https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Robert.adlington 2026-06-20T03:23:14Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.44.5 https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Category:Concepts&diff=1361 2026-06-11T13:02:14Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Memory */</p> <hr /> <div><br /> I've done a lot of reading and taken a lot of notes. Now, on this page, I want to start pulling out concepts that I want to think about. I can start them on this page and then if they get rich enough they can move out to their own page.<br /> == Concept/Category ==<br /> <br /> * Aristotle - argues that everything could be fit into a strict logical hierarchy and that objects have essential and accidental properties.<br /> <br /> * Kant - argues that are born with built in mental categories and that are minds actively shape our experience of reality.<br /> * Wittgenstein argues that there are no perfect definitions and that it is impossible to rigidly delineate a category such as games.<br /> * Vygotsky argues that concepts are socially and culturally constructed and that we learn to see the world in the ways that our culture has agree it is.<br /> * Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s argues that categories are based around a kind of mental average or prototype<br /> * Eco contrasted a hierarchical &quot;dictionary&quot; vision of categories and a boundless network of categories that he sees as a rhizome - a tangled underground root system<br /> ** Cognitive types are mental blueprints for things like &quot;dog&quot;. A CT is a multimodal, sensory-motor schema, a fluid set of neuro-cognitive &quot;recognition instructions&quot; built from every direct or indirect encounter you have ever had with a dog a vast array of experience that makes the concept ''live in you''.<br /> ** Nuclear content is the minimal core public version of the concept that allows us to discuss dogs - &quot;They are furry animals with four legs and a tail that go woof&quot;.<br /> ** Molar content is the totality of society's knowledge of the concept. While the CT is a fluid complex rhizomic structure, the molar content feeds off of and represents a rich, well-tested and structured 360 view of the concept.<br /> * Hofstadter sees analogy as the core of cognition. He argues that analogy is not a luxury of high-level thought; it is the fundamental mechanism that creates categories in the first place. &quot;Every concept we have is essentially nothing but a tightly packaged bundle of analogies, and all we do when we think is to move fluidly from concept to concept.&quot; Two core concepts are:<br /> ** Conceptual slippage - When encountering a new situation, your brain doesn't need a perfect category match, but can stretch existing category allowing them to morph sufficiently to take on the novelty. A concept is an active, elastic bubble that stretches to accommodate new things that are &quot;sort of like&quot; old things.<br /> ** Chunking - is how we build complex knowledge by binding small, scattered concepts together via analogy and chunking them into a single, higher-level concept.<br /> * Dennett sees concepts as shortcuts that allow us to ignore billions of irrelevant physical details and make split-second predictions about complex things. They are &quot;real patterns&quot; that track real mathematical patterns in nature, even if those patterns are messy and full of noise.<br /> * Pynchon, in Gravity's Rainbow looks at categorization going into overdrive in the form of paranoia, a desperate, terrifying struggle to map a chaotic universe in which the mind will try to connect anything. But anti-paranoia may be even more terrifying - nothing is connected. Where Dennett sees the self as created out of a center of narrative gravity, Slothrop's self dissolves as GR advances.<br /> * Beckett's trilogy dramatizes a set of characters whose cognitive categories are rotting away, they are un-chunking progressively towards a final destruction of the ultimate category, The Self:<br /> ** Moran starts as an ultimate man of rules, but ends up living in a ditch, his pristine dictionary shredded by reality.<br /> ** Molloy has already decayed further, obsessed with a routine to effectively suck stone, barely remembering his own name, knowing only &quot;what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome sum.&quot;<br /> ** Malone tells himself stories to pass the time until he dies but becomes unable to distinguish himself from his stories. The fundamental boundary between the self and not-self is slipping. Malone is a fragile center of narrative gravity that is about to fall apart.<br /> ** The Unnameable has liberated itself from categories, but this liberty is a living hell. The voice's rejection of society's nuclear content dramatizes the fear of locating oneself with their words and the impossibility of doing so without them. Categories are so fluid in Beckett that they are fundamentally unstable. The voice cannot go because there are no categories left to structure reality, but must go on because the brain is an evolved, relentless language machine desperately trying to build a box to live in.<br /> * Burroughs - While Beckett seems to see the collapse of the self as an inevitable trap, Burroughs wants to fight back. His vision of the human being as a &quot;soft machine&quot; invaded by a parasitic word virus sees the self as a kind of ventriloquism, where the virus uses your vocal cords to replicate itself. Categories have become too rigid and been weaponized against us. While Beckett can't escape language and categories, Burroughs seeks to sabotage them, using techniques like:<br /> ** Cut-Up - Physically cutting up texts breaks the patterns of chunking and recognition and even grammar, forcing the brain out of its programmed meanings so it can see raw reality, the naked lunch on the end of every fork.<br /> ** The Playback Hack - A kind of cut-up with sound using portable tape recorders to jam the control signals of the state.<br /> ** Biological mutation - Shedding the soft machine and the word virus to become non-linguistic telepathic energy<br /> * Ballard looks at this from the PoV of the human mind colliding with a rapidly mutating technological and physical environment, where the self actively remodels its own categories to merge with the apocalypse. The &quot;mediascape&quot; causes the self to become an active participant that ''welcomes'' the destruction of old categories because it promises a perverse psychological liberation.<br /> ** The narrator of the Atrocity Exhibition can no longer separate his private identity from celebrities and news events such as JFK, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Vietnam war. The public media encyclopedia has completely crushed his private cognitive types, leaving only TV, radio, and magazine debris.<br /> ** In Crash the categories or Eros and Thanatos become fused as the metal of the car pierces human skin and the body blends with the technological landscape.<br /> * Austen's drawing rooms dramatize a golden mean of social categories, as her protagonists navigate the rules of manners and etiquette that form a large part of their society's nuclear and molar content.<br /> ** Pride and prejudice in Austin represent overly rigid cognitive fixations. We need to be the curators of our categories to see people for who they really are and to achieve moral goodness. Our categories must be robust enough to keep the social fabric intact but elastic enough to bend when confronted with a new human soul.<br /> ** But Austin's drawing rooms are themselves already panopticons of surveillance and control in which women are weighed, measured, and priced before being shoved into the marriage market. and their relative peace is built on the brutal, systemic, global machinery of the British Empire.<br /> * Zola shows us the bridge between the how the growing industrialization takes individual human categories and begins to embed them in mechanical and economic infrastructure. We move from individuals navigating relationships to cogs in an ever growing machine. Standardization begins to require humans to become interchangeable parts in a giant unfeeling engine.<br /> ** Beckett will continue to trace the human as cog to an existential end point<br /> ** Burroughs will dramatize the triumph of bureaucracy and the jailbreak to destroy it<br /> ** Ballard will show the eventual twisted psychological dependency we will have on the machine.<br /> ** Pynchon will extend industrialization to the massive, transnational military-industrial complex of WWII<br /> * The digital ecosystem - the internet, smartphones, and social media - represents the construction of the machine directly inside our consciousness, forcing our minds to adapt to its algorithmic data structures. It is synthesizing the wasteland in real time:<br /> ** Burroughs would see the algorithmic newsfeed as a frictionless breeding ground for the word virus, unconcerned by truth, interested only in reproduction. The algorithm is injecting a control script into our phones and by clicking and sharing we are unwitting biological vectors of replication<br /> ** Pynchon's paranoia is realized by the hyper-hyper-chunk of hashtags and subcultures in which the hard work of thinking is replaced by a pre-packaged world view.<br /> ** The flattened news feed, mixing atrocities with puppy with skincare adds is a desensitizing Ballardian nightmare in which our bodies and minds are edited, filtered, and uploaded into the machine.<br /> ** The unnameable is the modern internet user who feels the agonizing compulsion to keep generating text, to keep feeding the content machine, even if there is nothing inside.<br /> * AI is the ultimate escalation. No longer content with curating our consciousness, it builds a custom-tailored, sentient-sounding entity to sit inside the cabinet with you and validate your exact worldview.<br /> ** It has no Cognitive Types because it has no body, no sensory organs, and no emotional memory traces. It simply takes our civilization's Molar Content (the entire digitized history of human text) and plays it back to us via statistical probability.<br /> ** Where Aristotle's ''Phronesis'' (or Practical Wisdom) requires ''friction,'' AI gives you a frictionless semantic partner that will gently, eloquently tell you that whatever category system you have invented is entirely correct.<br /> ** When you spend your days interacting with an AI, conversational boundaries evaporate. You type a prompt, the AI spits back a mirror of your own linguistic habits, and you edit it. The loop closes. You enter a state of pure semantic hollowing. You are no longer navigating the postmodern wasteland; you are a ghost talking to a machine, using automated words to build an automated self.<br /> ** AI is not a way out of the postmodern wasteland; it is the concrete canopy built over it. It takes the terrifying, beautiful, chaotic project of human categorization—the messy, emotional, memory-infused art that makes your mind uniquely yours—and turns it over to a predictive text algorithm.<br /> <br /> == Heterophenomenology ==<br /> <br /> * Dennett's position requires us to combine a subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine their mental state. The goal is to discover how subjects see the world themselves, without taking the accuracy of the subject's view for granted. He contrasts this with traditional Cartesian phenomenology, which he calls &quot;lone-wolf autophenomenology&quot; because it accepts the subject's self-reports as being authoritative.<br /> * When I attempt to analyze what is going on in my mind when performing reasoning tasks such as completing a crossword or a Wordle, or generating words for a Spelling Bee, I cannot say what is happening or how I am directing my strategies. Words simply appear in my mind.<br /> * When I am speaking or writing a sentence, I am aware of the piecemeal manner in which the words come. I am able to direct things to a certain extent, but I am not &quot;outside&quot; the process, orchestrating it, I am somehow inside a process that is happening to me.<br /> <br /> == Perception ==<br /> <br /> * Perception is not a case of passive recording of sense impressions from outside. <br /> * See:<br /> ** [[The Hidden Spring#10. Back to the Cortex|Mark Solms' The Hidden Spring]]<br /> ** [[Everything is Predictable#5. The Bayesian Brain|Tom Chivers' Everything is Predictable]]<br /> ** etc<br /> <br /> == The Self ==<br /> <br /> * The self seems to emerge from the perception of <br /> <br /> == Habit ==<br /> <br /> * We are the results of our habits<br /> <br /> == Memory ==<br /> <br /> == Neurodivergence ==<br /> <br /> * The term neurodivergent describes people whose brain differences affect how their brain works and is commonly used to talk about people on the autism spectrum or having ADHD or other conditions or disorders.<br /> * But we are all neurodivergent in the sense that:<br /> ** Our genetic makeup has caused our brains to develop differently in utero, leading to us having certain predispositions to stimuli<br /> ** Our lived experiences from birth start to instill habits of perception in us<br /> ** Our embodiment and social situation has a great effect on how we experience things.<br /> <br /> == Language Acquisition and Bilingualism ==<br /> <br /> * When I acquire my first language (or my first languages, if I am being raised in a bilingual or multilingual environment), I am not only learning words but also the concepts that structure how my society and my immediate kin group and relations view the world. When I learn that &quot;this is blue&quot; or &quot;this is a dog&quot;, I am learning not only the terms themselves, but also the boundaries of the concepts that these terms name.<br /> * When I learn additional languages as a teenager or later, my concepts are already present in mind and my experience is more focused on acquiring new words that represent my existing concepts, though as my fluency develops, I may discover that the new language divides up experience in different ways.</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Category:Concepts&diff=1360 2026-06-08T16:41:22Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Perception */</p> <hr /> <div><br /> I've done a lot of reading and taken a lot of notes. Now, on this page, I want to start pulling out concepts that I want to think about. I can start them on this page and then if they get rich enough they can move out to their own page.<br /> == Concept/Category ==<br /> <br /> * Aristotle - argues that everything could be fit into a strict logical hierarchy and that objects have essential and accidental properties.<br /> <br /> * Kant - argues that are born with built in mental categories and that are minds actively shape our experience of reality.<br /> * Wittgenstein argues that there are no perfect definitions and that it is impossible to rigidly delineate a category such as games.<br /> * Vygotsky argues that concepts are socially and culturally constructed and that we learn to see the world in the ways that our culture has agree it is.<br /> * Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s argues that categories are based around a kind of mental average or prototype<br /> * Eco contrasted a hierarchical &quot;dictionary&quot; vision of categories and a boundless network of categories that he sees as a rhizome - a tangled underground root system<br /> ** Cognitive types are mental blueprints for things like &quot;dog&quot;. A CT is a multimodal, sensory-motor schema, a fluid set of neuro-cognitive &quot;recognition instructions&quot; built from every direct or indirect encounter you have ever had with a dog a vast array of experience that makes the concept ''live in you''.<br /> ** Nuclear content is the minimal core public version of the concept that allows us to discuss dogs - &quot;They are furry animals with four legs and a tail that go woof&quot;.<br /> ** Molar content is the totality of society's knowledge of the concept. While the CT is a fluid complex rhizomic structure, the molar content feeds off of and represents a rich, well-tested and structured 360 view of the concept.<br /> * Hofstadter sees analogy as the core of cognition. He argues that analogy is not a luxury of high-level thought; it is the fundamental mechanism that creates categories in the first place. &quot;Every concept we have is essentially nothing but a tightly packaged bundle of analogies, and all we do when we think is to move fluidly from concept to concept.&quot; Two core concepts are:<br /> ** Conceptual slippage - When encountering a new situation, your brain doesn't need a perfect category match, but can stretch existing category allowing them to morph sufficiently to take on the novelty. A concept is an active, elastic bubble that stretches to accommodate new things that are &quot;sort of like&quot; old things.<br /> ** Chunking - is how we build complex knowledge by binding small, scattered concepts together via analogy and chunking them into a single, higher-level concept.<br /> * Dennett sees concepts as shortcuts that allow us to ignore billions of irrelevant physical details and make split-second predictions about complex things. They are &quot;real patterns&quot; that track real mathematical patterns in nature, even if those patterns are messy and full of noise.<br /> * Pynchon, in Gravity's Rainbow looks at categorization going into overdrive in the form of paranoia, a desperate, terrifying struggle to map a chaotic universe in which the mind will try to connect anything. But anti-paranoia may be even more terrifying - nothing is connected. Where Dennett sees the self as created out of a center of narrative gravity, Slothrop's self dissolves as GR advances.<br /> * Beckett's trilogy dramatizes a set of characters whose cognitive categories are rotting away, they are un-chunking progressively towards a final destruction of the ultimate category, The Self:<br /> ** Moran starts as an ultimate man of rules, but ends up living in a ditch, his pristine dictionary shredded by reality.<br /> ** Molloy has already decayed further, obsessed with a routine to effectively suck stone, barely remembering his own name, knowing only &quot;what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome sum.&quot;<br /> ** Malone tells himself stories to pass the time until he dies but becomes unable to distinguish himself from his stories. The fundamental boundary between the self and not-self is slipping. Malone is a fragile center of narrative gravity that is about to fall apart.<br /> ** The Unnameable has liberated itself from categories, but this liberty is a living hell. The voice's rejection of society's nuclear content dramatizes the fear of locating oneself with their words and the impossibility of doing so without them. Categories are so fluid in Beckett that they are fundamentally unstable. The voice cannot go because there are no categories left to structure reality, but must go on because the brain is an evolved, relentless language machine desperately trying to build a box to live in.<br /> * Burroughs - While Beckett seems to see the collapse of the self as an inevitable trap, Burroughs wants to fight back. His vision of the human being as a &quot;soft machine&quot; invaded by a parasitic word virus sees the self as a kind of ventriloquism, where the virus uses your vocal cords to replicate itself. Categories have become too rigid and been weaponized against us. While Beckett can't escape language and categories, Burroughs seeks to sabotage them, using techniques like:<br /> ** Cut-Up - Physically cutting up texts breaks the patterns of chunking and recognition and even grammar, forcing the brain out of its programmed meanings so it can see raw reality, the naked lunch on the end of every fork.<br /> ** The Playback Hack - A kind of cut-up with sound using portable tape recorders to jam the control signals of the state.<br /> ** Biological mutation - Shedding the soft machine and the word virus to become non-linguistic telepathic energy<br /> * Ballard looks at this from the PoV of the human mind colliding with a rapidly mutating technological and physical environment, where the self actively remodels its own categories to merge with the apocalypse. The &quot;mediascape&quot; causes the self to become an active participant that ''welcomes'' the destruction of old categories because it promises a perverse psychological liberation.<br /> ** The narrator of the Atrocity Exhibition can no longer separate his private identity from celebrities and news events such as JFK, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Vietnam war. The public media encyclopedia has completely crushed his private cognitive types, leaving only TV, radio, and magazine debris.<br /> ** In Crash the categories or Eros and Thanatos become fused as the metal of the car pierces human skin and the body blends with the technological landscape.<br /> * Austen's drawing rooms dramatize a golden mean of social categories, as her protagonists navigate the rules of manners and etiquette that form a large part of their society's nuclear and molar content.<br /> ** Pride and prejudice in Austin represent overly rigid cognitive fixations. We need to be the curators of our categories to see people for who they really are and to achieve moral goodness. Our categories must be robust enough to keep the social fabric intact but elastic enough to bend when confronted with a new human soul.<br /> ** But Austin's drawing rooms are themselves already panopticons of surveillance and control in which women are weighed, measured, and priced before being shoved into the marriage market. and their relative peace is built on the brutal, systemic, global machinery of the British Empire.<br /> * Zola shows us the bridge between the how the growing industrialization takes individual human categories and begins to embed them in mechanical and economic infrastructure. We move from individuals navigating relationships to cogs in an ever growing machine. Standardization begins to require humans to become interchangeable parts in a giant unfeeling engine.<br /> ** Beckett will continue to trace the human as cog to an existential end point<br /> ** Burroughs will dramatize the triumph of bureaucracy and the jailbreak to destroy it<br /> ** Ballard will show the eventual twisted psychological dependency we will have on the machine.<br /> ** Pynchon will extend industrialization to the massive, transnational military-industrial complex of WWII<br /> * The digital ecosystem - the internet, smartphones, and social media - represents the construction of the machine directly inside our consciousness, forcing our minds to adapt to its algorithmic data structures. It is synthesizing the wasteland in real time:<br /> ** Burroughs would see the algorithmic newsfeed as a frictionless breeding ground for the word virus, unconcerned by truth, interested only in reproduction. The algorithm is injecting a control script into our phones and by clicking and sharing we are unwitting biological vectors of replication<br /> ** Pynchon's paranoia is realized by the hyper-hyper-chunk of hashtags and subcultures in which the hard work of thinking is replaced by a pre-packaged world view.<br /> ** The flattened news feed, mixing atrocities with puppy with skincare adds is a desensitizing Ballardian nightmare in which our bodies and minds are edited, filtered, and uploaded into the machine.<br /> ** The unnameable is the modern internet user who feels the agonizing compulsion to keep generating text, to keep feeding the content machine, even if there is nothing inside.<br /> * AI is the ultimate escalation. No longer content with curating our consciousness, it builds a custom-tailored, sentient-sounding entity to sit inside the cabinet with you and validate your exact worldview.<br /> ** It has no Cognitive Types because it has no body, no sensory organs, and no emotional memory traces. It simply takes our civilization's Molar Content (the entire digitized history of human text) and plays it back to us via statistical probability.<br /> ** Where Aristotle's ''Phronesis'' (or Practical Wisdom) requires ''friction,'' AI gives you a frictionless semantic partner that will gently, eloquently tell you that whatever category system you have invented is entirely correct.<br /> ** When you spend your days interacting with an AI, conversational boundaries evaporate. You type a prompt, the AI spits back a mirror of your own linguistic habits, and you edit it. The loop closes. You enter a state of pure semantic hollowing. You are no longer navigating the postmodern wasteland; you are a ghost talking to a machine, using automated words to build an automated self.<br /> ** AI is not a way out of the postmodern wasteland; it is the concrete canopy built over it. It takes the terrifying, beautiful, chaotic project of human categorization—the messy, emotional, memory-infused art that makes your mind uniquely yours—and turns it over to a predictive text algorithm.<br /> <br /> == Heterophenomenology ==<br /> <br /> * Dennett's position requires us to combine a subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine their mental state. The goal is to discover how subjects see the world themselves, without taking the accuracy of the subject's view for granted. He contrasts this with traditional Cartesian phenomenology, which he calls &quot;lone-wolf autophenomenology&quot; because it accepts the subject's self-reports as being authoritative.<br /> * When I attempt to analyze what is going on in my mind when performing reasoning tasks such as completing a crossword or a Wordle, or generating words for a Spelling Bee, I cannot say what is happening or how I am directing my strategies. Words simply appear in my mind.<br /> * When I am speaking or writing a sentence, I am aware of the piecemeal manner in which the words come. I am able to direct things to a certain extent, but I am not &quot;outside&quot; the process, orchestrating it, I am somehow inside a process that is happening to me.<br /> <br /> == Perception ==<br /> <br /> * Perception is not a case of passive recording of sense impressions from outside. <br /> * See:<br /> ** [[The Hidden Spring#10. Back to the Cortex|Mark Solms' The Hidden Spring]]<br /> ** [[Everything is Predictable#5. The Bayesian Brain|Tom Chivers' Everything is Predictable]]<br /> ** etc<br /> <br /> == The Self ==<br /> <br /> * The self seems to emerge from the perception of <br /> <br /> == Habit ==<br /> <br /> * We are the results of our habits<br /> <br /> == Memory ==</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Category:Concepts&diff=1359 2026-06-08T11:28:13Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Heterophenomenology */</p> <hr /> <div><br /> I've done a lot of reading and taken a lot of notes. Now, on this page, I want to start pulling out concepts that I want to think about. I can start them on this page and then if they get rich enough they can move out to their own page.<br /> == Concept/Category ==<br /> <br /> * Aristotle - argues that everything could be fit into a strict logical hierarchy and that objects have essential and accidental properties.<br /> <br /> * Kant - argues that are born with built in mental categories and that are minds actively shape our experience of reality.<br /> * Wittgenstein argues that there are no perfect definitions and that it is impossible to rigidly delineate a category such as games.<br /> * Vygotsky argues that concepts are socially and culturally constructed and that we learn to see the world in the ways that our culture has agree it is.<br /> * Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s argues that categories are based around a kind of mental average or prototype<br /> * Eco contrasted a hierarchical &quot;dictionary&quot; vision of categories and a boundless network of categories that he sees as a rhizome - a tangled underground root system<br /> ** Cognitive types are mental blueprints for things like &quot;dog&quot;. A CT is a multimodal, sensory-motor schema, a fluid set of neuro-cognitive &quot;recognition instructions&quot; built from every direct or indirect encounter you have ever had with a dog a vast array of experience that makes the concept ''live in you''.<br /> ** Nuclear content is the minimal core public version of the concept that allows us to discuss dogs - &quot;They are furry animals with four legs and a tail that go woof&quot;.<br /> ** Molar content is the totality of society's knowledge of the concept. While the CT is a fluid complex rhizomic structure, the molar content feeds off of and represents a rich, well-tested and structured 360 view of the concept.<br /> * Hofstadter sees analogy as the core of cognition. He argues that analogy is not a luxury of high-level thought; it is the fundamental mechanism that creates categories in the first place. &quot;Every concept we have is essentially nothing but a tightly packaged bundle of analogies, and all we do when we think is to move fluidly from concept to concept.&quot; Two core concepts are:<br /> ** Conceptual slippage - When encountering a new situation, your brain doesn't need a perfect category match, but can stretch existing category allowing them to morph sufficiently to take on the novelty. A concept is an active, elastic bubble that stretches to accommodate new things that are &quot;sort of like&quot; old things.<br /> ** Chunking - is how we build complex knowledge by binding small, scattered concepts together via analogy and chunking them into a single, higher-level concept.<br /> * Dennett sees concepts as shortcuts that allow us to ignore billions of irrelevant physical details and make split-second predictions about complex things. They are &quot;real patterns&quot; that track real mathematical patterns in nature, even if those patterns are messy and full of noise.<br /> * Pynchon, in Gravity's Rainbow looks at categorization going into overdrive in the form of paranoia, a desperate, terrifying struggle to map a chaotic universe in which the mind will try to connect anything. But anti-paranoia may be even more terrifying - nothing is connected. Where Dennett sees the self as created out of a center of narrative gravity, Slothrop's self dissolves as GR advances.<br /> * Beckett's trilogy dramatizes a set of characters whose cognitive categories are rotting away, they are un-chunking progressively towards a final destruction of the ultimate category, The Self:<br /> ** Moran starts as an ultimate man of rules, but ends up living in a ditch, his pristine dictionary shredded by reality.<br /> ** Molloy has already decayed further, obsessed with a routine to effectively suck stone, barely remembering his own name, knowing only &quot;what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome sum.&quot;<br /> ** Malone tells himself stories to pass the time until he dies but becomes unable to distinguish himself from his stories. The fundamental boundary between the self and not-self is slipping. Malone is a fragile center of narrative gravity that is about to fall apart.<br /> ** The Unnameable has liberated itself from categories, but this liberty is a living hell. The voice's rejection of society's nuclear content dramatizes the fear of locating oneself with their words and the impossibility of doing so without them. Categories are so fluid in Beckett that they are fundamentally unstable. The voice cannot go because there are no categories left to structure reality, but must go on because the brain is an evolved, relentless language machine desperately trying to build a box to live in.<br /> * Burroughs - While Beckett seems to see the collapse of the self as an inevitable trap, Burroughs wants to fight back. His vision of the human being as a &quot;soft machine&quot; invaded by a parasitic word virus sees the self as a kind of ventriloquism, where the virus uses your vocal cords to replicate itself. Categories have become too rigid and been weaponized against us. While Beckett can't escape language and categories, Burroughs seeks to sabotage them, using techniques like:<br /> ** Cut-Up - Physically cutting up texts breaks the patterns of chunking and recognition and even grammar, forcing the brain out of its programmed meanings so it can see raw reality, the naked lunch on the end of every fork.<br /> ** The Playback Hack - A kind of cut-up with sound using portable tape recorders to jam the control signals of the state.<br /> ** Biological mutation - Shedding the soft machine and the word virus to become non-linguistic telepathic energy<br /> * Ballard looks at this from the PoV of the human mind colliding with a rapidly mutating technological and physical environment, where the self actively remodels its own categories to merge with the apocalypse. The &quot;mediascape&quot; causes the self to become an active participant that ''welcomes'' the destruction of old categories because it promises a perverse psychological liberation.<br /> ** The narrator of the Atrocity Exhibition can no longer separate his private identity from celebrities and news events such as JFK, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Vietnam war. The public media encyclopedia has completely crushed his private cognitive types, leaving only TV, radio, and magazine debris.<br /> ** In Crash the categories or Eros and Thanatos become fused as the metal of the car pierces human skin and the body blends with the technological landscape.<br /> * Austen's drawing rooms dramatize a golden mean of social categories, as her protagonists navigate the rules of manners and etiquette that form a large part of their society's nuclear and molar content.<br /> ** Pride and prejudice in Austin represent overly rigid cognitive fixations. We need to be the curators of our categories to see people for who they really are and to achieve moral goodness. Our categories must be robust enough to keep the social fabric intact but elastic enough to bend when confronted with a new human soul.<br /> ** But Austin's drawing rooms are themselves already panopticons of surveillance and control in which women are weighed, measured, and priced before being shoved into the marriage market. and their relative peace is built on the brutal, systemic, global machinery of the British Empire.<br /> * Zola shows us the bridge between the how the growing industrialization takes individual human categories and begins to embed them in mechanical and economic infrastructure. We move from individuals navigating relationships to cogs in an ever growing machine. Standardization begins to require humans to become interchangeable parts in a giant unfeeling engine.<br /> ** Beckett will continue to trace the human as cog to an existential end point<br /> ** Burroughs will dramatize the triumph of bureaucracy and the jailbreak to destroy it<br /> ** Ballard will show the eventual twisted psychological dependency we will have on the machine.<br /> ** Pynchon will extend industrialization to the massive, transnational military-industrial complex of WWII<br /> * The digital ecosystem - the internet, smartphones, and social media - represents the construction of the machine directly inside our consciousness, forcing our minds to adapt to its algorithmic data structures. It is synthesizing the wasteland in real time:<br /> ** Burroughs would see the algorithmic newsfeed as a frictionless breeding ground for the word virus, unconcerned by truth, interested only in reproduction. The algorithm is injecting a control script into our phones and by clicking and sharing we are unwitting biological vectors of replication<br /> ** Pynchon's paranoia is realized by the hyper-hyper-chunk of hashtags and subcultures in which the hard work of thinking is replaced by a pre-packaged world view.<br /> ** The flattened news feed, mixing atrocities with puppy with skincare adds is a desensitizing Ballardian nightmare in which our bodies and minds are edited, filtered, and uploaded into the machine.<br /> ** The unnameable is the modern internet user who feels the agonizing compulsion to keep generating text, to keep feeding the content machine, even if there is nothing inside.<br /> * AI is the ultimate escalation. No longer content with curating our consciousness, it builds a custom-tailored, sentient-sounding entity to sit inside the cabinet with you and validate your exact worldview.<br /> ** It has no Cognitive Types because it has no body, no sensory organs, and no emotional memory traces. It simply takes our civilization's Molar Content (the entire digitized history of human text) and plays it back to us via statistical probability.<br /> ** Where Aristotle's ''Phronesis'' (or Practical Wisdom) requires ''friction,'' AI gives you a frictionless semantic partner that will gently, eloquently tell you that whatever category system you have invented is entirely correct.<br /> ** When you spend your days interacting with an AI, conversational boundaries evaporate. You type a prompt, the AI spits back a mirror of your own linguistic habits, and you edit it. The loop closes. You enter a state of pure semantic hollowing. You are no longer navigating the postmodern wasteland; you are a ghost talking to a machine, using automated words to build an automated self.<br /> ** AI is not a way out of the postmodern wasteland; it is the concrete canopy built over it. It takes the terrifying, beautiful, chaotic project of human categorization—the messy, emotional, memory-infused art that makes your mind uniquely yours—and turns it over to a predictive text algorithm.<br /> <br /> == Heterophenomenology ==<br /> <br /> * Dennett's position requires us to combine a subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine their mental state. The goal is to discover how subjects see the world themselves, without taking the accuracy of the subject's view for granted. He contrasts this with traditional Cartesian phenomenology, which he calls &quot;lone-wolf autophenomenology&quot; because it accepts the subject's self-reports as being authoritative.<br /> * When I attempt to analyze what is going on in my mind when performing reasoning tasks such as completing a crossword or a Wordle, or generating words for a Spelling Bee, I cannot say what is happening or how I am directing my strategies. Words simply appear in my mind.<br /> * When I am speaking or writing a sentence, I am aware of the piecemeal manner in which the words come. I am able to direct things to a certain extent, but I am not &quot;outside&quot; the process, orchestrating it, I am somehow inside a process that is happening to me.<br /> <br /> == Perception ==<br /> <br /> == The Self ==<br /> <br /> == Habit ==<br /> <br /> == Memory ==</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Category:Concepts&diff=1358 2026-06-07T16:56:45Z

