THE EVOLUTION OF MENTAL HEALTH.
The Evolution of Mental Health proposes that mental illness is an avoidable terminal state consequent upon spending one's formative years deprived of the conditions necessary for one's mental health to evolve. An illness or a disease is an interruption to a normal life, and it has an identifiable anatomy and an identifiable pathology: mental illness in conventional terms does not meet these criteria.
Parents and teachers have an instinct about what mental health is, but often they do not realise that they have this instinct. As evidenced by the lack of any working clinical definition of mental health, doctors and university psychiatrists do not have an instinct about what mental health is, and often they do not realise that they do not have this instinct, all of which is consequent upon the considerable inhibition of instincts necessary to qualify as a doctor and to succeed as a university psychiatrist. Hospital psychiatrists have an opportunity to unlearn the inhibitions learned at medical school.
Awareness of his or her instincts is one of the conditions necessary for a child's mental health to evolve. Another condition is that the child's instincts are reflected back to the child visibly and audibly through responses of the parent or carer, so that connections are developed between the child's instinctual brain and the child's perceptual brain.
Instincts are remembered. Instincts that are reflected back are remembered. Instincts that are not reflected back are remembered. Connections developed between reflected instincts and the immediate visible and audible world are remembered.
Schizophrenia occurs because of the accumulation during childhood of unreflected instincts, which then erupt during adolescence under the influence of hormonal changes.
Mood disorders occur because the instinctually developed child does not learn how to reflect on his or her instincts personally, but remains dependent for those reflections on an adult, in whose absence there are feelings of loss and a driven, uncultivated attempt to cope.
The evolution of the mental health of a child in the human habitat has parallels with evolution in general. Most importantly, if mental health is defined as the capacity to review independently one's mental state as it is perceived by others, then this can be construed as a particular example of homeostasis, in that the perception by others is an environmental change, and the review is made with an intention to vary one's personal responses if one chooses. Experimentation with instincts occurs in the harmless, ritual fights of animals and in the play of children. A prey is more likely to survive an exchange with a predator if it locates itself in the predator's visual and auditory world, and if it remembers previous exchanges. Children who feel isolated and threatened in their human habitat may use mimicry and crypsis to survive. Parents have to inhibit their own predatory instincts if they want their young to develop.
Both females and males have the hormone prolactin, which stimulates milk production in females, and the hormone oxytocin, which produces uterine muscle contraction and milk ejection in females. The Royal Society has described how an injection of oxytocin has made a wild social mammal more cooperative, which would be an important link in the evolution of mental health, if it were true.
Connections developed between the instinctual brain and the perceptual brain can be delineated in potentially disprovable cellular circuits; this is a specialist subject which is therefore in small type.
If the theory of inclusive fitness means that members of nuclear families propagate their genes by being nice to each other, then this needs to be set against the stark realities of the psychiatric consulting room, in that the members of nuclear families can be absolutely beastly to one another, with the consequences of celibacy and of conventional mental illness.
Any proponent of any theory of language needs to be seen to address the social through to cellular differences between the statements "I see you." and "I see you seeing me.".
Genes exist in a genetic environment, which differs between individuals.
The Evolution of Mental Health explores some understated areas of academic psychiatry, for example the degree to which our mental health arises out of our animal ancestry, specifically out of the interplay between our animal instincts, mediated by the diffuse reticular network and by the amygdalae, and those centrifugal inhibitions, mediated by the cerebral cortex, that are necessary for the habitat and the territory to be workable. This exploration concludes, for example, that an hallucination is not a perception without an external stimulus, it is an apperception without an internal stimulus.
The Evolution of Mental Health emphasises that the investigation of mental illness should include all the members of the human habitat, and not just the notional "patient". If, as we are told so often, mental illness has a genetic basis, then what are the environmental factors that enable the perpetuation of those genes? One obvious, albeit disagreeable, possibility is the protection of the senior members of the human habitat at the expense of the relatively defenceless junior members. Blood may be thicker than water, but it is not thicker than sperm. The failure to investigate parents thoroughly is exemplified by research into developmental disorders. The necessary experimental designs are spelt out in The Evolution of Mental Health. On which percentiles are the parents on a graph of parental perception of their child's ∂x/∂t, where x is vocal frequency or vocal intensity, and t is time? How much of the parents' language is adjusted to the ages of their children when it is analysed by frequency and intensity?
The opening of doors requires a commensurate opening of minds. Community care will only be effective in the long term if it operates before the damage is done, and not just afterwards. This will require a greater degree of introspective exactitude from desperate parents and expedient general practitioners than has obtained hitherto, but they are unlikely to defer to an apologist profession which knows that it has embodied introspective inexactitude, given the failures of its clinicians to place the same emphasis on vocalisation as they place on verbalisation in the measurement and classification of psychiatric symptoms, to put a screen in between supposedly independent diagnosticians so that they can't cog, and to have a standard test of knowledge of treatment allocation in drug trials, and in the failures of its professors and editors to direct research so that differential calculus is applied to the endoderm of the larynx with the same enthusiasm as it is applied to the ectoderm of the scalp, so that the outmoded and discredited concept of the limbic system is replaced by recognition of the difference between allocortex, mesocortex and neocortex and of the different vectors between the cell layers of those cortices, so that the anatomical reality of the diffuse reticular network of nerves is incorporated into models of mental illness, and so that the subject matter of psychiatry is used to apply the concept of homeostasis across humans.
One of the functions of academic psychiatry is to defend orthodoxy, indicated by the above failures to attempt disproof of possibilities that would threaten orthodoxy, and this has contributed to the evolution of mental illness.
The evolution of schizophrenia in conventional terms occurs because ontogeny does not recapitulate phylogeny, because a family divides labour so as to increase its fitness at the expense of one of its members, who is thereby consigned to an extreme discrepancy between phenotype and genotype, the latter expressed as a distinctive set of relationships within and between pairs of reciprocal genes, configured during parental meiosis and then during fertilisation. The consequence is a human being who has a detailed map of the world, but who does not have the capacity to find himself or herself in it.
It is an instructive nemesis that some aspects of the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness stigmatise the medical profession.
The text in larger type provides a general commentary, while the text in smaller type deals with more specialised issues. Text in quotation marks that is not followed by a reference number is notional.
Please click on any of the following underlined terms:
Mental illness diagnosis. Schizophrenia. Delusions. Hallucinations. Depression. Mania. Headache. Mental Health.
Diagnosis: unreliable.
Treatment: the "double-blind" lead the "double-blind".
Research: grammar is an excellent guide to the substance of research studies.
Prevention: mental health is the absence of mental illness.
A QUICK GUIDE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ILLNESS.
THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE BRAIN.
General outline, with a notional example.
The cerebral hemispheres.
The cerebellar hemsipheres.
The basal ganglia.
The thalami.
Hypothalamic structures.
The brainstem.
The spinal cord.
Brain cells.
Genes.
A DETAILED GUIDE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ILLNESS.
The frontal lobe.
A split in the brain: schizophrenia.
Vulnerability to loss: mood disorders.
A QUICK GUIDE TO THE PREVENTION OF MENTAL ILLNESS.
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES AND MENTAL ILLNESS.
Medical diagnoses of mental illness may have a degree of truth, but they are unlikely to be the whole truth, and spurious claims of high levels of agreement between psychiatrists have meant that they have not been nothing but the truth.
Something approaching the whole truth can be ascertained by reference to the International Statistical Classification of Illness and related Health Problems (1), which includes in its chapter XXI, sections Z 61, Z 62 and Z 63 respectively, problems related to negative events in childhood, problems related to upbringing, and problems related to the primary support group, including family circumstances. However, these problems rarely seem to be used in formal communications about the patients, who, all too often, are referred to by metonyms like "schizophrenic" and "manic-depressive".
