Eps 1: I hate being told that my brain is not a computer
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Michele Franklin
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While brain scans cannot reveal the anatomical differences between those with normal brains and those suffering from ADT, studies have shown that when a persons brain is asked to process an overwhelming amount of data, their ability to problem-solve flexible and creatively decreases, and their errors multiply. Researchers using magnetic resonance imaging scans found that those suffering from his cousin suffered a slight decrease in volume in four particular areas of the brain, which serve various functions, such as regulating emotions and aiding in learning. Never before in history has the human brain been asked to keep track of so many data points. The human brain does not hold most of the things that humans believe it does -- even basic things like memory.
By viewing the brain as a computer, which responds passively to inputs and processes data, we forget that it is an active organ, a part of the body, that is engaged with the world, and which has an evolutionary past that has shaped its structure and functions. Predictably, only a few years after the advent of computing in the 1940s, it was claimed that the brain worked as a computer, the role of the physical hardware being played by the brain itself, with our thoughts serving as software. For over a half-century, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists, and other experts in human behavior have maintained that the human brain functions as a computer. A handful of cognitive scientists--notably Anthony Chemero at the University of Cincinnati, author of the book "Radical Embodied Cognitive Science" --now reject completely the idea that the human brain works like a computer.
No matter how much they try, brain scientists and cognitive psychologists are never going to find a copy of Beethovens Fifth Symphony in the brain - nor copies of words, pictures, grammar rules, or any other type of environmental stimuli. Too much information, like a list of instructions or directions, would be difficult for a dyslexic brain to process and retain.
Scientists are just beginning to understand the full extent to which our brains are being shaped by the Internet, which is one of the key reasons why stopping the spread of disinformation is so difficult. Every day, we hear about new discoveries that illuminate the workings of brains, alongside promises -- or threats -- of new technologies that would allow us to do far-fetched things like reading minds, or tracking criminals, or even uploading ourselves to computers. In the long shadow of all that we do not know about the brain, tDCS is shining new light on its workings.
Or, an as-yet-unimagined new technique is poised to transform all of our views, providing an entirely new metaphor for the brain. To even begin imagining how this could work in practice, we will need both a knowledge of neural function that is vastly superior to anything we can now envision, and it will need an unimaginably large amount of computing power and simulations that accurately simulate the structures of the brains under study. Worse, even if we had the power to snap a snapshot of all of the 86 billion neurons in a brain, and then to model the states of those neurons on a computer, this massive scheme would not mean anything beyond the brain bodies that produced it.
In some species, we could alter the brains structure itself, changing an animals behavior accordingly. This sort of weak emergent cannot account for even simple neural activity, let alone how the brain works, so we have fallen back to strong emergents, in which phenomena emerging cannot be explained by activity in the single components. In environments in which individuals are physically interacting with individuals that they trust, the functioning of the brain is in sync.
This does not necessarily mean that they dislike the other person, but it may mean their brains are not processing feelings of hatred as normally, suggests new research. The disruptions to brain function the researchers observed may signal depressed peoples diminished capacity to deal with -- and learn from -- the social situations they experience hatred, says Feng. The researchers found brain waves from the hate circuit were decoupled in 92% of the depressed patients. Depression is also associated with damage to parts of the brain involved in actions and risk-taking, emotions and reward-seeking, as well as processing attention and memory.
The self-reports daily were supported by fMRI research which found that individuals taking acetaminophen every day for three weeks had reduced activity in the brain regions associated with grief when knocked down using a technique called the Cyberball, as opposed to those receiving placebo .
In this scenario, DeWall says, psychologists could help people talk about their feelings of rejection. Because rejected people can take actions, like aggressive ones, that work to further isolate them, psychologists also can help people behave in ways that are more likely to lead to social success. In the future, she says, paying attention to the hate circuit could open up new routes to treatment -- including new drugs and psychological therapies -- that target that circuit, as well as others in the brain specifically.
In short, Aron Barbey believes exercise and nutrition may offer lasting, holistic benefits that simply stimulating particular brain networks likely never will. Barbey is also keen to learn about the effects that nutrition has on brain health and cognition.
Building upon this knowledge, Aron Barbey, along with various co-authors, has gone on to publish an impressive array of papers that reveal the brain networks that underpin general intelligence, emotional intelligence, cognitive flexibility, working memory, and much more. Intelligence, he says, arises through interactions between a number of brain networks, including the central executive, a distributed neural system well known for supporting functions such as planning, problem solving, judgment, and decision-making.