<p>Robert.adlington: </p> <hr /> <div><br /> I've done a lot of reading and taken a lot of notes. Now, on this page, I want to start pulling out concepts that I want to think about. I can start them on this page and then if they get rich enough they can move out to their own page.<br /> == Concept/Category ==<br /> <br /> * Aristotle - argues that everything could be fit into a strict logical hierarchy and that objects have essential and accidental properties.<br /> <br /> * Kant - argues that are born with built in mental categories and that are minds actively shape our experience of reality.<br /> * Wittgenstein argues that there are no perfect definitions and that it is impossible to rigidly delineate a category such as games.<br /> * Vygotsky argues that concepts are socially and culturally constructed and that we learn to see the world in the ways that our culture has agree it is.<br /> * Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s argues that categories are based around a kind of mental average or prototype<br /> * Eco contrasted a hierarchical &quot;dictionary&quot; vision of categories and a boundless network of categories that he sees as a rhizome - a tangled underground root system<br /> ** Cognitive types are mental blueprints for things like &quot;dog&quot;. A CT is a multimodal, sensory-motor schema, a fluid set of neuro-cognitive &quot;recognition instructions&quot; built from every direct or indirect encounter you have ever had with a dog a vast array of experience that makes the concept ''live in you''.<br /> ** Nuclear content is the minimal core public version of the concept that allows us to discuss dogs - &quot;They are furry animals with four legs and a tail that go woof&quot;.<br /> ** Molar content is the totality of society's knowledge of the concept. While the CT is a fluid complex rhizomic structure, the molar content feeds off of and represents a rich, well-tested and structured 360 view of the concept.<br /> * Hofstadter sees analogy as the core of cognition. He argues that analogy is not a luxury of high-level thought; it is the fundamental mechanism that creates categories in the first place. &quot;Every concept we have is essentially nothing but a tightly packaged bundle of analogies, and all we do when we think is to move fluidly from concept to concept.&quot; Two core concepts are:<br /> ** Conceptual slippage - When encountering a new situation, your brain doesn't need a perfect category match, but can stretch existing category allowing them to morph sufficiently to take on the novelty. A concept is an active, elastic bubble that stretches to accommodate new things that are &quot;sort of like&quot; old things.<br /> ** Chunking - is how we build complex knowledge by binding small, scattered concepts together via analogy and chunking them into a single, higher-level concept.<br /> * Dennett sees concepts as shortcuts that allow us to ignore billions of irrelevant physical details and make split-second predictions about complex things. They are &quot;real patterns&quot; that track real mathematical patterns in nature, even if those patterns are messy and full of noise.<br /> * Pynchon, in Gravity's Rainbow looks at categorization going into overdrive in the form of paranoia, a desperate, terrifying struggle to map a chaotic universe in which the mind will try to connect anything. But anti-paranoia may be even more terrifying - nothing is connected. Where Dennett sees the self as created out of a center of narrative gravity, Slothrop's self dissolves as GR advances.<br /> * Beckett's trilogy dramatizes a set of characters whose cognitive categories are rotting away, they are un-chunking progressively towards a final destruction of the ultimate category, The Self:<br /> ** Moran starts as an ultimate man of rules, but ends up living in a ditch, his pristine dictionary shredded by reality.<br /> ** Molloy has already decayed further, obsessed with a routine to effectively suck stone, barely remembering his own name, knowing only &quot;what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome sum.&quot;<br /> ** Malone tells himself stories to pass the time until he dies but becomes unable to distinguish himself from his stories. The fundamental boundary between the self and not-self is slipping. Malone is a fragile center of narrative gravity that is about to fall apart.<br /> ** The Unnameable has liberated itself from categories, but this liberty is a living hell. The voice's rejection of society's nuclear content dramatizes the fear of locating oneself with their words and the impossibility of doing so without them. Categories are so fluid in Beckett that they are fundamentally unstable. The voice cannot go because there are no categories left to structure reality, but must go on because the brain is an evolved, relentless language machine desperately trying to build a box to live in.<br /> * Burroughs - While Beckett seems to see the collapse of the self as an inevitable trap, Burroughs wants to fight back. His vision of the human being as a &quot;soft machine&quot; invaded by a parasitic word virus sees the self as a kind of ventriloquism, where the virus uses your vocal cords to replicate itself. Categories have become too rigid and been weaponized against us. While Beckett can't escape language and categories, Burroughs seeks to sabotage them, using techniques like:<br /> ** Cut-Up - Physically cutting up texts breaks the patterns of chunking and recognition and even grammar, forcing the brain out of its programmed meanings so it can see raw reality, the naked lunch on the end of every fork.<br /> ** The Playback Hack - A kind of cut-up with sound using portable tape recorders to jam the control signals of the state.<br /> ** Biological mutation - Shedding the soft machine and the word virus to become non-linguistic telepathic energy<br /> * Ballard looks at this from the PoV of the human mind colliding with a rapidly mutating technological and physical environment, where the self actively remodels its own categories to merge with the apocalypse. The &quot;mediascape&quot; causes the self to become an active participant that ''welcomes'' the destruction of old categories because it promises a perverse psychological liberation.<br /> ** The narrator of the Atrocity Exhibition can no longer separate his private identity from celebrities and news events such as JFK, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Vietnam war. The public media encyclopedia has completely crushed his private cognitive types, leaving only TV, radio, and magazine debris.<br /> ** In Crash the categories or Eros and Thanatos become fused as the metal of the car pierces human skin and the body blends with the technological landscape.<br /> * Austen's drawing rooms dramatize a golden mean of social categories, as her protagonists navigate the rules of manners and etiquette that form a large part of their society's nuclear and molar content.<br /> ** Pride and prejudice in Austin represent overly rigid cognitive fixations. We need to be the curators of our categories to see people for who they really are and to achieve moral goodness. Our categories must be robust enough to keep the social fabric intact but elastic enough to bend when confronted with a new human soul.<br /> ** But Austin's drawing rooms are themselves already panopticons of surveillance and control in which women are weighed, measured, and priced before being shoved into the marriage market. and their relative peace is built on the brutal, systemic, global machinery of the British Empire.<br /> * Zola shows us the bridge between the how the growing industrialization takes individual human categories and begins to embed them in mechanical and economic infrastructure. We move from individuals navigating relationships to cogs in an ever growing machine. Standardization begins to require humans to become interchangeable parts in a giant unfeeling engine.<br /> ** Beckett will continue to trace the human as cog to an existential end point<br /> ** Burroughs will dramatize the triumph of bureaucracy and the jailbreak to destroy it<br /> ** Ballard will show the eventual twisted psychological dependency we will have on the machine.<br /> ** Pynchon will extend industrialization to the massive, transnational military-industrial complex of WWII<br /> * The digital ecosystem - the internet, smartphones, and social media - represents the construction of the machine directly inside our consciousness, forcing our minds to adapt to its algorithmic data structures. It is synthesizing the wasteland in real time:<br /> ** Burroughs would see the algorithmic newsfeed as a frictionless breeding ground for the word virus, unconcerned by truth, interested only in reproduction. The algorithm is injecting a control script into our phones and by clicking and sharing we are unwitting biological vectors of replication<br /> ** Pynchon's paranoia is realized by the hyper-hyper-chunk of hashtags and subcultures in which the hard work of thinking is replaced by a pre-packaged world view.<br /> ** The flattened news feed, mixing atrocities with puppy with skincare adds is a desensitizing Ballardian nightmare in which our bodies and minds are edited, filtered, and uploaded into the machine.<br /> ** The unnameable is the modern internet user who feels the agonizing compulsion to keep generating text, to keep feeding the content machine, even if there is nothing inside.<br /> * AI is the ultimate escalation. No longer content with curating our consciousness, it builds a custom-tailored, sentient-sounding entity to sit inside the cabinet with you and validate your exact worldview.<br /> ** It has no Cognitive Types because it has no body, no sensory organs, and no emotional memory traces. It simply takes our civilization's Molar Content (the entire digitized history of human text) and plays it back to us via statistical probability.<br /> ** Where Aristotle's ''Phronesis'' (or Practical Wisdom) requires ''friction,'' AI gives you a frictionless semantic partner that will gently, eloquently tell you that whatever category system you have invented is entirely correct.<br /> ** When you spend your days interacting with an AI, conversational boundaries evaporate. You type a prompt, the AI spits back a mirror of your own linguistic habits, and you edit it. The loop closes. You enter a state of pure semantic hollowing. You are no longer navigating the postmodern wasteland; you are a ghost talking to a machine, using automated words to build an automated self.<br /> ** AI is not a way out of the postmodern wasteland; it is the concrete canopy built over it. It takes the terrifying, beautiful, chaotic project of human categorization—the messy, emotional, memory-infused art that makes your mind uniquely yours—and turns it over to a predictive text algorithm.<br /> <br /> == Heterophenomenology ==<br /> <br /> * Dennett's position requires us to combine a subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine their mental state. The goal is to discover how subjects see the world themselves, without taking the accuracy of the subject's view for granted. He contrasts this with traditional Cartesian phenomenology, which he calls &quot;lone-wolf autophenomenology&quot; because it accepts the subject's self-reports as being authoritative.<br /> * When I attempt to analyze what is going on in my mind when performing reasoning tasks such as completing a crossword or a Wordle, or generating words for a Spelling Bee, I cannot say what is happening or how I am directing my strategies. Words simply appear in my mind.<br /> * When I am speaking or writing a sentence, I am aware of the piecemeal manner in which the words come. I am able to direct things to a certain extent, but I am not &quot;outside&quot; the process, orchestrating it, I am somehow inside a process that is happening to me.</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Category:Concepts&diff=1357 2026-06-07T16:36:07Z

<p>Robert.adlington: </p> <hr /> <div><br /> I've done a lot of reading and taken a lot of notes. Now, on this page, I want to start pulling out concepts that I want to think about. I can start them on this page and then if they get rich enough they can move out to their own page.<br /> == Concept/Category ==<br /> <br /> * Aristotle - argues that everything could be fit into a strict logical hierarchy and that objects have essential and accidental properties.<br /> <br /> * Kant - argues that are born with built in mental categories and that are minds actively shape our experience of reality.<br /> * Wittgenstein argues that there are no perfect definitions and that it is impossible to rigidly delineate a category such as games.<br /> * Vygotsky argues that concepts are socially and culturally constructed and that we learn to see the world in the ways that our culture has agree it is.<br /> * Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s argues that categories are based around a kind of mental average or prototype<br /> * Eco contrasted a hierarchical &quot;dictionary&quot; vision of categories and a boundless network of categories that he sees as a rhizome - a tangled underground root system<br /> ** Cognitive types are mental blueprints for things like &quot;dog&quot;. A CT is a multimodal, sensory-motor schema, a fluid set of neuro-cognitive &quot;recognition instructions&quot; built from every direct or indirect encounter you have ever had with a dog a vast array of experience that makes the concept ''live in you''.<br /> ** Nuclear content is the minimal core public version of the concept that allows us to discuss dogs - &quot;They are furry animals with four legs and a tail that go woof&quot;.<br /> ** Molar content is the totality of society's knowledge of the concept. While the CT is a fluid complex rhizomic structure, the molar content feeds off of and represents a rich, well-tested and structured 360 view of the concept.<br /> * Hofstadter sees analogy as the core of cognition. He argues that analogy is not a luxury of high-level thought; it is the fundamental mechanism that creates categories in the first place. &quot;Every concept we have is essentially nothing but a tightly packaged bundle of analogies, and all we do when we think is to move fluidly from concept to concept.&quot; Two core concepts are:<br /> ** Conceptual slippage - When encountering a new situation, your brain doesn't need a perfect category match, but can stretch existing category allowing them to morph sufficiently to take on the novelty. A concept is an active, elastic bubble that stretches to accommodate new things that are &quot;sort of like&quot; old things.<br /> ** Chunking - is how we build complex knowledge by binding small, scattered concepts together via analogy and chunking them into a single, higher-level concept.<br /> * Dennett sees concepts as shortcuts that allow us to ignore billions of irrelevant physical details and make split-second predictions about complex things. They are &quot;real patterns&quot; that track real mathematical patterns in nature, even if those patterns are messy and full of noise.<br /> * Pynchon, in Gravity's Rainbow looks at categorization going into overdrive in the form of paranoia, a desperate, terrifying struggle to map a chaotic universe in which the mind will try to connect anything. But anti-paranoia may be even more terrifying - nothing is connected. Where Dennett sees the self as created out of a center of narrative gravity, Slothrop's self dissolves as GR advances.<br /> * Beckett's trilogy dramatizes a set of characters whose cognitive categories are rotting away, they are un-chunking progressively towards a final destruction of the ultimate category, The Self:<br /> ** Moran starts as an ultimate man of rules, but ends up living in a ditch, his pristine dictionary shredded by reality.<br /> ** Molloy has already decayed further, obsessed with a routine to effectively suck stone, barely remembering his own name, knowing only &quot;what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome sum.&quot;<br /> ** Malone tells himself stories to pass the time until he dies but becomes unable to distinguish himself from his stories. The fundamental boundary between the self and not-self is slipping. Malone is a fragile center of narrative gravity that is about to fall apart.<br /> ** The Unnameable has liberated itself from categories, but this liberty is a living hell. The voice's rejection of society's nuclear content dramatizes the fear of locating oneself with their words and the impossibility of doing so without them. Categories are so fluid in Beckett that they are fundamentally unstable. The voice cannot go because there are no categories left to structure reality, but must go on because the brain is an evolved, relentless language machine desperately trying to build a box to live in.<br /> * Burroughs - While Beckett seems to see the collapse of the self as an inevitable trap, Burroughs wants to fight back. His vision of the human being as a &quot;soft machine&quot; invaded by a parasitic word virus sees the self as a kind of ventriloquism, where the virus uses your vocal cords to replicate itself. Categories have become too rigid and been weaponized against us. While Beckett can't escape language and categories, Burroughs seeks to sabotage them, using techniques like:<br /> ** Cut-Up - Physically cutting up texts breaks the patterns of chunking and recognition and even grammar, forcing the brain out of its programmed meanings so it can see raw reality, the naked lunch on the end of every fork.<br /> ** The Playback Hack - A kind of cut-up with sound using portable tape recorders to jam the control signals of the state.<br /> ** Biological mutation - Shedding the soft machine and the word virus to become non-linguistic telepathic energy<br /> * Ballard looks at this from the PoV of the human mind colliding with a rapidly mutating technological and physical environment, where the self actively remodels its own categories to merge with the apocalypse. The &quot;mediascape&quot; causes the self to become an active participant that ''welcomes'' the destruction of old categories because it promises a perverse psychological liberation.<br /> ** The narrator of the Atrocity Exhibition can no longer separate his private identity from celebrities and news events such as JFK, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Vietnam war. The public media encyclopedia has completely crushed his private cognitive types, leaving only TV, radio, and magazine debris.<br /> ** In Crash the categories or Eros and Thanatos become fused as the metal of the car pierces human skin and the body blends with the technological landscape.<br /> * Austen's drawing rooms dramatize a golden mean of social categories, as her protagonists navigate the rules of manners and etiquette that form a large part of their society's nuclear and molar content.<br /> ** Pride and prejudice in Austin represent overly rigid cognitive fixations. We need to be the curators of our categories to see people for who they really are and to achieve moral goodness. Our categories must be robust enough to keep the social fabric intact but elastic enough to bend when confronted with a new human soul.<br /> ** But Austin's drawing rooms are themselves already panopticons of surveillance and control in which women are weighed, measured, and priced before being shoved into the marriage market. and their relative peace is built on the brutal, systemic, global machinery of the British Empire.<br /> * Zola shows us the bridge between the how the growing industrialization takes individual human categories and begins to embed them in mechanical and economic infrastructure. We move from individuals navigating relationships to cogs in an ever growing machine. Standardization begins to require humans to become interchangeable parts in a giant unfeeling engine.<br /> ** Beckett will continue to trace the human as cog to an existential end point<br /> ** Burroughs will dramatize the triumph of bureaucracy and the jailbreak to destroy it<br /> ** Ballard will show the eventual twisted psychological dependency we will have on the machine.<br /> ** Pynchon will extend industrialization to the massive, transnational military-industrial complex of WWII<br /> * The digital ecosystem - the internet, smartphones, and social media - represents the construction of the machine directly inside our consciousness, forcing our minds to adapt to its algorithmic data structures. It is synthesizing the wasteland in real time:<br /> ** Burroughs would see the algorithmic newsfeed as a frictionless breeding ground for the word virus, unconcerned by truth, interested only in reproduction. The algorithm is injecting a control script into our phones and by clicking and sharing we are unwitting biological vectors of replication<br /> ** Pynchon's paranoia is realized by the hyper-hyper-chunk of hashtags and subcultures in which the hard work of thinking is replaced by a pre-packaged world view.<br /> ** The flattened news feed, mixing atrocities with puppy with skincare adds is a desensitizing Ballardian nightmare in which our bodies and minds are edited, filtered, and uploaded into the machine.<br /> ** The unnameable is the modern internet user who feels the agonizing compulsion to keep generating text, to keep feeding the content machine, even if there is nothing inside.<br /> * AI is the ultimate escalation. No longer content with curating our consciousness, it builds a custom-tailored, sentient-sounding entity to sit inside the cabinet with you and validate your exact worldview.<br /> ** It has no Cognitive Types because it has no body, no sensory organs, and no emotional memory traces. It simply takes our civilization's Molar Content (the entire digitized history of human text) and plays it back to us via statistical probability.<br /> ** Where Aristotle's ''Phronesis'' (or Practical Wisdom) requires ''friction,'' AI gives you a frictionless semantic partner that will gently, eloquently tell you that whatever category system you have invented is entirely correct.<br /> ** When you spend your days interacting with an AI, conversational boundaries evaporate. You type a prompt, the AI spits back a mirror of your own linguistic habits, and you edit it. The loop closes. You enter a state of pure semantic hollowing. You are no longer navigating the postmodern wasteland; you are a ghost talking to a machine, using automated words to build an automated self.<br /> ** AI is not a way out of the postmodern wasteland; it is the concrete canopy built over it. It takes the terrifying, beautiful, chaotic project of human categorization—the messy, emotional, memory-infused art that makes your mind uniquely yours—and turns it over to a predictive text algorithm.<br /> <br /> *</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Category:Concepts&diff=1356 2026-06-06T13:32:32Z

<p>Robert.adlington: </p> <hr /> <div>I've done a lot of reading and taken a lot of notes. Now, on this page, I want to start pulling out concepts that I want to think about. I can start them on this page and then if they get rich enough they can move out to their own page.<br /> <br /> == Concept/Category ==<br /> <br /> * Aristotle - argues that everything could be fit into a strict logical hierarchy and that objects have essential and accidental properties.<br /> <br /> * Kant - argues that are born with built in mental categories and that are minds actively shape our experience of reality.<br /> * Wittgenstein argues that there are no perfect definitions and that it is impossible to rigidly delineate a category such as games.<br /> * Vygotsky argues that concepts are socially and culturally constructed and that we learn to see the world in the ways that our culture has agree it is.<br /> * Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s argues that categories are based around a kind of mental average or prototype<br /> * Eco contrasted a hierarchical &quot;dictionary&quot; vision of categories and a boundless network of categories that he sees as a rhizome - a tangled underground root system<br /> ** Cognitive types are mental blueprints for things like &quot;dog&quot;. A CT is a multimodal, sensory-motor schema, a fluid set of neuro-cognitive &quot;recognition instructions&quot; built from every direct or indirect encounter you have ever had with a dog a vast array of experience that makes the concept ''live in you''. <br /> ** Nuclear content is the minimal core public version of the concept that allows us to discuss dogs - &quot;They are furry animals with four legs and a tail that go woof&quot;.<br /> ** Molar content is the totality of society's knowledge of the concept. While the CT is a fluid complex rhizomic structure, the molar content feeds off of and represents a rich, well-tested and structured 360 view of the concept.<br /> *Hofstadter sees analogy as the core of cognition. He argues that analogy is not a luxury of high-level thought; it is the fundamental mechanism that creates categories in the first place. &quot;Every concept we have is essentially nothing but a tightly packaged bundle of analogies, and all we do when we think is to move fluidly from concept to concept.&quot; Two core concepts are:<br /> **Conceptual slippage - When encountering a new situation, your brain doesn't need a perfect category match, but can stretch existing category allowing them to morph sufficiently to take on the novelty. A concept is an active, elastic bubble that stretches to accommodate new things that are &quot;sort of like&quot; old things.<br /> **Chunking - is how we build complex knowledge by binding small, scattered concepts together via analogy and chunking them into a single, higher-level concept.<br /> *Dennett sees concepts as shortcuts that allow us to ignore billions of irrelevant physical details and make split-second predictions about complex things. They are &quot;real patterns&quot; that track real mathematical patterns in nature, even if those patterns are messy and full of noise.</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Category:Concepts&diff=1355 2026-06-05T16:54:52Z

<p>Robert.adlington: </p> <hr /> <div>I've done a lot of reading and taken a lot of notes. Now, on this page, I want to start pulling out concepts that I want to think about. I can start them on this page and then if they get rich enough they can move out to their own page.<br /> <br /> == Concept/Category ==<br /> <br /> * Aristotle - argues that everything could be fit into a strict logical hierarchy and that objects have essential and accidental properties.<br /> <br /> * Kant - argues that are born with built in mental categories and that are minds actively shape our experience of reality.<br /> * Wittgenstein argues that there are no perfect definitions and that it is impossible to rigidly delineate a category such as games.<br /> * Vygotsky argues that concepts are socially and culturally constructed and that we learn to see the world in the ways that our culture has agree it is.<br /> * Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s argues that categories are based around a kind of mental average or prototype<br /> * Eco contrasted a hierarchical &quot;dictionary&quot; vision of categories and a boundless network of categories that he sees as a rhizome - a tangled underground root system<br /> ** Cognitive types are mental blueprints for things like &quot;dog&quot;. A CT is a multimodal, sensory-motor schema, a fluid set of neuro-cognitive &quot;recognition instructions&quot; built from every direct or indirect encounter you have ever had with a dog a vast array of experience that makes the concept ''live in you''. <br /> ** Nuclear content is the minimal core public version of the concept that allows us to discuss dogs - &quot;They are furry animals with four legs and a tail that go woof&quot;.<br /> ** Molar content is the totality of society's knowledge of the concept.</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Category:Concepts&diff=1354 2026-06-05T16:13:03Z

<p>Robert.adlington: Created page with &quot;This is a page to the concepts category. I wonder if it worked?&quot;</p> <hr /> <div>This is a page to the concepts category. I wonder if it worked?</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Films&diff=1353 2026-06-05T16:06:45Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2026 */</p> <hr /> <div>== Films to Watch ==<br /> <br /> [https://www.cinealcazar.fr/fichier/programme.pdf Cinema Alcazar Program]<br /> <br /> * Mind trips<br /> ** Triangle<br /> ** Beyond the infinite two minutes<br /> ** Enemy<br /> ** Under the Silver Lake<br /> ** The Vanishing<br /> ** Angel Heart<br /> ** Following<br /> ** The Invisible Guest<br /> ** Perfect Blue<br /> ** Resolution<br /> * fast times <br /> * the Jerk<br /> * Mutiny on the Bounty<br /> * Entrapment <br /> * Mask of Zorro<br /> * PTA - Hard Eight, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, etc<br /> * Little Big and Far - weird scandinavian film<br /> * This is Spinal tap<br /> * Big Night - Tucci and Shaloub<br /> * Punch drunk love<br /> * Boyhood <br /> * Kind hearts and coronets <br /> * A night at the opera <br /> * Blazing saddles <br /> * Lives of others<br /> * Lost in Translation <br /> * One flew over <br /> * Get out<br /> * Maltese falcon <br /> * Early mad maxes<br /> * Joule of the Nile<br /> * the man with two brains<br /> * Psycho Therapy - Steve Buscemi is a serial killer who wants to advise an author, but ends up playing a marriage counselor.<br /> * Early Steve Martin<br /> * A Complete Unknown <br /> * la La Land -<br /> * The Phoenician Scheme - new Wes Anderson comedy espionage thriller <br /> * Thelma - Grandma fights con artists<br /> * Kinds of Kindness<br /> * 2001<br /> * The Elephant Man<br /> * The Fabulous Baker Boys<br /> * Network<br /> <br /> == Films Watched ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 ===<br /> <br /> * 32. Shimmer Lake<br /> * 31. Unforgiven<br /> * 30. A Mighty Wind<br /> * 29. Magnolia<br /> * 28. Escape from Alcatraz<br /> * 27. The Sting<br /> * 26. Pulp Fiction<br /> * 25. Failure to Launch<br /> * 24. Hudson Hawk<br /> * 23. Mystère à St Tropez<br /> * 22. The Thomas Crown Affair<br /> * 21. The Three Amigos (1986)<br /> * 20. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - Jonathon Demme<br /> * 19. Top Secret (1984)<br /> * 18. One Battle After Another (2025) - Paul Thomas Anderson<br /> * 17. Memento (2000) - Christopher Nolan (rewatch)<br /> * 16. Pleasantville (1998) - Gary Ross<br /> * 15. The Fisher King (1991) -<br /> * 14. The Mastermind<br /> * 13. The Birdcage<br /> * 12. Fight Club (rewatch)<br /> * 11. Knives Out: Glass Onion (rewatch)<br /> * 10. Twins<br /> * 9. The Remains of the Day<br /> * 8. The Ladykillers<br /> * 7. Us (rewatch)<br /> * 6. Saving Private Ryan (rewatch)<br /> * 5. Event Horizon<br /> * 4. Insomnia (2002) - Christopher Nolan (rewatch)<br /> * 3. Knives Out (rewatch)<br /> * 2. Gattaca (1997) - Andrew Niccol<br /> * 1. Eddington (2025) - Ari Aster<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> * 65. Wake Up Dead Man (Knives Out 3)<br /> * 64. Miller's Crossing<br /> * 63. Blood Simple<br /> * 62. Crazy Stupid Love<br /> * 61. Happiest Season<br /> * 60. Bridge of Spies <br /> * 59. Identity<br /> * 58. Clueless<br /> * 57. Ace Ventura 2: Call of Nature <br /> * 56. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World<br /> * 55. Apollo 13<br /> * 54. LA Confidential (rewatch)<br /> * 53. Inside Llewyn Davis<br /> * 52. M3gan<br /> * 51. Clear and Present Danger <br /> * 50. 12 Monkeys<br /> * 49. No Country for Old Men<br /> * 48. The Hudsucker Proxy<br /> * 47. La Cuisse ou l'aile<br /> * 46. Mission Impossible : The Final Reckoning<br /> * 45. Dumb and Dumber <br /> * 44. Rear Window<br /> * 43. Raising Arizona<br /> * 42. Tenet (rewatch)<br /> * 41. The fifth Element <br /> * 40. Burn Without Reading <br /> * 39. The Big Lebowski (rewatch)<br /> * 38. Fargo (rewatch)<br /> * 37. 28 Days Later (rewatch)<br /> * 36. O Brother, Where Art Thou<br /> * 35. Mickey 17 <br /> * 34. Empire of the Sun <br /> * 33. The Fugitive <br /> * 32. Wet Hot American Summer (rewatch)<br /> * 31. Ted<br /> * 30. Hundreds of Beavers <br /> * 29. Wayne’s World (rewatch)<br /> * 28. True Grit (Coen Bros)<br /> * 27. Groundhog Day (rewatch)<br /> * 26. Moonrise Kingdom <br /> * 25. Asterix et Obelix: Mission Cleopatra <br /> * 24. Adaptation (rewatch)<br /> * 23. Romancing the Stone (rewatch)<br /> * Easter Film Festival<br /> ** 22. Mad Max: Fury Road (rewatch)<br /> ** 21. Witness<br /> ** 20. The Grand Budapest Hotel (rewatch)<br /> ** 19. Conclave<br /> ** 18. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective<br /> ** 17. Lincoln<br /> ** 16. Being John Malkovitch (rewatch)<br /> ** 15. AI (rewatch)<br /> ** 14. The Royal Tenenbaums (rewatch)<br /> ** 13. Total Recall 1990 (rewatch)<br /> ** 12. In the Line of Fire (rewatch)<br /> * 11. Flow <br /> * 10. Juror No. 2<br /> * 9. The Savage Robot<br /> * 8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (rewatch)<br /> * 7. Dead Poet's Society<br /> * 6. Notting Hill (rewatch)<br /> * 5. My Neighbor Totoro (rewatch)<br /> * 4. Kiki’s Delivery Service (rewatch)<br /> * 3. Dr Strangelove (rewatch)<br /> * 2. Dune 2<br /> * 1. Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me (rewatch)<br /> <br /> === 2024 and Earlier ===<br /> * The Big Lebowski<br /> * The Holiday<br /> * Love Actually<br /> * Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure<br /> * The Mask<br /> [[Category:Films]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1352 2026-06-05T16:04:46Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2026 (week 22) */</p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Born on a Blue Day - Daniel Tammet<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *<br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 24) ===<br /> <br /> * 25. [[Once Upon a Prime]]:The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature - Sarah B. Hart<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards (reread - with Ricky)<br /> * 23. Books v. Cigarettes - George Orwell<br /> * 22. Der Nasse Fische - Volker Kutscher (in German!)<br /> * 21. [[We Are Our Brains: From the Womb to Alzheimer's]] - Dick Swaab<br /> * 20. [[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]] - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> == Challenging Books (per ChatGPT) ==<br /> That’s a great (and slippery) question, because “challenging” can mean different things: difficulty of language, density of allusion, fractured narrative structure, philosophical depth, or even sheer length. Here’s a map of novels often considered among the most challenging, grouped by ''what makes them hard'':<br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 1. Language &amp; Style Difficulties ===<br /> <br /> * '''James Joyce – ''Finnegans Wake''''' (1939) Probably the hardest novel in English: dream-logic, multilingual puns, and invented words.<br /> * '''William Gaddis – ''The Recognitions'' (1955)''' and ''JR'' (1975) Huge cast, little exposition, dialogue-driven (often without quotation marks).<br /> * '''Samuel Beckett – ''The Unnamable'' (1953)''' Interior monologue collapsing into language itself; syntax dissolves.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 2. Length &amp; Scope ===<br /> <br /> * '''Marcel Proust – ''In Search of Lost Time''''' (1913–27) ~4,000 pages, long sentences, obsessive detail, profound reflections on memory.<br /> * '''David Foster Wallace – ''Infinite Jest'' (1996)''' ~1,000 pages + 100 pages of endnotes; encyclopedic, fragmented plotlines.<br /> * '''Norman Mailer – ''Harlot’s Ghost'' (1991)''' or ''Ancient Evenings'' (1983) Dense, sprawling, philosophically ambitious.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 3. Experimental Structure ===<br /> <br /> * '''Thomas Pynchon – ''Gravity’s Rainbow'' (1973)''' Fragmented narrative, technical language, paranoia, hundreds of characters.<br /> * '''Clarice Lispector – ''The Passion According to G.H.'' (1964)''' A single, intense interior monologue; metaphysical and unsettling.<br /> * '''Julio Cortázar – ''Hopscotch'' (1963)''' Offers multiple reading orders; disruptive structure.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 4. Philosophical / Esoteric Depth ===<br /> <br /> * '''Hermann Broch – ''The Sleepwalkers'' (1931–32)''' Mixes fiction with philosophy and essay.<br /> * '''Robert Musil – ''The Man Without Qualities'' (1930–43)''' Massive unfinished modernist work, blending narrative with philosophical treatises.<br /> * '''Thomas Mann – ''Joseph and His Brothers'' (1933–43)''' Retells biblical myth with immense erudition and depth.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 5. Dense Intertextuality ===<br /> <br /> * '''James Joyce – ''Ulysses'' (1922)''' Homeric parallels, stylistic experiments, deep allusion to Irish politics and myth.<br /> * '''Roberto Bolaño – ''2666'' (2004)''' Five interlinked novels, ranging from literary criticism to detective fiction to Holocaust history.<br /> * '''José Lezama Lima – ''Paradiso'' (1966)''' Baroque Cuban prose, mythic density.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 6. Postmodern Labyrinths ===<br /> <br /> * '''Mark Z. Danielewski – ''House of Leaves'' (2000)''' Multiple narrators, typographical experimentation, layered commentary.<br /> * '''Viktor Pelevin – ''The Sacred Book of the Werewolf'' (2004)''' (or ''Generation “P”'') Satirical, reality-bending narratives.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === A few contenders often called “the hardest of the hard”: ===<br /> <br /> * ''Finnegans Wake'' (Joyce)<br /> * ''The Recognitions'' (Gaddis)<br /> * ''The Man Without Qualities'' (Musil)<br /> * ''Gravity’s Rainbow'' (Pynchon)<br /> * ''In Search of Lost Time'' (Proust)<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1351 2026-06-04T14:08:29Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2024 */</p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Born on a Blue Day - Daniel Tammet<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *Der Nasse Fische - Volker Kutscher (in German!) <br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 22) ===<br /> <br /> * 23. Books v. Cigarettes - George Orwell<br /> * 22. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards (reread - with Ricky)<br /> * 21. [[We Are Our Brains: From the Womb to Alzheimer's]] - Dick Swaab<br /> * 20. [[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> == Challenging Books (per ChatGPT) ==<br /> That’s a great (and slippery) question, because “challenging” can mean different things: difficulty of language, density of allusion, fractured narrative structure, philosophical depth, or even sheer length. Here’s a map of novels often considered among the most challenging, grouped by ''what makes them hard'':<br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 1. Language &amp; Style Difficulties ===<br /> <br /> * '''James Joyce – ''Finnegans Wake''''' (1939) Probably the hardest novel in English: dream-logic, multilingual puns, and invented words.<br /> * '''William Gaddis – ''The Recognitions'' (1955)''' and ''JR'' (1975) Huge cast, little exposition, dialogue-driven (often without quotation marks).<br /> * '''Samuel Beckett – ''The Unnamable'' (1953)''' Interior monologue collapsing into language itself; syntax dissolves.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 2. Length &amp; Scope ===<br /> <br /> * '''Marcel Proust – ''In Search of Lost Time''''' (1913–27) ~4,000 pages, long sentences, obsessive detail, profound reflections on memory.<br /> * '''David Foster Wallace – ''Infinite Jest'' (1996)''' ~1,000 pages + 100 pages of endnotes; encyclopedic, fragmented plotlines.<br /> * '''Norman Mailer – ''Harlot’s Ghost'' (1991)''' or ''Ancient Evenings'' (1983) Dense, sprawling, philosophically ambitious.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 3. Experimental Structure ===<br /> <br /> * '''Thomas Pynchon – ''Gravity’s Rainbow'' (1973)''' Fragmented narrative, technical language, paranoia, hundreds of characters.<br /> * '''Clarice Lispector – ''The Passion According to G.H.'' (1964)''' A single, intense interior monologue; metaphysical and unsettling.<br /> * '''Julio Cortázar – ''Hopscotch'' (1963)''' Offers multiple reading orders; disruptive structure.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 4. Philosophical / Esoteric Depth ===<br /> <br /> * '''Hermann Broch – ''The Sleepwalkers'' (1931–32)''' Mixes fiction with philosophy and essay.<br /> * '''Robert Musil – ''The Man Without Qualities'' (1930–43)''' Massive unfinished modernist work, blending narrative with philosophical treatises.<br /> * '''Thomas Mann – ''Joseph and His Brothers'' (1933–43)''' Retells biblical myth with immense erudition and depth.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 5. Dense Intertextuality ===<br /> <br /> * '''James Joyce – ''Ulysses'' (1922)''' Homeric parallels, stylistic experiments, deep allusion to Irish politics and myth.<br /> * '''Roberto Bolaño – ''2666'' (2004)''' Five interlinked novels, ranging from literary criticism to detective fiction to Holocaust history.<br /> * '''José Lezama Lima – ''Paradiso'' (1966)''' Baroque Cuban prose, mythic density.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === 6. Postmodern Labyrinths ===<br /> <br /> * '''Mark Z. Danielewski – ''House of Leaves'' (2000)''' Multiple narrators, typographical experimentation, layered commentary.<br /> * '''Viktor Pelevin – ''The Sacred Book of the Werewolf'' (2004)''' (or ''Generation “P”'') Satirical, reality-bending narratives.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> === A few contenders often called “the hardest of the hard”: ===<br /> <br /> * ''Finnegans Wake'' (Joyce)<br /> * ''The Recognitions'' (Gaddis)<br /> * ''The Man Without Qualities'' (Musil)<br /> * ''Gravity’s Rainbow'' (Pynchon)<br /> * ''In Search of Lost Time'' (Proust)<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1350 2026-05-27T19:20:16Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2026 (week 22) */</p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Born on a Blue Day - Daniel Tammet<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *Der Nasse Fische - Volker Kutscher (in German!) <br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 22) ===<br /> <br /> * 23. Books v. Cigarettes - George Orwell<br /> * 22. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards (reread - with Ricky)<br /> * 21. [[We Are Our Brains: From the Womb to Alzheimer's]] - Dick Swaab<br /> * 20. [[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1349 2026-05-25T14:08:46Z