Psychiatrists use terms like "schizophrenia" and "manic-depression", but in England these have not been supported by inclusion in the Mental Health Act of 1983 (2). The justification for such terms seems to be high levels of agreement about symptoms between pairs of psychiatrists who assess patients simultaneously. Tellingly, the levels of agreement about signs are unremarkable. Symptoms such as: "Have you been feeling depressed?" are based on questions and answers, whereas signs such as: "Does the patient look sad?" are assessed silently. Therefore, the high levels of agreement about symptoms could occur because the psychiatrists can both see and hear each other, and thus are able to pick up cues from one another about how each is going to rate the symptom in question, whereas the unremarkable levels of agreement about signs occur because the psychiatrists merely see each other in silence, and so are unable to pick up cues about their respective ratings because neither psychiatrist knows which sign is being rated by the other psychiatrist at any moment. The interposition of a screen between the two psychiatrists has been followed by a fall in the high levels of agreement about symptoms to the same unremarkable levels of agreement as about signs, which levels have been unaffected by the interposition of the screen (3). This critique needs to be met, and needs to be seen to be met, by those who wish to represent medical diagnoses of mental illness as having consensus, over and above what might be produced by a communication network (R, pages 182-198) (M) (2643). This is a variant of the "cahoots" hypothesis, described in studies of agreement about personality (319) (1574) (320).
The fantasy that psychiatrists are machines and not people is seen currently as a presumption that if a high level of agreement about symptoms has been achieved with a particular interview by one group of psychiatrists at one point in time, then this high level of agreement can be assumed to hold for other groups of psychiatrists and for other times, using the same interview (4) (5) (6) (1931). Some of these results are being compared with neuroimages, notionally to advance diagnostic knowledge (6). The money would be better spent on sequential neuroimages of patients as they enter care and then receive treatment, without the unassuaged loss of individuality consequent upon psychiatric diagnosis, and upon the averaging of data across subjects (410).
Neuroimages are a great advance (1348) (1360) (1617) (1667) (1964) (2148) (2412) (2752), provided the experimenters acknowledge the effects on brain images of technical variations (1970) (2059) (2676) (2691); of individual variation (1800) (2023); of observer bias (1118); of design bias (1561) (1784); of personality (652), with consequent use of change measures (269) (298) (512), or of performance controls (1692); of movement, both within and between (407) scans, and of muscle tone, which latter might, for example, explain differences between negative feedback and positive feedback, and between degrees of uncertainty (316); and of the degree of disclosure of the experimental design, given that the brain distinguishes clearly between knowing what it knows and knowing what it does not know (394), as well as between knowing what it knows and not knowing what it knows (980) (1131) (1132) (1178) (1737). If the explicit task for the subjects is different from the actual task addressed by the experimenters (299) (1892) (2332), the subjects may feel deceived (R, pages 245-255, and pages 279-290), which feelings may then affect their brain images (300). Any experimental design that requires the subjects to be misled needs to be seen to be tested as to its success after the experiment, thereby to allow the results to be interpreted in an ambience devoid of experimenter omnipotence. The act of having misled the subjects needs to be seen to be discussed as part of the debrief after the experiment.
Neuroimaging studies of developmental disorders should address the actual relationships between the patient and his or her parents (1669) (2362), and not just study the patient (1663), or the patient in relation to derivatives (1685), or in relation to controls (1686) (1687). The predictions to be disproved, using an operant model, are that there will be less activation of identical areas of the brains of children with developmental disorders and the brains of their parents, than between the brains of normal children and the brains of their parents, not only when the child's responses follow the parent's responses, but also when the parent's responses follow the child's responses (1739); that the differences between the brains of parents of children with developmental disorders and the brains of their children persist when those parents are studied with normal children, and that the differences between the brains of children with developmental disorders and the brains of their parents reduce when those children are studied with the parents of normal children; and that the brains of the parents of children with developmental disorders show less activation of the medial side of the cerebral hemisphere in general, and of the cingulate lobes in particular, than the brains of parents of normal children, during joint responses.
Subcortical structures have been studied (1204) (1147) (2388).
Neuroimages should allow for the occurrence of mental images, for example, to characterise differences between nouns and verbs (496).
The results of an experiment about neuroimages should include description of both activations and deactivations (410) (512) (269) (769), mindful of the uncertainties about baseline brain function (1985) (2214); (2188) (2367); (408) (526) (1910) (2131) (2147) (2197) (2511) (2530) (2596) (2733).
Neuroimages will be at their most powerful if their spatial sensitivity is combined with the temporal sensitivity of electroencephalography (962) (463) (480) (1859) (2160) (2197) (2216) (2279) (2369) (2534) (2552) (2599).
The pretence that diagnoses of mental illness contain more of the truth than is in fact the case discourages patients and their families from their own instinctive attempts to explain what has happened and to do something about it. "You are suffering from the role that you have learned to play within your family" is a very different message from "You have a disease that needs medical treatment." The greatest possible care must be taken, and must be seen to be taken, by the medical profession, not to overstate its case, given that a side-effect of such overstatement is reduction in the patient's autonomy.
To what degree are mental illnesses social constructs invoked by any society at any time to enable limits and stability, and to what degree are mental illnesses real physical entities that have arisen out of our personal development or our evolutionary background (607) (608), or both? From a developmental perspective, brain damage around birth cannot, in itself, explain hallucinations and delusions that make their first appearance in adolescence. The concept of a latent period has not been productive in epilepsy (1032). The lack of a description of mental health makes it difficult to discern the development of mental illness during the formative first decade of life. The periodic features of mood disorders cannot be explained by a structural fault alone, and, unsurprisingly, the structural findings have been inconsistent and contradictory (239) (641) (327) (7) (328) (2589), while at least one of the functional models has been clinically naive (2483). From an evolutionary perspective, there has been comparatively little attempt by psychiatrists to relate the features of mental illness to animal behaviour (N) (8) (9) (321) (72) (301) (1111) (2080). These deficiencies amount to a lack of scholarship, and feed the suspicion that diagnostic psychiatry is indeed opportunistic, and the lackey of Society's narcissism. The paucity of studies of the parents of children with developmental disorders looks weak and defensive.
Treatment: the "double-blind" lead the "double-blind".
One of the ways in which drugs are introduced into psychiatry is on the basis of drug trials, in which the new drug compares favourably with an established drug. Many of these drug trials have what is called a "double-blind" design, which means that neither the patients nor the participant researchers know which patient receives which drug, new or established. However, this design is just that, a design, a plan, and an intention. Whether or not the drug trial turns out to be "double-blind" in practice is an evidentiary matter, necessitating the collection of evidence that can be tested (10). In practice, such evidence is rarely sought (1638) (2387), so that large numbers of patients are in a position to litigate against the medical profession.
The lack of a test of the "double-blind" design in drug trials means that it is relatively easy to introduce a new drug into clinical practice, because the trial organisers do not have to address the possibility that the participant researchers were able to make educated guesses as to which patient was receiving which drug, based on the side-effects of the drugs. Once the participant researchers have an inkling about which patient is receiving which drug, they can slant their findings in favour of the drug that they wish to discover (R, pages 152-159), and that the pharmaceutical industry wishes to market (2135). Thus, suppose that after a period of treatment with one or other drug, a patient is asked: "Are you feeling depressed?" and replies: "Well yes. But then again, no." If the researcher suspects that the patient is receiving the established drug, then he or she can develop the "yes" part of the answer and rate no improvement, whereas if the researcher thinks that the patient is receiving the new drug, then he or she can develop the "no" part of the answer and rate improvement. In this way, the new drug can be made to appear superior to the established drug through clandestine knowledge of drug allocation. What ought to happen is that at the end of a "double-blind" drug trial, the participant researchers should be debriefed, and asked to guess the drug allocation of the patients, giving reasons for the guesses.
| Researcher guesses | Correct | Incorrect | ||||||
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Figure one
The researchers' guesses should then be compared with chance expectation and the results expressed using conventional statistical parlance. For example: "The researchers' guesses were correct, with a probability of one in twenty that this was due to chance..." would indicate that probably the trial had not been "double-blind", because the researchers probably had known which patient was receiving which drug. The reasons given for the guesses would clarify why the trial probably had not been "double-blind", for example, because the researchers had detected a truly superior drug, as in: "I thought that because the patient was so much better than expected that he must have been receiving the new drug...", or, because the researchers had become aware of drug allocation through side-effects, as in: "I suspected that the patient was having the established drug because of his dry mouth...".
