What is love from a biological perspective? The answer is more fascinating than you think.
A person or patient who is delusional is someone with an immutable, persistent and most importantly, false belief in something that has absolutely no basis in reality. They resist all arguments and evidence that they are wrong and blindly remain fixed on their delusion. There are five main types of delusions seen by psychiatrists.
The first one is what they call an “Erotomanic” delusion and it is when a person believes that another person is seriously and romantically in love with them. It’s very often a Hollywood star or a superior at work. Normal people who are suspicious of someone having a crush on them may do very little but patients with an Erotomatic delusion utilize a great deal of time and energy contacting their delusional lover via emails, visiting and stalking them.
Then there’s the “Grandiose” delusion and it’s when a person believes that they are special and have extraordinary unparalleled abilities or have made a significant discovery, when they in fact have done neither. These delusions may sometimes lead the person to feel that they are a prominent person with special relationship with others or may even be religious, leading to believe that they have a unique connection with a diving being.
Next is the “Jealous” delusion or the unsubstantiated belief that a partner is being unfaithful. People with this delusion often hire a private detective and in worse cases, attempt to imprison their partner as well as verbally and physically assault them.
Fascinatingly, The most common type of delusion is a “persecutory” one where the person strongly believes that someone or a group is conspiring against them. They are often very indignant and scornful for they believe that they are being cheated, spied on, harassed, gossiped about or even poisoned and drugged. Many attempt to take legal measures but fail to proved evidence to authorities regarding their claims. In extreme cases, they get vicious and aggressive towards people whom they wrongly suspect is targeting them.
The last one is the “Somatic” delusion and is not very different to an intriguing disorder known as the Body Dismorphic Disorder. Here, the individual is deluded to believe that his or her body is strange and not functioning properly. This delusion can come in many different types, sometimes is the consistent belief that one smells odd and other times that a particular part of the body is misshaped. In most cases, however, people believe that they may have some internal bug, insect or parasite that is affecting a specific part of the body regardless of medical examinations proving otherwise.
Unfortunately, the causes of these delusions, in particular the extreme ones, still remain a mystery. Various studies have pointed to different biological features of the brain being associated with such disorders including the basal ganglia and neo-cortex. Some researches have found stastical evidence that there is a genetic basis for delusions, as so many patients seem to have first-degree relatives with related disorders. Others have pointed to the fact that many with the disorder have had difficult and often abusive childhood.
Nevertheless, innovations and developments in neuroscience and brain scanning technology leave a lot of hope in unraveling the mysteries of delusions in the near future. It’s astonishing, really, how small minor false beliefs that we all have can develop into such outrageous delusions in some of us.
What is a personality? What is it that makes you the distinct individual that you are? There may be over seven billion people on this planet but what are the chances that you will come across an individual with exactly the same personality as you? And i’m talking about someone with identical likes, dislikes, hobbies, passions, emotions, views, beliefs, values, thoughts, tastes and so on. Of course, its not impossible but highly unlikely.
But what is it that determines who we are and the decisions we make? How much control do we really have over who we want to be? I think most of us fail to realize how complex the factors that influence our personalities and characters are. First of all, for instance, there are the influences of society and its values and norms. The beliefs and traditions of the place and society you live in can greatly influence what your own beliefs are. Then there are the influence of your family and I don’t just mean the background you come from. Psychological studies have constantly shown that whether you’re a first child or a last child can by itself influence your personality. Then you have your friends, the peer groups, the type of school you go to or the kind of people you hang out with. These in return can be influence by the social classes and social background you come from which influences the type of opportunities you are give to express and discover yourself. Moreover, there are the social roles and societal expectations. All of these determine the experiences you’ve had which in return shape who are. Then there’s media with the all trends they try to implant into you as a consumer. In addition to all of this, there are the genetic and dispositional factors that also play a huge role. Brain chemistry and the way in which your neurons are constructed in your brain also play a very significant role in who you are.
All of these are just a few examples of all the many factors and influences of your personality which in return is dynamic and changing, especially if you’re still young.
