Behind the Scenes of The Brain Show

by Zeev Nitsan

  The ultimate outsourcing of human knowledge might be the delegation of knowledge preservation, and the research of the universe, to artificial-intelligence machines.

  Will we be able to accept that there are some riddles of the universe that no human brain can solve? Perhaps artificial intelligence will be more successful in that?

  In this context, we fondly remember the computer that was intended to provide an answer to “the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything” in the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

  A physical merger between the brain and its spiritual creatures, such as supporting computers, is a common futuristic forecast.

  The Frankensteins and the Luddites are on both ends of the spectrum. On one end, there are the supporters of the interface between the brain and technology devices that will intensify its capabilities, for instance, by creating a direct interface between brain cells and silicone chips. Their opponents call them “Frankensteins.” On the other hand, there are those who are concerned about the attempt to connect the brain tissue to an artificial tissue directly in order to promote cognitive and functional reinforcement. Their opponents refer to them as “Luddites,” after the people who opposed the industrial revolution in England in the nineteenth century.

  Cybernetic scientists are working on a new alliance between humans and machines—an alliance that, in a known nightmarish scenario, is broken by the machines.

  In this context, some warn that we tend to focus on the progress vision that is reflected in Moore’s law while quoting the axiom that says that the processing capacity of computers will be doubled every two years, as a measure of the duration of a technological generation, but tend to underestimate the validity of Murphy’s Law, according to which “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Under such a scenario, the technological dummy might rise against its maker. It also refers to brain auxiliary devices that might have an effect on our human essence, and not necessarily a positive effect.

  Extending the time frame during which the brain is exposed to information includes options of cognitive reinforcement.

  In this context, a fascinating field with a dreamlike potential of development is “hypnopedia”—sleep-learning while being very cautious not to bring about brain failure as a result of overload.

  Perhaps we will also be able to improve our capabilities by rewriting the genetic code that encodes us.

  For the first time in history, we are able to review the spiral volumes of our DNA.

  Climbing the spiral staircase of the DNA makes it clear that life is information, but it seems that the coded information is multilayered, and, at this stage, only a part of its complexity is known to us.

  This hunch was expressed at one of the latest Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies by geneticist Eric Lander, who said, “Genome. Bought the book. Hard to read.”

  Nevertheless, the climbing of the spiral staircase will continue, and the future will enable us to reprogram the DNA. Later on, according to the boldest among the thinkers, we will be able to upgrade our milieu into a totally new and improved one. Perhaps a thorough understanding of what is written in the book of genome, alongside progress made in other scientific fields, will enable us to translate soul functions into information. It is possible that such an information device will be able to contain our “soul,” and our human essence will then wear a totally different garment.

  It seems that no medication will be able to totally prevent the aging of the human body and brain. We are postmodern but not posthuman. Science will probably not be able to prevent the degeneration of our body, but it might find a way to perpetuate the products of our brain; thus, after our death, the ghost of our soul will hover around the virtual Internet space instead of ancient, moss-filled castles.

  Aspects of Thinking Sceneries that Characterize Various Brain Syndromes

  The drums beat in different rhythms in the brains of people who have various innate syndromes. They seem different to us, since a different type of “inner music” creates the choreography of their conduct.

  The “who” that reflects the personal uniqueness of the person who has the syndrome comes out of the “what”—the stereotypical pattern of characteristics of the people who suffer from the syndrome.

  The “genius within”—it seems that savant skills are not that rare, and it is possible that they are concealed in every one of us. A unique intracranial climate is required in order to bring them into practice, however.

  It seems that there are regulation mechanisms inside our brain that activate feedback mechanisms of inhibition release. Thus, hearing impairment that creates forced unemployment in the auditory cortex, where the initial audio input is centered, causes, through a “release” mechanism, complex sound hallucinations. It seems that this is how synesthetic skills appear after a person becomes blind, similar to savant skills that appear after damage to the left hemisphere.

  There are cases in which a functional impairment in the left temporal lobe brought along a stream of artistic talents that seemed to be hidden inside the brain all along.

  Autism is mostly a multifrontal development disorder: impairment in aspects of perception, thinking functions, emotional and social skills, and language skills. In most cases, the formal IQ of autists is lower than 70.

  The genetic aspect of autism is the dominant one: in identical twins, if one twin suffers from autism, the chances of the other twin to suffer from it are 80–90 percent.

  One of the definitions of autism is “human intelligence that has difficulty with acknowledging other intelligences.” In other words, a difficulty in experiencing the world as inhabited by other intelligent entities.

  Looking at a person’s face activates an area of designated cells in our brain called the fusiform gyrus, which is in charge of recognizing human faces. On the other hand, looking at a standstill object, such as a table, activates a brain area called the inferior temporal gyrus. It was found that when people who suffer from autism are looking at a person’s face, no nerve activity takes place in the fusiform gyrus, but, at the same time, intense activity is shown in the brain area that is in charge of recognizing standstill objects.