Participant patients should also be debriefed and assessed for knowledge of treatment allocation through guesses, giving reasons for the guesses. It is difficult to see how a trial of intravenous erythropoietin could have been described as having a "double-blind" design when "blood letting" was an expected intervention, which was actually required in eight patients (2090).
The same test procedures should be used for any supposedly "double-blind" design (644) (2457) (2567) (2568) (2659) (2728), the moreso if the design requires that every participant uses each of the treatments at different times (1766) (2738): comparisons within participants give every participant the opportunity to compare the treratments by any means whatsoever, including appearance, taste, and side-effects, and not just according to the intent of the experimenter, by treatment effects.
The preparations used in drug trials should be tested for comparability before the trial, and the results should be included in the report, rather than having to be elicited by correspondence (2563).
The medical profession is open to litigation by any patient who is dissatisfied with a prescribed drug that has been introduced on the basis of a "double-blind" drug trial that did not include a test of the "double-blind" design, not just because of what the drug did not do (lack of therapeutic effects), but also because of what the drug did do (side-effects): the decision to risk the side-effects of a drug is based partly on the therapeutic potential of the drug, so that if this has been exaggerated or invented, then the patient may have been exposed pointlessly to the side-effects. The writer has been unable to penetrate the sub-group that is the medical profession with the seemingly mutant idea that signals to patients about drugs need to be more honest (11). Sir Donald Irvine and Sir George Alberti subverted the implementation of this exactitude, hence this website: intolerance of phenotypic variation augurs extinction. Perhaps there is a fear that the costs of honesty will be too high (12) (2357). But to whom? Currently, the costs of deception are being borne by a relatively small number of the patient sub-group who have moderate to severe depressive illness and who should not, therefore, be given new drugs that have not been properly tested, but who should be given drugs proven by usage; the larger number of the patient sub-group has a mild degree of depressive illness that is below the threshold at which the difference between established, proven drugs and unproven parvenus starts to matter. So there is safety in numbers, which gives the appearance that the strategy is evolutionarily stable, which, of course it has been in this instance because it has resisted penetration. The risk is that the stability relies heavily on perceptual error (13), and that if accuracy prevails (580), perhaps due to a change in circumstances (745), such as a scandal, then there will be a very tough question about the degree to which the relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry on the one hand, and patients on the other hand, has been more akin to that between a predator and a prey than to that between a parent and an offspring. In the context of the handicap principle (498), the suicidal threats of the sub-group of patients with moderate to severe depression, who have failed to respond to the prescription of improperly tested drugs, can be seen as provoked attempts to improve the authenticity of communication with their doctors, whose prescriptions have said more about the dominance hierarchy between sub-groups, than they have about effective treatments. "Double-blind" drug trials are Inadvertent Social Information about the people who perform them (589) (666), and show, for example, that those people are prepared to participate in a self-fulfilling prophecy, because they behave in ways that make any false description of differences between drugs come true (2482). The increasing use of herbal medicines may reflect insight (343) (344) (1024).
Trials of equipment are flawed similarly (1615) (2692) (2693), although there are exceptions (2097).
Insofar as Science has been complicit (R, page 297) (303) (1913) (2026), it has failed to apply issues of reciprocity and reputation to itself (304).
In 1998, the Lancet published a study that purported to introduce a placebo needle into acupucture research (509). Although the subjects were asked to distinguish the placebo acupuncture from the real acupuncture, and although the subjects who received the real acupuncture before the placebo acupuncture were over three times more likely to feel a dull pain sensation with the real acupuncture (p<0.008, one-tailed test), the entire publication was devoid of tests of statistical significance. This has not prevented the citation of the report in 2006 as evidence of "...a novel placebo intervention, a validated sham acupuncture needle..." (468): one of the other studies cited as validating the sham acupuncture needle actually invalidated it, because 40% of the subjects could tell the difference between the sham acupuncture needle and the real acupunture needle (510).
In 1998, the Archives of General Psychiatry published a study of bright light treatment of winter depression (983). The patients went to two different buildings to maintain the blindness of the raters . However, the patients knew their treatment allocation, and could have communicated that in either, or both, settings, which necessitated attempted disproof through a formal test of the researchers' awareness of treatment allocation.
In 2006, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America published a study of melatonin in the treatment of winter depression (999). The experimenters reported that another research group, in a previous study, had shown that melatonin 0.1 mg had been minimally soporific, and indistinguishable from inert filler in otherwise identical placebo capsules (1632). The experimenters did not compare their own capsules of melatonin and placebo systematically, which was opportunistic, because of the presumption that all of the features of the capsules generalised from one study to the other study.
In 2006, Science published an article that purported to show a double dissociation for the involvement of noradrenaline and serotonin in human cognition (562). No attempt was made to show that the capsules of atomoxetine 60mg, citalopram 30mg or placebo were indistinguishable by the sixty healthy male participants, so that there was a lack of dissociation between the knowledge of an effect and an effect.
In 2007, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America published:"A double-blind randomized placebo-controlled phase III study of a Pseudomonas aeruginosa flagella vaccine in cystic fibrosis patients." (2385). A total of 318 adverse events were registered during the study period within 1 week after vaccination: 227 in the vaccine group and 91 in the placebo group. There was no statistical analysis of this difference, and no discussion of its possible influence on the "double-blind" design.
In 2011, the Royal Society published "Experimental peripheral administration of oxytocin elevates a suite of cooperative behaviours in a wild social mammal.". The experiment was described as "double-blind", given the plan that neither the person who gave an injection to a meerkat, nor the observer of that meerkat's subsequent behaviour, would know whether the injection had contained oxytocin or saline. However, no evidence was adduced to show that this plan had worked (2729). Also see "...the introduction of new material".
Research: grammar is an excellent guide to the substance of research studies.
When you assess a scientific experiment, ask yourself how hard the scientists tried not to find what they were looking for (R, pages 94-114) (351) (352) (353) (418) (444), and what they did when they found what they were not looking for (354) (1309) (928). A comparison of the abstracts of (499) and (500) is illustrative: both groups of scientists found a negative result, respectively no non-p5HT cell thermal responsiveness, and mean peak coherence of 0.018; the first group of scientists performed another, improvised experiment, and generated uneven positive results (499), while the second group of scientists explored the negative results.
If A causes B, then attempts to explain C in terms of B should explore the relationship between A and C, for example, where A = trophic hormone, B = gonadal hormone, and C = neurogenesis (497). If A causes C and B may cause C, then the explanation of C in terms of B requires control of the relationship between A and C, for example, where A = the menstral cycle, B = leptin, and C = luteinizing hormone (802). The notional relationship between depression and bone loss requires the exploration of reduced mobility as a correlate of both depression and bone loss, and perhaps the use of hibernation as an experimental control (2432).
Differences between human personalities requires the use of change scores within subjects (420) (1373), otherwise these differences may look like experimental effects between subjects. Repeated measures within subjects may lead to sampling artefacts (625) and to practice effects (562, Supporting Online Material, page 1), but these should be distributed randomly across the experimental groups. Repeated measures are certainly preferable, on theoretical grounds, to the assignment of one subject's score to another subject (562, Supporting Online Material, page 2), which meant that the experimenters made retrospective alterations to the experimental groups; this could have been avoided if all subjects had produced baseline scores, which had then been distributed randomly, and prospectively, across the experimental groups.
