The Mind and the Brain

So where is the mind? Is it identical with the brain?  There are some writers in neuroscience who inadvertently believe they are identical……the brain secretes the mind.  Others think the mind is separate and acts on the brain. This debate has gone on for the millennia.    It is rather important since there is new research that claims that the reason there is depression or anxiety is because of changes in dopamine or serotonin.  In short, it is all in the brain.  And these afflictions result from alterations in chemical production in the brain.  That is why they will never find the answer because it is not in the brain; it is in the mind.  It is how the mind affects the brain where the answer lies.

There is a book on the subject that seems to go off into mysticism but is worth reading. (Brain Wars, by M.  Beauregard. Harper One Press). He believes that the mind affects the brain and that they are not identical, yet, unless I missed something, there is not a good definition of what the mind is.  I think he equates it with the neo-cortical mind.  So for him the mind is thoughts and beliefs. For me it is much more than that; there are several minds, each interacting with the others.  And consciousness means that all levels work fluidly with each other.   You need the contribution of each level to make consciousness.

The distinctions about brain and mind are important; when neglected they lead to some strange conclusions in psychology.  If we think there is no mind then all we have to do is study neurology to find answers to many neuroses.  No unconscious running things.  All we see is behavior and if we change how we act and think (our attitudes) then we can get well.  Neurosis here is all a  matter of “unhealthy attitudes.”  Change the attitude and, voila, we get better.

This problem lies under the rubric of reductionism. Everything is reduced to the basic brain function.  There are no different levels of reality; only one, the apparent, observable one.  So they keep it simple, too simple.  Yet it is often equated with true science—putting the facts together.  No leap beyond the facts, no imagination, no thoughts of what could be.  Science for them is confined of what is observed.  Since there is no mind in their scheme there can be no interaction between mind and brain.  And when I use the term “mind” I mean all levels of consciousness.

So either we are strictly neurologic machines or there is something else going on that helps us understand who we are and why we act the way we do.  I opt for something else going on.  You see when science is so strictly confined to facts we can only produce correlations—things goes up when that goes up therefore……….There is not a lot of room for a deeper analysis, a flight of imagination, soaring into what could be.  It becomes statistics-bound.   It can be counted while feelings often cannot.  This close adherence to facts has in some ways bound psychology and constricted what it could discover. It could not find the truth beyond facts.  Scientific reductionism is the bête noir of psychology.

So we have mind which is produced by the brain but seems to have its own existence that can affect that brain; the interaction between the two.

Is the appreciation of beauty, the smell of the rose identical with the brain? Is the judgment of someone who is interesting identical with the brain?  Or does the ensemble of brain function give rise to all this?  And once it gives rise can it affect the brain that gave life to it?  If you take hypnosis it is clear that thoughts introduced to lower brain levels can affect the brain so that a hand put in cold water seems hot.  Or that a coin put on the hand and told it is very hot can leave burn marks.

Another bit of evidence: the placebo effect, giving neutral, benign pills to those who are told in their minds that it will kill pain and it does.  And the thoughts use the same pathways in the brain that the pills would use.  Thoughts affect brain function.  If we think something might help, even God, then it can help.  The mind can be deceived. Can the brain be deceived?   What happens is that what is in the mind can activate the brain to produce natural painkillers.   It can think it is in pain and change brain function to deal with that imagination.  And there may not be any pain at all except what the mind has been convinced exists.    Also,  a dentist may drill teeth because the person has been suggested that she will feel no pain…..and she does not.  So where is the reality?  In the drill?  In the mind?  Does it hurt if the person cannot feel it?  No.  The mind takes precedence as it does in so many situations where people believe what they are told rather than what they see before them.   At a burial one can see the body float to heaven even after watching it go into the ground.  Does reality take precedence?  I think not.    Is the mind deceived or is it the brain?

It is the mind that believes something so strongly that the brain registers the belief rather than the reality.  PET scans show that infusing a belief into someone that their pain is being reduced will show increased activity in regions known to block pain.    The mind here controls the brain. Can the brain control the mind?  Yes.  Those with sham knee surgery could walk more easily later on even though they had incisions but no surgery.  Their minds controlled it all.   The evidence is overwhelming.  It is also true that the brain controls the mind.  If we are low in dopamine we will have certain personality traits controlled by brain function.   But the mind can cause an increase in dopamine output if it is convinced to do it.  Thus, they are mutually interacting entities.
The brain can interact with the mind, just as the mind can interact with the brain.  Expectations of the mind can activate nerve networks to enhance dopamine production.
How could we ignore the mind and explain the human condition?

