Behind the Scenes of The Brain Show

by Zeev Nitsan

  An EEG examination finds slower electrical activity during sleep that is not REM sleep. The findings of EEG with regard to activity in the brain of a person in a vegetative state are not significant, however, and at this stage do not provide prognostic evidence that helps assess the chances of recuperation.

  Functional brain imaging, performed through methods such as PET examination, reveals that the level of metabolism in the brain usually drops in a vegetative state to values that equal less than half of the values in a healthy brain. Significant variance was found among the findings, however. In certain brain areas, such as the associative cortex, mostly located at the frontal and parietal lobes, and which deals with complex processing of sensory input, it was found that brain metabolism was extremely low or even nonexistent among people suffering from a vegetative state. It seems that the processing of sensory input takes place in the brain of such patients at the basic, initial levels of processing. The synthesis with other sensory inputs for the purpose of creating a multisensory, combined fabric of information is reduced or even nonexistent, and thus it seems that the awareness of sensory inputs is also absent.

  Is an unconscious person deprived of cognition? The answer to this question can be found on a spectrum and depends on the level of shallowness of cognition. It refers to threshold proportion rather than to binary dichotomy.

  It is also true for the level of “absence of cognition” during anesthesia in an operation—it moves along a continuum, and it is not a matter of “all or nothing.”

  It seems that cognition is the basic brain activity that constitutes the essential condition, though not the only condition, for the existence of consciousness. Consciousness requires brain activity at a volume and intensity that cannot be performed by the brain of a person who suffers from a vegetative state.

  Chapter 4: Aspects of Inner Motivation and Reward

  Motivation to Act

  Don’t give up, Sisyphus; it is just the peak . . .

  The gods decreed that Sisyphus would roll a heavy boulder up a hill. When the boulder reached the peak, it would roll back down, and Sisyphus had to start all over again. Sisyphus was made to roll the boulder up the hill over and over again in a vicious, exhausting cycle that was ultimately futile. The component of purpose and reward is an essential part of motivation. When we believe that a certain act is futile and will not be rewarded, we might be ruled by the Sisyphus syndrome, which extinguishes the inner motivation necessary for performing the task.

  The work of thinking is tiresome. It is sometimes intentionally cut off in the middle as a result of frustration in light of what seems to be a purposeless march in the paths in the brain that do not lead to a desirable destination.

  The motivation to continue the climb up the mountainous path, despite the trembling knees, is the “motivational component.” In this sense, what brings mountain climbers to the top of the mountain is the head and not the feet. This component is mediated mostly by the neurotransmitter dopamine. The dosage of dopamine in the synapses of the neural network has a critical part in determining the distance we reach and the number of paths we tour before we give up and stop our pacing on a certain thinking or behavioral path.

  Boredom is mostly reflected as under activity of the inner motivation system.

  A common behavioral expression of dopamine deficiency at the junctions of neural networking is lack of initiation (apathy).

  New desires are constantly born. We desire ever-changing objects that come one after the other. The life expectancy of satisfaction derived from fulfilling our desires is short and mostly cut off as soon as a new desire appears and demands its realization. A new North Pole is born time and time again for the compass of our desires. Our desire-related mechanism is characterized by inherent dynamic imbalance.

  Our yearning for satisfaction is a natural desire. As usual, however, the dosage makes all the difference, and when this desire takes exclusive control over the steering wheel of our life ship, and totally pushes aside valued tasks related to the “meaning of life,” we lose a great deal.

  When Pavlov’s bell rang and his dogs drooled, the entire world of psychology got wet. The studies of B. F. Skinner[20] had a similar effect. Skinner is the famous representative of behaviorism. In his studies, he used extreme, estranged reductionism whose substantial limitations are reflected in omitting the “intracranial” processes from his worldview. The behaviorists totally and devotedly avoided models that included the mental processes that take place in the space between our ears. They referred only to stimulations and the resulted behavioral effect. In his experiments, Skinner demonstrated the power of rewards and reinforcements with regard to shaping behavior.

  One of Skinner’s main findings was related to the difficulty in rooting behaviors that are irregularly rewarded. One version of such behavior is the groundless belief of persistent gamblers that the day will come when they will “beat the casino.” In the long term, this pattern of behavior exists in a manner of momentum that feeds itself. The importance of positive reinforcement, which sometimes has a great role in shaping our behavior, is a finding that should serve as a guiding principle for parents and educators.

  In his studies, Skinner exposed the important role of the basal ganglia, which are clusters of gray matter in the brain that probably have a central role in encoding behaviors that are defined as habits.

  The behaviorists’ vision was that, if we adapt a strict training regime, we will be able to reshape our behavior and add improved abilities to our basic behaviors’ repertoire. Training may lead to behavioral betterment. Methods that were directly developed from Skinner’s reservoir of operant conditionings (operant conditioning is a basic concept in behaviorism that refers to changes in behavior patterns caused by reinforcement) are used as an efficient tool in treating various types of anxiety disorders (phobias) and sometimes manage to eradicate them. An example of such methods is the systematic desensitization of the sense of anxiety through “flooding”—ongoing exposure to the anxiety-causing stimulation.