Experimenters should use common sense, so that if someone is afraid of spiders, and is shown a picture of a spider and then a picture of a mushroom, it is hardly surprising that he or she is less aware of the picture of the spider than if he or she had not been shown the picture of the mushroom, because of distraction. It is an unwitting disclosure about the experimenters to call this "backward masking" and to consider that it "...excludes conscious processing of a stimulus..." (449), or that it enables "...the automatic processing of emotional stimuli without conscious awareness." (416). Consciousness varies over time, so that it is simplistic to divide mental life into either conscious or unconscious (2158). The subjects in this experiment may have formed a working memory of the picture of the spider, and may have been able to recall this on reflection, not least because of a nagging wish to explain having felt anxious about a picture of a mushroom. Again, if a patient sample is aged between 16 and 48 months, then why assess it using the Social Communication Questionnaire, which is "...a 40-item yes/no questionnaire for children over 48 months."? (2654, page 561). Again, maternal sensitivity was assessed in two groups of children, one group in which the child had an older sibling diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and the other group in which the older sibling showed no signs of autism spectrum disorder, but maternal sensitivity was not compared between the two groups (2726). And again, meerkats were given injections of oxytocin in a carrier inclusive of chlorobutanol, and of saline, the injections being separated by three to five days. The authors concluded that the behavioural differences between the two injections were due to the oxytocin, which effectively said that if oxytocin = A, the carrier inclusive of chlorobutanol = B, and saline = C, then (A+B) - C = A (2729). See also "In 2011...".
It is naive, at best, and disingenuously self-deceptive at worst, to suppose that respondents in a study are going to relinquish ideas that protect them from stress, especially when the design of the study does not offer other options (R, pages 220-221).
Controls for psychological treatments are particularly difficult because of the immutable knowledge that a particular treatment is being given or not, and because of the network element, whereby the relationships between the researchers and the subjects generate changes (2337, pages 12-14): independent reviews are required after weeks, and again after months, inclusive of the family doctor and of involved relatives. Manipulation checks are essential (2557).
The introspection of motor intentions has been shown to activate different brain areas than the introspection of motor actions (1155), which may be a study of the variable of introspection rather than a comparison of intentions and actions.
Innovative measures such as "counterfactual thinking" (1629) (893), "counterfactual comparison" (1971), "fictive learning signals" (2049), "state" effects (1073), "valence" (1523) (1967) (1971) (2329), "valence-specific" (2016), "implicit and explicit conditioned valence" (2664), "salience" (2313), "clique percolation" (1923), memory ratings of "level of detail, emotion or personal significance" (1455), "drawing with significantly less regular velocity than controls" (2032), "repetition suppression" (1447) (2380) (2465) (2551), "the Lempel-Ziv complexity" (2438), "a modified version of the Sternberg paradigm" (2439), "fluid intelligence" (2441), "linguistic typological features" (2469), "modularity optimization" (2501), "rated masculinity or attractiveness" (2505), "attractiveness and masculinity scales" (2765), "odour preferences" (2532), "taster status" (2731), "trait dominance" (2533), "an index of facial masculinity" (2539), "male facial masculinity" (2663), "coyness" (2554), "biased attention" (2572), "evolved navigation theory" (2573), "judgement bias" (2576), "face and odour similarities" (2601), "dopamine tone"..."serotonin tone" (2622), "iconic visual memory" (2633) (2698), "facial cues associated with dominance" (2643), "self-resembling female nudes" (2661), "DNA content variation (DCV)" (2673), "fluctuating asymmetry and physical attractiveness"..."healthy and masculine appearance" (2686), "health ratings of raw male faces" (2706), "a suite of cooperative behaviours" (2729), "subliminally primed" (2736), "were rated for attractiveness by men, and were rated for dominance by both men and women." (2741), "Reward skewness coding in the insula independent of probability and loss." (2762), and "neural signatures of evidence accumulation" (2763), require the accompaniments of test-retest reliability (2235) (2236) (2349) and of inter-rater reliability (2413) (2579) (2602) (2607) (2660), and then of validity (1246) (1026) (1301) (757) (1937) (2006) (2526) (2598) and (2654); indices of validity should be used to resolve contradictory findings (1279) (1796) (1816). Similar measures are required to actualise the difference between social responses and self-directed responses in primates (2206), self-reported life stress and rumination (1665), and fantasies that events of childhood can be elicited currently in young adults using telephone interviews and questionnares (943). The reliability and validity of what has been called "episodic memory" (2610) are tested on a daily basis when the witness takes the stand. Innovative techniques need to be compared with existent techniques (1335); (1341) (1654) (1693) (1970) (1989) (2363) (2616), especially if these have been based on illusions, such as parallax (R, page 237). Notionally new categories of disease, such as channelopathies (1602), need to be scrutinised carefully for an undue focus on similarities between diseases, compared with differences between diseases. Notionally new definitions require examples (2602, page 104). Claims of originality should be examined in the territory in which the claims are made (R, page 298), for example to ascertain the degree to which the claims are a challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy.
Indices of reliability, that is agreement, need to allow for agreement by chance (3) (2602).
Reproducibility, that is replicability (1684), using a technique that has been shown to be reliable and valid in the past, requires a thorough acknowledgment that both the performance of the equipment and the mental state of the intended user are potentially variable. A microscopist counting cells in the same part of the same slide with the same microscope on three successive days may produce an estimate of error (522), because the counts differ from each other and from the actual count, determined by consensus or by more advanced technology (1191) (1521). Potential error is added by the introduction of a second microscopist, and it is multiplied in the study of symptoms and signs of patients by a psychiatrist, because of the added variables of the psychiatrist's personality and background. Reduction of error requires any equipment to be calibrated immediately prior to use, by the intended user, against a criterion, such as a slide with a known cell count, or an interview format with agreed features, live or taped. Given the variables of personality and of background, it is sophomoric, at best, for psychiatrists to presume that calibration of a particular interview format at some point in the past, will endure or generalise (4) (5) (6) (1931). What matters is not the results of previous calibrations, it is the act of calibration, because this addresses the state of the equipment, and the mental state of its intended user, immediately prior to use.
For an overview of diagnostic tests in psychiatry, see reference (2028).
For an exploration of how clinicians diagnose what they expect to find, see reference (2374).
For discussions of how experimenters find what they are looking for, see references (2433) (2430, page 27 and page 32) and (R, page 183, and page 200). Examples of this orchestration in psychiatry are the failure to consider that genetic changes may be effects rather than causes, the failure to study parents as much as their children, and the failure to use a control group with mental illness. If attempted disproof is the best way to reduce uncertainty (2167), then the failure to attempt disproof is consistent with a wish not to reduce uncertainty.
A reliable and valid technique can be standardised across groups, for example, with respect to age (1681) (1636).
The results of an experiment may reflect the fact that subjects were given information that might not have been true (468) (981).
Studies over a few days of students by their teachers may not generalise, especially if the students have been misled by the teachers (507) (508) (2514).
Any experimental design that requires the subjects to be misled needs to be seen to be tested as to its success after the experiment, thereby to allow the results to be interpreted in an ambience devoid of experimenter omnipotence. The act of having misled the subjects needs to be seen to be discussed as part of the debrief after the experiment.
Researchers who use their students as experimental subjects may produce results that reflect the students' responses to their teachers (2514).
Only limited conclusions can be drawn from studies of the disembodied, for example, a hand viewed from above (548), and a rubber hand (2045); of the reconfigured, such as rats with trimmed whiskers (696); and of the unrealistic, such as repeated vowel sounds (549), nonwords (345), non-words (511), digital organisms (753), overlearned arbitrary visuomotor associations (1089), semantically unrelated word pairs (1294), unrelated word pairs (2027), and pseudowords (1416) (1952).
