Biology 202

Neurobiology and Behavior is a class based on the desire of the students to explore their existence in the world: how do we interact with our surroundings? How do we interact with each other? How do we act as autonomous beings? And the main goal of the course is to make the answers to these questions accessible to all students. Likewise, in Inevitable Illusions, by Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, the author attempts to help readers understand the universal illusions from which we all suffer on a daily basis. In  so doing, Piatelli-Palmarini unknowingly wrote a book that would greatly benefit a course like Biology 202.

          Everyone experiences intense cravings that distract them from their daily lives at one time or another. Are these cravings an operation of the I-function or can one truly not resist said urges because of a chemical imbalance? There are many explanations for cravings, both physiological and psychological. By definition, to have a food craving is to strongly desire a particular food item, of which the most commonly craved are carbohydrates. Research has been done that shows that when one craves carbs, his/her body is actually in demand of more calories. The carb craving is in reality the result of a feedback mechanism in which low carbohydrate levels lead to low levels of serotonin in the body, which results in a craving. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter responsible for positive moods and satisfaction after eating; having low levels of such a substance leaves a person wanting so that he/she may achieve the elation felt when high levels of serotonin are present. Changes in serotonin levels can also explain the uneasiness felt during a craving: lack of this neurotransmitter is found to be a cause of depression, leading one to connect cravings and negative moods: being caused by a deficiency of the same substance, maybe the two go hand-in-hand (1).

Demystified:
The Female Brain, Explained

Sex sells. As television producers, film directors, and adverting moguls can attest to, sexual images and racy vocabulary in the media draw attention and attract heightened responses. Louann Brizendine, M.D. was certainly aware of this fact while writing and publicizing her eye-opening book, The Female Brain (1).

Brizendine's book was published in 2006 and intended for both women and men to read. She chose to paint the back cover in quotations that spoke of the books ability to explain women. For example, Christiane Northrup, M.D., and the author of The Wisdom of Menopause wrote, “…All women-and the men who love them-should read this book.” Daniel Goleman, the author of Social Intelligence, wrote “Finally, a satisfying answer to Freud's question, 'What does a woman want?' Louann Brizendine has done a great favor for ever man who wants to understand the puzzling woman in his life…”. On her website, Louann Brizendine went on to describe what the book has to offer. In a welcome message, she explained that the book could teach anyone “what your sex hormones do for you every day, how falling in love and choosing a mate are balanced by your brain and hormones, [how to] instantly increase you communication with the opposite sex -- learn what you and he are really thinking about, [how to] improve your emotional and social I.Q. -- [she is] sure you want more love and communication in your relationships” (2). Brizendine went on to discuss various chapters in the book in an attempt to sway listeners into purchasing her work.

I have always been intrigued by math and the brain (primarily because I am so bad at math). I was intrigued not just by the mathematics themselves, or how you do mathematics, but also why they take the form they do; this seems to me to be the foundation problem at the heart of mathematics. It turns out that I was in luck: in recent years, the cognitive neuroscience of numeracy, or ‘numerical cognition’, has emerged as an important area where the interaction between brain structure and human culture can be studied empirically. Number can be defined as the only property of sets that remains invariant under substitutions of any items in the set (1). Thus, we talk about 4 chairs, 4 people, 4 events. Why is it that even small children demonstrate some degree of mathematical understanding, yet so many adults view mathematics as a purely academic domain?

I have always been fascinated with Dr. Oliver Sacks since reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.  This book sparked my primary interest in neurology and brain and behavior studies.  After my first reading of a Dr. Sacks text, I found that the stories of the individuals were so complete and holistic that medical studies, for me, lost their impersonal images of stainless steel and sterility.  The title of the book was quirky, and unlike other medical texts did not push the readers away with highly scientific terms.  Dr. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist and a professor, has written several other books including Awakenings and Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf. When I opened my second text by Dr. Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars, I was anticipating great stories and discoveries; my expectations were fulfilled.  In fact, before reading the book I started to think about what this title could mean.  Sparked by our class discussion, I very quickly realized that Dr. Sacks, as well as all of us, are “anthropologists on mars” when it comes to brain research.  We are all stumbling around on the foreign plant that is the brain, trying to understand the functioning and patterns of every day life there.

The more unusual neurological problems we've discussed in class this semester- complete loss of proprioception, phantom limbs, "unilateral neglect" (inability to perceive objects on either the right or the left)- are certainly interesting to consider in theory. In practice, however, it's hard to imagine how someone with one of these problems would function and perceive the world. Because their situations are "abnormal," deviations from typical neurological wiring, they can be very difficult for a "normal" person to grasp intuitively- unless they have a human example to connect the disorder to.

Kay R. Jamison’s book, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, discusses the traditional view of the “artistic temperament,” with the telltale traits of moodiness, dark creativity, and temporary bouts into mania, with the symptoms linked to manic-depressive illness. In many cases, the artists themselves knew that there was something unique about their states of mind. Of his friends, Lord Byron once said, “We of the craft are all crazy. Some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched” (Jamison 2). Jamison focuses on those who have, over the years, been revered and stigmatized for being “more or less touched.” Many artists, such as Vincent van Gogh and Ernest Hemmingway, were known as much for their manic-depressive disorders as for the profound and unique musical and literary works they produced. Some of these artists were able to move past their disorder to lead a ‘normal’ life; others, such as Anne Sexton and Virginia Woolfe, were unable to overcome their illnesses, and ended up either in a psychiatric hospital, some eventually killing themselves.

The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller, is about the child who was so aware, consciously or otherwise, of the wishes of his parents and had such a strong desire to fulfill them, that he lost track of himself and his own identity.  It’s about the child who never discovered his “true self” because he was so concerned with pleasing those around him, and the repercussions of that later in life, as an adult.  The book discusses the unconscious wishes of the parent being often unconsciously bestowed on the child, with the child absorbing these wishes and morphing into this different person.  The Drama offers help by explaining the problems and consequences of growing up in this way, and suggestions for steps as to remove himself from the person he is not, and move towards finding his “true identity”. 

Entering any art museum, you will walk down many white washed walls with brightly colored canvases mounted upon them. In the abstract section you will most likely pass a canvas that consists of only two or three large blocks of intense color painted upon it. Looking at these colored blocks, you may or may not experience a sense of sunniness, coolness, tenseness, or relaxation. This is a typical reaction to the works of Mark Rothko[1]. Rothko’s art, using alternately radiant and dark colors, is distinguished by the sustained concentration on pure pictorial properties such as color, surface, proportion, and scale, in order to inspire in his audience profound themes such as tragedy, ecstasy, and the sublime. His images are known to provoke raw human experiences, or what we have learned are primary experiences. Not only do his paintings evoke emotional states, they will not evoke the same emotion in everyone. How is Rothko able to achieve such a reactions and why do the reactions vary? I wish to look at this question from a biological and color-centric point of view, disregarding the I-function’s affect on creativity and variability in the brain.