The Science behind aging; On why we grow old and how the biological process of aging is actually preventing us from getting cancer. More similar interesting videos on the Asapscience channel.
Exciting news; A new project that aims to map the entire human brain could receive more that three billion dollars in funds in Obama’s upcoming budget proposal. Just like the Human Genome project had in the past, understanding and decoding the billions of neurons in the human brain is expected to have innumerable benefits. “The Brain Activity Map project” will not only have medical benefits in allowing us to provide better cures and treatments for brain diseases and disorders. It will also be an extraordinary step in understanding our true nature and answering many questions about human consciousness, free will, self-awareness and much more.
To some, it may sound outrageous that we’re spending such a sum of money on brain research in this economy. But its important to note that in the past, The Human Genome project itself $140 dollars for every dollar invested in it. Even with this, Scientists behind the project hope to return over three billion back into the economy in 10 years. In other words, if the project is successful, it could be an economic boost.
Misinterpreting and misunderstanding scientific evidence can be extremely problematic - especially in court. One example of this can be with brain scans - which are currently, and maybe surprisingly to some, not used in court as any sort of evidence.
Firstly, this is because each brain is very very different. Our brains are not only complex as a whole, but also individually as well. We simply do not have the knowledge to differentiate between most normal and abnormal brain patterns. Even more, our brains are extremely plastic and are constantly changing depending on our emotions and thoughts. What’s happening in the brain during the scan may not reflect on what was happening during the time of crime. In addition, This plasticity is sensitive to change via many factors such as caffeine, alcohol, menstrual cycles - you name it!
Of course, neuroscience is an exceptionally promising field and our brain imagining technology is improving with everyday that passes by. But today, we’re simply not capable of reliably studying the nature of a criminal or the intentions behind a crime via scans.
Book review: Who’s In Charge? by Michael S.Gazzaniga
The question of whether or not humans have free will is much more complicated than you think. Numerous studies have constantly revealed that our brains decide on our actions before we become aware of them. Even more, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of biological basis of free will in the human brain. So do we or do we not have free will?
Well, to explore this significant question, one has to look at not only various aspects of neuroscience but science as a whole and thats exactly was Gazzinga does in this book. He doesn’t just explore the human brain but also physics, computing and much more. In addition, he gives the reader a wonderful introduction to neuroscience and the human brain, hence making this book ideal not just for learning about the biological basis of free will but neuroscience in general as well. There are so many fascinating trains and thoughts and ideas that are presented in this book, including free will in the context of socialization, our brain as an interpreting machine and free will as an emergent property of the brain as whole. It was a truly enlightening read!
This video is absolutely mind-blowing! Turns out that when it comes to our brains, imagination and actions are not very different and in fact, inter-related. This means that imagining doing something, can be almost as effective as actually doing it. Every single thought that you have actually changes the physical structure and function of your brain. Now take that into consideration with the fact that you have about 70,000 thoughts a day!
We human beings are a remarkable species and capable of extraordinary things. If we let ourselves, we could, in fact, create infinite minds. We could become immortal beings living and loving forever. We could allow ourselves to travel across the cosmos unharmed. We could allow ourselves access to millions and millions of bytes of information within our very own heads. We could do all of these things- but only if we wanted to.
I think its important that everyone has a cosmic perspective and understand how much we’re worth. Our knowledge and technology are advancing rapidly - just look at how much we’ve grown as a species in the past several thousand years. Hence, my TEDx talk is all about making our time in the cosmos worthwhile. Its about time we became more ambitious.
What if every neuron in our brain was directly connected to every other neuron? Considering that our brains constitute of about 86 billion neurons, our brains would end up being gigantic! Computational scientists have estimated that if each of our brains were fully connected in the shape of a sphere, they would have to be 20 km in diameter. You can imagine the metabolic costs that would be required to manage such a big head (at the moment, our brains use 20% of our bodies’ energy supplies). Another disadvantage would be a slow in processing speed and synchronizing activity because of longer axons. This also would result in longer dendrites in order to increase the number of synapses.