Results may be influenced by the investigation itself, called the Hawthorne effect, named after the Western Electric company plant, where it was first observed (665) (R, pages 152-159); (1155) (1932) (2672).
Results may reflect the design of the experiment, such as the populations sampled (2124), the sampling frequency (2008), and the failure to use a control group with mental illness: see references (2467) (2483) and (2589), and compare references (765) (766) (1699) (1770) (2012) (1799) (1869) (2208) (2277) (2371) and (2447) with references (756) and (2438). Face preferences may reflect gender preferences (1813).
Contradictory results may reflect differences between patients and normal subjects (1227).
Results may reflect medication (742) (782) (765) (743) (766) (1699) (1770) (1799) (1869) (2208) (2371) (2438) (2483) (2547).
Results of experiments may not generalise (964) (1066) (894), because the sample was too small (924) (1020) (2061) (2640), because of observer effort (2707), because the cerebral cortex was studied in isolation (1053) (1420) (1910), because the amygdalae were accessed through the eyes in one study (1545) and through the visual fields in another study (1546), because of differences between species, between genera (2485), between families (1806), between orders (1085) (1806) (1075) (1138) (1206) (2038) and between classes (2560), because of the effects of captivity (600) (677) (693) (2289) (2328) (2749), of anaesthetics (99) (954) (1483) (601) (1139) (1235) (634) (658) (991) (1421) (1753) (2279) (2299) (2456) (2466) (2649), of different types of lesion (1549), of the position of an electrode, both stimulating (1562) and recording (1744), of temperature (1366) (1531) (2646), of post-mortem changes (2549), and because of unnatural stimuli, such as 80 microA (900), vibration at 83 Hz to produce the illusion of movement (1015), bipolar electrical stimuli (2071), high-frequency stimulation (1452), low-frequency stimulation (1809) (1857), microstimulation (2004), subthreshold microstimulation (2044), electrical microstimulation (2445), stimulation at pulse frequencies ranging from 50 to 300 Hz in anaesthetised, ovariectomised rats (2241), transcranial magnetic stimulation (2354) (2402) (2448); (197) (547) (1386) (2222) (1960) (2021) (2123) (2347) (2543) (2632), repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (541) (2322) (2730), fast repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (2097), low frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (2325) (2081), transcranial magnetic stimulation in different directions (2711), theta-burst magnetic stimulation (2565), theta-burst stimulation (2665) (2689), subthreshold transcranial magnetic stimulation (547), a subthreshold transcranial magnetic stimulation pulse (1963), single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (2621), double-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (2652), paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (2119), triple-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (2642), focal transcranial magnetic stimulation (2603), transcranial direct current stimulation (1954) (2064) (2690), anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (2732), cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (2732), repeated transcranial direct current stimulation (2716), slow oscillatory and constant anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (2621), transcutaneous electrical stimulation (2497), a pin-prick in the cerebral cortex (1604), artificial whisking at 5 Hz in anaesthetised rats (1613), morphing (1886) (1892), a continuous 3D morph (2359), and a fake snake (918). Results of studies of the interaction between genes and the environment may not generalise, because of the differences between the environment defined in terms of its physical characteristics, and the environment defined in terms of the people in it, which caveat applies particularly to simulation models (2341, page 586).
Anterograde anatomical tracers may also be transported retrogradely (877). Hodological standardisation (1357) and validation (1937) have been attempted.
Results of studies of the in vitro slice may differ from results of studies of the organotypic culture, and both may differ from results of vivo studies (1486) (1374).
Readers should be wary of scoring that was double-blind when the subjects were fish (1908), of results that were analysed in a double-blind fashion when the subjects were mice (461), of the statement that investigators were blinded to the treatment group in a histological comparison of wild type and D1 null mice (873), of the inability to replicate a study due to a lack of clinical criteria (467), and of the citation of "depressive-like traits" as "schizophrenia related phenotypes" (2239).
The anthropomorphic assumption that adult human attributes apply to animals, (R, pages 18-25) (459) (465) (552) (1158) (2098, page 191) (2151) (2212) (2218) (2278) (2411) (2580) (2729), to infants (637) (2190) (2116), to children (R, pages 206-219) (2117) (2267), to parts of the body (2153), and to neurones (2306), requires circumspection, as does the anthropomorphic ascription of human stresses to genes (716) (718) (475) (720) (875), and of human activities such as "house-keeping" to genes (2617, page 96). Animals can condition humans (R, page 66, page 123, and page 139) (2098, page 191).
Responses may be counted, or they may be measured, so that it is not meaningful to refer to a mean of 10.2 items (2514, page 121), and to 7.8 recordings, 229.5 conversations and 226.2 monologues (2654, pages 559 and 565): the mode or the median should be used. Similar reservations apply to the ubiquitous, but nonetheless questionable, practice of applying numbers, such as 1, 0.5, and 0, to each of a set of responses, such as "agree", "unsure", and "disagree", and then processing the set of responses as a scale that has the same equal intervals between each of the responses as have the numbers (2602, page 105), not just within one respondent on one occasion, but also within one respondent across occasions, and between respondents: the degree to which we agree relative to being unsure may be different from the degree to which we disagree relative to being unsure; the presumption of equal intervals enables the use of parametric statistics (2654), which assume equal intervals, but it disables the variety of life, and it reduces the variance of samples of responses through the elimination of extreme responses, so that any two such samples are less likely to overlap and are thus more likely to appear to come from different populations, when, in fact, they come from the same population; the more realistic, less opportunistic procedure is to process the responses as categories or as ranks and to use statistics that do not assume equal intervals, and that, therefore, do not make the real response: "I agree very strongly indeed." appear to be of the same degree as the real response: "I disagree.".
The probability of falsely rejecting the null hypothesis, called the alpha probability of the type I error, and the probability of falsely accepting the null hypothesis, called the beta probability of the type II error, can be estimated before an experiment is implemented. Missing something that is really present, that is a false negative and a function of sensitivity and of type II error, has to be balanced against finding something that is not really present, that is a false positive and a function of specificity, and of type I error (457), for a given sample size (572). Thus, an increase in sensitivity, that is a reduction in false negatives, may result in a loss of specificity, that is an increase in false positives (1070) (1678). Sensitivity and specificity are indices of validity. The identification of true negatives requires a context and a duration of observation adequate for a spontaneous response to occur (2098) (2206). Statistical significance is measured in degrees, so that it is arbitrary to gloss over a more significant result, and explore one that is less significant (552). The more statistical tests that are performed on a set of results, then the more likely it is that some of those tests will be significant by chance, and this should be acknowledged in the results (2602, page 107). Raw data should be published to allow critical evaluation (2144), so that every scientist is able to perform an analysis incorporating his or her preconceived models (566).
Publication bias has been addressed in reference (2191).
Correlations are not causes (1453) (1281) (1444) (1630) (1798) (2399) (1953) (2207) (2508) (2606) (2679).
Effects may be causes of the notional causes (2145) (1955) (2105) (2092) (2419) (2491) (2601) (2637, page 119).
Reference (269) is an exemplar of technical (407) (408) and statistical (409) standards.
