Being Human

University of Colorado at Boulder

A region of the human brain that scientists believe is critical to human intellectual abilities surprisingly functions much like a digital computer, according to psychology Professor Randall O'Reilly of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The finding could help researchers better understand the functioning of human intelligence.

In a review of biological computer models of the brain appearing in the Oct. 6 edition of the journal Science, O'Reilly contends that the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia operate much like a digital computer system.

"Many researchers who create these models shun the computer metaphor," O'Reilly said. "My work comes out of a tradition that says people's brains are nothing like computers, and now all of a sudden as we look at them, in fact, in a certain respect they are like computers."

Digital computers operate by turning electrical signals into binary "on and off states" and flexibly manipulating these states by using switches. O'Reilly found the same operating principles in the brain.

"The neurons in the prefrontal cortex are binary -- they have two states, either active or inactive -- and the basal ganglia is essentially a big switch that allows you to dynamically turn on and off different parts of the prefrontal cortex," O'Reilly said.

I've added a couple of new features that will help you to find things on the site:

1. A search box (upper right-hand corner). Now you can search by keywords to find posts and comments on the site.
2. Categories. Each post can now be assigned to a specific category. Please use the menu at the top of your post to choose a category. (If you don't see an appropriate one, then send me a message and I'll add it.)

[The following post was so relevant to our discussions, I stole the whole thing from Boing Boing]

Are people with autism disfunctional? Are psychopaths genetically adapted to survive by exploiting the rest of us?

CBC's Quirks and Quarks, my favorite science radio program, has run a couple of pieces recently about the idea that some of what we think of as "disorders" in human behavior can be more usefully treated as speciation -- a different kind of human.

Psychopaths: Quirks talks to research psychologists about the biological basis for psychopathy -- and the fact that psychopaths are sexually profligate and have lots of kids. Psychopathic rapists target fertile women -- not children or old women.

Dr. Marnie Rice is a psychologist with the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene, in Penetanguishene, Ontario. She studies criminal psychopaths who are incarcerated there. She views psychopathic behaviour as an evolved survival strategy. She says that there’s not a lot of evidence to suggest that psychopaths are mentally ill but there’s good reason to believe that their disturbing behaviour is an evolved trait. She says psychopaths have evolved to capitalize in a particular environmental niche -- namely preying on the rest of society.

Autism: A noted cognitive nueroscientist and one of his patients (who has autism) team up to advance the hypothesis that autism isn't a disorder, but simply a different kind of person. They say that arguing that autism makes you "good at numbers" but "bad at socializing" is like taking a dog and saying that it's a special kind of cat that's "bad at climbing" but "good at fetching slippers." Autism makes you a different kind of person, most usefully compared to other people with autism.

(The interesting part starts at 30 min. in, so jump ahead to that point.)

Be sure to watch the comments. Here are a couple of tests that will tell you if you are an empathizer or systematizer.

Sense of justice discovered in the brain - health - 05 October 2006 - New Scientist Tech

Sense of justice discovered in the brain

A brain region that curbs our natural self interest has been identified. The studies could explain how we control fairness in our society, researchers say.

Humans are the only animals to act spitefully or to mete out "justice", dishing out punishment to people seen to be behaving unfairly – even if it is not in the punisher's own best interests. This tendency has been hard to explain in evolutionary terms, because it has no obvious reproductive advantage and punishing unfairness can actually lead to the punisher being harmed.

Now, using a tool called the “ultimatum game”, researchers have identified the part of the brain responsible for punishing unfairness. Subjects were put into anonymous pairs, and one person in each pair was given $20 and asked to share it with the other. They could choose to offer any amount – if the second partner accepted it, they both got to keep their share.

Philosophy of Genetics: Development genes and stem cells

Development genes and stem cells

Human development is breathtaking in its complexity. After an egg is fertilized by a sperm, the cell starts to divide. Some of the earliest cells in the clump are known as embryonic stem cells because they can duplicate themselves endlessly, and change themselves (or differentiate) into any cell in the body by selectively switching off some of their genes.

Later, the cells become more specialized. The neural stem cells can only differentiate into neural cells of various kinds, and skin stem cells can only differentiate into skin cells (but not neural cells), even though the underlying genes in each cell are still the same (but selectively de-activated).

