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Myths about how the brain works

nautil.us

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Re: Myths about how the brain works

#81

Post by [deleted] »

nvrspyx wrote: post #78
Retric wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is the brain of test subjects aren’t simply doing exactly one thing at a time. Your ears don’t turn off because you’re doing a memory task in an MRI. As such it’s impossible to say what subset of brain activity is directly related to some activity rather than some related mental processes.

Not necessarily. For one, most fMRI studies will have a resting state scan to establish a baseline of what an individual's brain is doing in an MRI setting when it's not really doing anything in particular (typically having the subject stare at a fixation cross and letting their mind freely wander). Then, for the actual task, stimuli are presented and responses are recorded at very specific times with that fixation c…

[deleted]

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#82

Post by caddemon »

lycopodiopsida wrote: post #73
hn_asker wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet somehow Pharma can prescribe drugs that affect the brain's functions. How do they get away with that knowing so little about the brain?

I am by no means an expert in pharmaceutical studies, but I suppose they can afford a huge number of dead ends in the initial phase of research due to the massive wealth and in the end, they have to test only for two variables: efficiency and side-effects. An explanation on how it actually works, is a very nice extra, but is not required. The problem for Pharma is that at some point you require tests on human subject…

A lot of original psych drugs were also discovered by accident, intending to address some other medical issue. For example MAOIs were found to have antidepressant effects during a trial to use them for tuberculosis. Development of SSRIs (e.g. Prozac) then came from trying to create a similar drug with less side effects.

Also, the many dead ends thing is true in general for pharma, but at some point there are too many dead ends for it to be profitable even given their bankroll. This is happening a lot lately with neuro-related drug development. In the last 10 years I know Amgen, Pfizer, Novartis, Eli Lilly have all had shut downs/lay offs in their neuroscience research divisions.

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#83

Post by caddemon »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #55
MrDrDr wrote: post #3

There are lots of popular tropes of how our brain works and I'd agree with this author that they are oversimplified and generally incorrect - I'd add the left brain right brain divide to the list. However the author appears to be arguing from a position that they (or someone) actually know how the brain works - having done a neuroscience degree, my one take home was that when it comes to modelling the brain against o…

Left/right divide is a myth-myth. Check out "Master and His Emissary" for the enormous amount of evidence about left/right divide. The mirror neuron system is also a myth-myth. While there aren't "mirror neurons", per se (e.g., biochemically different), there is a system of mirroring and it is very important

I think there are a lot of myth-myths where basically the general public ran with a wildly pseudoscientific interpretation, and then the scientific community decides to dismiss the entire thing (at least outside of whatever subfield, although I've sometimes seen it within too).

Speaking specifically to left vs right brain, in popular media I've mostly seen it presented as logic vs creativity, which completely disregards that people can be creative verbally, and that certain quantitative/technical things are very non-verbal.

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#84

Post by infogulch »

happy-go-lucky wrote: post #77

I'm no expert at all on neuroscience, but when I recently got the opportunity to read a transcript of the lecture titled The Value of Science by Richard Feynman, it filled me with awe and reverence. I can't but share a sizable quote from the same. https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1575/1/Science.pdf “For instance, the scientific article may say, 'The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decre…

I recall some debate around the oldest buildings, and how (I think) the Ise Grand Shrine [1] is disqualified because it is rebuilt regularly -- for the past 2000 years. Of course, one may resolve this by more carefully defining "oldest building", but this quote by Feynman makes me lean towards a definition that includes this shrine. Who are we to say that some building is different because the atoms of its beams came from different trees, and in the same breath claim individual continuity across decades in the face of this fact about our brain?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#85

Post by earthboundkid »

Qwertious wrote: post #53
earthboundkid wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but pedantry aside, the 20th century kicked the 21st century's ass when it comes to scientific discovery. Some stuff discovered between 1900 and 1920: - Relativity - Atomic nuclei - Darwinian modern synthesis On the technological application side, there was the airplane and mass production of cars, plus the growth of telephony and radio. In the 21st century we have: - found a bunch of extra solar planets but th…

>In the 21st century we have: In much the same way that much of 2020's progress was actually started from the 20th century, much of e.g. the year 2060's progress will be stuff actually started from 2020. We likely systemically underestimate the use of today's discoveries simply since the big stuff mostly isn't useful yet.

I agree that we still don't totally know what happened 2000–2020, but e.g. the Eddington eclipse proof of relativity was 1919 and Einstein became an international celebrity around then.