The presentation of a scientific report is instructive: the writer's wishes are conveyed by heavy type, upper case, italics (R, pages 35-59) (1875) (2267) (2564, page 3054) (2697) (2726), underlining, and hyphenation (2431) (247), while the writer's doubts are conveyed by brackets (2416), and by quotation marks, such as "phase precession" (629), "double-blind" (630), "whisker pairing" (694) (695), "deactivations" (769), "overeating" (807), "normalizes" (856), "abstemious"..."greedy" (875), "dual-match stimuli"..."release" (885), "pragmatic relevance" (967), "cue recruitment" (1136), "standard model" (1137), "liking" (1159), "cochlear amplifier" (1233), "amplify" (1896), "plastic" (1353), "grid cells" (1396), "moire grids" (1899), "remapping" (1434), "partial remapping" (1476), "rate remapping" (1874), "global remapping" (1874), "impartial" (1440), "repetition suppression" (1447), "cell assembly" (1477), "memory fields" (1492), "tag" (1495), "feedforward" (1502), "general arousal" (1565), "replay" (1566), "positive illusions" (1576), "mirror" (1785), "action-listening" (1797), "fearful"..."disgusted" (1892), "schema" (1928), "microcircuit" (1933), "zoom lens"..."multiple spotlights" (1939), "hyperdirect" (1951), "disorder,"..."order," (2022), "windows" (2034), "mood stabilizer" (2035), "superorganism continuum" (2046), "warm glow" (2094), "noninformative vision" (2121), "resting" (2131), "disappear" (2146), "external monitoring" (2147), "fractals" (2156), "higher-level" (2209), "action-constrained" (2232), "audiogenic"..."rate maps" (2240), "noise" (2251), "real-life" (2266), "alert" (2308), "altruistic" (2330), "trade-off"..."having it all" (2342), "geometric module"..."cognitive map"..."declarative"..."episodic"..."procedural"..."bottom-up"..."top-down" (2416), "small-world" (2381), "effects" (2384), "intuitive statisticians" (2393), "selfish punisher"..."pay" (2440), "fingerprints" (2484), "memory" (2522), "sexy daughters"..."sexy sons"..."good genes"..."correlated response theory" (2536), "winning"..."losing" (2539), "gate opening" (2542), "anxiety-like" (2546), "limping behind"..."caused"..."catch" (2547. Comment.), "social awareness" (2574), "cooperative" (2575), "on-demand" (2593), "strangers" (2615), "Instinct to Teach" (2624), "emotionally negative" (2664), "DNA content variation (DCV)" (2673), "eye-field" (2698), "genetic asynchrony" (2705), "binding" (2718), "supernatural watcher"..."behavioural priming" (2736), "spiteful" (2737), "social affiliation" (2606), and "mistakes" (2764). The combination of brackets and quotation marks emphasises the doubts (2418).
The use of the present tense in the description of experimental results reflects the fantasy that what actually happened in the past tense of the experiment, generalises: see the abstracts of references (124) (431) (432) (433) (434) (435) (1807) (436) (1610) (1780) (1830) (1842) (1955) (2065) (1883) (2005) (2210) (2232) (2372) (2504) (2510) (2569) (2578) (2636) (2664) (2725) (2729) and (2757). Especially revealing are changes between the past tense and the present tense during the description of results, as in the abstracts of references (124) (435) (1119) (456) (460) (464) (1454) (1526) (466) (533) (534) (874) (951) (1612) (1679) (1772) (1787) (1791) (1810) (1946) (2053) (2054) (1895) (1938) (2119) (2209) (2219) (2233) (2264) (2265) (2304) (2311) (2314) (2315) (2320) (2336) (2394) (2419) (2431) (2483) (2489) (2492) (2507) (2543) (2555) (2561) (2587) (2632) (2643) (2719) (2734) (2739) (2741) (2758) and (2759). To some degree, the results of an experiment may reflect the format of that experiment, which is for the reader to decide (R, page 299), and is certainly not for the experimenter to discount. Insofar as generalisation is warranted, the verbal mood should be subjunctive or conditional, as distinct from indicative or imperative.
Figures of speech raise doubts. For example, the use of metaphor suggests a cognitive switch, possibly toggle (800) possibly flip-flop (813), and a lack of penetration of thought (2484) (2637) (2602, page 107) (2666). Ellipsis of language suggests ellipsis of thought (897) (1088) (727) (2223) (2707), and has been associated with what appears to be excitement (1515). Oxymoron portends ambiguity, for example "statistical instabilities" (1898), "fixational eye movements" (2089), "The 'Instinct to Teach' " (2624), the somewhat impenetrable and circular concept of "voluntary spontaneous motor acts" (1157), and the defiantly inaccessible "non-mnemonic role of the prefrontal cortex,...monitoring...information held in memory." (521). Personification anthropomorphises, and thus obfuscates (1650) (1714). It is all too easy to personify mental processes, for example, those that conspire (639). Hyperbole defines personal limitations (1602) (718) (1851) (2431). Puns may disclose fantasies, the moreso if in quotation marks (1894). The use of eponyms is narcissistic (2438) (2439), and leaves the reader with much to unravel, as in the distinction between non-Duchenne and Duchenne laughter (1906) (286) (565), which is much less accessible than the distinction between movement of the lower face only, and movement of both the lower face and the upper face, during laughter: connotations of the distinction can then be expressed in terms of identifiable muscle groups, and, more to the point, in terms of their nerve supplies, rather than in the name of a neurologist who published in 1862 (1907): references (2323) and (2324) illustrate the disarray that can follow the use of eponyms: reference (2352) shows the inconsistency indicative of ambivalence about eponyms, suggestive of insight. The offensive metonym "schizophrenics" is Inadvertent Social Information about the speaker (2519), who can then be placed squarely in a biological context (589) (666). Euphemism conveys that there is less to the statement than meets the eye (2729).
Non-existent words like "deconfound" (416), "a confound" (456), "deconvolve" (2340), "desuppression" (437),"counterregulatory" (462), "repressilator" (843), "affordances" (1825), "subchronic" (1883), "manipulandum" (1960), "suicidality" (2030), "phenogenetic" (2043), "pseudoarithmetic" (2106), "nonkin" (317), "nonconscious" (2237), "mentalize" (299) (638), "speciose" (2341), "unisensory" (2431), "ecocultural" (2491), "aggressees" (2506), "nonpainful" (2528), "disassortative" (2532), "nonprogressive" (2547. Comment.), "numerosity" (2060) (2178) (2592), and "nonaction" (2569), show a lack of insight into the evolution of jargon by people who work closely together. The same consideration applies to existent combinations of words that describe notional concepts, such as "deep tree-like pattern" (2381). Quotation marks around a non-existent word, such as "hyperdirect" (1951), "nonallocation" (2146), and "featural" (2494), and around combinations of existent words that describe notional concepts, such as "ideal reacher" (2120), "dual-language" (2159), "non-mirror transformation" (2370), "interaction environment" (2538), "judgement bias" (2576), "mesopontine rostromedial tegmental nucleus" (2560), "sequence rule"..."probability rule" (2613), "sexually antagonistic zygotic drive (SA-zygotic drive) of the sex chromosomes"..."no-cost-to-self nepotism rule" (2669), and "two-armed bandit" (2740), show insight into the evolution of jargon by people who work closely together. The disappearance of quotation marks from words within an abstract suggests that the words have been integrated into the language as one has been reading, for example, "modularity" (821), "set" (892), "aperture problem" (2103), "utilitarian" (1986), "irrational" (1836), "ghost" (2345), "accumulator" (2648), and "SA-zygotic drive" (2669). It is contradictory to invent the word "disfluent" to describe findings in a study of preferred fluency (914), to invent the word "dispreferred" in a study of language universals (2496), and to consider an interpretation that relies on "reverse inference" (1778). The use of words from another language, is, at best, convoluted, and is likely to lack the precision of one's own language, with its own distinctive set of rules (1779); (377) (2039). A change in language conveys uncertainty, the moreso the more rapid the change: thus one researcher referred to his list of items as "a diagnostic instrument", "the test", and "the test instrument" within the same paragraph, which variation was compounded by the researcher's reference, within the same paragraph, to "test results", which were not, in fact, results produced by the list of items, but were the results of a validation of the list of items, which were therefore notionally independent of the list of items and thus of any results produced by the list of items construed as a test (2514, page 121). Abbreviations such as "etc." abbreviate the reader's focus (2281).