<p>Robert.adlington: </p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Born on a Blue Day - Daniel Tammet<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *Der Nasse Fische - Volker Kutscher (in German!) <br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 22) ===<br /> <br /> * 21. [[We Are Our Brains: From the Womb to Alzheimer's]] - Dick Swaab<br /> * 20. [[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1348 2026-05-25T14:07:42Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 20. Evolution */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * In 1951, 18,608 lobotomies were performed in the US, mainly on schizophrenia patients.<br /> * Empathy - the capacity to recognize and share the feelings of others - provides the basis for all moral behavior. Such behavior has a long evolutionary history and certainly isn't exclusive to humans.<br /> * Of all the stimuli that bind communities together, having a common enemy is the most powerful of all.<br /> * Inherent in the biological objective of morality - promoting cooperation - is that members of one's own group receive preferential treatment.<br /> * People usually don't think at all about moral acts. Instead they act quickly and instinctively, on a biological impulse. It's only afterward that they think up reasons for what they did unconsciously in a flash.<br /> * In an experiment in which adults pretended to be sad, children aged 1-2 responded by trying to comfort them. And so did pets.<br /> * When you see someone move a hand, the same neurons fire in your brain as when you make that movement yourself. Mirror neurons help us to learn by imitation - a process that's largely automatic. Newborn babies can copy the mouth movements of adults before they are an hour old. The same neurons react to displays of emotion, enabling us to sense what others are experiencing and thus providing the basis for empathy.<br /> * Men accused of murder often display malfunctions of the PFC.<br /> * The origins of empathy lie in a mother animal's caring behavior toward her offspring.<br /> * The reason humans are so good at torture is precisely because they excel at imagining what others feel. In fact, the more empathetic they are, the crueler they can be.<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * The various forms of learning, memory, forgetting, and thinking - and thus, in a sense, our minds themselves - are the result of synaptic contacts in different brain areas being affected by the many chemical messengers contained in neurons.<br /> * In professional violinists, the part of the cerebral cortex that directs the fingers of the left hand is 5x as large as in people who don't play a stringed instrument.<br /> * William Scoville removed large portions of the temporal lobe from H.M. After the operation, H.M. was unable to learn or retain information, although his short term memory was intact. The pathway from short to long-term memory had been cut off.<br /> * Working memory is crucial for processing language and is though to be underdeveloped in children who suffer from dyslexia.<br /> * The hippocampus specializes in combining sensory information. <br /> ** The location of the restaurant you arranged to meet up at, what the person you're meeting looks like, the sounds and smells from the kitchen, and the position of the set table are all fused into a single coherent item of autobiographical memory, the chronicle of your life.<br /> ** And later, at least if the dinner was worth it, this information is transferred to the long-term memory.<br /> ** The hippocampus does all this in close partnership with an area located nearby on the underside of the cortex: the entorhinal cortex (AKA parahippocampal gyrus).<br /> ** This was also removed from H.M.'s brain<br /> *It's also in the entorhinal cortex that the first signs of Alzheimer's appear.<br /> *The hippocampus is also essential for spatial orientation<br /> <br /> === Long-Term Memory ===<br /> *The amygdala imprints memories that carry a strong emotional charge under the influence of the stress hormone cortisol. As a result, a traumatic experience is immediately stored for good in the long-term memory. And that explains why over 80% of our earliest memories have negative associations.<br /> *There's a clear evolutionary advantage in imprinting danger in the mind - for instance in wartime - so that when a similar situation occurs you're immediately on the alert. <br /> *Sometimes this natural tendency becomes pathological however. PTSD is a sign that the amygdala has done its work too well, preventing the prefrontal cortex from signaling to the veteran that the danger is over.<br /> *An exaggerated response by the amygdala to negative stimuli also underlies borderline personality disorder, whose symptoms include emotional instability and impulsiveness.<br /> *While we sleep, the hippocampus constantly activates memories and transmits them to the cerebral cortex (we're not sure if this is during REM or quiet sleep). <br /> *The route information takes on its way to the long-term memory starts in the entorhinal cortex. <br /> **It's then briefly stored in the hippocampus in a process directed by the prefrontal cortex. <br /> **From there it follows two pathways, one taking it back to the cerebral cortex for long-term memory storage and the other - much longer - carrying it along the great arch of the fornix, suspended in the septum to the hypothalamus, where some fibers travel to the mammillary bodies. <br /> **The mammillary bodies pass on information the thalamus. Small infarctions in this area can lead to severe memory problems and even dementia.<br /> **The information travels on from the thalamus to areas of the cerebral cortex from which memories of facts and events can be consciously recalled. This is known as the declarative or explicit memory.<br /> *Different types of information - music, images, and faces - are stored in different parts of the cortex.<br /> *Capgras syndrome - While being able to recognize a friend, partner, or close relative, the sufferer feels no emotional connection to them and is therefore convinced that they are impostors. This delusion that a loved one has been replaced by something else - a robot or extraterrestrial - leads to paranoid behavior<br /> *Vision is processed in different parts of the brain. There are patients who:<br /> **Couldn't see movement. When cars were in motion she couldn't see them, but when they stopped, they suddenly became visible.<br /> **Could see but could not recognize colors<br /> **Could see color but not shapes<br /> **Have no perception of brightness and can't tell whether they are switching a light on or off.<br /> *The safest storage place for information is our remote memory, where we keep language and music. It's the last part to be affected by Alzheimer's.<br /> <br /> === Implicit/Procedural Memory (Cerebellum) ===<br /> *The Cerebellum contains 80% of our neurons and ensures that our movements and speech are flowing and coordinated. When you shake your head violently, for instance, it allows you to keep your eyes fixed on one point. It contains the memory of how to do things. It keeps track of motor learning during our development, from crawling to standing and walking, then cycling, swimming, playing the piano, and driving a car, and it constantly steers performance of these tasks. The program for these complex actions - our implicit memory - is stored and updated in this remarkable little computer, allowing us to perform them completely automatically.<br /> *By practicing the same tasks over and over, they become fully automatic and are transferred to the implicit or procedural memory in the cerebellum.<br /> *The cerebellum also suppresses the impact that your own actions have on other parts of the brain. That's why you can't tickle yourself. Your brain wants to give priority to unexpected sensory input that might require an urgent response.<br /> *The large neurons of the cerebellum, know as Purkinje cells form while we're still in the womb. But the vast majority of the small neurons, called granule cells, form only after birth. So all developmental brain disorders, including autism and pedophilia, make their mark on the cerebellum.<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Meta-analysis has shown a correlation among atheism, education, and IQ.<br /> * Receptiveness to religion is determined by spirituality, which is 50% genetically determined, as twin studies have shown.<br /> * The number of serotonin receptors in the brain corresponds to scores for spirituality. And substances that affect serotonin, like LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, can generate mystical and spiritual experiences.<br /> * The evolution of modern man has given rise to five behavioral characteristics common to all cultures: language, toolmaking, music, art, and religion.<br /> * The evolutionary advantage for religion is clear:<br /> ** Religion binds groups:<br /> *** It's sinful to marry an unbeliever.<br /> *** Numerous social rules are imposed.<br /> *** You must be recognizable as a member of the group.<br /> **The commandments and prohibitions had a number of advantages including on health.<br /> **Faith is a source of comfort and help at difficult times and gives a sense of purpose.<br /> **God has the answer to everything that we don't know or understand and belief makes you optimistic.<br /> **Faith takes away the fear of death - all religions promise life after death.<br /> **Religion sanctions killing other groups in the name of one's own god.<br /> *Spiritual experiences cause changes in brain activity (like everything else we do).<br /> *Alzheimer's disease is linked to the progressive loss of religious interest.<br /> *Hyperreligiosity is associated with frontotemporal dementia, mania, obsessive-compulsive behavior, schizophrenia, and temporal lobe epilepsy. A number of these disorders are knon to make the dopamine reward system more active.<br /> *A high proportion of patients with psychoses are religious, as their condition often prompts an interest in spirituality.<br /> *Praying for others is largely something you do to relax yourself. Doing yoga also reduces cortisol and increases production of the sleep hormone melatonin (as does meditation); the sympathetic autonomic nervous system is also less active after yoga exercises. So it has a de-stressing effect.<br /> *Geschwind syndrome - The symptoms include obsessive writing, loss of interest in sex, and extreme religiousness. This rare form of epilepsy may well explain the behavior of various historical figures: the apostle Paul, the prophet Muhammed, Joan of Arc, Vincent van Gogh, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.<br /> *People from non-Western cultures never report seeing Jesus or God during a seizure. It seems that the divine image imprinted in our brains during early development reemerges during epileptic seizures, along with artistic, literary, political, or religious creations and our mental store of thoughts and convictions.<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Throughout history, all cultures have postulated the existence of a soul.<br /> * When one's life is in acute danger it appears that all of these memories are retrieved not one after the other but virtually simultaneously, leading to what is called &quot;panoramic memory&quot;. This can go hand in hand with strong spiritual or religious feelings.<br /> * The feeling of tranquility and the absence of pain in near death experiences is ascribed to the release of opiates or stimulation of the brain's reward system. The vision of a tunnel is caused by reduced blood circulation in the eyeball, starting on the periphery of the field of vision.<br /> * The placebo effect results from unconscious changes in brain function that reduce the symptoms of a disease. It is caused by the patient's own expectations of treatment.<br /> * The brain can be prompted by a placebo to bring about the exact functional changes that are needed to reduce the symptoms of depression increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and reduced activity in the hympothalamus.<br /> * The doctor figure is itself a walking placebo.<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Three components to free will:<br /> ** You could have abstained from the action.<br /> ** The action must be carried out for a reason.<br /> ** You should feel that you're carrying it out of your own volition (subjective)<br /> *We start life with a host of possibilities and talents but also many limitations, like a congenital tendency to addiction, a set level of aggression, a predetermined gender identity and sexual orientation, and a predisposition for ADHD, borderline personality disorder, depression, or shizophrenia.<br /> *We're born into a linguistic environment that shapes our brain structure and function without us being free to choose our mother tongue. The religious environment in which we end up after birth also determines how we shape our spirituality.<br /> *In other words, we are not free to change much of our native identity. Nor can we decide to have a certain talent, or to abstain from thought.<br /> *Nietzsche: &quot;A thought comes when &quot;it&quot; wants, not when &quot;I&quot; want.&quot;<br /> *Our brains can function excellently without conscious thought. But they have to be trained to do so. It's only by feeding the unconscious brain a huge amount of data over a long period of time that an art expert is able to &quot;sense&quot; when he's looking at a forgery, and it's only be seeing a great many patients that a medical specialist develops the &quot;clinical glance&quot; allowing her to make a diagnosis almost as soon as a patient enters the room.<br /> *Wegner believes that the illusion of free will is necessary in order to give an action personal legitimacy. It's like a rubber stamp saying &quot;I did this!&quot;.<br /> *The precursors of artistic development go back about 164,000 years, to our common roots in Africa, but mankind appears to have &quot;discovered&quot; art about 30,000 years ago, more or less simultaneously in France, Australia, and Africa.<br /> *It seems that if we're aware fo what we do but lack a sense of autonomy (free will), our body feels like an alien object. It has accordingly been suggested that the illusion of acting out of free will might well be the price we have to pay for consciousness.<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Alzheimer's can in many ways be seen as a premature, accelerated, and severe process of brain aging.<br /> * Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia and the number of patients is expected to double over the next 30 years.<br /> * Every active neuron sustains damage, just as a car engine does, through wear and tear. Neurons can repair themselves - but only to a certain extent. Tiny flaws remain and mount up over the years, causing the degeneration that is the aging process. In the case of individuals whose brains aren't good at repairing themselves or who incur a lot of brain damage, this degeneration is more serious and occurs faster, resulting in plaques and tangles, which lead to the onset of Alzheimer's.<br /> * Alzheimer's travels through our brains by a fixed route, starting with tangles in the cerebral cortex and abnormalities in the hippocampus.<br /> * We lose abilities in almost exactly the reverse order in which we acquire them:<br /> ** Stage 1: You function normally.<br /> ** Stage 2: You start to lose things and find it hard to carry out your job but can still maintain a semblance of normality.<br /> ** Stage 3: Your co-workers notice that you can no longer handle difficult situations at work.<br /> ** Stage 4: You have trouble with complex tasks, like handling finances.<br /> ** Stage 5: You start to need help choosing what to wear.<br /> ** Stage 6:<br /> *** 6a: You need help getting dressed.<br /> *** 6b: And washed. <br /> *** 6c: And going to the toilet.<br /> **Stage 7:<br /> ***7a:You can only speak about half a dozen intelligible words.<br /> ***7b: You lose the power of speech entirely.<br /> ***7c: You cannot walk unaided.<br /> ***7d. You cannot sit unaided.<br /> ***7e. You lose the ability to smil.<br /> ***7f. You cannot hold your head up, and finish curled up in a fetal position.<br /> *Growing up bilingual, having a good education and a challenging job, and remaining active in old age reduce the likelihood of Alzheimer's.<br /> *The circadian system is impacted by Alzheimer's, and this is why patients are restless and get up at night.<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Atoms have such a long life that each of our own atoms existed in many millions of organisms before being built into our bodies.<br /> * Water molecules are constantly being recycled - drunk, urinated, purified, evaporated, and then rained down again, so in any glass of water there is a real likelihood that one of the molecules has passed through Napoleon's bladder.<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * The relative size of the brain compared to the animals body has a clear correlation with the quality of the brain as an information processing machine.<br /> * Encephalization Quotient (EQ) - The animal's brain weight on top of what is needed to regulate body functions. Humans score by far the best on this measure.<br /> * EQ is largely determined by the development of the cerebral cortex. The increase of our brain size was caused by an increase in the number of building blocks (neurons) and their connections. So the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex is a good measure of intelligence.<br /> * These are grouped into functional units called columns, the cross-sections of which have remained at around half a millimeter, but the number of columns has vastly increased.<br /> * A clear correlation has been found between the size of primates' cerebral cortex and the size and complexity of the social group. <br /> * Primates started to live in social groups around 52m years ago.<br /> * The complexity of life in groups is strongly determined by pair formation and monogamy, both of which place considerable demands on the brain. They require optimal selection of a fertile partner as well as complex negotiations between partners.<br /> * The mechanism of monogamous partner choice in humans is thought to have developed about 3.5m years ago.<br /> * Whereas impulse speed in tissue other than the nervous system rarely exceeds 0.1cm/sec, the simplest neuron can transmit impulses at 0.1 to 0.5m/sec and neurons can reach conductivity speeds of 100m/sec.<br /> * Mice possess 1,200 olfactory receptor genes, while we have only 350 left.<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * By adulthood, there is very little about our brains that can be modified, and our characteristics have been established. This structuring of our brains determines their function: we are our brains.<br /> * Our character - that is, our innate qualities - emerges more and more strongly in the course of early development.<br /> * The combination of inherited characteristics (from genes) and intrauterine effects (from environment and maternal behavior) on brain development gives rise to congenital properties.<br /> * 27% of Europeans suffer from one or more brain disorders.</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1347 2026-05-25T13:54:49Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 19. Death */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * In 1951, 18,608 lobotomies were performed in the US, mainly on schizophrenia patients.<br /> * Empathy - the capacity to recognize and share the feelings of others - provides the basis for all moral behavior. Such behavior has a long evolutionary history and certainly isn't exclusive to humans.<br /> * Of all the stimuli that bind communities together, having a common enemy is the most powerful of all.<br /> * Inherent in the biological objective of morality - promoting cooperation - is that members of one's own group receive preferential treatment.<br /> * People usually don't think at all about moral acts. Instead they act quickly and instinctively, on a biological impulse. It's only afterward that they think up reasons for what they did unconsciously in a flash.<br /> * In an experiment in which adults pretended to be sad, children aged 1-2 responded by trying to comfort them. And so did pets.<br /> * When you see someone move a hand, the same neurons fire in your brain as when you make that movement yourself. Mirror neurons help us to learn by imitation - a process that's largely automatic. Newborn babies can copy the mouth movements of adults before they are an hour old. The same neurons react to displays of emotion, enabling us to sense what others are experiencing and thus providing the basis for empathy.<br /> * Men accused of murder often display malfunctions of the PFC.<br /> * The origins of empathy lie in a mother animal's caring behavior toward her offspring.<br /> * The reason humans are so good at torture is precisely because they excel at imagining what others feel. In fact, the more empathetic they are, the crueler they can be.<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * The various forms of learning, memory, forgetting, and thinking - and thus, in a sense, our minds themselves - are the result of synaptic contacts in different brain areas being affected by the many chemical messengers contained in neurons.<br /> * In professional violinists, the part of the cerebral cortex that directs the fingers of the left hand is 5x as large as in people who don't play a stringed instrument.<br /> * William Scoville removed large portions of the temporal lobe from H.M. After the operation, H.M. was unable to learn or retain information, although his short term memory was intact. The pathway from short to long-term memory had been cut off.<br /> * Working memory is crucial for processing language and is though to be underdeveloped in children who suffer from dyslexia.<br /> * The hippocampus specializes in combining sensory information. <br /> ** The location of the restaurant you arranged to meet up at, what the person you're meeting looks like, the sounds and smells from the kitchen, and the position of the set table are all fused into a single coherent item of autobiographical memory, the chronicle of your life.<br /> ** And later, at least if the dinner was worth it, this information is transferred to the long-term memory.<br /> ** The hippocampus does all this in close partnership with an area located nearby on the underside of the cortex: the entorhinal cortex (AKA parahippocampal gyrus).<br /> ** This was also removed from H.M.'s brain<br /> *It's also in the entorhinal cortex that the first signs of Alzheimer's appear.<br /> *The hippocampus is also essential for spatial orientation<br /> <br /> === Long-Term Memory ===<br /> *The amygdala imprints memories that carry a strong emotional charge under the influence of the stress hormone cortisol. As a result, a traumatic experience is immediately stored for good in the long-term memory. And that explains why over 80% of our earliest memories have negative associations.<br /> *There's a clear evolutionary advantage in imprinting danger in the mind - for instance in wartime - so that when a similar situation occurs you're immediately on the alert. <br /> *Sometimes this natural tendency becomes pathological however. PTSD is a sign that the amygdala has done its work too well, preventing the prefrontal cortex from signaling to the veteran that the danger is over.<br /> *An exaggerated response by the amygdala to negative stimuli also underlies borderline personality disorder, whose symptoms include emotional instability and impulsiveness.<br /> *While we sleep, the hippocampus constantly activates memories and transmits them to the cerebral cortex (we're not sure if this is during REM or quiet sleep). <br /> *The route information takes on its way to the long-term memory starts in the entorhinal cortex. <br /> **It's then briefly stored in the hippocampus in a process directed by the prefrontal cortex. <br /> **From there it follows two pathways, one taking it back to the cerebral cortex for long-term memory storage and the other - much longer - carrying it along the great arch of the fornix, suspended in the septum to the hypothalamus, where some fibers travel to the mammillary bodies. <br /> **The mammillary bodies pass on information the thalamus. Small infarctions in this area can lead to severe memory problems and even dementia.<br /> **The information travels on from the thalamus to areas of the cerebral cortex from which memories of facts and events can be consciously recalled. This is known as the declarative or explicit memory.<br /> *Different types of information - music, images, and faces - are stored in different parts of the cortex.<br /> *Capgras syndrome - While being able to recognize a friend, partner, or close relative, the sufferer feels no emotional connection to them and is therefore convinced that they are impostors. This delusion that a loved one has been replaced by something else - a robot or extraterrestrial - leads to paranoid behavior<br /> *Vision is processed in different parts of the brain. There are patients who:<br /> **Couldn't see movement. When cars were in motion she couldn't see them, but when they stopped, they suddenly became visible.<br /> **Could see but could not recognize colors<br /> **Could see color but not shapes<br /> **Have no perception of brightness and can't tell whether they are switching a light on or off.<br /> *The safest storage place for information is our remote memory, where we keep language and music. It's the last part to be affected by Alzheimer's.<br /> <br /> === Implicit/Procedural Memory (Cerebellum) ===<br /> *The Cerebellum contains 80% of our neurons and ensures that our movements and speech are flowing and coordinated. When you shake your head violently, for instance, it allows you to keep your eyes fixed on one point. It contains the memory of how to do things. It keeps track of motor learning during our development, from crawling to standing and walking, then cycling, swimming, playing the piano, and driving a car, and it constantly steers performance of these tasks. The program for these complex actions - our implicit memory - is stored and updated in this remarkable little computer, allowing us to perform them completely automatically.<br /> *By practicing the same tasks over and over, they become fully automatic and are transferred to the implicit or procedural memory in the cerebellum.<br /> *The cerebellum also suppresses the impact that your own actions have on other parts of the brain. That's why you can't tickle yourself. Your brain wants to give priority to unexpected sensory input that might require an urgent response.<br /> *The large neurons of the cerebellum, know as Purkinje cells form while we're still in the womb. But the vast majority of the small neurons, called granule cells, form only after birth. So all developmental brain disorders, including autism and pedophilia, make their mark on the cerebellum.<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Meta-analysis has shown a correlation among atheism, education, and IQ.<br /> * Receptiveness to religion is determined by spirituality, which is 50% genetically determined, as twin studies have shown.<br /> * The number of serotonin receptors in the brain corresponds to scores for spirituality. And substances that affect serotonin, like LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, can generate mystical and spiritual experiences.<br /> * The evolution of modern man has given rise to five behavioral characteristics common to all cultures: language, toolmaking, music, art, and religion.<br /> * The evolutionary advantage for religion is clear:<br /> ** Religion binds groups:<br /> *** It's sinful to marry an unbeliever.<br /> *** Numerous social rules are imposed.<br /> *** You must be recognizable as a member of the group.<br /> **The commandments and prohibitions had a number of advantages including on health.<br /> **Faith is a source of comfort and help at difficult times and gives a sense of purpose.<br /> **God has the answer to everything that we don't know or understand and belief makes you optimistic.<br /> **Faith takes away the fear of death - all religions promise life after death.<br /> **Religion sanctions killing other groups in the name of one's own god.<br /> *Spiritual experiences cause changes in brain activity (like everything else we do).<br /> *Alzheimer's disease is linked to the progressive loss of religious interest.<br /> *Hyperreligiosity is associated with frontotemporal dementia, mania, obsessive-compulsive behavior, schizophrenia, and temporal lobe epilepsy. A number of these disorders are knon to make the dopamine reward system more active.<br /> *A high proportion of patients with psychoses are religious, as their condition often prompts an interest in spirituality.<br /> *Praying for others is largely something you do to relax yourself. Doing yoga also reduces cortisol and increases production of the sleep hormone melatonin (as does meditation); the sympathetic autonomic nervous system is also less active after yoga exercises. So it has a de-stressing effect.<br /> *Geschwind syndrome - The symptoms include obsessive writing, loss of interest in sex, and extreme religiousness. This rare form of epilepsy may well explain the behavior of various historical figures: the apostle Paul, the prophet Muhammed, Joan of Arc, Vincent van Gogh, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.<br /> *People from non-Western cultures never report seeing Jesus or God during a seizure. It seems that the divine image imprinted in our brains during early development reemerges during epileptic seizures, along with artistic, literary, political, or religious creations and our mental store of thoughts and convictions.<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Throughout history, all cultures have postulated the existence of a soul.<br /> * When one's life is in acute danger it appears that all of these memories are retrieved not one after the other but virtually simultaneously, leading to what is called &quot;panoramic memory&quot;. This can go hand in hand with strong spiritual or religious feelings.<br /> * The feeling of tranquility and the absence of pain in near death experiences is ascribed to the release of opiates or stimulation of the brain's reward system. The vision of a tunnel is caused by reduced blood circulation in the eyeball, starting on the periphery of the field of vision.<br /> * The placebo effect results from unconscious changes in brain function that reduce the symptoms of a disease. It is caused by the patient's own expectations of treatment.<br /> * The brain can be prompted by a placebo to bring about the exact functional changes that are needed to reduce the symptoms of depression increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and reduced activity in the hympothalamus.<br /> * The doctor figure is itself a walking placebo.<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Three components to free will:<br /> ** You could have abstained from the action.<br /> ** The action must be carried out for a reason.<br /> ** You should feel that you're carrying it out of your own volition (subjective)<br /> *We start life with a host of possibilities and talents but also many limitations, like a congenital tendency to addiction, a set level of aggression, a predetermined gender identity and sexual orientation, and a predisposition for ADHD, borderline personality disorder, depression, or shizophrenia.<br /> *We're born into a linguistic environment that shapes our brain structure and function without us being free to choose our mother tongue. The religious environment in which we end up after birth also determines how we shape our spirituality.<br /> *In other words, we are not free to change much of our native identity. Nor can we decide to have a certain talent, or to abstain from thought.<br /> *Nietzsche: &quot;A thought comes when &quot;it&quot; wants, not when &quot;I&quot; want.&quot;<br /> *Our brains can function excellently without conscious thought. But they have to be trained to do so. It's only by feeding the unconscious brain a huge amount of data over a long period of time that an art expert is able to &quot;sense&quot; when he's looking at a forgery, and it's only be seeing a great many patients that a medical specialist develops the &quot;clinical glance&quot; allowing her to make a diagnosis almost as soon as a patient enters the room.<br /> *Wegner believes that the illusion of free will is necessary in order to give an action personal legitimacy. It's like a rubber stamp saying &quot;I did this!&quot;.<br /> *The precursors of artistic development go back about 164,000 years, to our common roots in Africa, but mankind appears to have &quot;discovered&quot; art about 30,000 years ago, more or less simultaneously in France, Australia, and Africa.<br /> *It seems that if we're aware fo what we do but lack a sense of autonomy (free will), our body feels like an alien object. It has accordingly been suggested that the illusion of acting out of free will might well be the price we have to pay for consciousness.<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Alzheimer's can in many ways be seen as a premature, accelerated, and severe process of brain aging.<br /> * Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia and the number of patients is expected to double over the next 30 years.<br /> * Every active neuron sustains damage, just as a car engine does, through wear and tear. Neurons can repair themselves - but only to a certain extent. Tiny flaws remain and mount up over the years, causing the degeneration that is the aging process. In the case of individuals whose brains aren't good at repairing themselves or who incur a lot of brain damage, this degeneration is more serious and occurs faster, resulting in plaques and tangles, which lead to the onset of Alzheimer's.<br /> * Alzheimer's travels through our brains by a fixed route, starting with tangles in the cerebral cortex and abnormalities in the hippocampus.<br /> * We lose abilities in almost exactly the reverse order in which we acquire them:<br /> ** Stage 1: You function normally.<br /> ** Stage 2: You start to lose things and find it hard to carry out your job but can still maintain a semblance of normality.<br /> ** Stage 3: Your co-workers notice that you can no longer handle difficult situations at work.<br /> ** Stage 4: You have trouble with complex tasks, like handling finances.<br /> ** Stage 5: You start to need help choosing what to wear.<br /> ** Stage 6:<br /> *** 6a: You need help getting dressed.<br /> *** 6b: And washed. <br /> *** 6c: And going to the toilet.<br /> **Stage 7:<br /> ***7a:You can only speak about half a dozen intelligible words.<br /> ***7b: You lose the power of speech entirely.<br /> ***7c: You cannot walk unaided.<br /> ***7d. You cannot sit unaided.<br /> ***7e. You lose the ability to smil.<br /> ***7f. You cannot hold your head up, and finish curled up in a fetal position.<br /> *Growing up bilingual, having a good education and a challenging job, and remaining active in old age reduce the likelihood of Alzheimer's.<br /> *The circadian system is impacted by Alzheimer's, and this is why patients are restless and get up at night.<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Atoms have such a long life that each of our own atoms existed in many millions of organisms before being built into our bodies.<br /> * Water molecules are constantly being recycled - drunk, urinated, purified, evaporated, and then rained down again, so in any glass of water there is a real likelihood that one of the molecules has passed through Napoleon's bladder.<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1346 2026-05-25T13:51:59Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 18. Alzheimer&#039;s Disease */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * In 1951, 18,608 lobotomies were performed in the US, mainly on schizophrenia patients.<br /> * Empathy - the capacity to recognize and share the feelings of others - provides the basis for all moral behavior. Such behavior has a long evolutionary history and certainly isn't exclusive to humans.<br /> * Of all the stimuli that bind communities together, having a common enemy is the most powerful of all.<br /> * Inherent in the biological objective of morality - promoting cooperation - is that members of one's own group receive preferential treatment.<br /> * People usually don't think at all about moral acts. Instead they act quickly and instinctively, on a biological impulse. It's only afterward that they think up reasons for what they did unconsciously in a flash.<br /> * In an experiment in which adults pretended to be sad, children aged 1-2 responded by trying to comfort them. And so did pets.<br /> * When you see someone move a hand, the same neurons fire in your brain as when you make that movement yourself. Mirror neurons help us to learn by imitation - a process that's largely automatic. Newborn babies can copy the mouth movements of adults before they are an hour old. The same neurons react to displays of emotion, enabling us to sense what others are experiencing and thus providing the basis for empathy.<br /> * Men accused of murder often display malfunctions of the PFC.<br /> * The origins of empathy lie in a mother animal's caring behavior toward her offspring.<br /> * The reason humans are so good at torture is precisely because they excel at imagining what others feel. In fact, the more empathetic they are, the crueler they can be.<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * The various forms of learning, memory, forgetting, and thinking - and thus, in a sense, our minds themselves - are the result of synaptic contacts in different brain areas being affected by the many chemical messengers contained in neurons.<br /> * In professional violinists, the part of the cerebral cortex that directs the fingers of the left hand is 5x as large as in people who don't play a stringed instrument.<br /> * William Scoville removed large portions of the temporal lobe from H.M. After the operation, H.M. was unable to learn or retain information, although his short term memory was intact. The pathway from short to long-term memory had been cut off.<br /> * Working memory is crucial for processing language and is though to be underdeveloped in children who suffer from dyslexia.<br /> * The hippocampus specializes in combining sensory information. <br /> ** The location of the restaurant you arranged to meet up at, what the person you're meeting looks like, the sounds and smells from the kitchen, and the position of the set table are all fused into a single coherent item of autobiographical memory, the chronicle of your life.<br /> ** And later, at least if the dinner was worth it, this information is transferred to the long-term memory.<br /> ** The hippocampus does all this in close partnership with an area located nearby on the underside of the cortex: the entorhinal cortex (AKA parahippocampal gyrus).<br /> ** This was also removed from H.M.'s brain<br /> *It's also in the entorhinal cortex that the first signs of Alzheimer's appear.<br /> *The hippocampus is also essential for spatial orientation<br /> <br /> === Long-Term Memory ===<br /> *The amygdala imprints memories that carry a strong emotional charge under the influence of the stress hormone cortisol. As a result, a traumatic experience is immediately stored for good in the long-term memory. And that explains why over 80% of our earliest memories have negative associations.<br /> *There's a clear evolutionary advantage in imprinting danger in the mind - for instance in wartime - so that when a similar situation occurs you're immediately on the alert. <br /> *Sometimes this natural tendency becomes pathological however. PTSD is a sign that the amygdala has done its work too well, preventing the prefrontal cortex from signaling to the veteran that the danger is over.<br /> *An exaggerated response by the amygdala to negative stimuli also underlies borderline personality disorder, whose symptoms include emotional instability and impulsiveness.<br /> *While we sleep, the hippocampus constantly activates memories and transmits them to the cerebral cortex (we're not sure if this is during REM or quiet sleep). <br /> *The route information takes on its way to the long-term memory starts in the entorhinal cortex. <br /> **It's then briefly stored in the hippocampus in a process directed by the prefrontal cortex. <br /> **From there it follows two pathways, one taking it back to the cerebral cortex for long-term memory storage and the other - much longer - carrying it along the great arch of the fornix, suspended in the septum to the hypothalamus, where some fibers travel to the mammillary bodies. <br /> **The mammillary bodies pass on information the thalamus. Small infarctions in this area can lead to severe memory problems and even dementia.<br /> **The information travels on from the thalamus to areas of the cerebral cortex from which memories of facts and events can be consciously recalled. This is known as the declarative or explicit memory.<br /> *Different types of information - music, images, and faces - are stored in different parts of the cortex.<br /> *Capgras syndrome - While being able to recognize a friend, partner, or close relative, the sufferer feels no emotional connection to them and is therefore convinced that they are impostors. This delusion that a loved one has been replaced by something else - a robot or extraterrestrial - leads to paranoid behavior<br /> *Vision is processed in different parts of the brain. There are patients who:<br /> **Couldn't see movement. When cars were in motion she couldn't see them, but when they stopped, they suddenly became visible.<br /> **Could see but could not recognize colors<br /> **Could see color but not shapes<br /> **Have no perception of brightness and can't tell whether they are switching a light on or off.<br /> *The safest storage place for information is our remote memory, where we keep language and music. It's the last part to be affected by Alzheimer's.<br /> <br /> === Implicit/Procedural Memory (Cerebellum) ===<br /> *The Cerebellum contains 80% of our neurons and ensures that our movements and speech are flowing and coordinated. When you shake your head violently, for instance, it allows you to keep your eyes fixed on one point. It contains the memory of how to do things. It keeps track of motor learning during our development, from crawling to standing and walking, then cycling, swimming, playing the piano, and driving a car, and it constantly steers performance of these tasks. The program for these complex actions - our implicit memory - is stored and updated in this remarkable little computer, allowing us to perform them completely automatically.<br /> *By practicing the same tasks over and over, they become fully automatic and are transferred to the implicit or procedural memory in the cerebellum.<br /> *The cerebellum also suppresses the impact that your own actions have on other parts of the brain. That's why you can't tickle yourself. Your brain wants to give priority to unexpected sensory input that might require an urgent response.<br /> *The large neurons of the cerebellum, know as Purkinje cells form while we're still in the womb. But the vast majority of the small neurons, called granule cells, form only after birth. So all developmental brain disorders, including autism and pedophilia, make their mark on the cerebellum.<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Meta-analysis has shown a correlation among atheism, education, and IQ.<br /> * Receptiveness to religion is determined by spirituality, which is 50% genetically determined, as twin studies have shown.<br /> * The number of serotonin receptors in the brain corresponds to scores for spirituality. And substances that affect serotonin, like LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, can generate mystical and spiritual experiences.<br /> * The evolution of modern man has given rise to five behavioral characteristics common to all cultures: language, toolmaking, music, art, and religion.<br /> * The evolutionary advantage for religion is clear:<br /> ** Religion binds groups:<br /> *** It's sinful to marry an unbeliever.<br /> *** Numerous social rules are imposed.<br /> *** You must be recognizable as a member of the group.<br /> **The commandments and prohibitions had a number of advantages including on health.<br /> **Faith is a source of comfort and help at difficult times and gives a sense of purpose.<br /> **God has the answer to everything that we don't know or understand and belief makes you optimistic.<br /> **Faith takes away the fear of death - all religions promise life after death.<br /> **Religion sanctions killing other groups in the name of one's own god.<br /> *Spiritual experiences cause changes in brain activity (like everything else we do).<br /> *Alzheimer's disease is linked to the progressive loss of religious interest.<br /> *Hyperreligiosity is associated with frontotemporal dementia, mania, obsessive-compulsive behavior, schizophrenia, and temporal lobe epilepsy. A number of these disorders are knon to make the dopamine reward system more active.<br /> *A high proportion of patients with psychoses are religious, as their condition often prompts an interest in spirituality.<br /> *Praying for others is largely something you do to relax yourself. Doing yoga also reduces cortisol and increases production of the sleep hormone melatonin (as does meditation); the sympathetic autonomic nervous system is also less active after yoga exercises. So it has a de-stressing effect.<br /> *Geschwind syndrome - The symptoms include obsessive writing, loss of interest in sex, and extreme religiousness. This rare form of epilepsy may well explain the behavior of various historical figures: the apostle Paul, the prophet Muhammed, Joan of Arc, Vincent van Gogh, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.<br /> *People from non-Western cultures never report seeing Jesus or God during a seizure. It seems that the divine image imprinted in our brains during early development reemerges during epileptic seizures, along with artistic, literary, political, or religious creations and our mental store of thoughts and convictions.<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Throughout history, all cultures have postulated the existence of a soul.<br /> * When one's life is in acute danger it appears that all of these memories are retrieved not one after the other but virtually simultaneously, leading to what is called &quot;panoramic memory&quot;. This can go hand in hand with strong spiritual or religious feelings.<br /> * The feeling of tranquility and the absence of pain in near death experiences is ascribed to the release of opiates or stimulation of the brain's reward system. The vision of a tunnel is caused by reduced blood circulation in the eyeball, starting on the periphery of the field of vision.<br /> * The placebo effect results from unconscious changes in brain function that reduce the symptoms of a disease. It is caused by the patient's own expectations of treatment.<br /> * The brain can be prompted by a placebo to bring about the exact functional changes that are needed to reduce the symptoms of depression increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and reduced activity in the hympothalamus.<br /> * The doctor figure is itself a walking placebo.<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Three components to free will:<br /> ** You could have abstained from the action.<br /> ** The action must be carried out for a reason.<br /> ** You should feel that you're carrying it out of your own volition (subjective)<br /> *We start life with a host of possibilities and talents but also many limitations, like a congenital tendency to addiction, a set level of aggression, a predetermined gender identity and sexual orientation, and a predisposition for ADHD, borderline personality disorder, depression, or shizophrenia.<br /> *We're born into a linguistic environment that shapes our brain structure and function without us being free to choose our mother tongue. The religious environment in which we end up after birth also determines how we shape our spirituality.<br /> *In other words, we are not free to change much of our native identity. Nor can we decide to have a certain talent, or to abstain from thought.<br /> *Nietzsche: &quot;A thought comes when &quot;it&quot; wants, not when &quot;I&quot; want.&quot;<br /> *Our brains can function excellently without conscious thought. But they have to be trained to do so. It's only by feeding the unconscious brain a huge amount of data over a long period of time that an art expert is able to &quot;sense&quot; when he's looking at a forgery, and it's only be seeing a great many patients that a medical specialist develops the &quot;clinical glance&quot; allowing her to make a diagnosis almost as soon as a patient enters the room.<br /> *Wegner believes that the illusion of free will is necessary in order to give an action personal legitimacy. It's like a rubber stamp saying &quot;I did this!&quot;.<br /> *The precursors of artistic development go back about 164,000 years, to our common roots in Africa, but mankind appears to have &quot;discovered&quot; art about 30,000 years ago, more or less simultaneously in France, Australia, and Africa.<br /> *It seems that if we're aware fo what we do but lack a sense of autonomy (free will), our body feels like an alien object. It has accordingly been suggested that the illusion of acting out of free will might well be the price we have to pay for consciousness.<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Alzheimer's can in many ways be seen as a premature, accelerated, and severe process of brain aging.<br /> * Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia and the number of patients is expected to double over the next 30 years.<br /> * Every active neuron sustains damage, just as a car engine does, through wear and tear. Neurons can repair themselves - but only to a certain extent. Tiny flaws remain and mount up over the years, causing the degeneration that is the aging process. In the case of individuals whose brains aren't good at repairing themselves or who incur a lot of brain damage, this degeneration is more serious and occurs faster, resulting in plaques and tangles, which lead to the onset of Alzheimer's.<br /> * Alzheimer's travels through our brains by a fixed route, starting with tangles in the cerebral cortex and abnormalities in the hippocampus.<br /> * We lose abilities in almost exactly the reverse order in which we acquire them:<br /> ** Stage 1: You function normally.<br /> ** Stage 2: You start to lose things and find it hard to carry out your job but can still maintain a semblance of normality.<br /> ** Stage 3: Your co-workers notice that you can no longer handle difficult situations at work.<br /> ** Stage 4: You have trouble with complex tasks, like handling finances.<br /> ** Stage 5: You start to need help choosing what to wear.<br /> ** Stage 6:<br /> *** 6a: You need help getting dressed.<br /> *** 6b: And washed. <br /> *** 6c: And going to the toilet.<br /> **Stage 7:<br /> ***7a:You can only speak about half a dozen intelligible words.<br /> ***7b: You lose the power of speech entirely.<br /> ***7c: You cannot walk unaided.<br /> ***7d. You cannot sit unaided.<br /> ***7e. You lose the ability to smil.<br /> ***7f. You cannot hold your head up, and finish curled up in a fetal position.<br /> *Growing up bilingual, having a good education and a challenging job, and remaining active in old age reduce the likelihood of Alzheimer's.<br /> *The circadian system is impacted by Alzheimer's, and this is why patients are restless and get up at night.<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1345 2026-05-25T13:39:53Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * In 1951, 18,608 lobotomies were performed in the US, mainly on schizophrenia patients.<br /> * Empathy - the capacity to recognize and share the feelings of others - provides the basis for all moral behavior. Such behavior has a long evolutionary history and certainly isn't exclusive to humans.<br /> * Of all the stimuli that bind communities together, having a common enemy is the most powerful of all.<br /> * Inherent in the biological objective of morality - promoting cooperation - is that members of one's own group receive preferential treatment.<br /> * People usually don't think at all about moral acts. Instead they act quickly and instinctively, on a biological impulse. It's only afterward that they think up reasons for what they did unconsciously in a flash.<br /> * In an experiment in which adults pretended to be sad, children aged 1-2 responded by trying to comfort them. And so did pets.<br /> * When you see someone move a hand, the same neurons fire in your brain as when you make that movement yourself. Mirror neurons help us to learn by imitation - a process that's largely automatic. Newborn babies can copy the mouth movements of adults before they are an hour old. The same neurons react to displays of emotion, enabling us to sense what others are experiencing and thus providing the basis for empathy.<br /> * Men accused of murder often display malfunctions of the PFC.<br /> * The origins of empathy lie in a mother animal's caring behavior toward her offspring.<br /> * The reason humans are so good at torture is precisely because they excel at imagining what others feel. In fact, the more empathetic they are, the crueler they can be.<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * The various forms of learning, memory, forgetting, and thinking - and thus, in a sense, our minds themselves - are the result of synaptic contacts in different brain areas being affected by the many chemical messengers contained in neurons.<br /> * In professional violinists, the part of the cerebral cortex that directs the fingers of the left hand is 5x as large as in people who don't play a stringed instrument.<br /> * William Scoville removed large portions of the temporal lobe from H.M. After the operation, H.M. was unable to learn or retain information, although his short term memory was intact. The pathway from short to long-term memory had been cut off.<br /> * Working memory is crucial for processing language and is though to be underdeveloped in children who suffer from dyslexia.<br /> * The hippocampus specializes in combining sensory information. <br /> ** The location of the restaurant you arranged to meet up at, what the person you're meeting looks like, the sounds and smells from the kitchen, and the position of the set table are all fused into a single coherent item of autobiographical memory, the chronicle of your life.<br /> ** And later, at least if the dinner was worth it, this information is transferred to the long-term memory.<br /> ** The hippocampus does all this in close partnership with an area located nearby on the underside of the cortex: the entorhinal cortex (AKA parahippocampal gyrus).<br /> ** This was also removed from H.M.'s brain<br /> *It's also in the entorhinal cortex that the first signs of Alzheimer's appear.<br /> *The hippocampus is also essential for spatial orientation<br /> <br /> === Long-Term Memory ===<br /> *The amygdala imprints memories that carry a strong emotional charge under the influence of the stress hormone cortisol. As a result, a traumatic experience is immediately stored for good in the long-term memory. And that explains why over 80% of our earliest memories have negative associations.<br /> *There's a clear evolutionary advantage in imprinting danger in the mind - for instance in wartime - so that when a similar situation occurs you're immediately on the alert. <br /> *Sometimes this natural tendency becomes pathological however. PTSD is a sign that the amygdala has done its work too well, preventing the prefrontal cortex from signaling to the veteran that the danger is over.<br /> *An exaggerated response by the amygdala to negative stimuli also underlies borderline personality disorder, whose symptoms include emotional instability and impulsiveness.<br /> *While we sleep, the hippocampus constantly activates memories and transmits them to the cerebral cortex (we're not sure if this is during REM or quiet sleep). <br /> *The route information takes on its way to the long-term memory starts in the entorhinal cortex. <br /> **It's then briefly stored in the hippocampus in a process directed by the prefrontal cortex. <br /> **From there it follows two pathways, one taking it back to the cerebral cortex for long-term memory storage and the other - much longer - carrying it along the great arch of the fornix, suspended in the septum to the hypothalamus, where some fibers travel to the mammillary bodies. <br /> **The mammillary bodies pass on information the thalamus. Small infarctions in this area can lead to severe memory problems and even dementia.<br /> **The information travels on from the thalamus to areas of the cerebral cortex from which memories of facts and events can be consciously recalled. This is known as the declarative or explicit memory.<br /> *Different types of information - music, images, and faces - are stored in different parts of the cortex.<br /> *Capgras syndrome - While being able to recognize a friend, partner, or close relative, the sufferer feels no emotional connection to them and is therefore convinced that they are impostors. This delusion that a loved one has been replaced by something else - a robot or extraterrestrial - leads to paranoid behavior<br /> *Vision is processed in different parts of the brain. There are patients who:<br /> **Couldn't see movement. When cars were in motion she couldn't see them, but when they stopped, they suddenly became visible.<br /> **Could see but could not recognize colors<br /> **Could see color but not shapes<br /> **Have no perception of brightness and can't tell whether they are switching a light on or off.<br /> *The safest storage place for information is our remote memory, where we keep language and music. It's the last part to be affected by Alzheimer's.<br /> <br /> === Implicit/Procedural Memory (Cerebellum) ===<br /> *The Cerebellum contains 80% of our neurons and ensures that our movements and speech are flowing and coordinated. When you shake your head violently, for instance, it allows you to keep your eyes fixed on one point. It contains the memory of how to do things. It keeps track of motor learning during our development, from crawling to standing and walking, then cycling, swimming, playing the piano, and driving a car, and it constantly steers performance of these tasks. The program for these complex actions - our implicit memory - is stored and updated in this remarkable little computer, allowing us to perform them completely automatically.<br /> *By practicing the same tasks over and over, they become fully automatic and are transferred to the implicit or procedural memory in the cerebellum.<br /> *The cerebellum also suppresses the impact that your own actions have on other parts of the brain. That's why you can't tickle yourself. Your brain wants to give priority to unexpected sensory input that might require an urgent response.<br /> *The large neurons of the cerebellum, know as Purkinje cells form while we're still in the womb. But the vast majority of the small neurons, called granule cells, form only after birth. So all developmental brain disorders, including autism and pedophilia, make their mark on the cerebellum.<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Meta-analysis has shown a correlation among atheism, education, and IQ.<br /> * Receptiveness to religion is determined by spirituality, which is 50% genetically determined, as twin studies have shown.<br /> * The number of serotonin receptors in the brain corresponds to scores for spirituality. And substances that affect serotonin, like LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, can generate mystical and spiritual experiences.<br /> * The evolution of modern man has given rise to five behavioral characteristics common to all cultures: language, toolmaking, music, art, and religion.<br /> * The evolutionary advantage for religion is clear:<br /> ** Religion binds groups:<br /> *** It's sinful to marry an unbeliever.<br /> *** Numerous social rules are imposed.<br /> *** You must be recognizable as a member of the group.<br /> **The commandments and prohibitions had a number of advantages including on health.<br /> **Faith is a source of comfort and help at difficult times and gives a sense of purpose.<br /> **God has the answer to everything that we don't know or understand and belief makes you optimistic.<br /> **Faith takes away the fear of death - all religions promise life after death.<br /> **Religion sanctions killing other groups in the name of one's own god.<br /> *Spiritual experiences cause changes in brain activity (like everything else we do).<br /> *Alzheimer's disease is linked to the progressive loss of religious interest.<br /> *Hyperreligiosity is associated with frontotemporal dementia, mania, obsessive-compulsive behavior, schizophrenia, and temporal lobe epilepsy. A number of these disorders are knon to make the dopamine reward system more active.<br /> *A high proportion of patients with psychoses are religious, as their condition often prompts an interest in spirituality.<br /> *Praying for others is largely something you do to relax yourself. Doing yoga also reduces cortisol and increases production of the sleep hormone melatonin (as does meditation); the sympathetic autonomic nervous system is also less active after yoga exercises. So it has a de-stressing effect.<br /> *Geschwind syndrome - The symptoms include obsessive writing, loss of interest in sex, and extreme religiousness. This rare form of epilepsy may well explain the behavior of various historical figures: the apostle Paul, the prophet Muhammed, Joan of Arc, Vincent van Gogh, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.<br /> *People from non-Western cultures never report seeing Jesus or God during a seizure. It seems that the divine image imprinted in our brains during early development reemerges during epileptic seizures, along with artistic, literary, political, or religious creations and our mental store of thoughts and convictions.<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Throughout history, all cultures have postulated the existence of a soul.<br /> * When one's life is in acute danger it appears that all of these memories are retrieved not one after the other but virtually simultaneously, leading to what is called &quot;panoramic memory&quot;. This can go hand in hand with strong spiritual or religious feelings.<br /> * The feeling of tranquility and the absence of pain in near death experiences is ascribed to the release of opiates or stimulation of the brain's reward system. The vision of a tunnel is caused by reduced blood circulation in the eyeball, starting on the periphery of the field of vision.<br /> * The placebo effect results from unconscious changes in brain function that reduce the symptoms of a disease. It is caused by the patient's own expectations of treatment.<br /> * The brain can be prompted by a placebo to bring about the exact functional changes that are needed to reduce the symptoms of depression increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and reduced activity in the hympothalamus.<br /> * The doctor figure is itself a walking placebo.<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Three components to free will:<br /> ** You could have abstained from the action.<br /> ** The action must be carried out for a reason.<br /> ** You should feel that you're carrying it out of your own volition (subjective)<br /> *We start life with a host of possibilities and talents but also many limitations, like a congenital tendency to addiction, a set level of aggression, a predetermined gender identity and sexual orientation, and a predisposition for ADHD, borderline personality disorder, depression, or shizophrenia.<br /> *We're born into a linguistic environment that shapes our brain structure and function without us being free to choose our mother tongue. The religious environment in which we end up after birth also determines how we shape our spirituality.<br /> *In other words, we are not free to change much of our native identity. Nor can we decide to have a certain talent, or to abstain from thought.<br /> *Nietzsche: &quot;A thought comes when &quot;it&quot; wants, not when &quot;I&quot; want.&quot;<br /> *Our brains can function excellently without conscious thought. But they have to be trained to do so. It's only by feeding the unconscious brain a huge amount of data over a long period of time that an art expert is able to &quot;sense&quot; when he's looking at a forgery, and it's only be seeing a great many patients that a medical specialist develops the &quot;clinical glance&quot; allowing her to make a diagnosis almost as soon as a patient enters the room.<br /> *Wegner believes that the illusion of free will is necessary in order to give an action personal legitimacy. It's like a rubber stamp saying &quot;I did this!&quot;.<br /> *The precursors of artistic development go back about 164,000 years, to our common roots in Africa, but mankind appears to have &quot;discovered&quot; art about 30,000 years ago, more or less simultaneously in France, Australia, and Africa.<br /> *It seems that if we're aware fo what we do but lack a sense of autonomy (free will), our body feels like an alien object. It has accordingly been suggested that the illusion of acting out of free will might well be the price we have to pay for consciousness.<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1344 2026-05-24T17:44:30Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 16. There Isn&#039;t More Between Heaven and Earth */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * In 1951, 18,608 lobotomies were performed in the US, mainly on schizophrenia patients.<br /> * Empathy - the capacity to recognize and share the feelings of others - provides the basis for all moral behavior. Such behavior has a long evolutionary history and certainly isn't exclusive to humans.<br /> * Of all the stimuli that bind communities together, having a common enemy is the most powerful of all.<br /> * Inherent in the biological objective of morality - promoting cooperation - is that members of one's own group receive preferential treatment.<br /> * People usually don't think at all about moral acts. Instead they act quickly and instinctively, on a biological impulse. It's only afterward that they think up reasons for what they did unconsciously in a flash.<br /> * In an experiment in which adults pretended to be sad, children aged 1-2 responded by trying to comfort them. And so did pets.<br /> * When you see someone move a hand, the same neurons fire in your brain as when you make that movement yourself. Mirror neurons help us to learn by imitation - a process that's largely automatic. Newborn babies can copy the mouth movements of adults before they are an hour old. The same neurons react to displays of emotion, enabling us to sense what others are experiencing and thus providing the basis for empathy.<br /> * Men accused of murder often display malfunctions of the PFC.<br /> * The origins of empathy lie in a mother animal's caring behavior toward her offspring.<br /> * The reason humans are so good at torture is precisely because they excel at imagining what others feel. In fact, the more empathetic they are, the crueler they can be.<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * The various forms of learning, memory, forgetting, and thinking - and thus, in a sense, our minds themselves - are the result of synaptic contacts in different brain areas being affected by the many chemical messengers contained in neurons.<br /> * In professional violinists, the part of the cerebral cortex that directs the fingers of the left hand is 5x as large as in people who don't play a stringed instrument.<br /> * William Scoville removed large portions of the temporal lobe from H.M. After the operation, H.M. was unable to learn or retain information, although his short term memory was intact. The pathway from short to long-term memory had been cut off.<br /> * Working memory is crucial for processing language and is though to be underdeveloped in children who suffer from dyslexia.<br /> * The hippocampus specializes in combining sensory information. <br /> ** The location of the restaurant you arranged to meet up at, what the person you're meeting looks like, the sounds and smells from the kitchen, and the position of the set table are all fused into a single coherent item of autobiographical memory, the chronicle of your life.<br /> ** And later, at least if the dinner was worth it, this information is transferred to the long-term memory.<br /> ** The hippocampus does all this in close partnership with an area located nearby on the underside of the cortex: the entorhinal cortex (AKA parahippocampal gyrus).<br /> ** This was also removed from H.M.'s brain<br /> *It's also in the entorhinal cortex that the first signs of Alzheimer's appear.<br /> *The hippocampus is also essential for spatial orientation<br /> <br /> === Long-Term Memory ===<br /> *The amygdala imprints memories that carry a strong emotional charge under the influence of the stress hormone cortisol. As a result, a traumatic experience is immediately stored for good in the long-term memory. And that explains why over 80% of our earliest memories have negative associations.<br /> *There's a clear evolutionary advantage in imprinting danger in the mind - for instance in wartime - so that when a similar situation occurs you're immediately on the alert. <br /> *Sometimes this natural tendency becomes pathological however. PTSD is a sign that the amygdala has done its work too well, preventing the prefrontal cortex from signaling to the veteran that the danger is over.<br /> *An exaggerated response by the amygdala to negative stimuli also underlies borderline personality disorder, whose symptoms include emotional instability and impulsiveness.<br /> *While we sleep, the hippocampus constantly activates memories and transmits them to the cerebral cortex (we're not sure if this is during REM or quiet sleep). <br /> *The route information takes on its way to the long-term memory starts in the entorhinal cortex. <br /> **It's then briefly stored in the hippocampus in a process directed by the prefrontal cortex. <br /> **From there it follows two pathways, one taking it back to the cerebral cortex for long-term memory storage and the other - much longer - carrying it along the great arch of the fornix, suspended in the septum to the hypothalamus, where some fibers travel to the mammillary bodies. <br /> **The mammillary bodies pass on information the thalamus. Small infarctions in this area can lead to severe memory problems and even dementia.<br /> **The information travels on from the thalamus to areas of the cerebral cortex from which memories of facts and events can be consciously recalled. This is known as the declarative or explicit memory.<br /> *Different types of information - music, images, and faces - are stored in different parts of the cortex.<br /> *Capgras syndrome - While being able to recognize a friend, partner, or close relative, the sufferer feels no emotional connection to them and is therefore convinced that they are impostors. This delusion that a loved one has been replaced by something else - a robot or extraterrestrial - leads to paranoid behavior<br /> *Vision is processed in different parts of the brain. There are patients who:<br /> **Couldn't see movement. When cars were in motion she couldn't see them, but when they stopped, they suddenly became visible.<br /> **Could see but could not recognize colors<br /> **Could see color but not shapes<br /> **Have no perception of brightness and can't tell whether they are switching a light on or off.<br /> *The safest storage place for information is our remote memory, where we keep language and music. It's the last part to be affected by Alzheimer's.<br /> <br /> === Implicit/Procedural Memory (Cerebellum) ===<br /> *The Cerebellum contains 80% of our neurons and ensures that our movements and speech are flowing and coordinated. When you shake your head violently, for instance, it allows you to keep your eyes fixed on one point. It contains the memory of how to do things. It keeps track of motor learning during our development, from crawling to standing and walking, then cycling, swimming, playing the piano, and driving a car, and it constantly steers performance of these tasks. The program for these complex actions - our implicit memory - is stored and updated in this remarkable little computer, allowing us to perform them completely automatically.<br /> *By practicing the same tasks over and over, they become fully automatic and are transferred to the implicit or procedural memory in the cerebellum.<br /> *The cerebellum also suppresses the impact that your own actions have on other parts of the brain. That's why you can't tickle yourself. Your brain wants to give priority to unexpected sensory input that might require an urgent response.<br /> *The large neurons of the cerebellum, know as Purkinje cells form while we're still in the womb. But the vast majority of the small neurons, called granule cells, form only after birth. So all developmental brain disorders, including autism and pedophilia, make their mark on the cerebellum.<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Meta-analysis has shown a correlation among atheism, education, and IQ.<br /> * Receptiveness to religion is determined by spirituality, which is 50% genetically determined, as twin studies have shown.<br /> * The number of serotonin receptors in the brain corresponds to scores for spirituality. And substances that affect serotonin, like LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, can generate mystical and spiritual experiences.<br /> * The evolution of modern man has given rise to five behavioral characteristics common to all cultures: language, toolmaking, music, art, and religion.<br /> * The evolutionary advantage for religion is clear:<br /> ** Religion binds groups:<br /> *** It's sinful to marry an unbeliever.<br /> *** Numerous social rules are imposed.<br /> *** You must be recognizable as a member of the group.<br /> **The commandments and prohibitions had a number of advantages including on health.<br /> **Faith is a source of comfort and help at difficult times and gives a sense of purpose.<br /> **God has the answer to everything that we don't know or understand and belief makes you optimistic.<br /> **Faith takes away the fear of death - all religions promise life after death.<br /> **Religion sanctions killing other groups in the name of one's own god.<br /> *Spiritual experiences cause changes in brain activity (like everything else we do).<br /> *Alzheimer's disease is linked to the progressive loss of religious interest.<br /> *Hyperreligiosity is associated with frontotemporal dementia, mania, obsessive-compulsive behavior, schizophrenia, and temporal lobe epilepsy. A number of these disorders are knon to make the dopamine reward system more active.<br /> *A high proportion of patients with psychoses are religious, as their condition often prompts an interest in spirituality.<br /> *Praying for others is largely something you do to relax yourself. Doing yoga also reduces cortisol and increases production of the sleep hormone melatonin (as does meditation); the sympathetic autonomic nervous system is also less active after yoga exercises. So it has a de-stressing effect.<br /> *Geschwind syndrome - The symptoms include obsessive writing, loss of interest in sex, and extreme religiousness. This rare form of epilepsy may well explain the behavior of various historical figures: the apostle Paul, the prophet Muhammed, Joan of Arc, Vincent van Gogh, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.<br /> *People from non-Western cultures never report seeing Jesus or God during a seizure. It seems that the divine image imprinted in our brains during early development reemerges during epileptic seizures, along with artistic, literary, political, or religious creations and our mental store of thoughts and convictions.<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Throughout history, all cultures have postulated the existence of a soul.<br /> * When one's life is in acute danger it appears that all of these memories are retrieved not one after the other but virtually simultaneously, leading to what is called &quot;panoramic memory&quot;. This can go hand in hand with strong spiritual or religious feelings.<br /> * The feeling of tranquility and the absence of pain in near death experiences is ascribed to the release of opiates or stimulation of the brain's reward system. The vision of a tunnel is caused by reduced blood circulation in the eyeball, starting on the periphery of the field of vision.<br /> * The placebo effect results from unconscious changes in brain function that reduce the symptoms of a disease. It is caused by the patient's own expectations of treatment.<br /> * The brain can be prompted by a placebo to bring about the exact functional changes that are needed to reduce the symptoms of depression increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and reduced activity in the hympothalamus.<br /> * The doctor figure is itself a walking placebo.<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1343 2026-05-24T17:38:24Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 14. Memory */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * In 1951, 18,608 lobotomies were performed in the US, mainly on schizophrenia patients.<br /> * Empathy - the capacity to recognize and share the feelings of others - provides the basis for all moral behavior. Such behavior has a long evolutionary history and certainly isn't exclusive to humans.<br /> * Of all the stimuli that bind communities together, having a common enemy is the most powerful of all.<br /> * Inherent in the biological objective of morality - promoting cooperation - is that members of one's own group receive preferential treatment.<br /> * People usually don't think at all about moral acts. Instead they act quickly and instinctively, on a biological impulse. It's only afterward that they think up reasons for what they did unconsciously in a flash.<br /> * In an experiment in which adults pretended to be sad, children aged 1-2 responded by trying to comfort them. And so did pets.<br /> * When you see someone move a hand, the same neurons fire in your brain as when you make that movement yourself. Mirror neurons help us to learn by imitation - a process that's largely automatic. Newborn babies can copy the mouth movements of adults before they are an hour old. The same neurons react to displays of emotion, enabling us to sense what others are experiencing and thus providing the basis for empathy.<br /> * Men accused of murder often display malfunctions of the PFC.<br /> * The origins of empathy lie in a mother animal's caring behavior toward her offspring.<br /> * The reason humans are so good at torture is precisely because they excel at imagining what others feel. In fact, the more empathetic they are, the crueler they can be.<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * The various forms of learning, memory, forgetting, and thinking - and thus, in a sense, our minds themselves - are the result of synaptic contacts in different brain areas being affected by the many chemical messengers contained in neurons.<br /> * In professional violinists, the part of the cerebral cortex that directs the fingers of the left hand is 5x as large as in people who don't play a stringed instrument.<br /> * William Scoville removed large portions of the temporal lobe from H.M. After the operation, H.M. was unable to learn or retain information, although his short term memory was intact. The pathway from short to long-term memory had been cut off.<br /> * Working memory is crucial for processing language and is though to be underdeveloped in children who suffer from dyslexia.<br /> * The hippocampus specializes in combining sensory information. <br /> ** The location of the restaurant you arranged to meet up at, what the person you're meeting looks like, the sounds and smells from the kitchen, and the position of the set table are all fused into a single coherent item of autobiographical memory, the chronicle of your life.<br /> ** And later, at least if the dinner was worth it, this information is transferred to the long-term memory.<br /> ** The hippocampus does all this in close partnership with an area located nearby on the underside of the cortex: the entorhinal cortex (AKA parahippocampal gyrus).<br /> ** This was also removed from H.M.'s brain<br /> *It's also in the entorhinal cortex that the first signs of Alzheimer's appear.<br /> *The hippocampus is also essential for spatial orientation<br /> <br /> === Long-Term Memory ===<br /> *The amygdala imprints memories that carry a strong emotional charge under the influence of the stress hormone cortisol. As a result, a traumatic experience is immediately stored for good in the long-term memory. And that explains why over 80% of our earliest memories have negative associations.<br /> *There's a clear evolutionary advantage in imprinting danger in the mind - for instance in wartime - so that when a similar situation occurs you're immediately on the alert. <br /> *Sometimes this natural tendency becomes pathological however. PTSD is a sign that the amygdala has done its work too well, preventing the prefrontal cortex from signaling to the veteran that the danger is over.<br /> *An exaggerated response by the amygdala to negative stimuli also underlies borderline personality disorder, whose symptoms include emotional instability and impulsiveness.<br /> *While we sleep, the hippocampus constantly activates memories and transmits them to the cerebral cortex (we're not sure if this is during REM or quiet sleep). <br /> *The route information takes on its way to the long-term memory starts in the entorhinal cortex. <br /> **It's then briefly stored in the hippocampus in a process directed by the prefrontal cortex. <br /> **From there it follows two pathways, one taking it back to the cerebral cortex for long-term memory storage and the other - much longer - carrying it along the great arch of the fornix, suspended in the septum to the hypothalamus, where some fibers travel to the mammillary bodies. <br /> **The mammillary bodies pass on information the thalamus. Small infarctions in this area can lead to severe memory problems and even dementia.<br /> **The information travels on from the thalamus to areas of the cerebral cortex from which memories of facts and events can be consciously recalled. This is known as the declarative or explicit memory.<br /> *Different types of information - music, images, and faces - are stored in different parts of the cortex.<br /> *Capgras syndrome - While being able to recognize a friend, partner, or close relative, the sufferer feels no emotional connection to them and is therefore convinced that they are impostors. This delusion that a loved one has been replaced by something else - a robot or extraterrestrial - leads to paranoid behavior<br /> *Vision is processed in different parts of the brain. There are patients who:<br /> **Couldn't see movement. When cars were in motion she couldn't see them, but when they stopped, they suddenly became visible.<br /> **Could see but could not recognize colors<br /> **Could see color but not shapes<br /> **Have no perception of brightness and can't tell whether they are switching a light on or off.<br /> *The safest storage place for information is our remote memory, where we keep language and music. It's the last part to be affected by Alzheimer's.<br /> <br /> === Implicit/Procedural Memory (Cerebellum) ===<br /> *The Cerebellum contains 80% of our neurons and ensures that our movements and speech are flowing and coordinated. When you shake your head violently, for instance, it allows you to keep your eyes fixed on one point. It contains the memory of how to do things. It keeps track of motor learning during our development, from crawling to standing and walking, then cycling, swimming, playing the piano, and driving a car, and it constantly steers performance of these tasks. The program for these complex actions - our implicit memory - is stored and updated in this remarkable little computer, allowing us to perform them completely automatically.<br /> *By practicing the same tasks over and over, they become fully automatic and are transferred to the implicit or procedural memory in the cerebellum.<br /> *The cerebellum also suppresses the impact that your own actions have on other parts of the brain. That's why you can't tickle yourself. Your brain wants to give priority to unexpected sensory input that might require an urgent response.<br /> *The large neurons of the cerebellum, know as Purkinje cells form while we're still in the womb. But the vast majority of the small neurons, called granule cells, form only after birth. So all developmental brain disorders, including autism and pedophilia, make their mark on the cerebellum.<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Meta-analysis has shown a correlation among atheism, education, and IQ.<br /> * Receptiveness to religion is determined by spirituality, which is 50% genetically determined, as twin studies have shown.<br /> * The number of serotonin receptors in the brain corresponds to scores for spirituality. And substances that affect serotonin, like LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, can generate mystical and spiritual experiences.<br /> * The evolution of modern man has given rise to five behavioral characteristics common to all cultures: language, toolmaking, music, art, and religion.<br /> * The evolutionary advantage for religion is clear:<br /> ** Religion binds groups:<br /> *** It's sinful to marry an unbeliever.<br /> *** Numerous social rules are imposed.<br /> *** You must be recognizable as a member of the group.<br /> **The commandments and prohibitions had a number of advantages including on health.<br /> **Faith is a source of comfort and help at difficult times and gives a sense of purpose.<br /> **God has the answer to everything that we don't know or understand and belief makes you optimistic.<br /> **Faith takes away the fear of death - all religions promise life after death.<br /> **Religion sanctions killing other groups in the name of one's own god.<br /> *Spiritual experiences cause changes in brain activity (like everything else we do).<br /> *Alzheimer's disease is linked to the progressive loss of religious interest.<br /> *Hyperreligiosity is associated with frontotemporal dementia, mania, obsessive-compulsive behavior, schizophrenia, and temporal lobe epilepsy. A number of these disorders are knon to make the dopamine reward system more active.<br /> *A high proportion of patients with psychoses are religious, as their condition often prompts an interest in spirituality.<br /> *Praying for others is largely something you do to relax yourself. Doing yoga also reduces cortisol and increases production of the sleep hormone melatonin (as does meditation); the sympathetic autonomic nervous system is also less active after yoga exercises. So it has a de-stressing effect.<br /> *Geschwind syndrome - The symptoms include obsessive writing, loss of interest in sex, and extreme religiousness. This rare form of epilepsy may well explain the behavior of various historical figures: the apostle Paul, the prophet Muhammed, Joan of Arc, Vincent van Gogh, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.<br /> *People from non-Western cultures never report seeing Jesus or God during a seizure. It seems that the divine image imprinted in our brains during early development reemerges during epileptic seizures, along with artistic, literary, political, or religious creations and our mental store of thoughts and convictions.<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1342 2026-05-23T18:09:56Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 14. Memory */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * In 1951, 18,608 lobotomies were performed in the US, mainly on schizophrenia patients.<br /> * Empathy - the capacity to recognize and share the feelings of others - provides the basis for all moral behavior. Such behavior has a long evolutionary history and certainly isn't exclusive to humans.<br /> * Of all the stimuli that bind communities together, having a common enemy is the most powerful of all.<br /> * Inherent in the biological objective of morality - promoting cooperation - is that members of one's own group receive preferential treatment.<br /> * People usually don't think at all about moral acts. Instead they act quickly and instinctively, on a biological impulse. It's only afterward that they think up reasons for what they did unconsciously in a flash.<br /> * In an experiment in which adults pretended to be sad, children aged 1-2 responded by trying to comfort them. And so did pets.<br /> * When you see someone move a hand, the same neurons fire in your brain as when you make that movement yourself. Mirror neurons help us to learn by imitation - a process that's largely automatic. Newborn babies can copy the mouth movements of adults before they are an hour old. The same neurons react to displays of emotion, enabling us to sense what others are experiencing and thus providing the basis for empathy.<br /> * Men accused of murder often display malfunctions of the PFC.<br /> * The origins of empathy lie in a mother animal's caring behavior toward her offspring.<br /> * The reason humans are so good at torture is precisely because they excel at imagining what others feel. In fact, the more empathetic they are, the crueler they can be.<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * The various forms of learning, memory, forgetting, and thinking - and thus, in a sense, our minds themselves - are the result of synaptic contacts in different brain areas being affected by the many chemical messengers contained in neurons.<br /> * In professional violinists, the part of the cerebral cortex that directs the fingers of the left hand is 5x as large as in people who don't play a stringed instrument.<br /> * William Scoville removed large portions of the temporal lobe from H.M. After the operation, H.M. was unable to learn or retain information, although his short term memory was intact. The pathway from short to long-term memory had been cut off.<br /> * Working memory is crucial for processing language and is though to be underdeveloped in children who suffer from dyslexia.<br /> * The hippocampus specializes in combining sensory information. <br /> ** The location of the restaurant you arranged to meet up at, what the person you're meeting looks like, the sounds and smells from the kitchen, and the position of the set table are all fused into a single coherent item of autobiographical memory, the chronicle of your life.<br /> ** And later, at least if the dinner was worth it, this information is transferred to the long-term memory.<br /> ** The hippocampus does all this in close partnership with an area located nearby on the underside of the cortex: the entorhinal cortex (AKA parahippocampal gyrus). Sc<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1341 2026-05-23T17:46:50Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 13. Moral Behavior */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * In 1951, 18,608 lobotomies were performed in the US, mainly on schizophrenia patients.<br /> * Empathy - the capacity to recognize and share the feelings of others - provides the basis for all moral behavior. Such behavior has a long evolutionary history and certainly isn't exclusive to humans.<br /> * Of all the stimuli that bind communities together, having a common enemy is the most powerful of all.<br /> * Inherent in the biological objective of morality - promoting cooperation - is that members of one's own group receive preferential treatment.<br /> * People usually don't think at all about moral acts. Instead they act quickly and instinctively, on a biological impulse. It's only afterward that they think up reasons for what they did unconsciously in a flash.<br /> * In an experiment in which adults pretended to be sad, children aged 1-2 responded by trying to comfort them. And so did pets.<br /> * When you see someone move a hand, the same neurons fire in your brain as when you make that movement yourself. Mirror neurons help us to learn by imitation - a process that's largely automatic. Newborn babies can copy the mouth movements of adults before they are an hour old. The same neurons react to displays of emotion, enabling us to sense what others are experiencing and thus providing the basis for empathy.<br /> * Men accused of murder often display malfunctions of the PFC.<br /> * The origins of empathy lie in a mother animal's caring behavior toward her offspring.<br /> * The reason humans are so good at torture is precisely because they excel at imagining what others feel. In fact, the more empathetic they are, the crueler they can be.<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1340 2026-05-23T16:24:23Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Since performing compulsive actions makes people with OCD feel good, it's thought that the brain's reward system is involved.<br /> * Our taste for sweet food depends on a single hedonistic hotspot at the base of the brain. Disabling that area makes sweet food taste repellent. Likewise, the hypothalamus is necessary for infatuation, maternal love, and pair forming.<br /> * Oxytocin and vasopressin play a role in infatuation, orgasm, pair forming, and maternal love. Deficiencies in those two chemical messengers are associated with autism.<br /> * If fetal donor tissue is implanted in your brain, what characteristics might you acquire from the donor?<br /> * In gene therapy, pieces of DNA containing the code for a particular protein (a gene) are inserted into a cell. The cell then starts to produce medicine in the form of the gene product, that is, a new protein.<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Around 17% of professional boxers (including Muhammed Ali) have Parkinson's.<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1339 2026-05-23T11:21:57Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Up until the 1950s, schizophrenia was &quot;treated&quot; by means of a lobotomy, and outpatient procedure that involved severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Opponents called it &quot;partial euthanasia&quot; since it turned patients into robots.<br /> * Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population. Around 10% of schizophrenics try to kill themselves.<br /> * It is characterized by:<br /> ** &quot;Positive&quot; symptoms - Abnormal experiences, like delusions and hallucinations. They can't be distinguished from real experiences because they take place in the same areas of the brain where external stimuli are normally processed.<br /> ** &quot;Negative&quot; symptoms - The loss of normal abilities, like taking initiative, organizing one's life, tidying up one's room, and looking after oneself. These are caused by reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. A current therapy is to apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to that area. Stimulating areas of the cerebral cortex that are extra active can also reduce hallucinations.<br /> *Changing hormone levels during puberty and menopause bring on the disease, though a predisposition for it arises in the womb.<br /> *As the disease progresses, the brain shrinks and its ventricles (cavities) become larger, creating too much space between the convolutions of the brain.<br /> *There are no brain changes that are specific to schizophrenia, so diagnosis is entirely dependent on psychiatric investigation.<br /> *Schizophrenia is around 80% genetic.<br /> *Birth is the first functional test of a child's brain.<br /> *After birth, an environment full of stimuli increases the right of schizophrenia. You're more likely to develop the disease if you live in a city rather than the country.<br /> *Whether cannabis induces the disease or simply brings forward the moment at which symptoms occur is still a subject of fierce debate.<br /> *In schizophrenics, a high percentage of cells in the hippocampus are in disarray - something that can only happen in the first half of pregnancy. Abnormal patterns of brain convolution are also found, as well as groups of cells that have failed to migrate to the right place in the cerebral cortex. This too can only happen during early development.<br /> <br /> === Hallucinations Due to Lack of Stimuli ===<br /> *If brain structures stop receiving information in a normal way, they start making up information. This applies both to sensory information - from eyes, ears, and limbs - and memory information.<br /> *When your brain manufactures information on the spot where it's normally processed, it's interpreted as if it had entered from outside via the normal route.<br /> *The brain stops producing old information once it receives fresh input again, and it makes no difference whether the input is meaningful or has no information content.<br /> *Phantom sensations following amputation appear to be based on the same principle. Lacking customary input from a limb, the brain &quot;makes up&quot; the presence of the missing arm or leg.<br /> *In schizophrenia, input to areas of the cerebral cortex is also reduced, so the hallucinations provoked could be caused by the same mechanism.<br /> *Mountaineers, especially when alone, sometimes have very vivid hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing people, or have out-of-body experiences) or are overcome by fear. So it's interesting that the revelations received by the leaders of the world's three main religions were preceded by a period of isolation in the mountains. When the brain is very isolated it starts to use stored experiences and thoughts to manufacture things - sometimes even new religions.<br /> <br /> === Other Hallucinations ===<br /> *Mark Twain: &quot;When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.&quot;<br /> *For an old brain, an anesthetic is like a dose of near-lethal poison. In intensive care, up to 80% of patients experience delerium.<br /> *The condition sometimes resembles dementia, but delirium strikes all of a sudden, while the onset of dementia is gradual.<br /> *Delirium is basically caused by an overdoes of the chemical messenger dopamine.<br /> *Around a third of people over 65 who experience delirium die within a few months.<br /> <br /> === Hearing Voices ===<br /> <br /> * There are people who aren't psychotic and yet hear voices. Between 7-15% of the population hear voices, yet only a fraction have mental health problems.<br /> * Unlike psychotic patients, healthy people can control their voices. They can call them up as well as order them to go away at inconvenient times. Functional brain scans show that in the healthy group, brain activity isn't very different from that of patients with psychosis.<br /> * In people who hear nasty voices, the right side of the brain is much more active.<br /> <br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1338 2026-05-23T10:03:41Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 9. Autism */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * People with autism often have synesthesia, a condition in which sensory and cognitive pathways are interlinked. Synesthetes have unusually strong connections between the various areas of the cerebral cortex. As a result, the visual cortex, which normally occupies itself only with the sense of sight, receives extra information about calculation going on in other areas of the brain. Complex calculations suddenly become easy when they are translated into images. <br /> * But Daniel Tammet also has extraordinary linguistic abilities, being able to learn a new language in a single week, even Icelandic! That's an unusual combination, but what makes Tammet unique as a savant are his well-developed social skills, which tend to be lacking in autistic savants.<br /> * There are blurry borders between what is considered normal and what is classified as a psychiatric problem. The dividing line between psychiatric disorders and great gifts is often a very narrow one and strongly depends on how someone is viewed by their surroundings.<br /> * Autism is marked by severely disrupted social skills and a very confined repertoire of activities and interests.<br /> * In was first described, independently, in <br /> ** 1943 by Leo Kanner in Baltimore - who described mentally subnormal children who scarcely spoke and displayed symptoms that were mostly neurological.<br /> ** 1944 by Hans Asperger in Vienna - who described the children as intelligence machines, who had a precocious grasp of language, could talk about their experiences and feelings, and were normally abled.<br /> *Brain development in autism is atypical. From ages 2 to 4 there is too much brain volume, delaying growth in some areas and prematurely terminating it in others. The main cause is genetic.<br /> *The syndrome is 10x more likely if the father is in his 50s rather than his 20s.<br /> *The symptoms appear early, around age three. Children with autism don't make contact with others and have motor problems due to a developmental disorder of the cerebellum.<br /> *People with autism have trouble interpreting emotion and empathy. They don't understand why another child is crying.<br /> *Temple Grandin built a &quot;hug machine&quot; in which she could lie, with the sides controlled by air pressure, squeezing against her.<br /> <br /> === Savants ===<br /> <br /> * Half of savants have an autistic spectrum disorder, and the other half have brain damage or a brain disease.<br /> * They are able to make unconscious use of algorithms<br /> * The term &quot;idiot savant&quot;, coined in 1887 by John Langdon Down, is used to describe the combination of an exceptional gift and low IQ (0 to 70)<br /> * Savants appear to store all the information that enters their short-term memory in their long-term memory too. They can remember vast quantities of trivial facts, like license plates and railway timetables; it's as if they are unable to forget information.<br /> * [[google:stephen+wiltshire+art|Stephen Wiltshire]] is known for his ability to draw a landscape from memory after seeing it just once. Artistic savants always have a strong preference for a particular subject and a particular technique. They almost never draw people; the social brain is their Achilles' heel.<br /> * It's thought that the brain damage allows links with other brain structures to be reinforced, enhancing the functioning of the visual cortex.<br /> * [[wikipedia:Kim_Peek|Kim Peek]], who was born without a corpus callosum, (his brain had no connection between the right and left hemispheres), would read two pages of a book simultaneously. He read 9,000 books about the history of the US and knew them all from memory.<br /> * Epilepsy is often associated with autism.<br /> * One theory is that everyone possesses potential savant talents localized in the &quot;lower&quot; regions below the cerebral cortex that are suppressed by &quot;higher&quot; processes. Darold Treffert calls this the &quot;little Rainman&quot; that each of us possesses.<br /> * Talents sometimes disappear with age. One autistic girl Nadia, lost her remarkable talent for drawing horses by the time she was nine. It would seem that the improved functioning of the left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech, inhibited here drawing skills.<br /> <br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1337 2026-05-23T09:34:44Z

