Myths about the brain
nautil.us
Myths about the brain
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Re: Myths about the brain
#2Well, the first myth is a complete surprise to me, especially the bit about the lizard brain. I've parroted about it in casual conversation for decades now.
Re: Myths about the brain
#3> [Myth 1] specific parts of the human brain have specific psychological jobs ... [Rebuttal] Neurons in a brain region called the anterior cingulate cortex are regularly involved in memory, emotion, decision-making, pain, moral judgments, imagination, attention, and empathy.
This is not a rebuttal to the myth. Imagine I'm talking about a car, and I say: It's a myth that specific parts of the car have specific functions. For example, the engine is involved in starting the car, accelerating the car, decelerating the car, regulating the car's speed, producing heat for the cabin, and running the alternator to produce electricity for the lights, power systems, and radio! That's so many things! But of course the engine has one dedicated, primary function, and the others are either downstream functions or side benefits. The anterior cingulate cortex is clearly not as specialized as a car engine, but it is highly specialized; it's just that its specialized function is not so easy to describe (or even discern) in words like "memory", "emotion", etc. Each of those words describes a huge group of functions that are downstream of the function of the anterior cingulate cortex and many other specialized structures.
I believe the "specialized brain regions" idea has been over-debunked. It was the source of so much woo woo in the late 20th century (are you right-brained or left-brained!?) that we've come to think it's complete bunk. But we have a huge body of evidence showing that there is a big difference in how the left vs. right brain processes information and that different brain regions are highly specialized, but that their specialized functions don't map cleanly into the language we were already describing human behavior with.
Re: Myths about the brain
#4This article bothers me a little bit. It makes it sound like the brain is completely structureless, and that the division of brain into "parts" is a myth.
I'm not a neurologist but this seems a disingenuous. Surely we know that the limbic system serves a major role in emotions. We know that the hippocampus serves a major role in long term memory formation. The amygdala controls the fear response. Plenty of other examples.
But this article is very high level so maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what "myth" they're trying to debunk.
Re: Myths about the brain
#5I regret that we have grown to call things like this myths. Seems many are then dismissed as false, without retaining any sense of usefulness they may or may not have.
Instead, simplifications and the limits of their explanation would be a much greater framing for some things.
Re: Myths about the brain
#6> [Myth 1] specific parts of the human brain have specific psychological jobs ... [Rebuttal] Neurons in a brain region called the anterior cingulate cortex are regularly involved in memory, emotion, decision-making, pain, moral judgments, imagination, attention, and empathy. This is not a rebuttal to the myth. Imagine I'm talking about a car, and I say: It's a myth that specific parts of the car have specific functio…
Suffered some minor strokes. Right left brain stuff was interesting. Lost ability to hand write. But could draw fine. Right side of body became very weak and numb.
Some mental stuff was fine. Others were not. Last I looked up it seemed to match left and right brain theory. Creative vs math side, etc.
Re: Myths about the brain
#7I love articles like this. But I have NO facility or background to evaluate them. Given their premise is "everything you've been told is wrong", how do I know that this one is right? :-/
I just finished Blindsight, which is a SciFi novel but written by PhD Biologist and highly respected in Neurological circles... which pretty much commits to every.single.one. of these 'myths'.
Note, this is not an issue of "it's a young empirical discipline with a lot of uncertainty" (though that is the case as well:). For things which we should be able to discern some basic patterns and models, there seems to be tremendous amount of disagreement in seemingly-authoritative and knowledgeable sources; which just allows so much Woo-Hoo of the world to arise (and I'm not just thinking of Deepak Chopra:).
Re: Myths about the brain
#8> Most neurons have multiple jobs, not a single psychological purpose. For example, neurons in a brain region called the anterior cingulate cortex are regularly involved in memory, emotion, decision-making, pain, moral judgments, imagination, attention, and empathy.
One possible answer here is that these things (e.g., memory, emotion, decision-making, and pain) actually have more in common than we perceive. It's possible that mental states that seem very different to us (from "inside" our brains) are in fact quite similar (from "outside" the brain), or vice versa. The lesson may really just be that our own introspection is an unreliable guide to the actual structure of the mind.
Re: Myths about the brain
#9Well, the first myth is a complete surprise to me, especially the bit about the lizard brain. I've parroted about it in casual conversation for decades now.
I thought the "lizard brain" was the part of our nervous system that would respond before the actual brain had time to process. Like I've heard we'll pull our hand away from a hot pan before we feel pain.
Now I both don't know if I've misunderstood peoples references, and have no idea if my version of a lizard brain does exist.
Re: Myths about the brain
#10> [Myth 1] specific parts of the human brain have specific psychological jobs ... [Rebuttal] Neurons in a brain region called the anterior cingulate cortex are regularly involved in memory, emotion, decision-making, pain, moral judgments, imagination, attention, and empathy. This is not a rebuttal to the myth. Imagine I'm talking about a car, and I say: It's a myth that specific parts of the car have specific functio…
Suffered some minor strokes. Right left brain stuff was interesting. Lost ability to hand write. But could draw fine. Right side of body became very weak and numb. Some mental stuff was fine. Others were not. Last I looked up it seemed to match left and right brain theory. Creative vs math side, etc.
Fascinating. How is your ability to do math problems? Can you do them on paper at least?