Mapping bain activity as we experience our world
Part 1
Searching for love, lust, affection and despair in our brains.
Report and synopsis by Lori Manasse
Most of us are excited and intrigued when we see pictures of brain activity associated with mental activities. The range of the mental functions captured in maps of brain activity is dazzling. Research ranges from systematic detailed brain imaging studies of specific aspects of attention, perception, memory, sensory processing, to provocative explorations of areas of brain that light up (are activated) or are quiet when thinking of our favorite music, or God, or the prospects of a trip into space. The research has one major goal, furthering our understanding of the neural basis of mind. Some studies have a more practical goal such as identifying our preferences in grocery product or political candidates. The implicit assumption in much of this research is that if humans can experience a function it can be brain imaged. Perhaps another implicit assumption is that if two events trigger different experiences in our mind then we should expect maps of brain activity to also differ. Another important assumption is that the maps of brain activity can tell us something about the underlying neural processes that make an experience possible.
Of course themes that focus on high emotions catch our attention the most. The heat of powerful sexual attraction is associated with high activity in areas of the brain that have long been known to be major players in that emotion (such as the hypothalamus). Furthermore maps also provide us with pictures of where the brain is active in relation to the neurochemical basis of emotions (for example brain areas that are rich in the neurochemical transmitter dopamine). Anticipating seeing a loved one triggers activity in frontal and prefrontal lobe regions of the brain that have been understood to be involved in planning and anticipating the future and regulation of what we find rewarding. Anticipating a fabulous feast after having been on a diet for some time would be associated with heightened activity in some of these same anticipatory brain regions and in addition would trigger other areas that are associated with eating behavior.
What are the brain maps telling us, and how much of it is like watching a trailer for a film that we have not seen yet? First of all, pictures of heightened brain activity are averages taken over many seconds and minutes – not the real time activity of brain events (which take place in well under a second). In addition, even the most sophisticated of the brain imaging machines currently available are averaging activity over a relatively large area of brain (a bit smaller than a centimeter, which might appear small but in terms of brain circuitry is enormous). In addition we need to know as much about the role of areas of the brain that are quiet in relation to active areas to appreciate brain maps of mental functions. The pictures of brain activity currently available provide us with brain region candidates associated with some mental function that need to be explored in greater detail if we are to understand the underlying brain mechanisms that are involved in that mental function.
We need to be scientifically greedy and demanding of brain imaging studies of mind functions. What we want is a step by step breakdown and depiction of brain activity that is the basis of our experience of an aspect of attention, or with a bigger leap into the dark, how our brain makes the experience of love come alive or the contrasting experience of pain of loss when a lover says goodbye. When ordering a dish from our scientific kitchen we might add that we want our dish served in real time with the neurochemical and neurophysiological details on the same plate. Is that asking for too much from our neuroscience chefs?
More about maps of brain activity as we experience our world (Part 2)
Do we know when we have found love, affection and despair?
The title of a synopsis article published in the June 2009 issue of the Dana Foundation’s Brain in the News was “Study Shows Brain’s Problem Solving Function at Work While We Daydream.” The authors of the published study were interested in the (useful?) role of daydreaming in problem solving. To understand the value of daydreaming they were not only interested in outcome behavior but some of the brain structures that might be activated during episodes of daydreaming. It would appear that the questions being asked were straightforward, clear and interesting. (Questions being asked by whom? The researchers or the article authors?)
Did the authors actually study daydreaming or some other activity? What they examined was brain activation during episodes in which subjects’ minds wandered while performing a standardized, traditional, computerized, vigilance task. The authors compared brain activation during periods of mind wanderings to activation when subjects were on task. Was this a study of daydreaming, or distraction, or boredom? The findings from the study may be useful for understanding the mind wandering brain, but that is not the same as daydreaming.
The point is a simple one. We must be clear about the cognitive behavior we want to study, because if we are not clear the most elegant brain imaging data will be of very limited value. Valuable scientific inquiry rests on a foundation of clear and well formulated questions and concepts. If we are unclear about a key concept that we wish to study (such as love, or despair, or hope) then all we can be sure of is that our research road will lead us somewhere but not necessarily to a place we want to be or a destination that makes sense.
A half century ago, before the era of neurolinguistics, a good deal of research was devoted to the study of how language influences (and can distort) our thinking. For example, Stuart Chase published a popular book called The Tyranny of Words and S.I. Hayakawa published the influential book, Language in Thought and Action. Some of the concepts that were investigated in those early days of the study of language and thinking emphasized the role of how our language shapes thinking, perception, and problem solving. At that time scholars wrote at length about the tyranny and toxicity of inaccurate labels and fuzz ball language and its effect on our ability to think clearly. As we search for the brain structures involved in love in the laboratory we may need to move past our mind-gut personal experience and labels of love to a place that captures love in a way that can be studied in the laboratory. We need a more precise word.
While we all have a sense of what love is, that sense is likely to be quite different in each of us. Perhaps we might achieve better agreement on the meaning and experience of a powerful sexual attraction. Therefore searching for the seat of love and attraction in our brains may be a bit of a wild goose chase. I told my neighbor about brain imaging studies of love and attraction. At first he laughed, but then his face turned somber, and he whispered, mostly to himself, “I wish I knew about this research before I asked Nancy to marry me, and now it is too late. Maybe that kind of research can confirm what I feel is where things are now, that love has flown the coop.” Do you believe that brain science can track the history of his love?