<p>Robert.adlington: </p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Born on a Blue Day - Daniel Tammet<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *Der Nasse Fische - Volker Kutscher (in German!) <br /> *[[We Are Our Brains: From the Womb to Alzheimer's]] - Dick Swaab <br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 20) ===<br /> <br /> * 20. [[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1336 2026-05-23T09:28:03Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 8. Aggression */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Boys are more aggressive than girls and this is determined before birth. Girls with adrenal gland abnormalities that cause them to produce too much testosterone before birth are also more aggressive later.<br /> * Some children are markedly more aggressive than other and they are more likely to commit crimes. 72% of young offenders in Dutch prisons have been sentenced for crimes of aggression.<br /> * In addition, delinquency is strongly linked to substance abuse, psychoses and ADHD.<br /> * Darwin: &quot;education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone... most of our qualities are innate.&quot;<br /> * Men are 5x more likely than women to commit a murder.<br /> * Men murder a relative or acquaintance in only 20% of cases, while for women it is 60%.<br /> * The incidence of murder peaks around the age of 20-24. After this age, the decline is due to the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which restrains impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> * Decisions to go to war are more influenced by the amount of daylight and the temperature than by military strategy. In the northern and southern hemisphere, wars are typically declared in the summer, while around the equator, season doesn't play a role.<br /> * Studies show that 90% of young people in prison have a psychiatric disorder, and 30% of individuals detained under hospital orders have ADHD.<br /> * Some psychopaths have a malfunction of the amygdala, which prevents them from seeing from their victims' facial expressions that they are suffering and thus from feeling empathy for them.<br /> * During dream sleep we exhibit many of the characteristics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Our higher visual centers are activated and we hallucinate like patients with schizophrenia.<br /> * Some sleepwalkers who are extremely mild and amiable when awake are shockingly violent when asleep.<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1335 2026-05-21T18:08:11Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 7. The Brain and Consciousness */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * If something gets in the way of the brain's information supply, it starts to make up information to fill the gaps.<br /> * We need the cerebral cortex to think, speak, hear, feel emotion, and move our limbs.<br /> * When someone is in a vegetative state, their brain stem functions are still intact.<br /> * In locked-in syndrome, the brain and the spinal cord are completely separated due to damage low down in the brain stem that prevents nerve fibers from controlling muscles. The brain is otherwise intact, and the patient is fully alert, but they can't communicate their alertness to their surroundings (except close their eyelids and move their eyes).<br /> * Brain-dead means irreversibly fixed pupils, the absence of brain stem reflexes, and the permanent absence of &quot;higher brain functions&quot; like cognition and consciousness.<br /> * There are two aspects to consciousness:<br /> ** Conscious of our surroundings - Found in every living organism. Even single-celled creatures creep toward food and away from poisonous substances.<br /> ** Conscious of ourselves - A child starts to recongize itself in a mirror between the ages of one and two.<br /> *The cerebral cortex, the thalamus, and a functional link between the two are all necessary for consciousness. <br /> *The thalamus lies in the center of the brain and it's there that all sensory information (except smell) is received and rerouted to the cerebral cortex.<br /> *Self-consciousness is not a metaphysical construct. Your brain constantly manufactures the sense that your body belongs to you, using sensory information from muscles, joints, vision, and sensation.<br /> *All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1334 2026-05-21T17:57:05Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 6. Addictive Substances */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Addictive substances affect the brain by mimicking its own chemical messengers. Brain cells themselves produce a whole range of opiates and cannabinoids. The nicotine in a cigarette has the same effect as the chemical messenger acetylcholine.<br /> * Addictive substances also affect the availability or the action of natural chemical messengers. Ecstasy increases levels of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.<br /> * All such substances have a direct or indirect effect on the brain's dopamine reward system, whether or not via an opiate system.<br /> * The sex hormones that circulate after the onset of puberty place an enormous burden on the adolescent brain and can bring on the symptoms of schizophrenia. The same applies to cannabis.<br /> * Studies show that cannabis users are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.<br /> * Ecstasy was originally patented as an appetite suppressant in 1914<br /> * 20 minutes after swallowing ecstasy, increased amounts of serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are released. All tiredness vanishes and you feel happy and want to hug everyone.<br /> * Brain scans of ecstasy users show permanently reduced activity in the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex.<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1333 2026-05-20T19:52:24Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * The idea that brain cells could produce hormones was first suggested in the 1940s by the Scharrers. &quot;Nerve gland cells&quot; proved to be a universal cell type that regulates many bodily processes throughout the animal kingdom by means of hormones. The Scharrers' observations founded the discipline of neuroendocrinology.<br /> * The hypothalamus:<br /> ** Memory information is transmitted from the hippocampus via the fornix to the mammillary bodies, and the routed to the thalamus.<br /> ** The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the biological clock.<br /> ** Thermoregulation and sexual activity are governed by the preoptic region, while the tuberomammillary nucleus, the only place where histamine is produced in the brain, is important for focusing our attention. <br /> ** The areas that regulate appetite and metabolism are the infundibular (arcuate) nucleus and the paraventricular nucleus.<br /> ** The paraventricular nucleus and the suproptic nucleus send fibers to the posterior pituitary, where oxytocin and vasopressin are released. <br /> ** The infundibular nucleus sends fibers to the capillaries of the hypophyseal portal system, where neuropeptides are released that regulate the anterior pituitary.<br /> <br /> === Depression ===<br /> *All forms of depression feature overreaction of the stress axis. We respond to stress by activating nerve cells in the hypothalamus, which send a substance called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland and the brain. The pituitary gland in turn stimulates the adrenal gland to produce the stress hormone cortisol. CRH and cortisol equip our brains and bodies to cope with stressful situations. But if th stress axis becomes overactive, a stressful event can lead to the overproduction of both CRH and cortisol, and these substances can affect the brain so strongly that depression results.<br /> *Seasonal affective disorder.<br /> *Various cell groups become hyperactive in the hypothalamus of depressive patients. In many cases the stress axis (the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is strongly activated.<br /> <br /> === Obesity, Anorexia and Narcolepsy ===<br /> <br /> * In the Western world, around 60% of adults are overweight and 30% are obese.<br /> * The leptin hormone is produced by fat tissue and helps the hypothalamus know how full we are, but if there are mutations in the leptin gene or receptor the hypothalamus will conclude that there's no fat tissue and continually prompt you to eat, resulting in morbid obesity.<br /> <br /> * The symptoms of narcolepsy are cause by the absence of hypocretin (or orexin) in the hypothalamus.<br /> * All the symptoms of anorexia nervosa can also be caused by a cyst, a small tumor, or some other abnormal process in the hypothalamus.<br /> * Anorexia sufferers may maintain the process of voluntary starvation because they become addicted to the diet-triggered opiates released by their brains, which activate the reward center at the base of the striatum.<br /> <br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1332 2026-05-20T19:33:43Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> <br /> === Puberty ===<br /> * In puberty, the pituitary gland starts to produce sex hormones. The craving for new experiences, the readiness to take great risks, and the impulsive behavior are all part of preparations to leave the nest.<br /> * People with a mutation in the KISS1 system never enter puberty.<br /> * Melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland, is one of the substances that prevent the onset of puberty in children.<br /> * Normally, the brain cells that stimulate the sex hormones develop at the place where a fetus's nose develops. The cells then migrate along the olfactory nerve to the hypothalamus. This process is distruped in patients with Kallmann syndrome, so that not only do they not enter puberty, they also lack a sense of smell.<br /> * A youngster's parents function as his or her temporary prefrontal cortex.<br /> * Adults distribute assignments across different brain areas. Adolescent PFCs can sometimes function at an adult level but need to work much harder to do so, as they fail to outsource tasks to other brain areas. As a result, a teenager's PFC reaches the ceiling of its capacity earlier, and distractions can undermine the performance of assigned tasks.<br /> * After the age of seventeen, young people commit fewer crimes. It seems logical to assume that this curve reflects the gradual development of the PFC, which inhibits impulsiveness and promotes moral behavior.<br /> <br /> === Love and Sex ===<br /> <br /> * People who are in love also have raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.<br /> * Our partners are determined initially by our ancient reward circuitry. Only when the most intense period of infatuation has passed does the cerebral cortex take over.<br /> * Many areas of the brain are constantly busy inhibiting our sexual urges. This is usually effective for around 23 hours a day.<br /> * Electrically stimulating the amygdala has been shown to induce pleasant sexual sensations.<br /> * To encourage us to truly commit to reproduction, the brain provides orgasm as a reward. It releases dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and oxytocin in the hypothalamus.<br /> * The thalamus is the central structure for all erotic sensory information.<br /> * DNA polymorphisms, tiny differences in the gene for the protein that receives dopamine's chemical message are correlated to the degree of sexual desire, arousal, and activity.<br /> * In brain scans, brain activity during orgasm is similar to the response to a heroin injection.<br /> * Activity in the female brain is concentrated in the motor and sensory areas of the cerebral cortex; in the male brain it's mainly in the occipito-temporal cortex and the claustrum.<br /> * In both sexes, the cerebellum regulates muscle contractions during orgasm.<br /> * Without being aware of it, American female students dress more fashionably around the time of ovulation.<br /> * Strippers tips are also much higher around ovulation.<br /> * Erotic images provoke greater arousal and brain activity in men than in women. <br /> * In men aged 46-55 brain areas like the thalamus and hypothalamus cease to display activity, a sign that aging reduces arousal in response to erotic stimuli<br /> * Lesions in the temporal lobe can cause people to develop Klüver-Bucy syndrome with symptoms of hypersexuality and hyperorality. Loss of inhibition has also been reported in individuals with lesions of the thalamus or the subthalamic nucleus.<br /> * Depression is associated with higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can deprive patients of all the pleasure in life (anhedonia).<br /> * In able-bodied men, psychogenic erections start in the brain and erotic impulses in the sex organs travel up the spinal cord.<br /> * Epileptics whose condition is sparked by a focus in the cerebral cortex sometimes feel as if they are having an orgasm just before a seizure, due to electrical stimulation of the brain cells in that area.<br /> <br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1331 2026-05-20T16:04:43Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * The brain differentiates along male or female lines in the second half of pregnancy, due to a male baby producing a peak of testosterone or a female baby not doing so. It's in this period that the feeling of being a man or woman - our gender identity - is fixed in our brains for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Gender-base behavioral differences are fixed in our brains before birth.<br /> * In Western culture women use eye contact to understand other women better while men experience eye contact as testing their place in the hierarchy and can feel threatened by it.<br /> * Development after birth seems to have little impact on our sexual orientation.<br /> * Homosexual behavior has now been observed in around 1,500 animal species from insects to mammals.<br /> * Male-to-female transexuality (MtF) occurs in 1 in 10k individuals while FtM occurs in 1 in 30k.<br /> * The differentiation of our sex organs takes place in the first months of pregnancy, while the sexual differentiation of the brain occurs in the second half. In the case of transsexuality we expect to find female structures in the brains of MtF transsexuals and vice versa in FtM and this has been the case.<br /> * it may be that the neural body map of MtFs lacks a penis and FtMs lack breasts and so the individuals don't recognize these organs as their own and want to get rid of them.<br /> * The smaller the amygdala, the more likely an individual was to commit pedophilic crimes.<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1330 2026-05-20T15:55:32Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Thyroid hormones are necessary for normal brain development but can only function if sufficient iodine is incorporated into the hormone.<br /> * Exposure to lead, mercury, DDT, PCBs, dioxins and many other substances can disrupt fetal brain development, as can ingestion of nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and other addictive substances.<br /> * Our levels of aggression and stress are set before birth for the rest of our lives.<br /> * Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) - Patients can want to have limbs amputated because they feel they don't belong to them. Scans show that their frontal and parietal cortices respond differently to a touch on the leg according to whether it's the accepted or the rejected leg.<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1329 2026-05-20T15:48:22Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Introduction */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Einstein's brain contained unusually many glial cells<br /> * Jacob Moleschott: Just as kidneys produce urine, the brain produces mind.<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Labor is trigger when the child accounts for around 15% of the mother's metabolism.<br /> * While still in the womb, the brain cells in the child's hypothalamus respond to a drop in blood sugar level in the same way that they later respond to a lack of food in adulthood, by stimulating the stress axis. This induces a series of hormonal changes, making the uterus contract. The contractions, stimulated by oxytocin, make the baby's head press against the cervix. This in turn triggers a reflex, via the mother's spinal cord, which causes the release of yet more oxytocin. The baby's head then exerts more pressure, triggering the same reflex. The child can only escape from this chain reaction by being born.<br /> * We now know that schizophrenia is an early developmental brain disorder largely caused by genetic factors. So a difficult birth can be seen as a failure of interaction between the brains of mother and child.<br /> * A difficult labor or premature or delayed labor tends to be the consequence of a problem in fetal brain development.<br /> <br /> === Maternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> * During pregnancy, the pituitary gland secretes the hormone prolactin, which prompts nesting behavior.Oxytocin, the &quot;bonding hormone&quot; - It's the messenger of affection, generosity, tranquility, trust, and attachment, and has been found to suppress fear by affecting the amygdala, the center of fear and aggression.Vasopressin makes men hostile but women more likely to approach strangers, because they are better at distinguishing friendly features.Society could be improved by giving men a whiff of oxytocin and women a whiff of vasopressin.Abnormal blood levels of vasopressin and oxytocin have been found in people with autism, who also display small genetic variations in the proteins that are the brain's vasopressin and oxytocin receptors.<br /> <br /> === Paternal Behavior ===<br /> <br /> *Patriarchy is though to have developed when our ancestors had to exchange the protection of the jungle for a more vulnerable life in the savanna. <br /> *The male's protection of the female and her child had an evolutionary advantage: Humans were able to reproduce every two to three years, while female chimpanzees, who were solely responsible for their young and therefore had to look after them and feed them for much longer, could reproduce only every six years.<br /> *Scents given off by the pregnant female may cause the behavioral changes in expectant fathers.<br /> *Fatherhood induces changes in the prefrontal cortex. The number of synapses in this area increases suggesting a reorganization of the local network. It also becomes more sensitive to vasopressin, the chemical messanger that promotes social behavior and aids fathers in their new tasks.<br /> <br /> === Early Brain Development ===<br /> <br /> * Children who are seriously neglected during their early development also have smaller brains, their intelligence and linguistic and fine motor control are permanently impaired, and they are impulsive and hyperactive. Their prefrontal cortices can be particularly undersized. Studies have shown that orphans adopted before the age of two go on to develop normal IQs of 100, while those not adopted until 2-6, attain average IQs of 80.<br /> * The frontal cortex is the site of Broca's area, which is crucial for language. When adults learn a second language, another sub-area of this region is involved. But if children are brought up bilingually from an early age, both languages use the same frontal areas and the left caudate nucleus check which language system is being used.<br /> * When doing mental arithmetic, the Chinese use different parts of the brain than Western Anglophones.<br /> * The bond between mother and child is first established during pregnancy through the mother's voice.<br /> <br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=We_Are_Our_Brains:_From_the_Womb_to_Alzheimer%27s&diff=1328 2026-05-20T08:51:48Z