I think I am underrated some math discoveries since it's not an area I follow, e.g. the Poincaré conjecture proof is probably a big deal. On the other hand, when did Poincaré make his conjecture? 1900. So in a certain sense, we are backfilling a known gap.

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#86

Post by tailspin2019 »

SkyBelow wrote: post #64
harshreality wrote: post #23

I don't want to be too critical, because I've learned a lot from the author's books, but a fair amount of the article (mainly myths 1 and 2) seem to be over-generalization or skewed based on the author's bias. Her field is psychology, not primarily neuroscience; specifically, the psychology (and some neuroscience of) emotion. I recommend Jeff Hawkins's new book for a perspective closer to a neuroscientist's. (He's te…

I was originally against the authors take on Myth one as well, but then I considered that my perspective may have been somewhat different from the one they were actually talking about and I sort of incorrectly translated it. Maybe they were speaking directly against a much more harsh version of the 'each part of the brain does one thing' than we interpret it. Not as a 'the visual cortex handles most of our conscious…

Completely agree

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#87

Post by wilburTheDog »

infogulch wrote: post #84
happy-go-lucky wrote: post #77

I'm no expert at all on neuroscience, but when I recently got the opportunity to read a transcript of the lecture titled The Value of Science by Richard Feynman, it filled me with awe and reverence. I can't but share a sizable quote from the same. https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1575/1/Science.pdf “For instance, the scientific article may say, 'The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decre…

I recall some debate around the oldest buildings, and how (I think) the Ise Grand Shrine [1] is disqualified because it is rebuilt regularly -- for the past 2000 years. Of course, one may resolve this by more carefully defining "oldest building", but this quote by Feynman makes me lean towards a definition that includes this shrine. Who are we to say that some building is different because the atoms of its beams came…

The question has been debated longer than the shrine has been around. See: Ship of Theseus.

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#88

Post by OrbitRock »

devindotcom wrote: post #68
lycopodiopsida wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done a neuroscience degree myself, I would double on your conclusion — I still have no clue how a brain works, apart of some simpler systems, like visual pattern recognition. I am out of the field for a single-digit number of years already, but in retrospective it is hilarious how all the literature in neuroscience is gently moving around the question of «guys, bit how all of it works»? People are happy to hac…

I did a minor in neuro and had a very similar experience. Fascinating and useful but it was always slightly alarming when the professor would answer a question with "I don't know.. no one knows. That is far beyond the limits of our capabilities to know." A reminder that scientists really do work at the edge of ignorance!

That to me is really how we need to be emphasizing education in science for young people.

We tend to give the impression that we’ve figured almost everything out, and so you’re just learning the facts of it all.

Really, we’ve carved out a little island in a sea of ignorance, and the foundations of the island are just our current best rough approximations that might collapse.

An example from the field I’m in — biology. It’s quite likely that if you worked at it you can describe a new species in your backyard. You don’t have to go to the Amazon rainforest, there’s scientific unknowns all around you all the time.

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#89

Post by tailspin2019 »

jbandela1 wrote: post #60

> According to this myth, the brain is like a collection of puzzle pieces, each with a dedicated mental function. One puzzle piece is for vision, another is for memory, a third is for emotions, and so on. The author makes too much about parts of the brain not being specialized. As a neurosurgery resident in a former life who actually operated on brains and took care of people with strokes and trauma, yes, different p…

Thank you.

I’m firmly in the zone of “I don’t know what I don’t know” when it comes to neuroscience but the hard emphasis on the areas of the brain not being specialised was in stark contrast to literally everything I’ve read about the brain and neuroscience to date.

I wonder if the author is pushing both sides of the coin of “myth” and “reality” way to far to the extremes.

I agree with another commenter that perhaps the author is trying to push back against older, more rigid ideas of much more extreme separation of functions of the brain in a more primitive sense.

But some detail is lost here, because as far as I’m concerned (and I’m heartened by the support that your more experienced and expertise-led comment provides) the brain absolutely and demonstrably has specialised areas that focus on certain functions.

So in an effort to bust these “myths” I feel parts of this article just serve to muddy the water and add some confusion rather than clarity.

Re: Myths about how the brain works

#90

Post by teucris »

The central thesis is excellent, but this really caught my eye:

> Depression is usually catalogued as a mental illness, but it’s as much a metabolic illness as cardiovascular disease, which itself has significant mood-related symptoms. These two diseases occur together so often that some medical researchers believe that one may cause the other. That perspective is steeped in Cartesian dualism. Both depression and cardiovascular disease are known to involve problems with metabolism, so it’s equally plausible that they share an underlying cause.

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