I want the note again how impressed I am with the way in which everyone has made use of the blog. I've witnessed topics from class being discussed on the blog, and topics from the blog crossing over into class. This is exactly what I'd hoped for -- that the conversation would become bigger than what we can do just in the classroom. So, good job!

I have a few thoughts that I hope will make the blog even more relevant to what we're doing:

• We've had lots of posts on a range of issues, many of which may not seem to be concerned with human development at first. I think this is fine (we're still breaking in the blog, and getting used to online conversation). And there isn't much that can't be connected to human development at some level. But, I'd like to suggest that everyone begin to focus in a little when considering what to choose as a topic. When you post something, be sure to comment about how it relates to the themes in the class.
• When you read other's posts, try to make a comment. Ask a question, make an observation, or connect the topic to something we've discussed in class. This might help our conversations go a little deeper, instead of being spread out over such a wide range of topics. If you are thinking about contributing on an specific issue, do a quick check to make sure that it isn't already being discussed on an existing thread.
• Support each other in thinking about things. If someone has posted something without making a connection to our work, engage that person by helping to make that connection. One of the great things about blogging is that it allows us to think as one mind. We are smarter together than we are individually, so use each other's minds to take these ideas further than we would be able to solo.

Remember, this is an experiment. I don't know of another class that has attempted to establish a true community blog as a learning tool. That means that y'all are blazing the trail. It also means that we're making this up as we go along, so be sure to pipe up if you're having any problems.

Just heard this fascinating installment of Open Source Radio about the ways in which marketing has dialed in to the mechanisms of the mind in order to manipulate our choices, especially about food, with such efficiency that we are unable to resist eating stuff that we don't want. This program is very relevant to the discussion that we've been having about the structure (and vulnerabilities) of the human mind.

Link.

From Mind Hacks:

ABC Radio's The Philosopher's Zone has just had two special editions on Freud and his relevance to modern day thinking.

The programmes look at two contrasting areas of his wide-ranging theories.

The first is on Freud's contribution to philosophy and the second contrasts Freud's theories of dreaming with modern dream science derived from neuroscience.

The discussion picks out theories which were seminal in igniting research, and those which have not stood the test of time.

For those wanting an almost entirely critical take on Freud, the Times Literary Supplement has a review of a Frederick Crews' new book entitled Follies of the Wise (ISBN 1593761015), which attempts to show that even many of Freud's more popular ideas are fundamentally flawed.

Taking pot shots at Freud is quite fashionable in this day and age. However, as Freud wrote so much and about so many different topics, it is easy to find something to criticise but difficult to dismiss all his ideas at once.

Link to Philosopher's Zone on Freud the Philosopher.

Link to Philosopher's Zone on The Dream Debate.

Link to TLS book review.

I listened to the first radio program about Freud as philosophy. It is rather sympathetic to Freud's ideas, but does bring out some good points. I think of Freud as primarily a philosopher, even with regard to psychology. It is hard to think of it as science, as it seems to really consist of a reformulation of Greek myths and intuition. It is pre-scientific (as all good philosophy is, really), because it provides a starting point, but is a metaphor just like the notion that the mind is a computer. That is a useful concept, and may generate some specific theories, but no one regards it as any more than a metaphor.

Mind Hacks

Science News reports on research that suggests that breastfed babies show measurable benefits in terms of action control and coordination.

The coordination of movement relies heavily on good general brain function. If you ever visit a neurologist for a neurological examination, you'll notice the majority of tests are to do with balance, muscle tone, movement and reflexes.

Hence, the examination of these functions can give a clue to how well the brain is developing.

A research team led by Dr Amanda Sacker set out to use these sort of tests to compare how breastfed and non-breastfed babies were developing.

To the researchers' surprise, [research collaborator] Kelly notes, children "were about 50 percent less likely to have a [developmental] delay if they had prolonged, exclusive breastfeeding when compared to those who were never breastfed." They defined breastfeeding as prolonged when it had lasted at least 4 months. Even babies receiving mother's milk for a short while—2 months or less—were 30 percent less likely to have a developmental delay than those who received solely infant formula, beginning right after birth.

The same team also recently reported results from another study that suggested that breastfeeding is linked to resilience in the face of psychological stress.

Link to Science News story.

[Brought to front page by Rick]