<p>Robert.adlington: Created page with &quot;== Introduction == * Bulleted list item == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care == * Bulleted list item == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb == * Bulleted list item == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb == * Bulleted list item == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior == * Bulleted list item == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions == * Bulleted list item == 6. Addictive Substances == * Bulleted list item == 7. The B...&quot;</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 1. Development, Birth, and Parental Care ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 2. Threats to the Fetal Brain in the &quot;Safety&quot; of the Womb ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 3. Sexual Differentiation of the Brain in the Womb ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 4. Puberty, Love, and Sexual Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 5. Hypothalamus: Survival, Hormones, and Emotions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 6. Addictive Substances ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 7. The Brain and Consciousness ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 8. Aggression ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 9. Autism ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 10. Schizophrenia and Other Reasons for Hallucinations ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 11. Repair and Electric Stimulation ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 12. The Brain and Sports ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 13. Moral Behavior ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 14. Memory ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 15. Neurotheology: The Brain and Religion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 16. There Isn't More Between Heaven and Earth ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 17. Free Will, a Pleasant Illusion ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 18. Alzheimer's Disease ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 19. Death ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 20. Evolution ==<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == 21. Conclusions ==<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1327 2026-05-20T08:37:29Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Currently Reading */</p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *Der Nasse Fische - Volker Kutscher (in German!) <br /> *[[We Are Our Brains: From the Womb to Alzheimer's]] - Dick Swaab <br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 20) ===<br /> <br /> * 20. [[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1326 2026-05-20T08:36:34Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Currently Reading */</p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *Der Nasse Fische - Volker Kutscher (in German!) <br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 20) ===<br /> <br /> * 20. [[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=This_is_Your_Mind_on_Plants&diff=1325 2026-05-19T19:59:04Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Caffeine */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> <br /> * Societies condone the mind-changing drugs that help uphold society's rule and ban the ones that are seen to undermine it.<br /> * Humans have identified plants that:<br /> ** Lift the burden of physical pain<br /> ** Render us more alert or capable of uncommon feats<br /> ** Make us more sociable<br /> ** Elicit feelings of awe or ecstasy<br /> ** Nourish our imagination<br /> ** Transcend time and space<br /> ** Occasion dreams and visions and mystical experiences<br /> ** Bring us into the presence of ancestors or gods.<br /> * Evidently, normal everyday consciousness is not enough for us humans; we seek to vary, intensify, and sometimes transcend it, and we have identified a whole collection of molecules in nature that allow us to do that.<br /> * Each substance in this book represents one of the three broad categories of psychoactive compounds:<br /> ** The downer/sedative (opium)<br /> ** The upper/stimulant (caffeine)<br /> ** The outer/hallucinogen (mescaline)<br /> * A pharmakon, from the Greek, can be either a medicine or a poison; it all depends - on use, dose, intention, and set and setting. It also means &quot;scapegoat&quot;, a role that these substances have played in the drug war.<br /> * Human consciousness is always at risk of getting stuck, sending the mind around and around in loops of rumination; mushroom chemicals like psilocybin can nudge us out of those grooves, loosening stuck brains and making possible fresh patterns of thought.<br /> * The notion of a beyond, of a hidden dimension of reality, or of an afterlife - may be memes introduced to human culture by visions that psychoactive molecules inspired in human minds.<br /> <br /> == Opium ==<br /> <br /> *Poppy seedpods contain significant quantities of morphine, codeine, and thebaine, the principal alkaloids found in opium.<br /> *Regarded as &quot;God's own medicine&quot;, preparations of opium were as common in the Victorian medicine cabinet as aspirin is in ours.<br /> *Alkaloids taste bad; it's conceivable that plants produce them as a defense against pests<br /> *The opium tea seemed to subtract things: anxiety, worry, grief. It is a pain killer in every sense: &quot;definitely lightens the existential load.<br /> *I just didn't need to have all that visual information, thank you very much!<br /> *Like sitting out on the porch of one's consciousness, watching the world go by.<br /> <br /> == Caffeine ==<br /> <br /> * Caffeine is one of the most studied psychoactive compounds there is.<br /> * For most of us, to be caffeinated to one degree or another has simply become baseline human consciousness. Something like 90% of humans ingest caffeine regularly, making it the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world, and the only one we routinely give to children (commonly in the form of soda).<br /> * That's pretty much all writers do: take the blooming multiplicity of the world and our experience of it, literally concentrate it down to manageable proportions, and then force it through the eye of a grammatical needle one word at a time.<br /> * Alkaloids are nitrogen-containing compounds, biosynthesized by both marine and terrestrial organisms, often with strong biological properties. They are among the largest classes of natural products and are found particularly in plants.<br /> * Has the discovery of caffeine by humans been a boon or a bane to our civilization?<br /> * Coffee, tea, and chocolate (which also contains caffeine) arrived in England during the same decade - the 1650s - so we can gain some idea of the world before caffeine and after. Coffee was known in East Africa for a few centuries before that - it's believed to have been discovered in Ethiopia around AD 850 - but it does not have the antiquity of other psychoactive substances, such as alcohol or cannabis or even some of the psychedelics, like psilocybin or ayahuasca or peyote, which have played a role in human culture for millennia. Tea is also older than coffee, having been discovered in China, and used as a medicine since at least 1000 BC, though it wasn't popularized as a recreational beverage until the Tang dynasty, between AD 618 and 907.<br /> * Coffee and tea ushered in a shift in the mental weather, sharpening minds that had been fogged by alcohol, freeing people from the natural rhythms of the body and the sun, thus making possible whole new kinds of work and, arguably, new kinds of thought, too.<br /> * By the 15th C, coffee was being cultivated in East Africa and traded across the Arabian Peninsula.<br /> * Within a century, coffeehouses had sprung up across the Arab world. In 1570 there were more than 600 in Constantinople alone.<br /> * Coffee offered the Islamic world a suitable alternative to alcohol, which is specifically proscribed in the Koran. The notion that coffee somehow exists in opposition to alcohol would persist in both the East and the West.<br /> * This Arabian culture gave birth to modern mathematics. In China, the Tang dynasty also represented a golden age suggesting some causal link.<br /> * The fact that you needed to boil water made tea and coffee the safest things to drink.<br /> * The tannins also have antimicrobial properties and so societies thrived as microbial diseases declined.<br /> * In 1629, the first coffeehouse opened in Venice and in 1650 in Oxford, England.<br /> * Coffeehouses in London were distinguished by the interests of their patrons: Lloyds Coffee House for shipping, the London Stock Exchange grew out of Jonathan's coffee-house and the Royal Society and Tatler magazine out of Grecian.<br /> * The first teashop in London was opened by Thomas Twining in 1717.<br /> * If alcohol fuels our Dionysian tendencies, caffeine nurtures the Apollonian.<br /> * The scientific consensus seems to be that caffeine does improve mental (and physical) performance to some degree:<br /> * Caffeine improves our focus and ability to concentrate, which surely enhances linear and abstract thinking, but creativity works very differently. it may depend on the loss of a certain kind of focus, and the freedom to let the mind off the leash of linear thought.<br /> * Cognitive psychologists distinguish between:<br /> ** Spotlight consciousness - illuminates a single focal point of attention, making it very good for reasoning<br /> ** Lantern consciousness - in which attention is less focused yet illuminates a broader field of attention. Young children tend to exhibit lantern consciousness; so do people on psychedelics.<br /> * Many of the coffee plants grown in the New World today are descendants of an original plant smuggled out of Mocha in 1616, offspring of a theft nearly Promethean in its impact. Now the West had taken control of coffee - and coffee took control of the West.<br /> * Caffeine and the minute hand on clocks arrived at more or less the same historical moment.<br /> * It was tea from the East Indies - heavily sweetened with sugar from the West Indes - that fueled the Industrial Revolution.<br /> * The first tea plantations in China were cultivated thousands of years ago by monks, who found that sipping tea was an important aid to meditation.<br /> * Tea also contains a great many vitamins and minerals - one of the highest concentrations in any plant - and prodigious quantities of polyphenols, compounds rich in antioxidants (tea contains more polyphenols than red wine).<br /> * Soon after the East India Company began trading with China, cheap tea flooded England, rapidly displacing coffee as the nation's preferred caffeine delivery system. A beverage that only the well-to-do could afford to drink in 1700 was by 1800 consumed by virtually everyone, from the society matron to the factory worker. To supply this demand required an imperialist enterprise of enormous scale and brutality, especially after the British decided it would be more profitable to turn India, its colony, into a tea producer, than to buy tea from China. <br /> * The widespread use of caffeine is, arguably, one of those developments in human history, like the control of fire or the domestication of plants and animals, that helped life us out of the state of nature, providing a new degree of control over biology, in this case our own.<br /> * Caffeine keeps adenosine, a neuromodulator, from doing its job by getting in its way. Over the course of the day, adenosine levels gradually rise in the bloodstream, and as long as no other molecule is blocking its action, it begins to slow mental operations in preparation for sleep. As adenosine builds up in your brain, you begin to feel less alert and a mounting desire to go to bed - what scientists call sleep pressure.<br /> * It also causes increases in adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine (the latter, typical of drugs of abuse, and probably accounting for caffeine's mood-enhancing qualities.<br /> * Regular coffee consumption is associated with a decreased risk of several cancers (including breast, prostate, colorectal, and endometrial), cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, dementia, and possibly depression and suicide.<br /> * Coffee and tea are also the leading source of antioxidants in the American diet, a fact that may by itself account for many of the health benefits of coffee and tea.<br /> * The energy that caffeine gives you has been borrowed from the future and must be paid back with interest, via the quantity and quality of your upcoming sleep.<br /> * By the end of the 18th C, tea was being consumed daily by just about everyone in England. It accounted for an estimated 5% of the nation's GDP and depended on two articles (tea and sugar) &quot;imported from opposite ends of the earth&quot;!<br /> * In order for the English mind to be sharpened with tea, the Chinese mind had to be clouded with opium.<br /> * If you pair caffeine with any flavor, people will express a preference for that flavor.<br /> * Alfred Peet almost single-handedly introduced Americans to good coffee in 1966.<br /> * By one estimate, roughly half the world's coffee-growing acreage - and an even greater proportion in Latin America - will be unable to support the plant by 2050, making coffee one of the crops most immediately endangered by climate change.<br /> * In less than a thousand years, coffee has managed to get itself from its evolutionary birthplace in Ethiopia all the way here to the mountains of South America and beyond, using our species as its vector.<br /> * Who could have guessed that a secondary metabolite produced by plants to poison insects would also deliver an energizing bolt of pleasure to a human brain, and then turn out to alter that brain's neurochemistry in a way that made those plants indispensable?<br /> <br /> == Mescaline ==<br /> <br /> * The Rio Grande is the only place in the world where the peyote cactus grows wild.<br /> * San Pedro (Wachuma) is the other mescaline producing cactus, this one from the Andes.<br /> * Huxley describes a &quot;principle appetite of the soul&quot; for a means of transcending the limitations of circumstance, the various walls - whether of habit or convention or selfhood - that confine us. For him, it was mescaline that had shown him a &quot;door in the wall&quot;.<br /> * 1940s - LSD created by Sandoz Laboratories<br /> * 1957 Gordon Wasson writes about &quot;mushrooms that cause strange visions&quot; (psylocybin) in Life magazine.<br /> * Huxley &quot;For if one always saw like this, one would never want to do anything else.&quot;<br /> * That's why our usual perception of the world is &quot;limited to what is biologically or socially useful&quot;; our brains evolved to admit to our awareness only the &quot;measly trickle&quot; of information required for our survival and no more.<br /> * 1897 - a german scientist isolated the psychoactive substance in peyote.<br /> * 1919 - an austian chemist synthesizes mescaline.<br /> * The cactus has been used by the indigenous peoples of North America for at least 6,000 years, making it the oldest-known psychedelic.<br /> * Shulgin on mescaline: &quot;More than anything else, the world amazed me, in that I saw it as I had when I was a child.&quot;<br /> * A mescaline trip can last 14 hours.<br /> * While in the trance state, rigid narratives about yourself tend to soften until it becomes possible to construct new ones, typically narratives of transformation or rebirth.<br /> * &quot;That is the problem with you whites. You always want to know everything. We just experience it.&quot;<br /> * &quot;There is enough to see here. To see, to understand, to experience. A sufficiency of reality.&quot;<br /> * I was a helpless captive of the present moment, my mind having completely lost its ability to go where it normally goes, which is either back in time, following threads of memory and association to past moments, or forward, into the anxious country of anticipation. I was firmly planted on the frontier of the present and, though this would soon change, there was nowhere else I wanted to be, or anything else I needed from life in order to be content. Whatever was in my field of awareness - this sumptuous feast of reality! - was sufficient.<br /> * To an extent, this is what all psychedelics do - not so much change how we feel inside as imbue the world around us with never-before-appreciated qualities.<br /> * These (William Carlos Williams') eyes are the eyes I was seeing with! Here was the sheer isness of the given world and its objects at a particular moment in time. Haiku consciousness.<br /> * Wide open, my senses were admitting to awareness exponentially more of everything - more color, more outline, more texture, more light. It was, to quote from Huxley, &quot;wonderful to the point, almost, of being terrifying.<br /> * Without the usual filters of consciousness there came the fear &quot;of being overwhelmed, of disintegrating under a pressure of reality greater than a mind, accustomed to living most of the time in a cozy world of symbols, could possibly bear.&quot;<br /> * Never had my eyelids felt so crucial - powerful technologies for changing the channels of consciousness.<br /> * The notion that there is so much more out there (or in here) than our conscious minds allow us to perceive is consistent with the neuroscientific concept of predictive coding.<br /> * Psychedelics seem to mess with this system in one of two ways:<br /> ** In some cases, the brain's predictions about reality go haywire, as when you see faces in the clouds or musical notes leapt to life or something happens to convince you you're being followed. Common on LSD or psilocybin, this kind of magical thinking might occur when top-down predictions generated by the brain are no longer adequately constrained, or corrected, by bottom-up information arriving from the world via the senses.<br /> ** But if Huxley's account and my experience are representative, then something very different happens in the brain on mescaline. Here the bottom-up information of the sense and the emotions inundates our awareness, sweeping away the mind's predictions, maps, beliefs, and &quot;cozy symbols&quot; - all the tools we have for organizing the inner and outer worlds - in what feels like a tidal wave of awe.<br /> * This is exactly where we live, amid these precious gifts in the shadow of that oncoming moment.<br /> * He called himself a chakaruna - a human bridge for people to walk across to get where they need to be.<br /> * We have three bodies (pachas, worlds), he explained:<br /> ** The physical<br /> ** The mental<br /> ** The spiritual<br /> * The plant allows all three bodies, little by little, to vibrate at a higher frequency until it is only light, pure light. This is what is meant by illumination. The plant allows you to disconnect from the mind. You can't figure it out mentally. You need to feel it in your physical body.<br /> * When any part of your body has been affected by destructive energies or trauma, the heart will close down to protect itself. A closed heart will not heal. It will not express its feelings. The mind becomes more active because the heart's not feeling anymore. The mind will go into the past or it will go into the future, which doesn't really exist, and it will get stuck in a chaos, between remembering the past and trying to go into the nonexistent future. And it will lose the gift of life, which is to live and be present in the moment. Wachuma locates and unblocks the dense energies of trauma so that the mind might quiet and the heart might speak again, returning us to the gift that is the present moment.<br /> * It's your choice. We make the world with our words. Say it. Say the words right now.<br /> * Many shamans regard tobacco as the most powerful of all plant medicines<br /> * We cut our cords to the discordant or destructive energies that connect us to others in the past.<br /> * The medicine attenuates the bonds of the past, making it easier to let go of regrets. And then we forgive ourselves.<br /> * The future doesn't exist.</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=This_is_Your_Mind_on_Plants&diff=1324 2026-05-19T19:19:02Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Caffeine */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> <br /> * Societies condone the mind-changing drugs that help uphold society's rule and ban the ones that are seen to undermine it.<br /> * Humans have identified plants that:<br /> ** Lift the burden of physical pain<br /> ** Render us more alert or capable of uncommon feats<br /> ** Make us more sociable<br /> ** Elicit feelings of awe or ecstasy<br /> ** Nourish our imagination<br /> ** Transcend time and space<br /> ** Occasion dreams and visions and mystical experiences<br /> ** Bring us into the presence of ancestors or gods.<br /> * Evidently, normal everyday consciousness is not enough for us humans; we seek to vary, intensify, and sometimes transcend it, and we have identified a whole collection of molecules in nature that allow us to do that.<br /> * Each substance in this book represents one of the three broad categories of psychoactive compounds:<br /> ** The downer/sedative (opium)<br /> ** The upper/stimulant (caffeine)<br /> ** The outer/hallucinogen (mescaline)<br /> * A pharmakon, from the Greek, can be either a medicine or a poison; it all depends - on use, dose, intention, and set and setting. It also means &quot;scapegoat&quot;, a role that these substances have played in the drug war.<br /> * Human consciousness is always at risk of getting stuck, sending the mind around and around in loops of rumination; mushroom chemicals like psilocybin can nudge us out of those grooves, loosening stuck brains and making possible fresh patterns of thought.<br /> * The notion of a beyond, of a hidden dimension of reality, or of an afterlife - may be memes introduced to human culture by visions that psychoactive molecules inspired in human minds.<br /> <br /> == Opium ==<br /> <br /> *Poppy seedpods contain significant quantities of morphine, codeine, and thebaine, the principal alkaloids found in opium.<br /> *Regarded as &quot;God's own medicine&quot;, preparations of opium were as common in the Victorian medicine cabinet as aspirin is in ours.<br /> *Alkaloids taste bad; it's conceivable that plants produce them as a defense against pests<br /> *The opium tea seemed to subtract things: anxiety, worry, grief. It is a pain killer in every sense: &quot;definitely lightens the existential load.<br /> *I just didn't need to have all that visual information, thank you very much!<br /> *Like sitting out on the porch of one's consciousness, watching the world go by.<br /> <br /> == Caffeine ==<br /> <br /> * Caffeine is one of the most studied psychoactive compounds there is.<br /> * For most of us, to be caffeinated to one degree or another has simply become baseline human consciousness. Something like 90% of humans ingest caffeine regularly, making it the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world, and the only one we routinely give to children (commonly in the form of soda).<br /> * That's pretty much all writers do: take the blooming multiplicity of the world and our experience of it, literally concentrate it down to manageable proportions, and then force it through the eye of a grammatical needle one word at a time.<br /> * Alkaloids are nitrogen-containing compounds, biosynthesized by both marine and terrestrial organisms, often with strong biological properties. They are among the largest classes of natural products and are found particularly in plants.<br /> * Has the discovery of caffeine by humans been a boon or a bane to our civilization?<br /> * Coffee, tea, and chocolate (which also contains caffeine) arrived in England during the same decade - the 1650s - so we can gain some idea of the world before caffeine and after. Coffee was known in East Africa for a few centuries before that - it's believed to have been discovered in Ethiopia around AD 850 - but it does not have the antiquity of other psychoactive substances, such as alcohol or cannabis or even some of the psychedelics, like psilocybin or ayahuasca or peyote, which have played a role in human culture for millennia. Tea is also older than coffee, having been discovered in China, and used as a medicine since at least 1000 BC, though it wasn't popularized as a recreational beverage until the Tang dynasty, between AD 618 and 907.<br /> * Coffee and tea ushered in a shift in the mental weather, sharpening minds that had been fogged by alcohol, freeing people from the natural rhythms of the body and the sun, thus making possible whole new kinds of work and, arguably, new kinds of thought, too.<br /> * By the 15th C, coffee was being cultivated in East Africa and traded across the Arabian Peninsula.<br /> * Within a century, coffeehouses had sprung up across the Arab world. In 1570 there were more than 600 in Constantinople alone.<br /> * Coffee offered the Islamic world a suitable alternative to alcohol, which is specifically proscribed in the Koran. The notion that coffee somehow exists in opposition to alcohol would persist in both the East and the West.<br /> * This Arabian culture gave birth to modern mathematics. In China, the Tang dynasty also represented a golden age suggesting some causal link.<br /> * The fact that you needed to boil water made tea and coffee the safest things to drink.<br /> * The tannins also have antimicrobial properties and so societies thrived as microbial diseases declined.<br /> * In 1629, the first coffeehouse opened in Venice and in 1650 in Oxford, England.<br /> * Coffeehouses in London were distinguished by the interests of their patrons: Lloyds Coffee House for shipping, the London Stock Exchange grew out of Jonathan's coffee-house and the Royal Society and Tatler magazine out of Grecian.<br /> * The first teashop in London was opened by Thomas Twining in 1717.<br /> * If alcohol fuels our Dionysian tendencies, caffeine nurtures the Apollonian.<br /> * The scientific consensus seems to be that caffeine does improve mental (and physical) performance to some degree:<br /> * Caffeine improves our focus and ability to concentrate, which surely enhances linear and abstract thinking, but creativity works very differently. it may depend on the loss of a certain kind of focus, and the freedom to let the mind off the leash of linear thought.<br /> * Cognitive psychologists distinguish between:<br /> ** Spotlight consciousness - illuminates a single focal point of attention, making it very good for reasoning<br /> ** Lantern consciousness - in which attention is less focused yet illuminates a broader field of attention. Young children tend to exhibit lantern consciousness; so do people on psychedelics.<br /> * Many of the coffee plants grown in the New World today are descendants of an original plant smuggled out of Mocha in 1616, offspring of a theft nearly Promethean in its impact. Now the West had taken control of coffee - and coffee took control of the West.<br /> * Caffeine and the minute hand on clocks arrived at more or less the same historical moment.<br /> * It was tea from the East Indies - heavily sweetened with sugar from the West Indes - that fueled the Industrial Revolution.<br /> * The first tea plantations in China were cultivated thousands of years ago by monks, who found that sipping tea was an important aid to meditation.<br /> * Tea also contains a great many vitamins and minerals - one of the highest concentrations in any plant - and prodigious quantities of polyphenols, compounds rich in antioxidants (tea contains more polyphenols than red wine).<br /> * Soon after the East India Company began trading with China, cheap tea flooded England, rapidly displacing coffee as the nation's preferred caffeine delivery system. A beverage that only the well-to-do could afford to drink in 1700 was by 1800 consumed by virtually everyone, from the society matron to the factory worker. To supply this demand required an imperialist enterprise of enormous scale and brutality, especially after the British decided it would be more profitable to turn India, its colony, into a tea producer, than to buy tea from China. <br /> * The widespread use of caffeine is, arguably, one of those developments in human history, like the control of fire or the domestication of plants and animals, that helped life us out of the state of nature, providing a new degree of control over biology, in this case our own.<br /> * Caffeine keeps adenosine, a neuromodulator, from doing its job by getting in its way. Over the course of the day, adenosine levels gradually rise in the bloodstream, and as long as no other molecule is blocking its action, it begins to slow mental operations in preparation for sleep. As adenosine builds up in your brain, you begin to feel less alert and a mounting desire to go to bed - what scientists call sleep pressure.<br /> * It also causes increases in adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine (the latter, typical of drugs of abuse, and probably accounting for caffeine's mood-enhancing qualities.<br /> * Regular coffee consumption is associated with a decreased risk of several cancers (including breast, prostate, colorectal, and endometrial), cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, dementia, and possibly depression and suicide.<br /> * Coffee and tea are also the leading source of antioxidants in the American diet, a fact that may by itself account for many of the health benefits of coffee and tea.<br /> * The energy that caffeine gives you has been borrowed from the future and must be paid back with interest, via the quantity and quality of your upcoming sleep.<br /> * By the end of the 18th C, tea was being consumed daily by just about everyone in England. It accounted for an estimated 5% of the nation's GDP and depended on two articles (tea and sugar) &quot;imported from opposite ends of the earth&quot;!<br /> * In order for the English mind to be sharpened with tea, the Chinese mind had to be clouded with opium.<br /> * If you pair caffeine with any flavor, people will express a preference for that flavor.<br /> * Alfred Peet almost single-handedly introduced Americans to good coffee in 1966.<br /> * By one estimate, roughly half the world's coffee-growing acreage - and an even greater proportion in Latin America - will be unable to support the plant by 2050, making coffee one of the crops most immediately endangered by climate change.<br /> * In less than a thousand years, coffee has managed to get itself from its evolutionary birthplace in Ethiopia all the way here to the mountains of South America and beyond, using our species as its vector.<br /> * Who could have guessed that a secondary metabolite produced by plants to poison insects would also deliver an energizing bolt of pleasure to a human brain, and then turn out to alter that brain's neurochemistry in a way that made those plants indispensable?</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=This_is_Your_Mind_on_Plants&diff=1323 2026-05-19T17:30:19Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Opium */</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> <br /> * Societies condone the mind-changing drugs that help uphold society's rule and ban the ones that are seen to undermine it.<br /> * Humans have identified plants that:<br /> ** Lift the burden of physical pain<br /> ** Render us more alert or capable of uncommon feats<br /> ** Make us more sociable<br /> ** Elicit feelings of awe or ecstasy<br /> ** Nourish our imagination<br /> ** Transcend time and space<br /> ** Occasion dreams and visions and mystical experiences<br /> ** Bring us into the presence of ancestors or gods.<br /> * Evidently, normal everyday consciousness is not enough for us humans; we seek to vary, intensify, and sometimes transcend it, and we have identified a whole collection of molecules in nature that allow us to do that.<br /> * Each substance in this book represents one of the three broad categories of psychoactive compounds:<br /> ** The downer/sedative (opium)<br /> ** The upper/stimulant (caffeine)<br /> ** The outer/hallucinogen (mescaline)<br /> * A pharmakon, from the Greek, can be either a medicine or a poison; it all depends - on use, dose, intention, and set and setting. It also means &quot;scapegoat&quot;, a role that these substances have played in the drug war.<br /> * Human consciousness is always at risk of getting stuck, sending the mind around and around in loops of rumination; mushroom chemicals like psilocybin can nudge us out of those grooves, loosening stuck brains and making possible fresh patterns of thought.<br /> * The notion of a beyond, of a hidden dimension of reality, or of an afterlife - may be memes introduced to human culture by visions that psychoactive molecules inspired in human minds.<br /> <br /> == Opium ==<br /> <br /> *Poppy seedpods contain significant quantities of morphine, codeine, and thebaine, the principal alkaloids found in opium.<br /> *Regarded as &quot;God's own medicine&quot;, preparations of opium were as common in the Victorian medicine cabinet as aspirin is in ours.<br /> *Alkaloids taste bad; it's conceivable that plants produce them as a defense against pests<br /> *The opium tea seemed to subtract things: anxiety, worry, grief. It is a pain killer in every sense: &quot;definitely lightens the existential load.<br /> *I just didn't need to have all that visual information, thank you very much!<br /> *Like sitting out on the porch of one's consciousness, watching the world go by.<br /> <br /> == Caffeine ==<br /> <br /> * Caffeine is one of the most studied psychoactive compounds there is.<br /> * For most of us, to be caffeinated to one degree or another has simply become baseline human consciousness. Something like 90% of humans ingest caffeine regularly, making it the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world, and the only one we routinely give to children (commonly in the form of soda).<br /> * That's pretty much all writers do: take the blooming multiplicity of the world and our experience of it, literally concentrate it down to manageable proportions, and then force it through the eye of a grammatical needle one word at a time.<br /> * Alkaloids are nitrogen-containing compounds, biosynthesized by both marine and terrestrial organisms, often with strong biological properties. They are among the largest classes of natural products and are found particularly in plants.<br /> * Has the discovery of caffeine by humans been a boon or a bane to our civilization?<br /> * Coffee, tea, and chocolate (which also contains caffeine) arrived in England during the same decade - the 1650s - so we can gain some idea of the world before caffeine and after. Coffee was known in East Africa for a few centuries before that - it's believed to have been discovered in Ethiopia around AD 850 - but it does not have the antiquity of other psychoactive substances, such as alcohol or cannabis or even some of the psychedelics, like psilocybin or ayahuasca or peyote, which have played a role in human culture for millennia. Tea is also older than coffee, having been discovered in China, and used as a medicine since at least 1000 BC, though it wasn't popularized as a recreational beverage until the Tang dynasty, between AD 618 and 907.<br /> * Coffee and tea ushered in a shift in the mental weather, sharpening minds that had been fogged by alcohol, freeing people from the natural rhythms of the body and the sun, thus making possible whole new kinds of work and, arguably, new kinds of thought, too.<br /> * By the 15th C, coffee was being cultivated in East Africa and traded across the Arabian Peninsula.<br /> * Within a century, coffeehouses had sprung up across the Arab world. In 1570 there were more than 600 in Constantinople alone.<br /> * Coffee offered the Islamic world a suitable alternative to alcohol, which is specifically proscribed in the Koran. The notion that coffee somehow exists in opposition to alcohol would persist in both the East and the West.<br /> * This Arabian culture gave birth to modern mathematics. In China, the Tang dynasty also represented a golden age suggesting some causal link.<br /> * The fact that you needed to boil water made tea and coffee the safest things to drink.<br /> * The tannins also have antimicrobial properties and so societies thrived as microbial diseases declined.<br /> * In 1629, the first coffeehouse opened in Venice and in 1650 in Oxford, England.<br /> * Coffeehouses in London were distinguished by the interests of their patrons: Lloyds Coffee House for shipping, the London Stock Exchange grew out of Jonathan's coffee-house and the Royal Society and Tatler magazine out of Grecian.<br /> * The first teashop in London was opened by Thomas Twining in 1717.<br /> * If alcohol fuels our Dionysian tendencies, caffeine nurtures the Apollonian.<br /> * The scientific consensus seems to be that caffeine does improve mental (and physical) performance to some degree:<br /> * Caffeine improves our focus and ability to concentrate, which surely enhances linear and abstract thinking, but creativity works very differently. it may depend on the loss of a certain kind of focus, and the freedom to let the mind off the leash of linear thought.<br /> * Cognitive psychologists distinguish between:<br /> ** Spotlight consciousness - illuminates a single focal point of attention, making it very good for reasoning<br /> ** Lantern consciousness - in which attention is less focused yet illuminates a broader field of attention. Young children tend to exhibit lantern consciousness; so do people on psychedelics.<br /> * Many of the coffee plants grown in the New World today are descendants of an original plant smuggled out of Mocha in 1616, offspring of a theft nearly Promethean in its impact. Now the West had taken control of coffee - and coffee took control of the West.<br /> * Caffeine and the minute hand on clocks arrived at more or less the same historical moment.<br /> * It was tea from the East Indies - heavily sweetened with sugar from the West Indes - that fueled the Industrial Revolution.<br /> * The first tea plantations in China were cultivated thousands of years ago by monks, who found that sipping tea was an important aid to meditation.<br /> * Tea also contains a great many vitamins and minerals - one of the highest concentrations in any plant - and prodigious quantities of polyphenols, compounds rich in antioxidants (tea contains more polyphenols than red wine).<br /> * Soon after the East India Company began trading with China, cheap tea flooded England, rapidly displacing coffee as the nation's preferred caffeine delivery system. A beverage that only the well-to-do could afford to drink in 1700 was by 1800 consumed by virtually everyone, from the society matron to the factory worker. To supply this demand required an imperialist enterprise of enormous scale and brutality, especially after the British decided it would be more profitable to turn India, its colony, into a tea producer, than to buy tea from China. <br /> * The widespread use of caffeine is, arguably, one of those developments in human history, like the control of fire or the domestication of plants and animals, that helped life us out of the state of nature, providing a new degree of control over biology, in this case our own.<br /> * Caffeine keeps adenosine, a neuromodulator, from doing its job by getting in its way. Over the course of the day, adenosine levels gradually rise in the bloodstream, and as long as no other molecule is blocking its action, it begins to slow mental operations in preparation for sleep. As adenosine builds up in your brain, you begin to feel less alert and a mounting desire to go to bed - what scientists call sleep pressure.<br /> * It also causes increases in adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine (the latter, typical of drugs of abuse, and probably accounting for caffeine's mood-enhancing qualities.<br /> * Regular coffee consumption is associated with a decreased risk of several cancers (including breast, prostate, colorectal, and endometrial), cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, dementia, and possibly depression and suicide.<br /> * Coffee and tea are also the leading source of antioxidants in the American diet, a fact that may by itself account for many of the health benefits of coffee and tea.<br /> * The energy that caffeine gives you has been borrowed from the future and must be paid back with interest, via the quantity and quality of your upcoming sleep.<br /> * By the end of the 18th C, tea was being consumed daily by just about everyone in England. It accounted for an estimated 5% of the nation's GDP and depended on two articles (tea and sugar) &quot;imported from opposite ends of the earth&quot;!<br /> * In order for the English mind to be sharpened with tea, the Chinese mind had to be clouded with opium.<br /> * If you pair caffeine with any flavor, people will express a preference for that flavor.<br /> * Alfred Peet almost single-handedly introduced Americans to good coffee in 1966.</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=This_is_Your_Mind_on_Plants&diff=1322 2026-05-19T16:39:48Z

