Since I was young, I've been fascinated with the functioning of the brain.A book I read (I wish I could remember what it was called. I remember what the cover looked like. It was a very thick book, black with a drawn picture of synapses firing in reds, blues and yellows. I think it was simply called "The Brain". But that was a looong time ago!) at the age of 12 was instrumental in establishing a life long interest in the research, study, history and bizarre occurrences that happen within the hard casing of our skulls.
What really struck me at that age was how strange it was; such a contradiction/complication of the brain having written a book about itself in an effort to understand it's own workings. It seemed as peculiar to me as the liver involving itself in a conversation about it's functionality. And yet it's somehow enchanting.
Over the years, I've read many books about congenital brain problems (autism, savants) and about the difficulties that can arise after the brain suffers a traumatic incident (strokes, blows to the head). The most fascinating incidences, to me, are the ones that people can suffer after a serious accident or injury.
My own brain stumbles in trying to understand how cherished memories become non-existent, or how a man could forget how to read, yet still be able to write.
A book I've been reading recently (Jay Ingram's "The Burning House: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Brain") looks at a variety of brain injuries, and one of the most interesting/disturbing ones is the damage some people suffer after strokes.
One chapter explores an issue called 'neglect'.
The premise being that some people who suffer a stroke become unable to 'sense' the left side of the world. They 'neglect' it. A clock as viewed by a neglect patient may only have numbers from 12 to 6, the others are either simply don't exist or are all squished onto the right side of the clock face. When asked to pinpoint a dot on the centre of a horizontal line, inevitably it's placed far to right side.
The most dramatic examples are of those who are unable to even identify their own left body parts. When asked to identify their left leg, they are unable. When shown their own left hand they sometimes react with confusion, wondering whose hand it is. They are sometimes unwilling to believe it truly is theirs, even when told so.
This in itself is interesting, but what REALLY gets my neurons firing is the fact that these patients, while 'fine' in every other way, also don't seem to recognize that they even have this problem.
In fact, one of the 'symptoms' of this particular disorder seems to be a complete disinterest in it. Pointing out to some patients that they used to be aware of the left side brings about no reaction. Just doesn't seem to matter.
Now. Why would that be? When you have a broken leg, you understand that at one point your leg was whole.
Other head injuries causing blurred vision or memory loss is understood to (generally) be temporary and is worked towards recovery by the patient. Not so neglect patients. Interestingly, this issue doesn't really seemed to be explored in anything I've read, or if it is, it is seen only as a cursory problem to the 'larger' issue of the stroke/neglect itself.
Something else that draws me to this is type of 'medicine' is that so much brain knowledge is gained from patients who are awake and alert while their brains are literally being picked.
The brain itself doesn't have pain receptors, so once the skull is breached (using, what I hope is a powerful local anaesthetic), a patient is able to answer questions put to them by the surgeon and, I suppose, anyone else who's standing around wanting to know what's going on 'in there'.
So much of what we 'know' about the brain comes from those whose injuries have taken so much from them.
We certainly owe them our thanks.
And, while I'm on the topic, I think I'd like to recommend Oliver Sacks as a great author, if this subject interests you.
He, of "Awakenings" fame, has written many many books on neurology and brain science. I've found that he writes very clearly and allows for the average layperson to enjoy his books without dumbing them down.
So that's what gets my brain going!
I can feel new neural pathways being forged by the second.
22 comments:
ooooh I love the Brain,fascinating organ. Thanks for this,I'm going to be looking for this book.
The brain really is fascinating. When you think about it, our whole reality is just an assortment of electro-chemical reactions. It begs the question about the nature of reality and since we are all individuals does that mean that all our realities are slightly different?
Is a schizophrenic's reality any less real than our own?
Attention-grabbing post! Thanks for bringing this information to the consciousness of my brain.
Gosh that was fascinating Tai. The brain is certainly an organ of immense complexity. Sounds like a book worth investigating. Good post.
The world of education is beginning to really want to capitalize on what you're talking about. "We will KNOW what makes people learn!" I'm queasy about it. Imagine if we are all under some brain-affecting condition that makes us interpret the universe in a skewed way - like neglect but shared by all. And we don't know we have this condition. Neither do we know in what way we are misinterpreting our sensory input. How would we know if what we have been calling red is really... blue?
Tai, in the September 24th issue of the New Yorker, there is an article called The Abyss, about Clive Wearing, a musician, who contracted a brain infection, and his memory afterwards was only seconds long. If you click on this link, you can read the article. It's fascinating.
Great post, Tai. I've long be fascinated by sensory impairment/altered perceptions due to brain injuries, and the tales of Oliver Sacks litter my bookshelf. How the brain heals and compensates for injury is utterly fascinating.
I always drink beer with my left hand. I wonder if I would forget to drink beer?
Wow, I just read the link that Josie left. That was fascinating!
I'm with you. The brain is fascinating, I wonder if we'll every figure it all out!
-- david
Really interesting post, Tai. My ex-wife's aunt suffered a stroke later in her life. What was odd was that she lost her ability to read. She could compose and write a letter, but couldn't read it back to herself. She also lost her inhibition capacity and would say the most outrageous and personal things to people and not understand why they were upsetting.
Me too. I am interesting in all things brain related.
Just gotta wonder what kind of headache having your skull breached leaves behind. Having just broken 3 bones two months ago, I can't really imagine that kind of pain on the top of my head.
I just found out today that the stint is malfunctioning in my BIL's brain and he will need ANOTHER brain surgery. I think this will be his fourth.
Tai, you probably got my e-mail, but in any case, you can connect to my new blog through this comment. I am re-setting you up on my blogroll.
*sigh*
Cheers,
Josie
I read a book like that, too. It had really loong words, each of which spanned a whole line, with a few understandable words tossed in between for good measure. Reading that book made me wonder wether or not my brain actually worked, seeing how I couldn't understand anything and everyime I tried, it kinda squiggled like a jellyfish. It was interesting.
My brain is named Bergerac. It's a good name for a brain, I think.
Tai,
Right now I'm reading a book called "Born on a Blue Day" by Daniel Tammet. He is one of the most well-known autistic savants in the world as he was a subjuect of a BBC documentary called "Brainman". He's amazing.
He can learn a language in a week, quote the number Pi to 22,500 decimal places, and tell you immediately what day of the week you were born on if given your birthdate.
I especially liked this book because he writes it from his own point of view. He explains in great deteail what it feels like to see numbers and words as colours and shapes. Fascinating. I was actually going to blog about it...still might..
I don't think I've ever read anything about the brain. I think I might have to start. Very interesting.
I rely on crosswords to fire up my brain--and to remind me how limited it is.
Interestingly, Alzheimer's patients seem to have some sense of their brains slipping away. I think that's the cruelest of all.
I've always found the whole brain understanding itself and it's too complicated to understand thing really bizarre too...
I have always been fascinated with the brain also! Oliver Sacks, I believe, wrote "Seeing Voices" too ... regarding life in one of the nation's first deaf communities. He's an excellent writer. Thanks for reminding me of this ... the book has collected much dust over the years, time to get it off the shelf.
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