Prodigies of scientific endeavour can be undermined by spelling errors, as in "pubic health surveillance." (493), "discreet regions of the brain," (1515), and "more than one compliment of C57BL/6 and 129/S1 alleles" (2618), by the use of superlatives to describe comparisons, for example, between the sexes, which must, perforce, be more than two in number (1759), by a switch from the past tense to the present tense in the description of the results of a study of perceptual switch rates in bipolar disorder (2483), by the use of a singular noun with a plural verb (2312), by the use of a plural noun with a singular verb (2458) (2515), by the failure of the author of a report about "episodic memory" to remember to include all his references (2610), by the omission of a reference in an article about lifestyles and cognition (2707), by a sentence without a verb in a text about lost copies (2617), and by the use of the word "arsenal" to describe tools used in social environmental contributions to autism (2654, page 568).
The content of an abstract should reflect its title (561) (1876) (1888) (2339) (2630) and should make sense (526) (1120) (756) (1537) (1644a) (1088) (897) (1317) (1526) (909) (949) (2000) (2069) (2096) (2241) (2411). The content of an article should reflect its title (2637). Language should be consistent (939) (2352) (2707) (2708). Conclusions may extend beyond results (2113) (2020) (2159). Self-centred mental imagery need not require neuroimages; it may be evident from the authors' opinion of their own work as useful (869). The introduction of new material towards the end of an abstract should raise concerns. For example, reference (2109) is entitled: "Male twins reduce fitness of female co-twins in humans.". The abstract is clear and coherent until the last sentence, wherein the term "adaptive sex allocation" is introduced. Recourse to the full text reveals that the word "allocation" is not used until the last paragraph of the discussion ("Finally...", page 10919), within the term "optimal sex allocation", and that the term "adaptive sex allocation" appears only in the abstract and thus is not discussed. In addition, the terms "sex-ratio" and "sex ratio" are used in the same paragraph ("Finally...", page 10919), without explanation as to any differences between them, and the term "sex ratio" is specified as "litter sex ratios" ("Therefore...", page 10915), "gestation sex ratios" ("Finally...", page 10919), and "maternal sex ratio" ("Finally...", page 10919), again without explanation as to any differences between these terms. There inconsistencies hint at an uneasy relationship between authors, referees, and editors, and at a corporate failure to appreciate the degree to which loose language undermines clarity of thought. Again, in reference (2700), some of the findings are explained in the penultimate sentence by the introduction of the idea that activation in the subcortex is less potently modulated by attentional state. Rather than speculate outside their own findings, the authors should use that sentence to tell us about the interaction between tinnitus and hyperacusis in their subjects, and the referees and editors should see that they do. A melodramatic variant is when the object of a study becomes the subject of that study (2717).
Concerns are evoked by the introduction of new references as a paper progresses through the results and the discussion (247), and by the introduction of new material in the legend to a figure in the results (2729). See also "...a suite of cooperative behaviours...".
Claims of originality require the utmost care, and if in doubt, the subjunctive mood and the conditional mood are preferable to the indicative mood (1558).
Prevention: mental health is the absence of mental illness.
In England, mental illness is allowed to develop, and is then managed using unreliable diagnoses and inadequately researched treatments. There is no workable description of mental health, so that the prevention of mental illness is well nigh impossible. How can one identify the deterioration from something that is not described into something that is described loosely? Parents and teachers need something against which to test their instincts (1656).
Mental health may be defined as the capacity to review independently one's mental state as it is perceived by others. Mental health is facilitated if one is able to see oneself through the eyes of other people and to hear oneself through the ears of other people, as judged by their responses, within one's territory and within one's habitat. [Back to selection if required.]
The evidence from evolution is that we begin life with the potential for these capacities (1220) (16) (14) (15) (811) (719) (2194) (2250). The evidence from over 80,000 consultations in a psychiatric consultancy of 25 years, is that this potential can be undermined by events within the habitat (17), specifically loss of instincts due to fear, with consequent schizophrenia, and failure to achieve independence within the habitat, with consequent depression and mania.
A more detailed appreciation of mental health can be gained through the remainder of this text, which describes the structure and function of the healthy brain, relates this to stress, and then explains how what is called "mental illness" can arise out of these structures and functions when the territory and the habitat are unfavourable, and how this developmental calamity can be avoided.
We inherit through our genes an array of potential responses, but these require to be developed for us by our family (2129), even if they do not use those responses themselves. If the responses are developed, then we are able to reduce our unfitness through cooperation in Society.
Our genes limit our instincts. Our genes limit our potential to inhibit our instincts. Our genes do not limit the potential of the adults who rear us to influence our instincts and our potential to inhibit our instincts. Hence the limited predictive value of genes in relation to mental illness (860) (1929) (1930).
There is a major difference between an adult who does not learn to become independent within his or her habitat, and who carries that lack of capacity into his or her territory, and an adult who does learn to become independent within his or her habitat, and who brings that capacity into his or her territory (342). Such a difference may have hierarchical and clinical consequences (973) (1324). Habits learned in the habitat may not be acceptable in the territory (R, page 271).
For humans, the habitat and the territory are represented by memories in the cerebral cortex, and these representations include memories of other people. At any moment, a change in feeling, mood or emotion, prompts the human to locate the explanation for that change in its representations of itself, of its habitat, and of its territory, and thus in its representations of other people. Enactment may follow, as in: "Look what you made me do." Emotional abuse of children occurs when adult humans locate the explanations for their own moods inside those children. Parents have to inhibit their own predatory instincts if they want their young to develop (2625). Adult human relationships may be adaptive because they extend explanatory space into the real habitat and the real territory. The ability to see and hear oneself through other people in one's territory does not necessarily imply the same ability in one's habitat, and vice versa. In the brain of the occupant, neuroanatomical differences between the territory and the habitat include the distribution of visceral activity, while endocrine differences include the distribution of oestrogen and progesterone (2358), chorionic gonadotrophin, oxytocin, and prolactin (2346) (2356).
One may choose not to use the capacity to review independently one's mental state as is it perceived by others, which is an expression of one's personality. One may discount some or all of the results of an independent review of one's mental state as it is perceived by others, which may reflect any of one's personality, a judgement about the others, and force of circumstances; one's personality the moreso if the discount is habitual, and thus independent of which others and of which circumstances. The capacity to review independently one's mental state as is it perceived by others increases with imagination and decreases with fatigue, with physical illness and with age. The lack of the capacity to review independently one's mental state as it is perceived by others does not necessarily mean that one is mentally ill in the conventional sense, it means that one is not mentally healthy, in the physiological sense that one lacks homeostatic capacity and in the social sense that one is not capable of independence, at the time in question.
An animal that sees itself through the eyes of its predator and hears itself through the ears of its predator increases its chances of survival (451) (1023) (1072) (1767) (2048) (2472), as does an animal that sees and hears itself through the eyes and ears of its prey (1295), and as does an animal that sees and hears itself through the eyes and ears of conspecifics (1104) (2162); (1438); (1105) (1666); (2257) (1768) (1823) (2217) (2270) (2609), including mates (1106) (1999), and thieves (1299) (1363), especially if the animal has the instinct that it may not be seen and heard accurately (280) (1103). Effectively, the animal's cerebral cortex contains visual and auditory representations of itself and of other animals, which representations may include memories. Separate nerve circuits may exist to locate other animals (1769), and to locate oneself through other animals (1729) (2095) (2493). If a bigger brain means more brain cells (2715), then it may confer an advantage: all the better to see you through your eyes and to hear you through your ears. Ritual fights provide practice (18) (1559) (610) (685) (1107) (2204) (2344). Generosity may improve partner choice (423). If territory and habitat are seen as reproductive space, then any reduction of fertility due to mental illness, or to its treatment, can be construed as altruism (702), allopatry notwithstanding (710). For a discussion of the operational definitions of territory and habitat, see reference (751), and for a discussion of the problems of ecological units, see reference (1683). For indications of the importance of reproduction in the interplay between selfishness and selflessness, see references (812) and (817). For the exploration of genetic nepotism, see reference (1270). For a proposed mathematical solution, see reference (819), but bear in mind that the underlying theory characterises real people as either cooperators or defectors (474) (985), when, in fact, they can be both (2440); at different times in the territory (2130), as in share dealing, and at the same time in the habitat, as in the ambivalence of passive aggression. Figure two configures some of the variables that require consideration.