  Many of the people who suffer from autism suffer from sensory flooding and oversensitivity to sounds and touch.

  An interesting supposition that has factual support is that the brain maps of autistic people are not classified in a way that is sufficiently differentiating and that they are expanded and networked in a scattered manner.

  The result of this expanded networking (which derives from the lack of sufficient differentiation) is sensory flooding, which makes it hard for the individual to act in our world, in which we are constantly swamped by multisensory stimulations.

  It seems that a paralyzing murmur of “white noise” covers the brain of those who suffer from autism in a mixture of stimuli that has no end and no beginning.

  People who suffer from autism are known for their ability to identify a hidden pattern in a “camouflaging picture” (a picture in which the desirable print appears next to similar patterns, and so they “camouflage” it), a task that is difficult for people who do not suffer from autism. A plausible explanation for that might be related to the basic method of mining information. Ordinary people usually look for a match to a familiar pattern as the first stage of information processing (examining the level of “magnetizing” of the new information to the familiar patterns that are mostly encoded in the left hemisphere). The tendency is toward seeing the whole picture at the expense of putting less focus on the patterns of the various details. Thus, they immediately see the forest that “shows up” from the trees. On the other hand, people who suffer from autism tend to focus on the small details and have difficulty in seeing the “general picture.” In other words, they see the various leaves’ foliage but not the whole forest. The principle of “controlled blindness” is built into the “preferring-the-global-picture” approach typical to most of us. This is a selective view th
at “refuses” to see all the options and places some of them at the cognitive “blind spot” area.

  Indifference to the moving melody that is played on the harp of emotions is one of the possible characteristics of Asperger’s syndrome—“soft autism” that might induce emotional numbness.

  Klüver-Bucy syndrome, which arises from damage to the temporal lobes, and the amygdala in particular, is expressed, inter alia, in a highly reduced emotional response to events in the surroundings and in a decreased, or even lack of, sense of fear in dangerous situations. The resulting misjudgment leads to impaired interpersonal communication and might be life-threatening at times. This behavioral pattern shares similarities with phenomena observed among people who suffer from autism. The sense of fear, in accordance with the circumstances, is either blunted or missing among autistics as well. In this context, the abnormal response is ascribed to malfunction of the amygdala, which is in charge of triggering fear in situations that require caution and discretion.

  Williams syndrome is a genetic syndrome that derives from the deletion of a cluster of genes (about twenty-six on average) from the long arm of chromosome number 7. It is reflected by a unique mix of strengths and weaknesses.

  People who suffer from this syndrome are characterized by increased empathy and great friendliness, even toward strangers, to the point that they tend to trust strangers without any reservations. On the other hand, they suffer from severe limitations with regard to spatial, visual functions and have severe difficulties with the practical aspects of living.

  From the structural-anatomic aspect, the brains of the ones who suffer from Williams syndrome have unique features; the volume of the average brain is 20 percent smaller than the brains of people who do not suffer from this syndrome. The decrease in volume is ascribed to the smaller size of the structures at the back of the brain—the parietal and occipital lobes. On the other hand, the size of the temporal lobes is normal, and might be even larger than average. This variation is probably the cause of the severe impairment with respect to visual, spatial functions among those who suffer from the syndrome. On the other hand, the larger-than-normal temporal lobes, in certain cases, are probably at the basis of a great love of music and high verbal skills among people who suffer from this syndrome.

  Their brains, which are different in terms of structure and function, produce a unique personality profile and behavior patterns.

  Patients who suffer from Williams syndrome, similar to people who suffer from autism, are good at seeing the details but find it difficult to see the global picture. They are good at noticing the trees but have difficulties in seeing the entire forest.

  After meeting the friendly people who suffer from Williams syndrome, one might raise the question of whether human society would have been friendlier and more peace loving if all people had had Williams syndrome. The answer to this question might be positive; however, we should also ask ourselves whether the severe impairments related to the syndrome would not have stood in the way of other aspects of human civilization progression.

  Females who suffer from Turner’s syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects only females and is caused by complete deletion (monosomy) or partial deletion of the two X chromosomes, tend to suffer from dyscalculia or even acalculia (major difficulty in performing arithmetic calculations).

  In a test called “counting Stroop,” two figures of different physical sizes are presented. For example, figure 6 is presented in a large size while figure 8 is presented in a smaller size. In an experiment in which the participants were asked to indicate the figure whose physical size was bigger, while ignoring the arithmetic values of the numbers, people who suffer from dyscalculia, as in Turner’s syndrome, achieved better results. It is assumed that their success is due to the fact that they suffer from various levels of “blindness” with respect to the nominal value of numbers, and so the contradiction that is formed between the higher nominal value and the smaller physical size does not slow down their thinking pace significantly.