  The Reward

  Freud thought that human behavior might be explained on the basis of two main motives: the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

  The race to happiness, which exists out there, beyond the current moment, is a common motive of long-distance runners, though it often remains an unfulfilled promise (a type of fata morgana).

  The pleasure and its reward: Our brain composes a sense of pleasure and satisfaction out of neural activation patterns that involve activities that improve genes’ survival (eating, drinking, sexual intercourse, etc.).

  The system of rewards, a functional system that relies on a number of brain structures, grants a hedonistic value tag to results of various activities according to past experiences (hedonistic memory). The estimated hedonistic value of different acts (which is the estimation of “potential pleasure”) is an important factor with respect to our basic motivation to perform these acts.

  The dopamine nectar drips its intoxicating drops as early as the stage of anticipation. It might mean that a person who buys a lottery ticket pays “the tax of the foolish,” but it is seen this way only from a rationalistic point of view, which calculates the slight chances of actually winning the prize. The anticipation period between purchasing the ticket and the announcement of the results is a period characterized by elevated dopamine activity, which induces an exciting sense of arousal in the brain of the person who bought the ticket. This sense is reflected, inter alia, in sweet dreams about using the future prize.

  A tug-of-war competition constantly takes place between an action pattern that is expected to bear fruit immediately and an action pattern whose fruit are expected to ripen sometime in the future.

  Functional brain imaging studies show that an action whose effect is expected to be manifested in the future, and which requires postponement of gratifications, mainly involves brain areas in charge of planning and logic, such as the prefrontal cortex. On the other hand, a
n action whose effect is expected immediately involves “short-fuse” brain areas, especially the nucleus accumbens area, which is intended to take actions whose rewards are expected “here and now.” The result of this inner-brain confrontation is determined by the brain areas that perform the more intense activity.

  While anticipating a reward, the nucleus accumbens brain area, in charge of expectations, is active and inducts a pleasant arousal. This feeling often exceeds the reward itself with regard to the hedonistic value (induction of the sense of pleasure). The mere anticipation floods the nucleus accumbens area with dopamine. It also turns out that the level of dopamine is highly sensitive to the value of anticipated reward and less affected by the chances of winning it. It is thus more likely that a higher number of people will participate in a lottery with a higher prize than in a lottery with a lower prize, regardless of the winning probability.

  In most cases, the reward matches the effort; the size of the reward often correlates with the level of effort invested in it. An orgasm is thus a potential reward for long months of courtship and nail-biting.

  When it comes to relationships, we are sometimes required to sweep the dust of routine off the path connecting the spouses. Novelty rewards and activates the cycle of rewards in a circular pattern.

  The main center of pleasure in the brain is located in the cluster of cells of the nucleus accumbens, which is connected, inter alia, to the brain areas of the limbic system and the amygdala. It might be defined as the main temple of hedonism in the brain. Stimulation of this area, which is rich in receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine, leads to the subjective sense of satisfaction.

  The desire to activate this area and experience the accompanying sense of pleasure is a central component of the inner motivation for many of our actions. Some might claim, somewhat judgmentally, that when the basis of a certain thought or act is the desire to offer a sacrifice to the god at the temple of hedonism, the motive is morally inferior.

  Many of our actions, or even most of them, however, are based on the pattern of this mechanism. The profile of the sense of pleasure is drawn by a three-dimensional network of neurons that mostly exist in proximity to the nucleus accumbens area. These neurons are activated through bioelectrical potentials that are mostly carried on the waves of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, endorphins, and probably noradrenaline as well.

  The result of activating this neural network is the induction of the subjective sense of enjoyment and pleasure.

  Attention Disorders and Hyperactivity—Unsatisfying Satisfaction?

  When there is no sufficient arousal of bioelectrical potentials in the reward system or, alternatively, when the wave of arousal fades away too quickly, the emotional result is a rapid fading of the satisfaction experience.

  It seems that this pattern, which is abnormal, is at the basis of various behaviors that are usually perceived as exceptional, such as the behavior related to attention disorder and hyperactivity. It seems that the sense of satisfaction experienced by people who suffer from this disorder has a shorter-than-usual life expectancy. The search for excitement that will arouse a longer-lasting pattern of bioelectrical potentials and induct a lasting sense of satisfaction is a potential cause of hyperactivity and the constant skip from one activity to another in search for satisfying stimulation.

  The dosage of neurotransmitters and the distribution pattern of their matching receptors are the main measurements that affect the regulation of the intensity of bioelectrical potentials. A leading, evidence-supported hypothesis is that at the basis of attention disorder and hyperactivity (ADHD) there is a lasting disturbance caused mainly by the abnormal effects of dopamine and noradrenalin.

