, the emotional involvement of smoking, how do you break that part?  How do you break the emotional component of addictions?  We all can understand things chemically and intellectually, but how about the mind and how about emotionally?  What role do our emotions play?  Are we controlled by our emotions and the particular moods that come about from different activities?  How do we deal with this control if it is in fact true?  How do we learn to take control ourselves and not let our emotions, our emotional addictions prevent us from stopping something that we know is harmful?

 If you want the link I'll paste it below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/health/17real.html?ex=1334462400&en=ff47addbcfb571d9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

A few weeks ago, I was at the zoo with my friend and somehow the topic of how dolphins sleep came up. Because dolphins and whales are mammals, they are required to breath oxygen and therefore surface the water often in order to breath. So, how can a dolphin or whale possibly be able to sleep if they constantly have to surface? This is really fascinating! Apparently, dolphins only sleep with half of their at a time. They will shut down half of their brain along with the opposite eye. The other half of the brain is awake, but at a reduced level of alertness. This allows the dolphin and whale to be able to watch for predators as well as rise to the surface for air. It has been estimated that after two hours, the dolphin or whale will swap sides. Little is known about whether these sea mammals have REM sleep, but in the pilot whale, it was estimated that it had about six minutes of REM sleep in a night.

On the topic of memory, I found a very interesting article in the NY Science Times called "When a Brain Forgets Where memory is." I'm sure all of us have heard of amnesia, which usually results from a physical neurological problem. Dissociative fugue, however, has the same symptoms as amnesia, without the physical problem. People who experience fugue, usually are going about their daily routine when they suddenly wander off, forgetting everything that they were doing only a moment ago. They do not realize that they have forgotten anything until they are asked any biographical questions. However, once asked they realize, they have not only forgotten their families, their jobs, and their addresses, but also who they are. Dissociative fugue can lasts from a few hours to a few months and usually restores memory as suddenly as it was taken away. The condition has no physical cause and usually results from severe stress or after a traumatic event.

I've come to understand that our brains take in and filter out a lot. They even fill in the missing pieces of our reality. I am completely fine with the idea that my reality has been fixed in some ways by my brain, and that it may be slightly different from the person next to me. I am, however, very uneasy with the idea that it is possible for my brain to shut itself off when it is emotionally overwhelmed. Should we be worried about the reliability of our brains?

With this week’s topic on emotions, feelings, dreams, and the way the mind works, I can’t help but think about my second paper topic, the placebo effect. I always wondered why they give placebos, knowing what it was, but I never fully understood what the placebo effect was so that is why I chose that topic. I learned about how one’s mind associates a pill with a specific response, like feeling better, even though the pill has no medicine. I find it interesting how one’s mind believes when in reality there is nothing there. It makes me think more and more about how the brain does what it wants to whether something is present or not. I have been following many questions that lead to other questions over the semester and the conclusion I have found is that the brain dictates what we believe whether it is there or not. In the class, Prof. Grobstein has showed us things that I would never have believed existed: Phantom Limb, seeing yellow is not really seeing yellow, a rose to one is not the same as a rose to another, our brain fills in the blind spot with something that is not there, and most of all believing that a pill, a placebo, has an affect only because it is a pill.

In many of my posts I have questioned reality, thinking, and perspective but what I didn’t question was the brain. All three thinks I have been questioning are all manifestations of the brain. They appear real to me because they are manifested by my brain. And this grueling semester of roundabout questions has brought me to Day 1 of Neurobio and Emily Dickenson’s poem. “The brain is wider than the sky.” It is our imagination and our thought that makes the sky. This brain, our thought, makes our reality and similarly the reality of society. We all are different and therefore possess some type of disability, in that we are different. That is our only disability and everyone has it. We are all different and so is our reality. If we think about emotion, feelings, moods, dreams, we are all characterized by a different summation of all of these aspects that boil down to manifestations of the brain.