  An interesting finding was found in an experiment in which temporary impairment in brain activity was induced by means of transcranial magnetic stimulation, which causes weak electrical currents in the brain tissue. When the disturbance was induced at the area of the right intra-parietal sulcus of people who do not suffer from dyscalculia, the quantitative-numeral information processing in their brain became, for a short period of time, similar to those who suffer from dyscalculia. This finding raises the suspicion that this brain area is dysfunctional among females who suffer from Turner’s syndrome.

  A unique reality scenery characterizes the common brain of the twins Krista and Tatiana Hogan, who were born in Canada in 2006. Their case is a unique, extreme example of inter-brain sharing. The twins share a brain, which joins at the core area of the thalamus, and it seems that whatever is seen by one pair of eyes is also perceived in the brain of the other twin, and vice versa.

  It seems that some of the sensory impressions that are perceived in the sensory organs systems of one twin is transferred to the joining brain and turns into a common psychic experience, or two experiences that are based on the same sensory input.

  Einstein’s Brain

  Right after the death of Einstein at the age of seventy-six, on April 18, 1955, his brain was taken out of his skull. The brain’s weight was 1,230 grams. It was dissected into 240 pieces that, as in a saga that fits the mythical owner of the brain, alternately appeared and disappeared at various laboratories around the globe.

  No special particular findings were found in the analysis of the morphological aspects of Einstein’s brain. Among the findings that were indicated in the various studies was a slightly higher-than-usual ratio between the glia cells and the neurons at the lower parietal lobe, to which mathematic and spatial information processing is usually ascribed. In addition, an unusual winding pathway of the back side of the groove that separates the parietal lobe from the temporal lobe from the left was found, as well as other morphological findings that did not demonstrate significant differences from an average human brain of a corresponding age.

  Numerous researchers criticized these findings and the possibility of drawing significant conclusions based on them. Some even called the researchers who attempted to do so as dealing with neophrenology. (According to this theory, there is correlation between the skull configuration and the skills of the brain that resides within it. The theory was refuted, and ever since it has represented “unreal science” or pseudo-science.)

  Features of Intelligence

  Cognitive skills are the pillars in the hall of wisdom.

  The various skills that are included in the term “intelligence” are highly diversified. The exact outline of the term, in the terminological and semantic senses, is a focus of a long-lasting dispute.

  In a paraphrase of the saying “Some are more beautiful than her, but no one is as beautiful as her,” which was written by the poet Nathan Alterman, we might say that some brains are more gifted with respect to certain skills, but the map of skills—the strengths and the weaknesses—is unique to the brain of every human being. Like a fingerprint, a person’s brain is one of a kind. With respect to certain skills, there are brains that are more gifted than it, but there isn’t one like it in its uniqueness.

  It is possible to manipulate biology. Biology determines approximate end points, and our location on the spectrum can be changed as a result of our actions. Intensified use of certain brain skills reinforces them in the biological-structural sense as well. Becoming more proficient in the secrets of the “brain manual” might better its products.

  Intensified cognition among human beings does not take place in a linear pattern. Thus, for example, acceleration of cognitive skills takes place in elementary school approximately up to the age of eleven or twelve, just prior to adolescence. Afterward, the progress is significantly slowed down. As a mirror image, the weakening of mental skills at an old age also does not form in a linear pattern.


  The psychometry discipline that attempts to quantify the qualitative, evasive traits of human skills usually suffers from partial mapping of the strengths and weaknesses related to the thinking skills of an individual. Psychologist Howard Gardner expressed this approach in his theory of multiple intelligences.

  Haier and Jung found in 2005 that there is no difference in the averaging of general intelligence tests between men and women, though there are clear structural differences, such as the fact that women’s brains contain relatively more white matter and, on the other hand, men’s brains contain more gray matter.[37] Thus, it was concluded that a structural difference does not necessarily mean a difference in quality.

  Chapter 10: Stricken Brain—Dealing with Brain Injuries

  Descriptions of cases of brain and soul traumas sometimes have a dark attraction. Each of us might enter this frightening kingdom someday.

  At the neuroanatomy room in medical schools, which is packed with jars containing human brains in preservation liquid, one might feel a sense of awe combined with a sense of gloom, as if it were a graveyard of lost souls. It seems that vanished worlds reside inside the jars, along with dissolved memories and shattered hopes and, also, spectacular buds of thought that sprouted within these brains—stairs of insight that were created by the pick-axes of thought originated in these brains, that contributed to raise the tower of human knowledge. These jars are far from containing mere preserved flesh.

  Brain functions exist out of a confederation of thoughts, memes, emotions, and perception impressions. In cases of failure in brain functions, various components of this cooperative array might be damaged while others continue to function faultlessly. Sometimes, withdrawal of certain components from the confederation might take place while the brain owner is unaware of it, as a procedure that is concealed from the person’s consciousness but is noticeable by others.