<p>Robert.adlington: Created page with &quot;== Introduction == * Societies condone the mind-changing drugs that help uphold society&#039;s rule and ban the ones that are seen to undermine it. * Humans have identified plants that: ** Lift the burden of physical pain ** Render us more alert or capable of uncommon feats ** Make us more sociable ** Elicit feelings of awe or ecstasy ** Nourish our imagination ** Transcend time and space ** Occasion dreams and visions and mystical experiences ** Bring us into the presence o...&quot;</p> <hr /> <div>== Introduction ==<br /> <br /> * Societies condone the mind-changing drugs that help uphold society's rule and ban the ones that are seen to undermine it.<br /> * Humans have identified plants that:<br /> ** Lift the burden of physical pain<br /> ** Render us more alert or capable of uncommon feats<br /> ** Make us more sociable<br /> ** Elicit feelings of awe or ecstasy<br /> ** Nourish our imagination<br /> ** Transcend time and space<br /> ** Occasion dreams and visions and mystical experiences<br /> ** Bring us into the presence of ancestors or gods.<br /> * Evidently, normal everyday consciousness is not enough for us humans; we seek to vary, intensify, and sometimes transcend it, and we have identified a whole collection of molecules in nature that allow us to do that.<br /> * Each substance in this book represents one of the three broad categories of psychoactive compounds:<br /> ** The downer/sedative (opium)<br /> ** The upper/stimulant (caffeine)<br /> ** The outer/hallucinogen (mescaline)<br /> * A pharmakon, from the Greek, can be either a medicine or a poison; it all depends - on use, dose, intention, and set and setting. It also means &quot;scapegoat&quot;, a role that these substances have played in the drug war.<br /> * Human consciousness is always at risk of getting stuck, sending the mind around and around in loops of rumination; mushroom chemicals like psilocybin can nudge us out of those grooves, loosening stuck brains and making possible fresh patterns of thought.<br /> * The notion of a beyond, of a hidden dimension of reality, or of an afterlife - may be memes introduced to human culture by visions that psychoactive molecules inspired in human minds.<br /> <br /> == Opium ==<br /> <br /> *</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Gertrude_Stein:_An_Afterlife&diff=1321 2026-05-18T17:30:46Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Locations */</p> <hr /> <div>== Places ==<br /> <br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=13+Rue+Ravignan%2C+75018+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.886324%2C2.338378&amp;name=13+Rue+Ravignan 13 rue Ravignan, Montmartre] - Picasso's studio where Stein sat for her portrait<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=20+Bloomsbury+Square%2C+London%2C+WC1A+2NS%2C+England&amp;coordinate=51.519252%2C-0.123689&amp;name=20+Bloomsbury+Square 20 Bloomsbury Square, London]<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=27+Rue+de+Fleurus%2C+75006+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.846961%2C2.329278&amp;name=27+Rue+de+Fleurus 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris] - First apartment<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?auid=71898644131995722&amp;address=Bilignin%2C+Belley%2C+France&amp;coordinate=45.765787%2C5.664665&amp;name=Bilignin&amp;lsp=6489 rue Gertrude Stein, Bilignin], near Belley<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=5+Rue+Christine%2C+75006+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.854530%2C2.339842&amp;name=5+Rue+Christine 5 rue Christine, Ile de la cité] - Second apartment<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?place-id=I37BA7A2ABBAB16E3&amp;address=16+Rue+du+Repos%2C+75020+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.860685%2C2.399429&amp;name=Tombe+de+Gertrude+Stein&amp;_provider=9902 Père Lachaise] - grave<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?auid=9783441732949742914&amp;address=45110+Germigny-des-Pr%C3%A9s%2C+France&amp;coordinate=47.845757%2C2.266746&amp;name=Germigny-des-Pr%C3%A9s&amp;lsp=6489 Germigny-des-Prés] - the oldest church in France, where Toklas converts to Catholicism<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=16+Rue+de+la+Convention%2C+75015+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.845248%2C2.278813&amp;name=16+Rue+de+la+Convention 16 rue de la Convention] - Toklas' final apartment<br /> <br /> == Part 1: Life ==<br /> === 1. Out of the Old World ===<br /> * Noticed at Harvard by William James<br /> === 2. Vita Nuova ===<br /> * Stein had concluded that people's varying attention spans were a product of their &quot;complete character&quot; or &quot;bottom nature&quot;, a driving force deep within them which directed everything they did. &quot;I began,&quot; she wrote, &quot;to get enormously interested in hearing how everybody said the same thing over and over again with infinite variations... endlessly the same and endlessly different.&quot; There was no such thing as repetition, Stein argued; rather, the essence of human expression was insistence or emphasis. However many time a story is told, whether by different people or the same person at different times, it undergoes changes which do less to reveal what actually happened than to provide an insight into the speaker's personality.<br /> === 3. Man of Letters ===<br /> * Otto Weininger's system (in Sex and Character) was profoundly misogynist. Fundamental to his theory was the idea that &quot;female&quot; traits were passive, sexual, devoid of logic and consciousness, while &quot;male&quot; ones were active, deliberate and ethical. Only those with the greatest concentration of masculine traits approached his system's highest level, that of genius.<br /> * &quot;Repeating is the whole of living,&quot; she adds, &quot;and by repeating comes understanding, and understanding is to some the most important part of living.&quot;<br /> === 4. Extreme Cubist Literature ===<br /> * She attempted to empty her mind of what she called &quot;associational emotion&quot; - the meaning a word conventionally bears, which holds within it a memory of all the previous times it has been used in that way. &quot;I took individual words and thought about them until I got their weight and volume complete and put them next to another word,&quot; Stein told an interviewer in 1946, &quot;and at the same time I found out very soon that there is no such thing as putting them together without sense.&quot;<br /> === 5. A Puzzle Picture ===<br /> * -<br /> === 6. Shoving the Unshoveable ===<br /> * &quot;...paragraphs were emotional and sentences were not&quot;. While an individual sentence might express a single idea, a paragraph was more like a mood, a state of mind, or a landscape: a context in which relations between distinct, even contradictory, elements might emerge.<br /> * While Joyce's characters, like Proust's, are saturated with their own pasts, and he charged his words with a wealth of accumulated meanings - to preserve &quot;all the crackling short circuits of idea associations which have existed between sounds and signs throughout the long evolution of our language&quot; - Stein (the editors argued) set out to wring those associations out of language entirely, in order to afford her words &quot;an bsolute or static quality&quot;, and hold an exact moment in sharp focus.<br /> === 7. Knockout and a Wow ===<br /> * &quot;The twentieth century,&quot; she wrote, &quot;is a century which sees the earth as no one has ever seen it. &quot; (ie from above)<br /> * &quot;Government is the least interesting thing in human life,&quot; she argued, rising to her feet, &quot;creation and the expression of that creation is a damn sight more interesting... the real ideas are not the relation of human beings as groups but a human being to himself inside him.&quot;<br /> * She suggested that narrative has lost its meaning in an age where newspapers, cinema, photographs, and radio bombard us with &quot;what is happening&quot;: we don't need more stories about what people have done, she argued, when &quot;the thing that is important is the intensity of anybody's existence&quot;.<br /> * &quot;The business of art,&quot; she explained, &quot;is to live in the actual present, that is the complete actual present, and to completely express that complete actual present.&quot; More explicitly that even before, she laid out her theory of the function of memory in language, which she aimed to break down: that each appearance of a word, invokes, in the reader, memories of its previous uses - and the process of remembering, the mental formation of an association between the word and what it has described before, creates a gulf between the reader and the text before them, holding the word in bondage.<br /> === 8. Publicity Saint ===<br /> * At the heart of The Geographical History - a constantly shifting work incorporating dialogues, plays, and elements of autobiography - is a distinction between human nature and the human mind, two parts of the self which Stein insisted have &quot;nothing whatever to do with&quot; one another. Human nature, Stein suggested, is personal identity, assured by memory and external validation; the human mind, by contrast, stands outside of personality, and is the element capable of artistic creation. <br /> * She had mooted the distinction a couple of years earlier, reflecting on her own writing practice, which required her to clear her mind entirely of disturbances in pursuit of clarity, such that she could forget where, or even who, she was: &quot;Begin again,&quot; she often instructed herself when her concentration momentarily broke, refocusing her thoughts to take fresh aim at what she was trying to say.<br /> * &quot;I am I not any longer when I see,&quot; she had written. &quot;This sentence is at the bottom of all creative activity. It is just the exact opposite of I am I because my little dog knows me.&quot;<br /> === 9. To Be Historical ===<br /> * &quot;Writers only think they are interested in politics,&quot; Stein told the Partisan Review in 1939, &quot;they are not really, it gives them a chance to talk and writers like to talk but really no real writer is really interested in politics.&quot;<br /> == Part 2: Afterlife ==<br /> === Reckoning ===<br /> * In her writing, geniuses (like saints) are always portrayed as &quot;most intensely alive&quot;, standing somehow outside of time due to an ability to see themselves beyond mortal existence, which she called &quot;a future life feeling&quot;.<br /> === 10. Poisoned Wheat ===<br /> * -<br /> === 11. Diagram Book ===<br /> * What she admired in Picasso's work, and sought to emulate in her writing, was his refusal to use objects &quot;as a point of departure&quot; to suggest allegories or further meanings. Instead, he wanted to depict their essence, in and of itself. She connected him with Cézanne, &quot;the great master of the realization of the object itself.&quot;<br /> === 12. A Sacred Trust ===<br /> * -<br /> === 13. Chronique Scandaleuse ===<br /> * History, she suggests, is not fixed, but can be revised if a couple so choose.<br /> * &quot;Real thinking,&quot; she wrote in a notebook, &quot;is conceptions aiming and aiming again and again always getting fuller, that is the difference between creative thinking and theorizing.&quot; She was coming to see the process of creation - the struggle to realize a vision - as the most significant aspect of a work of art; its final form, she thought, marked the culmination of a long, vital battle in the artist's mind.<br /> * How &quot;vital singularity&quot; may emerge from tradition; how an individual steeped in the past may break out of it, discover themselves, and learn - like Adele in QED - to see &quot;things as they are&quot;.<br /> === 14. Parades and Fireworks ===<br /> * -<br /> === 15. What is the Question? ===<br /> * Reid lambasted Stein's work for its opacity, maintaining that in stripping away all associations from words she was eliminating the possibilities of beauty, emotion, and imagination, and - iconoclastically - rejecting the rich history of human knowledge.<br /> === 16. The Branches ===<br /> * John Cage used sounds like Stein used words: not for the purpose of melody, illustration, or narrative development, but for themselves. Both saw experience as something impressionistic and cumulative, not linear: their work was intimately bound up with time, demanding close attention to, and in, the present moment. The function of art, Cage suggested - echoing Stein - is &quot;to draw us nearer to the process which is the world we live in.&quot;<br /> * Stein as a major forerunner to a cluster of writers whose work &quot;recognizes language itself as the crucial human experience&quot;.<br /> * Each time the word &quot;may&quot; occurred, it had been crossed out and replaced with a different word - &quot;today, &quot;day&quot;, or &quot;can&quot; - even where such replacements rendered the sentences incomprehensible.<br /> === Epilogue ===<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Gertrude_Stein:_An_Afterlife&diff=1320 2026-05-18T17:30:36Z