  The Brain and Economic Decisions

  The Wallet Between our Ears—Aspects of our Function as Homo Economicus

  A model according to which man always acts rationalistically does not take into account the biases inherent in the human thinking pattern: our behavior as human beings is a mix of common sense and a lack of common sense.

  An “algorithmic person” who always obeys the strict rules of common sense and who has served as a reference figure in many traditional economic theories is a figment of imagination and does not really exist.

  Thus, in the sphere of behavioral economics, which is sometimes referred to as neuroeconomics, the top and bottom lanes are active at the same time, and rational and irrational decisions are taken in a mishmash manner.

  When judged according to cold logic, Homo economicus might often be seen as an irrational figure, since considerations like life philosophy and emotions have a significant effect on his economic decisions.

  Economic negotiation between people is, in many cases, a brain battle concerning neural superiority.

  Our consumer brain is an easy prey for the sharks of the advertisement industry, who sometimes use “black magic” and influence people who are not aware of the fact that they are being influenced. Marketing wizards can sell heavy-metal CDs to participants of vipassana workshops or shaving cream to the Taliban people. Advertising and marketing methods use guerilla warfare against our brain, which is often captivated in their hands.

  When people are making a consumer decision regarding purchasing a certain product, the nucleus accumbens wishing to purchase a product that might cause pleasure, and the insula, which is distressed and disgusted by the cost of the desirable product, often confront each other. The prefrontal cortex is like a spectator who just watches the confrontation without contributing much. The marketing wizards try to help the nucleus accumbens win by dimming the insula’s function by means of offering discounts, installment payments, etc., and, on the other hand, intensifying the function of the nucleus accumbens by highlighting the product’s desirability.

  Happiness and Wealth

  Studies show that wealth reinforces the daily experience of happiness when it lifts people from severe poverty to a position in which meeting the basic existence needs is relatively guaranteed. Beyond that, the contribution of wealth to happiness is small. The validity of the above conclusion, found in several studies, is a source of great controversy, as most people feel, at the intuitive level, that the correlation between wealth and happiness follows a linear pattern, at least until the high peaks of the cash mountain.

  The mental toolbox we use when making economic decisions relies, inter alia, on heuristics, statistical predictions, and intuition. Heuristics are rules of thumb, or super-memes, that constitute the mental infrastructure of the bottom lane. They are at the basis of many of our decisions, since they are rapid and do not require much mental energy, but, on the other hand, they are rich in “white noise” and often soaked in mistaken inferences.

  The predictions produced by our brain are prone to mistakes with respect to scenarios based on probabilistic assumptions. Sometimes intuition is also “highway to the mistake.”

  We tend to make a great part of our major economic decisions on the basis of emotion rather than on the basis of logic. For example, studies have pointed out that the emotional price tag attached to loss is higher than the emotional price tag attached to gain in the same rate. In other words, the bitterness we feel after an economic loss leaves us with a stronger impression than the sweet flavor of gain in the same rate. An assessment assessed the height of waves of negative emotions following an economic loss as two times higher than the height of waves of positive emotions following a gain, taking into account all necessary reservations with respect to the difficulty to quantify qualitative data and the unique circumstances of each case.

  In terms of the main coin of pleasure in the brain—dopamine—a broken expectation creates a deep hole in the dopamine graph, the depth of which is twice the height of the hillock created by a fulfilled expectation.

  A study in which a comparison was made between decisions made by bees and decisions made by humans had interesting findings. During the experiments, the human participants had to choose between two options: pressing the “risk”
button that might lead to a gain of four units but only in 80 percent of the cases, or pressing the “safety” button that led to a certain gain of three units. Most of the participants choose the second option of guaranteed success, although the gain was lower than the gain in the first option. A similar experiment was conducted with bees. They were introduced to two types of sugar solutions of different concentrations. The first solution had a higher concentration of sugar, but the possibility to reach this solution was only at a ratio of 80 percent, while there was a 100-percent success rate with regard to meeting with the less-sweet solution. The bees, like the humans, distinctly preferred the second option, which carried the 100-percent success rate.

  Allegedly, the action pattern of humans and bees leads to a lower expected profit, but these findings may be perceived as empirical verification of the validity of the insight according to which the bitterness resulted from a loss is twice as intense as the sweet taste (double meaning) of gain. Following this hypothesis, in the experiment with the human participants, which was composed of five experiments, the expected results were as follows: When choosing the “safety” button, the expected profit is fifteen units and, on the other hand, choosing the “risk” button consistently is expected to yield sixteen units (an expected success rate of 80 percent, which means four successful attempts out of five attempts, each of which produces four units of profit), but the fifth attempt, which statistically leads to a loss, will bring along a penalty, in the emotional sense, that subtracts eight units of profit (since the bitterness related to loss is twice as intense as the sweetness of gain). In such a case, the expected profit at the emotional level would be eight—almost half of the expected profit of the “safe” approach, which seems to be the more widespread approach in the animal kingdom.