One of the interesting findings reported in the book is that attention deficit children have a high amount of theta waves in the frontal lobe. Why is that? My guess is that there is first line intrusion, long slow theta waves from the brainstem are suddenly found in the frontal area.   And that it is this intrusion that distracts and keeps the child from concentrating.  There is an input from imprints going back very far into the remote reaches of the brain that surge into present-day life.  The problem here is that it can lead to, change the mind you can change the brain, philosophy which then slops over into cognitive therapy.   So what mind are we dealing with?  It is clear to me that it is the lower levels of consciousness that directly affect the brain.  We see this in therapy when patients get down into first line their ideas change radically; they are trying to strangle me.  Deep hypnosis that allows a body to go rigid and not feel the pain of surgery must affect the brainstem.  I have seen hypnosis where the body is so rigid it can be placed like a pipe between two chairs and kept there with no fatigue.

What Beauregard points out is that in a quantum universe there is no mind-body split.   It is one.  The mental and physical world merge but that, how and where we observe, can change the object we are observing.  He points out that in neurofeedback one can control seizures by mimicking certain brainwave patterns.

We have to believe that mental activity is not identical to brain activity.  There is a mind that seems to rise above brain function to interact with it.  I do not think that we can equate mind with awareness because mind is so all encompassing and in all its complexity  affects the brain.  That is why deep childhood and womb-life pain can, in my opinion, affect brain function decades later producing Alzheimers disease.  We will never see that in studying the brain alone, but we will see it when we study the humans that carry that brain.

The Critical, Critical Period

  I have written many times about critical period; the time when key needs must be met, and at no other time. In other words you cannot make up for that loss no matter how much you may want to. This was brought home to me in a study about food deprivation, (March 12, J. of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. J. Galler and P. Costa) (see http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349102/description/Early_malnutrition_bodes_ill_for_adult_personality).  What they found was that malnutrition in the first year of life, even when followed by an adequate diet, predisposes those to troubled personality even at the age of forty. Compared with those who had a normal diet they showed chronic stress, mistrust, anger and depression. Notice, the food deprivation was not limited later on to food problems; it created a complete problem in personality development. In short, key deprivation of need even during our life in the womb, has global consequences. So if you ask someone why are they so nervous?, they will unlikely answer, “because of my food deprivation at six months of womb-life.” This all occurred long before the person had a comprehending neo-cortex and its effect may last for a lifetime.

  This early food deprivation also resulted in lack of curiosity and risk taking, as well as diminished emotional warmth. All that because the baby could not eat properly?

  Let’s transfer this now to lack of love and touch right after birth. It has to be then and at no time later on. The critical period is measured in brief spurts, not long continuous time periods.  When the baby comes onto earth all alone, in a strange environment and is left alone even for several minutes there can be deprivation. And it will last.

 The point about the research on food is that it underlines the critical period. One has to ask why a very good eating regime soon after does not change things? It is because fulfillment has a timeframe, usually a short one. So when daddy leaves home for a few months to go on tour and comes home and loves and hugs his child, it is helpful but not reversing of the damage already done.  That is why when a mother’s love is missing early on, if she is seriously ill, for example, there is a need gap. And what does this do? It can remain hidden for years and suddenly in adolescence there are homosexual tendencies. No knows where it came from. But there was deprivation very early in life that could not have been seen. This is a form of act out; we always try to fulfill those deprivations, even years later, depending on the circumstances. If food in the home was prized perhaps eating will take the form of an obsession.  But the need for love is still waiting its turn. All of us who were deprived seek out one kind of fulfillment or another. Fulfillment is primordial and not to be denied no matter what the criticism or exhortations by others. It is so subtle because the parent can be a good person seriously concerned about the welfare the child but never touched her.  That need will force fulfillment elsewhere. It will force the act-out. And it will be called “neurotic” because it is symbolic of what was missing. Getting approval from someone can never fulfill the person as the mother’s kindness and approval would have done. It is symbolic, never really fulfilling and becomes obsessional just because it is symbolic and only skin deep.

  And diabolically, if we bring back the mother and ask her to be kind and approving to the young lady now adult, it would change nothing. It is still symbolic because the critical period is over. The pain can be softened through current love but the gap remains. We cannot be fully fulfilled now no matter how hard we try and no matter how others may want to make up for a bad childhood. That is the sad truth.

 The article goes on to say that early bad nutrition leads to delinquency and suspiciousness in the child. How could that be? It means very early deprivation as overall systemic effects, not confined to food. To be loved we need fulfillment of all of our needs not just a few of them; to be hugged and touched, to be listened to and approved, to be adored and praised, etc. Our needs are biologic and are human, if we want to be complete human beings.  Take the overeater; he is eating for now and then. Eating for then is symbolic and therefore never-ending. It becomes the stuff of obsessions and compulsions. He is wary because literally, he never knows where his next meal is coming from.

 Above all, those who were deprived were most often in the anxious category.  Lack of fulfillment stamped in fear and insecurity, feelings that endure for a lifetime.