The first week of class I accepted that the brain is wider than the sky but I didn’t think about why? I wanted to accept it because I have always been taught to accept what I have learned but never question it. This class has taken me on a journey of questions that lead me to the same starting point and yet it is like a different world. I accept not because I was taught to believe what I want to believe but I have questioned many aspects of this class and yet it brings me back to the same point. We manifest our own reality, something that is never the same for two people because the brain is never the same for those two people.

We have said that society feeds on disability but we manifest society and disability because human differences are our disabilities. Our manifestations/realities make us different and enable us to form societies with our own feelings, moods, auras, emotions, realities, thought processes, astrological signs, personalities, ethnicities, and most of all our brain (CNS).

I wrote my second web paper on the impact of computer use on children’s neurological development.  One of the reasons that experts are concerned about children’s increased computer use relates to our discussion this week about emotions.  Computer games or even subliminal images cause neurological reactions in humans.  Chemical responses to fear, anxiety, or excitement occur unconsciously in all humans and are impossible to control.  Hormones or chemicals such as adrenaline cause increased heart rate and muscle changes for the fight or flight response.  These responses can become an ingrained physical habit if one is repeatedly exposed to computer games--even educational games.  This is not just a problem with computers.  Our society is being inundated with technological developments each year.  It wasn’t that long ago that ipods didn’t exist, it was a novelty to have a cell phone, and the internet was new and exciting.  Because this technology requires humans to use different parts of their brains and triggers different chemical responses, I can’t help but wonder: How will this technology change how our society functions?   

I recently did a bunch of research on the difference between dreaming and waking states, so I will share the essence of what I learned and attempt to answer Adityas question about why we can behave logically in the illogical world of dreams.

As we learned in class REM sleep is the deepest stage of sleep, characterized by the highest sensory thresholds and lowest motor output. It is also the phase of sleep when dreaming occurs. The brainstem is responsible for stopping the motor signals sent by the brain from being reaching the body. It also (according to the current research) generates random sensory signals. These signals do not seem "weird" to the brain because all sensory signals get relayed through the brain stem when we are awake. The brain is dupped into believing that these internally generated signals being produced by the brainstem are real signals being relayed from the outside world. This is why dreams feel, look, sound, and smell so real. These internally generated sensory signals pass from the brainstem into the forebrain. The forebrain needs to make sense of this input, so it weaves it into a story. This explains the narrative nature of dreams. The brainstem generates a picture of a monster, sends it to the forebrain, the forebrain says "ah monster, run away!", it sends motor signals to your legs to run, and the brainstem intercepts and stops the motor signals.

The logical behavior in our dreams can be attributed to the story building role of the forebrain. The forebrain is no dummy, if it is sent a picture of a bike and a monster it will have us jumping on the bike and riding like theres no tomorrow. This is because in dreams we have access to pretty much all of the faculties that we do when we are awake. We still know what our school looks like, or that biking is faster than walking.

One crucial area of the brain that is inactivated during dreaming an area of the frontal lobe responsible for autobiographical knowledge and judgement. This explains why we do not question the bizarreness of our dreams. We lack the capacity to pass judgement on our surroundings ("could a dog really have three heads?"), and we lack self knowledge ("my dog doesnt have three heads, so this cant be real").

This theory is supported by research on lucid dreams, a lucid dream is a type of dream where the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. Lucid dreamers report that they often obtain lucidity by realizing that something in their surroundings is too bizarre to be real. They are able to pass judgement and realize they are in a dream state. The onset of lucid dreaming is characterized by high levels of cortical arousal and activity in the area of the frontal lobe that is usually inactive.

I like this model of dreaming/lucid dreaming/waking states, and their relationships. I also am tempted to believe that sleep is a time when the brain reorganizes, sorts, and stores memories, and that dreaming is a product of this memory sorting. It would explain why my dreams always contain images from the previous day. I'm not sure how that theory could be reconsiled with the previously explained theory. One idea may be that when the memories are getting sorted some pop into awareness, and we literally relive those memories as they flash before our minds eye, and maybe the brain stem creates the relevant sensory input to match that memory? Just an idea.

I know this post is long but I hope it provided some useful background info on dreams.

www.lucidity.com

www.dreamresearch.net