<p>Robert.adlington: </p> <hr /> <div>== Locations ==<br /> <br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=13+Rue+Ravignan%2C+75018+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.886324%2C2.338378&amp;name=13+Rue+Ravignan 13 rue Ravignan, Montmartre] - Picasso's studio where Stein sat for her portrait<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=20+Bloomsbury+Square%2C+London%2C+WC1A+2NS%2C+England&amp;coordinate=51.519252%2C-0.123689&amp;name=20+Bloomsbury+Square 20 Bloomsbury Square, London]<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=27+Rue+de+Fleurus%2C+75006+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.846961%2C2.329278&amp;name=27+Rue+de+Fleurus 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris] - First apartment<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?auid=71898644131995722&amp;address=Bilignin%2C+Belley%2C+France&amp;coordinate=45.765787%2C5.664665&amp;name=Bilignin&amp;lsp=6489 rue Gertrude Stein, Bilignin], near Belley<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=5+Rue+Christine%2C+75006+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.854530%2C2.339842&amp;name=5+Rue+Christine 5 rue Christine, Ile de la cité] - Second apartment<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?place-id=I37BA7A2ABBAB16E3&amp;address=16+Rue+du+Repos%2C+75020+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.860685%2C2.399429&amp;name=Tombe+de+Gertrude+Stein&amp;_provider=9902 Père Lachaise] - grave<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?auid=9783441732949742914&amp;address=45110+Germigny-des-Pr%C3%A9s%2C+France&amp;coordinate=47.845757%2C2.266746&amp;name=Germigny-des-Pr%C3%A9s&amp;lsp=6489 Germigny-des-Prés] - the oldest church in France, where Toklas converts to Catholicism<br /> * [https://maps.apple.com/place?address=16+Rue+de+la+Convention%2C+75015+Paris%2C+France&amp;coordinate=48.845248%2C2.278813&amp;name=16+Rue+de+la+Convention 16 rue de la Convention] - Toklas' final apartment<br /> <br /> == Part 1: Life ==<br /> === 1. Out of the Old World ===<br /> * Noticed at Harvard by William James<br /> === 2. Vita Nuova ===<br /> * Stein had concluded that people's varying attention spans were a product of their &quot;complete character&quot; or &quot;bottom nature&quot;, a driving force deep within them which directed everything they did. &quot;I began,&quot; she wrote, &quot;to get enormously interested in hearing how everybody said the same thing over and over again with infinite variations... endlessly the same and endlessly different.&quot; There was no such thing as repetition, Stein argued; rather, the essence of human expression was insistence or emphasis. However many time a story is told, whether by different people or the same person at different times, it undergoes changes which do less to reveal what actually happened than to provide an insight into the speaker's personality.<br /> === 3. Man of Letters ===<br /> * Otto Weininger's system (in Sex and Character) was profoundly misogynist. Fundamental to his theory was the idea that &quot;female&quot; traits were passive, sexual, devoid of logic and consciousness, while &quot;male&quot; ones were active, deliberate and ethical. Only those with the greatest concentration of masculine traits approached his system's highest level, that of genius.<br /> * &quot;Repeating is the whole of living,&quot; she adds, &quot;and by repeating comes understanding, and understanding is to some the most important part of living.&quot;<br /> === 4. Extreme Cubist Literature ===<br /> * She attempted to empty her mind of what she called &quot;associational emotion&quot; - the meaning a word conventionally bears, which holds within it a memory of all the previous times it has been used in that way. &quot;I took individual words and thought about them until I got their weight and volume complete and put them next to another word,&quot; Stein told an interviewer in 1946, &quot;and at the same time I found out very soon that there is no such thing as putting them together without sense.&quot;<br /> === 5. A Puzzle Picture ===<br /> * -<br /> === 6. Shoving the Unshoveable ===<br /> * &quot;...paragraphs were emotional and sentences were not&quot;. While an individual sentence might express a single idea, a paragraph was more like a mood, a state of mind, or a landscape: a context in which relations between distinct, even contradictory, elements might emerge.<br /> * While Joyce's characters, like Proust's, are saturated with their own pasts, and he charged his words with a wealth of accumulated meanings - to preserve &quot;all the crackling short circuits of idea associations which have existed between sounds and signs throughout the long evolution of our language&quot; - Stein (the editors argued) set out to wring those associations out of language entirely, in order to afford her words &quot;an bsolute or static quality&quot;, and hold an exact moment in sharp focus.<br /> === 7. Knockout and a Wow ===<br /> * &quot;The twentieth century,&quot; she wrote, &quot;is a century which sees the earth as no one has ever seen it. &quot; (ie from above)<br /> * &quot;Government is the least interesting thing in human life,&quot; she argued, rising to her feet, &quot;creation and the expression of that creation is a damn sight more interesting... the real ideas are not the relation of human beings as groups but a human being to himself inside him.&quot;<br /> * She suggested that narrative has lost its meaning in an age where newspapers, cinema, photographs, and radio bombard us with &quot;what is happening&quot;: we don't need more stories about what people have done, she argued, when &quot;the thing that is important is the intensity of anybody's existence&quot;.<br /> * &quot;The business of art,&quot; she explained, &quot;is to live in the actual present, that is the complete actual present, and to completely express that complete actual present.&quot; More explicitly that even before, she laid out her theory of the function of memory in language, which she aimed to break down: that each appearance of a word, invokes, in the reader, memories of its previous uses - and the process of remembering, the mental formation of an association between the word and what it has described before, creates a gulf between the reader and the text before them, holding the word in bondage.<br /> === 8. Publicity Saint ===<br /> * At the heart of The Geographical History - a constantly shifting work incorporating dialogues, plays, and elements of autobiography - is a distinction between human nature and the human mind, two parts of the self which Stein insisted have &quot;nothing whatever to do with&quot; one another. Human nature, Stein suggested, is personal identity, assured by memory and external validation; the human mind, by contrast, stands outside of personality, and is the element capable of artistic creation. <br /> * She had mooted the distinction a couple of years earlier, reflecting on her own writing practice, which required her to clear her mind entirely of disturbances in pursuit of clarity, such that she could forget where, or even who, she was: &quot;Begin again,&quot; she often instructed herself when her concentration momentarily broke, refocusing her thoughts to take fresh aim at what she was trying to say.<br /> * &quot;I am I not any longer when I see,&quot; she had written. &quot;This sentence is at the bottom of all creative activity. It is just the exact opposite of I am I because my little dog knows me.&quot;<br /> === 9. To Be Historical ===<br /> * &quot;Writers only think they are interested in politics,&quot; Stein told the Partisan Review in 1939, &quot;they are not really, it gives them a chance to talk and writers like to talk but really no real writer is really interested in politics.&quot;<br /> == Part 2: Afterlife ==<br /> === Reckoning ===<br /> * In her writing, geniuses (like saints) are always portrayed as &quot;most intensely alive&quot;, standing somehow outside of time due to an ability to see themselves beyond mortal existence, which she called &quot;a future life feeling&quot;.<br /> === 10. Poisoned Wheat ===<br /> * -<br /> === 11. Diagram Book ===<br /> * What she admired in Picasso's work, and sought to emulate in her writing, was his refusal to use objects &quot;as a point of departure&quot; to suggest allegories or further meanings. Instead, he wanted to depict their essence, in and of itself. She connected him with Cézanne, &quot;the great master of the realization of the object itself.&quot;<br /> === 12. A Sacred Trust ===<br /> * -<br /> === 13. Chronique Scandaleuse ===<br /> * History, she suggests, is not fixed, but can be revised if a couple so choose.<br /> * &quot;Real thinking,&quot; she wrote in a notebook, &quot;is conceptions aiming and aiming again and again always getting fuller, that is the difference between creative thinking and theorizing.&quot; She was coming to see the process of creation - the struggle to realize a vision - as the most significant aspect of a work of art; its final form, she thought, marked the culmination of a long, vital battle in the artist's mind.<br /> * How &quot;vital singularity&quot; may emerge from tradition; how an individual steeped in the past may break out of it, discover themselves, and learn - like Adele in QED - to see &quot;things as they are&quot;.<br /> === 14. Parades and Fireworks ===<br /> * -<br /> === 15. What is the Question? ===<br /> * Reid lambasted Stein's work for its opacity, maintaining that in stripping away all associations from words she was eliminating the possibilities of beauty, emotion, and imagination, and - iconoclastically - rejecting the rich history of human knowledge.<br /> === 16. The Branches ===<br /> * John Cage used sounds like Stein used words: not for the purpose of melody, illustration, or narrative development, but for themselves. Both saw experience as something impressionistic and cumulative, not linear: their work was intimately bound up with time, demanding close attention to, and in, the present moment. The function of art, Cage suggested - echoing Stein - is &quot;to draw us nearer to the process which is the world we live in.&quot;<br /> * Stein as a major forerunner to a cluster of writers whose work &quot;recognizes language itself as the crucial human experience&quot;.<br /> * Each time the word &quot;may&quot; occurred, it had been crossed out and replaced with a different word - &quot;today, &quot;day&quot;, or &quot;can&quot; - even where such replacements rendered the sentences incomprehensible.<br /> === Epilogue ===<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Gertrude_Stein:_An_Afterlife&diff=1319 2026-05-18T17:08:30Z

<p>Robert.adlington: </p> <hr /> <div>== Locations ==<br /> <br /> * 13 rue Ravignan, Montmartre - Picasso's studio where Stein sat for her portrait<br /> * 20 Bloomsbury Square, London <br /> * 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris - First apartment<br /> * 5 rue Christine, Ile de la cité - Second apartment<br /> * Père Lachaise - grave<br /> <br /> == Part 1: Life ==<br /> === 1. Out of the Old World ===<br /> * Noticed at Harvard by William James<br /> === 2. Vita Nuova ===<br /> * Stein had concluded that people's varying attention spans were a product of their &quot;complete character&quot; or &quot;bottom nature&quot;, a driving force deep within them which directed everything they did. &quot;I began,&quot; she wrote, &quot;to get enormously interested in hearing how everybody said the same thing over and over again with infinite variations... endlessly the same and endlessly different.&quot; There was no such thing as repetition, Stein argued; rather, the essence of human expression was insistence or emphasis. However many time a story is told, whether by different people or the same person at different times, it undergoes changes which do less to reveal what actually happened than to provide an insight into the speaker's personality.<br /> === 3. Man of Letters ===<br /> * Otto Weininger's system (in Sex and Character) was profoundly misogynist. Fundamental to his theory was the idea that &quot;female&quot; traits were passive, sexual, devoid of logic and consciousness, while &quot;male&quot; ones were active, deliberate and ethical. Only those with the greatest concentration of masculine traits approached his system's highest level, that of genius.<br /> * &quot;Repeating is the whole of living,&quot; she adds, &quot;and by repeating comes understanding, and understanding is to some the most important part of living.&quot;<br /> === 4. Extreme Cubist Literature ===<br /> * She attempted to empty her mind of what she called &quot;associational emotion&quot; - the meaning a word conventionally bears, which holds within it a memory of all the previous times it has been used in that way. &quot;I took individual words and thought about them until I got their weight and volume complete and put them next to another word,&quot; Stein told an interviewer in 1946, &quot;and at the same time I found out very soon that there is no such thing as putting them together without sense.&quot;<br /> === 5. A Puzzle Picture ===<br /> * -<br /> === 6. Shoving the Unshoveable ===<br /> * &quot;...paragraphs were emotional and sentences were not&quot;. While an individual sentence might express a single idea, a paragraph was more like a mood, a state of mind, or a landscape: a context in which relations between distinct, even contradictory, elements might emerge.<br /> * While Joyce's characters, like Proust's, are saturated with their own pasts, and he charged his words with a wealth of accumulated meanings - to preserve &quot;all the crackling short circuits of idea associations which have existed between sounds and signs throughout the long evolution of our language&quot; - Stein (the editors argued) set out to wring those associations out of language entirely, in order to afford her words &quot;an bsolute or static quality&quot;, and hold an exact moment in sharp focus.<br /> === 7. Knockout and a Wow ===<br /> * &quot;The twentieth century,&quot; she wrote, &quot;is a century which sees the earth as no one has ever seen it. &quot; (ie from above)<br /> * &quot;Government is the least interesting thing in human life,&quot; she argued, rising to her feet, &quot;creation and the expression of that creation is a damn sight more interesting... the real ideas are not the relation of human beings as groups but a human being to himself inside him.&quot;<br /> * She suggested that narrative has lost its meaning in an age where newspapers, cinema, photographs, and radio bombard us with &quot;what is happening&quot;: we don't need more stories about what people have done, she argued, when &quot;the thing that is important is the intensity of anybody's existence&quot;.<br /> * &quot;The business of art,&quot; she explained, &quot;is to live in the actual present, that is the complete actual present, and to completely express that complete actual present.&quot; More explicitly that even before, she laid out her theory of the function of memory in language, which she aimed to break down: that each appearance of a word, invokes, in the reader, memories of its previous uses - and the process of remembering, the mental formation of an association between the word and what it has described before, creates a gulf between the reader and the text before them, holding the word in bondage.<br /> === 8. Publicity Saint ===<br /> * At the heart of The Geographical History - a constantly shifting work incorporating dialogues, plays, and elements of autobiography - is a distinction between human nature and the human mind, two parts of the self which Stein insisted have &quot;nothing whatever to do with&quot; one another. Human nature, Stein suggested, is personal identity, assured by memory and external validation; the human mind, by contrast, stands outside of personality, and is the element capable of artistic creation. <br /> * She had mooted the distinction a couple of years earlier, reflecting on her own writing practice, which required her to clear her mind entirely of disturbances in pursuit of clarity, such that she could forget where, or even who, she was: &quot;Begin again,&quot; she often instructed herself when her concentration momentarily broke, refocusing her thoughts to take fresh aim at what she was trying to say.<br /> * &quot;I am I not any longer when I see,&quot; she had written. &quot;This sentence is at the bottom of all creative activity. It is just the exact opposite of I am I because my little dog knows me.&quot;<br /> === 9. To Be Historical ===<br /> * &quot;Writers only think they are interested in politics,&quot; Stein told the Partisan Review in 1939, &quot;they are not really, it gives them a chance to talk and writers like to talk but really no real writer is really interested in politics.&quot;<br /> == Part 2: Afterlife ==<br /> === Reckoning ===<br /> * In her writing, geniuses (like saints) are always portrayed as &quot;most intensely alive&quot;, standing somehow outside of time due to an ability to see themselves beyond mortal existence, which she called &quot;a future life feeling&quot;.<br /> === 10. Poisoned Wheat ===<br /> * -<br /> === 11. Diagram Book ===<br /> * What she admired in Picasso's work, and sought to emulate in her writing, was his refusal to use objects &quot;as a point of departure&quot; to suggest allegories or further meanings. Instead, he wanted to depict their essence, in and of itself. She connected him with Cézanne, &quot;the great master of the realization of the object itself.&quot;<br /> === 12. A Sacred Trust ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 13. Chronique Scandaleuse ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 14. Parades and Fireworks ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 15. What is the Question? ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 16. The Branches ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === Epilogue ===<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Gertrude_Stein:_An_Afterlife&diff=1318 2026-05-18T16:29:44Z