It was because of all these reasons that our brains evolved to not allow all neurons to connect to one another. Hence, over the past several thousand years, as our brain size increased, the proportional connectivity of our brains decreased.
“Our brains are a vastly parallel and distributed system, each with a gazillion decision-making points and centers of integration. The 24/7 brain never stops managing our thoughts, desires, and bodies. The millions of networks are a sea of forces, not single soldiers waiting for the commander to speak. It is also a determined system, not a freewheeling cowboy acting outside the physical, chemical forces that fill up our universe. And yet, these modern-day facts do not in the least convince us there is not a central “you,” a “self” calling the shots in each of us. Again, that is the puzzle, and our task is to try and understand how it all might work.” - Michael S.Gazzaniga
We often like to tell ourselves that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, but research has constantly shown that, even though this is true to some extent, its not exactly the case.
To begin with, researchers at University College London have identified a region in the brain- the medial orbitofrontal cortex - that becomes active whenever we experience something beautiful. And by beautiful, I mean anything from a work of art to a piece of music or even an attractive face. In other words, the brain has mechanism to perceive and process beauty regardless of the source.
But why do we find some people more attractive than others? The answer to this question is far more complex than we can imagine but a few studies here and there are hinting us to the right direction. For instance, one of the main factors is face symmetry. The fact is that infections by parasite can lead to organisms growing asymmetric faces and in the past, our ancestors had to evolve to associate symmetrical features with a good immune systems. Of course, only those who mated with individuals who had a strong immune system would give rise to offspring that would survive and so the preference gradually developed. There have been numerous studies conducted that prove that even today, more symmetrical faces are preferred amongst human beings.
Of course, it doesn’t give a full detailed answer to why we prefer some faces over others let alone why we find certain things beautiful. Its merely a tiny an aspect of it. However, studies like this open up the possibility that perhaps we all have more in common in perceiving beauty than we think.
Diagnosing a zombie: Brain and body
Zombies eat brains. They are also, like all of us, driven by brain functions. What is happening in their brains to make them act as they do? In this intriguing dialogue, Tim Verstynen & Brad Voytek apply the various human medical possibilities that make zombies…zombies.
So if Zombies were real, neuroscientists would have excellent scientific explanations to describe their nature. How awesome is that?
To an ordinary individual, consciousness may not be so much of a dilemma. We exist and we’re self-aware, what else could possibly matter? Well, the problem with consciousness in science is such a big deal that if anyone were to ever solve it would be a scientific revolution.
So what exactly is the problem? Well, There are two. The easy problem and the hard problem.
There are some aspects of your thought processing, like your daydreams and plans for the day that you can think and contemplate on and so are conscious thoughts. Others like the rate of your heart, the rules of the order of words you apply to language, how you hold a pencil etc are mostly unconscious. The problem here is to accurately identify what is conscious and unconscious and find its correlates in the brain along with explaining why they evolved.
The hard problem is explaining why we feel a particular way when we are conscious. Why is there this rich subjective first-hand experience that allows us to experience ineffable things (like colors) and feel self-aware? How does such a subjective experience arise from neural computation and seemingly unaware matter? This problem is much harder because we have no idea what the solution to it would look like. Fascinatingly, many scientists argue on whether its a problem at all.
Music is a beautiful and significant part of being human.. Its a wonderful form of self-expression and the perfect way to connect with others. I personally like to indulge myself in music by playing the violin but you too may do so by singing, playing another instrument or even the mere act of listening to it. A beautiful piece of music can move us just like a captivating movie or splendid work of art. It can mean different things to different people and we all enjoy it in different ways.
It forms a very important part of all our lives and is widely popular throughout all cultures. But why? Well, turns out that the human brain finds music so important that it reacts to it the same way it would to other important things like eating or having sex. Researchers have found that listening to a pleasurable piece of music, whether it is a classic or hip-hop (different people like different things), releases surges of dopamine which is a chemical that allows us to feel pleasure.
This very chemical is released when we have a delicious meal, are in the middle of an orgasm or feeling euphoria from a drug. So you can imagine the intensity of pleasure that music can bring about to us as human beings.