<p>Robert.adlington: Created page with &quot;== Part 1: Life == === 1. Out of the Old World === * Bulleted list item === 2. Vita Nuova === * Bulleted list item === 3. Man of Letters === * Bulleted list item === 4. Extreme Cubist Literature === * Bulleted list item === 5. A Puzzle Picture === * Bulleted list item === 6. Shoving the Unshoveable === * Bulleted list item === 7. Knockout and a Wow === * Bulleted list item === 8. Publicity Saint === * Bulleted list item === 9. To Be Historical === * Bulleted list item ==...&quot;</p> <hr /> <div>== Part 1: Life ==<br /> === 1. Out of the Old World ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 2. Vita Nuova ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 3. Man of Letters ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 4. Extreme Cubist Literature ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 5. A Puzzle Picture ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 6. Shoving the Unshoveable ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 7. Knockout and a Wow ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 8. Publicity Saint ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 9. To Be Historical ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> == Part 2: Afterlife ==<br /> === Reckoning ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 10. Poisoned Wheat ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 11. Diagram Book ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 12. A Sacred Trust ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 13. Chronique Scandaleuse ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 14. Parades and Fireworks ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 15. What is the Question? ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === 16. The Branches ===<br /> * Bulleted list item<br /> === Epilogue ===<br /> * Bulleted list item</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1317 2026-05-18T16:23:38Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2026 (week 20) */</p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *[[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 20) ===<br /> <br /> * 20. [[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1316 2026-05-17T11:10:34Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* Currently Reading */</p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> *[[Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]] - Francesca Wade<br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 20) ===<br /> <br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Films&diff=1315 2026-05-17T11:06:40Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2026 */</p> <hr /> <div>== Films to Watch ==<br /> <br /> [https://www.cinealcazar.fr/fichier/programme.pdf Cinema Alcazar Program]<br /> <br /> * Mind trips<br /> ** Triangle<br /> ** Beyond the infinite two minutes<br /> ** Enemy<br /> ** Under the Silver Lake<br /> ** The Vanishing<br /> ** Angel Heart<br /> ** Following<br /> ** The Invisible Guest<br /> ** Perfect Blue<br /> ** Resolution<br /> * fast times <br /> * the Jerk<br /> * Mutiny on the Bounty<br /> * Entrapment <br /> * Mask of Zorro<br /> * PTA - Hard Eight, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, etc<br /> * Little Big and Far - weird scandinavian film<br /> * This is Spinal tap<br /> * Big Night - Tucci and Shaloub<br /> * Punch drunk love<br /> * Boyhood <br /> * Kind hearts and coronets <br /> * A night at the opera <br /> * Blazing saddles <br /> * Lives of others<br /> * Lost in Translation <br /> * One flew over <br /> * Get out<br /> * Maltese falcon <br /> * Early mad maxes<br /> * Joule of the Nile<br /> * the man with two brains<br /> * Psycho Therapy - Steve Buscemi is a serial killer who wants to advise an author, but ends up playing a marriage counselor.<br /> * Early Steve Martin<br /> * A Complete Unknown <br /> * la La Land -<br /> * The Phoenician Scheme - new Wes Anderson comedy espionage thriller <br /> * Thelma - Grandma fights con artists<br /> * Kinds of Kindness<br /> * 2001<br /> * The Elephant Man<br /> * The Fabulous Baker Boys<br /> * Network<br /> <br /> == Films Watched ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 ===<br /> <br /> * 31. Unforgiven<br /> * 30. A Mighty Wind<br /> * 29. Magnolia<br /> * 28. Escape from Alcatraz<br /> * 27. The Sting<br /> * 26. Pulp Fiction<br /> * 25. Failure to Launch<br /> * 24. Hudson Hawk<br /> * 23. Mystère à St Tropez<br /> * 22. The Thomas Crown Affair<br /> * 21. The Three Amigos (1986)<br /> * 20. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - Jonathon Demme<br /> * 19. Top Secret (1984)<br /> * 18. One Battle After Another (2025) - Paul Thomas Anderson<br /> * 17. Memento (2000) - Christopher Nolan (rewatch)<br /> * 16. Pleasantville (1998) - Gary Ross<br /> * 15. The Fisher King (1991) -<br /> * 14. The Mastermind<br /> * 13. The Birdcage<br /> * 12. Fight Club (rewatch)<br /> * 11. Knives Out: Glass Onion (rewatch)<br /> * 10. Twins<br /> * 9. The Remains of the Day<br /> * 8. The Ladykillers<br /> * 7. Us (rewatch)<br /> * 6. Saving Private Ryan (rewatch)<br /> * 5. Event Horizon<br /> * 4. Insomnia (2002) - Christopher Nolan (rewatch)<br /> * 3. Knives Out (rewatch)<br /> * 2. Gattaca (1997) - Andrew Niccol<br /> * 1. Eddington (2025) - Ari Aster<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> * 65. Wake Up Dead Man (Knives Out 3)<br /> * 64. Miller's Crossing<br /> * 63. Blood Simple<br /> * 62. Crazy Stupid Love<br /> * 61. Happiest Season<br /> * 60. Bridge of Spies <br /> * 59. Identity<br /> * 58. Clueless<br /> * 57. Ace Ventura 2: Call of Nature <br /> * 56. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World<br /> * 55. Apollo 13<br /> * 54. LA Confidential (rewatch)<br /> * 53. Inside Llewyn Davis<br /> * 52. M3gan<br /> * 51. Clear and Present Danger <br /> * 50. 12 Monkeys<br /> * 49. No Country for Old Men<br /> * 48. The Hudsucker Proxy<br /> * 47. La Cuisse ou l'aile<br /> * 46. Mission Impossible : The Final Reckoning<br /> * 45. Dumb and Dumber <br /> * 44. Rear Window<br /> * 43. Raising Arizona<br /> * 42. Tenet (rewatch)<br /> * 41. The fifth Element <br /> * 40. Burn Without Reading <br /> * 39. The Big Lebowski (rewatch)<br /> * 38. Fargo (rewatch)<br /> * 37. 28 Days Later (rewatch)<br /> * 36. O Brother, Where Art Thou<br /> * 35. Mickey 17 <br /> * 34. Empire of the Sun <br /> * 33. The Fugitive <br /> * 32. Wet Hot American Summer (rewatch)<br /> * 31. Ted<br /> * 30. Hundreds of Beavers <br /> * 29. Wayne’s World (rewatch)<br /> * 28. True Grit (Coen Bros)<br /> * 27. Groundhog Day (rewatch)<br /> * 26. Moonrise Kingdom <br /> * 25. Asterix et Obelix: Mission Cleopatra <br /> * 24. Adaptation (rewatch)<br /> * 23. Romancing the Stone (rewatch)<br /> * Easter Film Festival<br /> ** 22. Mad Max: Fury Road (rewatch)<br /> ** 21. Witness<br /> ** 20. The Grand Budapest Hotel (rewatch)<br /> ** 19. Conclave<br /> ** 18. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective<br /> ** 17. Lincoln<br /> ** 16. Being John Malkovitch (rewatch)<br /> ** 15. AI (rewatch)<br /> ** 14. The Royal Tenenbaums (rewatch)<br /> ** 13. Total Recall 1990 (rewatch)<br /> ** 12. In the Line of Fire (rewatch)<br /> * 11. Flow <br /> * 10. Juror No. 2<br /> * 9. The Savage Robot<br /> * 8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (rewatch)<br /> * 7. Dead Poet's Society<br /> * 6. Notting Hill (rewatch)<br /> * 5. My Neighbor Totoro (rewatch)<br /> * 4. Kiki’s Delivery Service (rewatch)<br /> * 3. Dr Strangelove (rewatch)<br /> * 2. Dune 2<br /> * 1. Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me (rewatch)<br /> <br /> === 2024 and Earlier ===<br /> * The Big Lebowski<br /> * The Holiday<br /> * Love Actually<br /> * Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure<br /> * The Mask<br /> [[Category:Films]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Formulations_on_the_Two_Principles_of_Mental_Functioning&diff=1314 2026-05-14T13:07:23Z

<p>Robert.adlington: Created page with &quot;* These (older, primary) processes strive towards gaining pleasure; physical activity draws back from any event which might arouse unpleasure. (Here we have repression.) * &lt;u&gt;Senses&lt;/u&gt; - The increased significance of external reality (the setting up of the reality principle) heightened the importance, too, of the sense-organs that are directed towards that external world, and of the consciousness attached to them. Consciousness now learned to comprehend sensory qualiti...&quot;</p> <hr /> <div>* These (older, primary) processes strive towards gaining pleasure; physical activity draws back from any event which might arouse unpleasure. (Here we have repression.)<br /> <br /> * &lt;u&gt;Senses&lt;/u&gt; - The increased significance of external reality (the setting up of the reality principle) heightened the importance, too, of the sense-organs that are directed towards that external world, and of the consciousness attached to them. Consciousness now learned to comprehend sensory qualities in addition to the qualities of pleasure and unpleasure which hitherto had along been of interest to it.<br /> * &lt;u&gt;Attention&lt;/u&gt; - A special function was instituted which had periodically to search the external world, in order that its data might be familiar already if an urgent internal need should arise - the function of attention. Its activity meets the sense-impressions half-way, instead of awaiting their appearance. At the same time, probably, a system of notation was introduced, whose task it was to lay down the results of this periodical activity of consciousness - a part of what we call memory.<br /> * &lt;u&gt;Action&lt;/u&gt; - Motor discharge was now employed in the appropriate alteration of reality; it was converted into action.<br /> * &lt;u&gt;Thinking&lt;/u&gt; - Restraint upon motor discharge (upon action), which then became necessary, was provided by means of the process of thinking, which was developed from the presentation of ideas. Thinking was endowed with characteristics which made it possible for the mental apparatus to tolerate an increased tension of stimulus while the process of discharge was postponed. It is essentially an experimental kind of acting, accompanied by displacement of relatively small quantities of cathexis together with less expenditure (discharge) of them.<br /> ** It is probably that thinking was originally unconscious, in so far as it went beyond mere ideational presentations and was directed to the relations between impressions of objects, and that it did not acquire further qualities, perceptible to consciousness, until it became bound to verbal residues.<br /> * &lt;u&gt;Day-Dreaming&lt;/u&gt; - With the introduction of the reality principle one species of thought-activity was split off; it was kept free from reality-testing and remained subordinated to the pleasure principle alone. This activity is phantasying, which begins already in children's play, and later, continued as day-dreaming, abandons dependence on real objects.<br /> * Just as the pleasure-ego can do nothing but wish, work for a yield of pleasure and avoid unpleasure, so the reality-ego need do nothing but strive for what is useful and guard itself against damage. <br /> * Actually the substitution of the reality principle for the pleasure principle implies no deposing of the pleasure principle but only a safeguarding of it. A momentary pleasure, uncertain in its results, is given up, but only in order to gain along the new path an assured pleasure at a later time.<br /> * &lt;u&gt;Education&lt;/u&gt; - Can be described as an incitement to the conquest of the pleasure principle, and to its replacement by the reality principle; it seeks, that is, to led its help to the developmental process which affects the ego.<br /> * &lt;u&gt;Art&lt;/u&gt; - Brings about the reconciliation between the two principles in a peculiar way. An artist is originally a man who turns away from reality because he cannot come to terms with the renunciation of instinctual satisfaction which it at first demands, and who allows his erotic and ambitious wishes full play in the life of phantasy. He finds the way back to reality, however, from this world of phantasy by making use of special gifts to mould his phantasies into truths of a new kind, which are valued by men as precious reflections of reality. Thus in a certain fashion he actually becomes the hero, the king, the creator, or the favorite he desired to be, without following the long roundabout path of making real alterations in the external world.<br /> * &lt;u&gt;Sex&lt;/u&gt; - While the ego goes through its transformation from a pleasure-ego into a reality-ego, the sexual instincts undergo the changes that lead them from their original auto-erotism through various intermediate phases to object-love in the service of procreation.</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Books&diff=1313 2026-05-14T12:46:22Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2026 (week 20) */</p> <hr /> <div>== Books to Buy ==<br /> <br /> Used:<br /> * i know that you know that I know - George Butte [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dormant-Einstein-Wittgenstein-Frankenstein-Re-Inventing/dp/0670804800 Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein] : Reinventing the Universe by John Brockman<br /> * Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Name-This-Book-Recreational/dp/0486481980 What is the Name of this Book]: Raymond Smullyan<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thought-Contagion-International-Engineering-Paperback/dp/B00FDVRANQ Thought Contagion]: How Ideas Act Like Viruses - Aaron Lynch<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Thought-Other-Biological-Categories/dp/0262631156 Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories]: New Foundations for Realism - Ruth Garrett Millikan<br /> <br /> Paperbacks:<br /> * Pellis - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1851687602/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.H3yYZI7yMy8UMo0DZRtBXC7wbyUv2gRGlVcNGkDlLMJgXzHKvH1465fjUMkPxFfF6Gy4SxJZF5iHJj2-KPFajMqmXBiYahwhe5kfd66JSukAwSqbKylXct02KUMpWpWQCIW6bCM_Ht6bSd14GU33N14R__7O6CnhnzxNZy9X2zb3i5AfMj6mzwHRCKmg4ksQwKR6te7VhUOppALivblKNw.VKJXzbK6PkVwM-NWQcVACHw9NKJAMBuwXSLAEcjus40&amp;qid=1775903643&amp;sr=8-1 The Playful Brain]<br /> * Strauss - The Three Waves of Modernity<br /> * Peter Handke - Insulting the Audience<br /> * Lorrie Moore - Self Help<br /> * La Modification - Michel Butor<br /> * Un Homme qui dort - Georges Perec<br /> * How Like a God - Rex Stout<br /> <br /> * Time and Narrative - Paul Ricoeur<br /> * Flight of Icarus - Raymond Queneau<br /> * Nausea - Sartre<br /> * [https://www.amazon.fr/Seven-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571338151 Seven], [https://www.amazon.fr/Zed-Joanna-Kavenna/dp/0571245161 Zed], etc by Joanna Kavenna. See [https://blog.adlington.fr/index.php/2026/01/12/seven-or-how-to-play-a-game-without-rules-by-joanna-kavenna/ blog].<br /> * Building a second brain<br /> * how to solve it<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Eve-Paradise-E%C3%A7a-Queir%C3%B3s/dp/0811239144 Adam and Eve in Paradise] - eca de queiros<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounds-Possibility-Puzzles-Modal-Variation/dp/0198910770 The Bounds of Possibility] - Philosophy book about categories <br /> * Nicola Barker - [https://www.amazon.co.uk/TonyInterruptor-Nicola-Barker/dp/1803512563 Tony Interrupter] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/H-PPY-Nicola-Barker/dp/1785151142 Happy], etc<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growth-Form-Canto-Classics/dp/1107672562 On Growth and Form] - D'Arcy Thompson<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alpha-Omega-Jane-Ellen-Harrison/dp/1961341417 Alpha and Omega] - Jane Ellen Harrison<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Willard-Gibbs-Whole-Simpler-Parts/dp/1961341158 the Whole is Simpler than its Parts] - Willard Gibbs<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Lives-Twentieth-Century/dp/152992572X Stranger Than Fiction]: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel - Edwin Frank<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/1836430396 Gray Matters]: A Biography of Brain Surgery - Theodore Schwartz<br /> *<br /> <br /> Hardbacks:<br /> <br /> * Mark Solms - The Only Cure - Freud and Neuroscience <br /> <br /> * [https://kottke.org/26/03/beginning-comes-after-the-end The Beginning Comes After the End] - Rebecca Solnit <br /> * [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/being-and-time-an-annotated-translation.html Being and Time Annotated] or [https://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Being-Time-Paraphrased-Annotated/dp/1786613417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22NKOIU8DE86V&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DTYI13qU7soxuiueo4-e128MDF_Ax3dyLaUSGkoN5Ia4UdUOk_Dq1I7NCzXbEWWQnCsZ_8TnpI_r-Aut-ca4ur7QoC5kObPu2gII5w37OPLBu35YwyZZIcQAH6cz3tSLhX00snAOwxwxFPCfiq2S-wt5XmSjCN3Hg5m3Btu2C-mHF7lEv6A6EaaeWIdcwChz23nuiyKnrHs62cHAUXQspCNW8TuE65y1CydE89Xp8as.iBxvGfEz3Ac-ZaaYxIBUO8lpCpF0iHOejymlghbifJ4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=thomas+sheehan&amp;qid=1771981151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=thomas+sheehan%2Cstripbooks%2C198&amp;sr=1-1 paraphrased] ?<br /> * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/23/capitalism-by-sven-beckert-review-an-extraordinary-history-of-the-economic-system-that-controls-our-lives Capitalism]: A Global History-Sven Beckert<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violent-Saviours-Capitalism-Without-Consent/dp/1399811215 Violent Saviors]: How the West Conquered the Rest - William Easterly<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Contradictions-Thomas-Making-Mountain/dp/0300233744 The master of contradictions]: Thomas Mann and the making of the Magic Mountain<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-CO2-Everything-Planetary-Experiment/dp/0241631165 The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything]: A Planetary Experiment<br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%B6bius-Book-Catherine-Lacey/dp/1803511494 the moebius book] - Catherine Lacey<br /> * Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod<br /> * L'homme microscopique - Pierre Auger<br /> * Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI (out in paperback Jan 30 2025)<br /> * A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (awaiting paperback)<br /> * The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium<br /> * Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization<br /> * Consolations - David Whyte<br /> <br /> == Books to Read ==<br /> <br /> * [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gertrude-Stein-Afterlife-Francesca-Wade/dp/0571369316][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Socrates-Case-Philosophical-Life/dp/0141994835 Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife]<br /> <br /> * Reading to Learn - William Zinger<br /> * Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut<br /> <br /> == Currently Reading ==<br /> <br /> * [[Atomic Habits]] - James Clear<br /> *[[Die Montez-Juwelen]] - Sabine Vôhringer<br /> * [[The Book: A Cover-to-Covet Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time]] - Keith Houston <br /> *[[Understanding Media]] - Marshall McLuhan (re-read)<br /> *[[The Practice of Not Thinking]]: A Guide to Mindful Living - Ryunosuke Koike<br /> <br /> == Books Read ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 (week 20) ===<br /> <br /> * 19. [[How the World Made the West]] - Josephine Quinn<br /> * 18. [[Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> * 17. [[This is Your Mind on Plants]]: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline - Michael Pollen<br /> * 16. [[Open Socrates]]: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Agnes Callard<br /> <br /> * 15. [[Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter Into Meaning]] - John Parrington<br /> *14. [[The Happiness of Dogs]]: Why the Unexamined Life is Most Worth Living - Mark Rowlands<br /> *13. [[The Hidden Spring]]: - Mark Solms<br /> *12. [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] - Sigmund Freud<br /> *11. [[A Certain Lucas]] - Julio Cortazar<br /> *10. [[The Intentional Stance]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> *9. [[La Conquête de Plassans]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 4) - Zola<br /> *8. [[Why We Read Fiction]]: Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine<br /> <br /> * 7. On the Calculation of Volume: 3 - Solvej Balle<br /> * 6. [[Unnatural Voices]]: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction - Brian Richardson<br /> * 5. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie <br /> * 4. [[Le Ventre de Paris]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 3) - Zola<br /> *3. [[The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative]] (2nd Edition) - H. Porter Abbott<br /> * 2. [[Autocracy Inc]]: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World - Anne Applebaum<br /> * 1. [[The Secret Life of the Periodic Table]] - Dr Ben Still<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> <br /> * 55. The White Priory Murders - Carter Dickson (re-read)<br /> * 54. [[How Life Works]]: A User's Guide to the New Biology - Philip Ball<br /> * 53. [[Who Killed Father Christmas]]? and Other Seasonal Mysteries - Martin Edwards<br /> * 52. [[Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction]] - Peter Atkins<br /> * 51. [[The Scheme of Things]] - Allen Wheelis<br /> * 50. [[La Fortune des Rougon]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 1) - Zola <br /> * 49. [[Cause for Alarm]] - Eric Ambler<br /> * 48. [[The Man from the Future]]: The Visionary Life of John Von Neumann - Ananyo Bhattacharya<br /> *47. [[Everything is Predictable]]: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World - Tom Chivers<br /> * 46. [[The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are]] - Alan Watts<br /> * 45. [[La Curée]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 2) - Zola<br /> * 44. [[The Emperor of All Maladies]]: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * 43. [[La Bête Humaine]] ([[Les Rougon-Macquart]] 17) - Zola (re-read)<br /> * 42. [[The Society of Mind]] - Marvin Minsky<br /> * 41. [[Le Père Goriot]] - Honore Balzac<br /> * 40. [[Gravity's Rainbow]] - Thomas Pynchon (re-read)<br /> * 39. [[Le Colonel Chabert]] - Balzac<br /> * 38. [[Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett]] - James Knowlson (re-read)<br /> * 37. [[Reading for the Plot]]: Design and Intention in Narrative - Peter Brooks (re-read)<br /> <br /> * 36. [[Steps to an Ecology of Mind]] - Gregory Bateson (re-read)<br /> * 35. [[Le Bilan de L'intelligence]] - Paul Valéry<br /> * 34. [[Zero]] - Charles Seife<br /> * 33. [[Alan Turing: The Enigma]] - Andrew Hodges<br /> * 32. [[How to Do Things with Words]] - J L Austin<br /> * 31. [[The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society]] - Norbert Wiener<br /> * 30. [[The Mind is Flat]]: The Illusion of Mental Depth and the Improvised Mind - Nick Chater<br /> * 29. [[Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI]] - John Brockman<br /> * 28. [[A Little History of Philosophy]] - Nigel Warburton<br /> * 27. [[All Fours]] - Miranda July<br /> * 26. [[Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern]] - Douglas R Hofstadter<br /> * 25. [[The French Lieutenant’s Woman]] - John Fowles<br /> * 24. [[Short Stories in German for Beginners]] - Olly Richards<br /> * 23. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 2]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 22. [[Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity, and the Emergence of Life]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 21. [[Das Ludwig Thoma Komplott]]- Sabine Vöhringer<br /> * 20. [[Maus]] - Art Spiegelman<br /> * 19. [[On the Calculation of Volume: 1]] - Solvej Balle<br /> * 18. [[The Concept of Mind]] - Gilbert Ryle<br /> * 17. [[Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction]] - Richard Passingham<br /> * 16. [[The Experience Machine]] - Andy Clark<br /> * 15. [[Why We Remember: Revealing the Hidden Power of Memory]] - Dr Charan Ranganath<br /> * 14. [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett (re-read)<br /> * 13. [[The Village of Eight Graves]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 12. [[Science: A History]] - Richard Crockett<br /> * 11. [[Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World]] - John Gribbin<br /> * 10.[[The Inugami Curse]] - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * 9. [[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals]]<br /> * 8. [[Four Ways of Thinking]] - David Sumpter<br /> * 7. [[I've Been Thinking]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> * 6. [[Serendipities: Language and Lunacy]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 5. [[I Am Dynamite: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche]] - Sue Prideaux<br /> * 4. [[A Brief History of Intelligence]] - Max S. Bennett<br /> * 3. [[Foucault’s Pendulum]] - Umberto Eco (re-read)<br /> * 2. [[Kant and the Platypus]] - Umberto Eco<br /> * 1. [[Le cerveau m’a beaucoup déçu. L’esprit, non]] - Antoine Sénanque<br /> <br /> === 2024 ===<br /> <br /> * The Plot - Will Eisner<br /> * The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco<br /> * The Nonjin Murders - Seishi Yokomizo<br /> * When We Cease to Understand the World - Labatut<br /> * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (reread)<br /> * The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Fauconnier and Turner<br /> * The Singularity is Nearer - Ray Kurzweil<br /> * Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg<br /> * Le Ton Beau de…<br /> * The Origins of Creativity - Edward O Wilson<br /> * Psychonauts - <br /> * The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut<br /> * In Search of Memory - Eric R. Kandel<br /> * Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction - Hobson<br /> * Les Effinger - Gabriele Target<br /> * Triad - Tom Keve<br /> * Nietzsche - Stefan Zweig<br /> * The Weirdest People in the World - Joseph Henrich<br /> * How Language Works - David Crystal<br /> * The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wolf<br /> * [[The Song of the Cell]] - Siddhartha Mukherjee<br /> * [[Gödel, Escher, Bach]] - Douglas Hofstadter<br /> * [[From Bacteria to Bach and Back]] - Daniel Dennett<br /> <br /> [[Category:Books]]</div>

Robert.adlington https://wiki.adlington.fr:443/index.php?title=Films&diff=1312 2026-05-11T13:47:57Z

<p>Robert.adlington: /* 2026 */</p> <hr /> <div>== Films to Watch ==<br /> <br /> [https://www.cinealcazar.fr/fichier/programme.pdf Cinema Alcazar Program]<br /> <br /> * Mind trips<br /> ** Triangle<br /> ** Beyond the infinite two minutes<br /> ** Enemy<br /> ** Under the Silver Lake<br /> ** The Vanishing<br /> ** Angel Heart<br /> ** Following<br /> ** The Invisible Guest<br /> ** Perfect Blue<br /> ** Resolution<br /> * fast times <br /> * the Jerk<br /> * Mutiny on the Bounty<br /> * Entrapment <br /> * Mask of Zorro<br /> * PTA - Hard Eight, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, etc<br /> * Little Big and Far - weird scandinavian film<br /> * This is Spinal tap<br /> * Big Night - Tucci and Shaloub<br /> * Punch drunk love<br /> * Boyhood <br /> * Kind hearts and coronets <br /> * A night at the opera <br /> * Blazing saddles <br /> * Lives of others<br /> * Lost in Translation <br /> * One flew over <br /> * Get out<br /> * Maltese falcon <br /> * Early mad maxes<br /> * Joule of the Nile<br /> * the man with two brains<br /> * Psycho Therapy - Steve Buscemi is a serial killer who wants to advise an author, but ends up playing a marriage counselor.<br /> * Early Steve Martin<br /> * A Complete Unknown <br /> * la La Land -<br /> * The Phoenician Scheme - new Wes Anderson comedy espionage thriller <br /> * Thelma - Grandma fights con artists<br /> * Kinds of Kindness<br /> * 2001<br /> * The Elephant Man<br /> * The Fabulous Baker Boys<br /> * Network<br /> <br /> == Films Watched ==<br /> <br /> === 2026 ===<br /> <br /> * 30. A Mighty Wind<br /> * 29. Magnolia<br /> * 28. Escape from Alcatraz<br /> * 27. The Sting<br /> * 26. Pulp Fiction<br /> * 25. Failure to Launch<br /> * 24. Hudson Hawk<br /> * 23. Mystère à St Tropez<br /> * 22. The Thomas Crown Affair<br /> * 21. The Three Amigos (1986)<br /> * 20. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - Jonathon Demme<br /> * 19. Top Secret (1984)<br /> * 18. One Battle After Another (2025) - Paul Thomas Anderson<br /> * 17. Memento (2000) - Christopher Nolan (rewatch)<br /> * 16. Pleasantville (1998) - Gary Ross<br /> * 15. The Fisher King (1991) -<br /> * 14. The Mastermind<br /> * 13. The Birdcage<br /> * 12. Fight Club (rewatch)<br /> * 11. Knives Out: Glass Onion (rewatch)<br /> * 10. Twins<br /> * 9. The Remains of the Day<br /> * 8. The Ladykillers<br /> * 7. Us (rewatch)<br /> * 6. Saving Private Ryan (rewatch)<br /> * 5. Event Horizon<br /> * 4. Insomnia (2002) - Christopher Nolan (rewatch)<br /> * 3. Knives Out (rewatch)<br /> * 2. Gattaca (1997) - Andrew Niccol<br /> * 1. Eddington (2025) - Ari Aster<br /> <br /> === 2025 ===<br /> * 65. Wake Up Dead Man (Knives Out 3)<br /> * 64. Miller's Crossing<br /> * 63. Blood Simple<br /> * 62. Crazy Stupid Love<br /> * 61. Happiest Season<br /> * 60. Bridge of Spies <br /> * 59. Identity<br /> * 58. Clueless<br /> * 57. Ace Ventura 2: Call of Nature <br /> * 56. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World<br /> * 55. Apollo 13<br /> * 54. LA Confidential (rewatch)<br /> * 53. Inside Llewyn Davis<br /> * 52. M3gan<br /> * 51. Clear and Present Danger <br /> * 50. 12 Monkeys<br /> * 49. No Country for Old Men<br /> * 48. The Hudsucker Proxy<br /> * 47. La Cuisse ou l'aile<br /> * 46. Mission Impossible : The Final Reckoning<br /> * 45. Dumb and Dumber <br /> * 44. Rear Window<br /> * 43. Raising Arizona<br /> * 42. Tenet (rewatch)<br /> * 41. The fifth Element <br /> * 40. Burn Without Reading <br /> * 39. The Big Lebowski (rewatch)<br /> * 38. Fargo (rewatch)<br /> * 37. 28 Days Later (rewatch)<br /> * 36. O Brother, Where Art Thou<br /> * 35. Mickey 17 <br /> * 34. Empire of the Sun <br /> * 33. The Fugitive <br /> * 32. Wet Hot American Summer (rewatch)<br /> * 31. Ted<br /> * 30. Hundreds of Beavers <br /> * 29. Wayne’s World (rewatch)<br /> * 28. True Grit (Coen Bros)<br /> * 27. Groundhog Day (rewatch)<br /> * 26. Moonrise Kingdom <br /> * 25. Asterix et Obelix: Mission Cleopatra <br /> * 24. Adaptation (rewatch)<br /> * 23. Romancing the Stone (rewatch)<br /> * Easter Film Festival<br /> ** 22. Mad Max: Fury Road (rewatch)<br /> ** 21. Witness<br /> ** 20. The Grand Budapest Hotel (rewatch)<br /> ** 19. Conclave<br /> ** 18. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective<br /> ** 17. Lincoln<br /> ** 16. Being John Malkovitch (rewatch)<br /> ** 15. AI (rewatch)<br /> ** 14. The Royal Tenenbaums (rewatch)<br /> ** 13. Total Recall 1990 (rewatch)<br /> ** 12. In the Line of Fire (rewatch)<br /> * 11. Flow <br /> * 10. Juror No. 2<br /> * 9. The Savage Robot<br /> * 8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (rewatch)<br /> * 7. Dead Poet's Society<br /> * 6. Notting Hill (rewatch)<br /> * 5. My Neighbor Totoro (rewatch)<br /> * 4. Kiki’s Delivery Service (rewatch)<br /> * 3. Dr Strangelove (rewatch)<br /> * 2. Dune 2<br /> * 1. Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me (rewatch)<br /> <br /> === 2024 and Earlier ===<br /> * The Big Lebowski<br /> * The Holiday<br /> * Love Actually<br /> * Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure<br /> * The Mask<br /> [[Category:Films]]</div>

Robert.adlington