Figure two
Adaptive responses such as homeostasis, phenotypic modification and phenotypic plasticity, however defined (2341) (2535), are likely to entail both the inhibition of responses that are now maladaptive and the activation of responses that are now adaptive, and the rates at which these two types of responses are produced need not be the same, due to their intrinsic chemistry. For example, there may be a temporal difference between the synaptic inhibition outside a cell of a chemical released by that cell through the sequence nuclear DNA, cytoplasmic RNA, and cytoplasmic protein, and the inhibition within that cell of the sequence nuclear DNA, cytoplasmic RNA, and cytoplasmic protein so that the aforementioned chemical is not released into the synapse in the first place. It follows that the rate of environmental change may be selective, and that, insofar as humans can alter the rate of environmental change, then they can be selective of one another, as in timed targets. Relatedly, an adaptation that is required due to a change in place may be easier to implement than the same adaptation due to a change in the environment in the same place, because of the time necessary for travel.
Insofar as adaptations entail the inhibition of responses, which responses have a genetic component, that is to say they have been derived to a degree from the genotype of twenty-two pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes in each cell, then adaptation entails inhibition of genes, referred to hereafter as genetic inhibition. It is likely that inhibition itself has a genetic element, so that genes inhibit genes, included in the genetic concepts of epistasis (735) (788) (1642) (2753) and hypostasis. Genetic inhibition may be one of the functions of the DNA that does not code for protein.
The reconfiguration of genes that occurs during meiosis may be explicable as disinhibitory, so that the genes inhibited through force of circumstance in the parent are reactivated and made available in uninhibited form for the next generation.
The seemingly suicidal behaviour of lemmings (1112) and of red grouse (D) becomes less inaccessible through the derivative concept of a hybrid, part inhibited and part activated: fight is inhibited, so flight ensues. We are able to review as incomplete, erstwhile concepts of group selection (1113) (1114) (1115) (1116) (1912) and kin selection (1112) (1113) (1117), because they are so focused teleologically on genetic activation in the future (2088), that they fail to address genetic inhibition in the present, and so are made to appear separate processes, when they are, in fact, two aspects of the same process (1948) (1949): that is, survival of the less unfit through cooperation, irrespective of relatedness.
Childhood may require phenotypic modifications that are inhibitory of the child's genotype, and to the degree that the genotype becomes irretrievable, mental illness looms. In biochemical terms, what happens to the nuclear DNA, cytoplasmic RNA, and cytoplasmic proteins that produce a neurotransmittter, if the release of that neurotransmitter is inhibited consistently during formative years?
There is a major difference between a family wherein the offspring are cultivated in their own right, that is independent of adult activities, and a family wherein the offspring are part of a division of labour inclusive of adult activities, because the distribution of responses in a division of labour necessitates genetic inhibition, that is the inhibiton of genes that produce the responses to be delivered by the other parties, and genetic activation, that is the activation of genes that produce the responses to be delivered by onself. Each inhibition and activation is likely to have chemical and hormonal consequences, with obligate chemical time constants necessary for the inhibitions and activations to be constructed at a molecular level.
One of the chemical consequences of inhibition and activation is the expenditure of chemical energy, so that these processes are costly, and this is one of the confounding variables of formal intelligence tests. The more chemical energy that a child has to expend on the orchestration of responses that enable survival in the family habitat, then the less chemical energy the child has for cognitive activity.
Genetic inhibition is subject to hormonal influences. Males get so detached from parts of themselves that they are unable to access those parts introspectively, and can only do so through their senses, in sexual activity.
Alcohol is used to disinhibit otherwise concealed genes, with less ownership of the denouement than would occur in sobriety.
The concept of sexual equality has encouraged women to discount real differences between themselves and men (1588), which has exposed an entire generation of women to lack of preparedness for middle age, to the degree that some lives have been shortened. One form of suicide is the corporeal ending of a life that is dead already.
The more we inhibit ourselves, and thus our genes, then the more likely we are to experience that inhibited part of ourselves through our senses, that is, to see and hear ourselves as another person through our own eyes and ears. The inhibition of subcortical activity makes cortical responses to external stimuli appear to come from those external stimuli alone, exclusive of remembered responses to those external stimuli, so that we experience paranoid apperceptions.
The more that a human is inhibited by another human, then the more likely he or she is to experience that inhibited part through the senses, as another human: the more that a human inhibits himself or herself, then the more likely he or she is to experience that inhibited part through the senses, as another human: adult humans do not often inhibit themselves unknowingly because other adult humans inhibit them, but children do, with the consequence of mental illness.
An organism cannot see and hear itself through the eyes and ears of other organisms if there is no self to see and hear, because of the formative inhibition of instinctive spontaneity by other organisms, and then because of the learned inhibition of the organism, by the organism itself (P, page 300).
The concept of genetic inhibition can be applied to theories of language (2185) (2155) (2333), which need to explain why there is a lack of distinction between subjects and objects in the language of some adult humans some of the time, as in the regressive: "Look what you made me do.", which statement emphasises the reducibility of language. Actually, the syntactic subject "I" exists at two levels; a primitive subject which perceives objects (2509), and a cultivated subject which perceives objects perceive itself, the subject, as it experiences itself introspectively through its instincts: "I see you." and "I see you seeing me." respectively. Given the subject's capacity to perceive objects, and given that the subject has introspective capacity, the degree to which the object mirrors the subject (2098) as the subject experiences itself introspectively becomes the crucial variable. To what degree is the subject genetically inhibited and genetically activated in the presence of the object? Verbal learning of syntactic rules (2257) at school, without the experience of being perceived in one's own terms at home, is duly expressed by the primitive "I" as the uncultivated mixture of subjects and objects found in hallucinations and delusions, when the adolescent starts to speak for himself or for herself: "I can hear the instructor talking to my Father about my driving.". Syntactic rules are not determinate, as evidenced by the fact that many patients with hallucinations and delusions use syntactic rules accurately to describe working relationships with people about whom they do not have hallucinations and delusions. The syntactic subject is formed out of the syntactic object, who conveys, partly through syntactic rules, that the subject exists outside the object. The syntactic subject sees and hears itself through the responses of syntactic object. What is determinate, then, is the perception by the subject through his or her eyes or ears or both, of responses that reflect his or her introspected instincts, which responses may then be described through syntactic rules. An implication for clinical psychiatry is that when a child or an adolescent is troubled, then neuroimages are required of all the members of the habitat, and not just of the notional "patient". An issue for academic psychiatry is the usefulness of empiricism, where that means verbal responses within which introspectively accessible meanings have been ignored, for example, through a lack of formal attention to vocalisation: the "Yes" that means "No", and the "No" that means "Yes". For a more detailed, cellular illustration, see Brain cells.
A QUICK GUIDE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ILLNESS.
The brain has an engine (e), capacitors (c), a distributor (ds), gears (g), a steering wheel (sw), a driver (d), brakes (b), a seat for a driving instructor (di) and a map of the world (mw).
Figure three
During early life, the driver is guided by a driving instructor, who lets the driver take charge at times. The driver learns how to drive safely, with consideration for others but with allowance for careless and dangerous driving by others. The driver learns maps of the world, and also what to do if lost and if there is a breakdown. After fifteen years, the driving instructor withdraws gradually.
The essence of what has been called "schizophrenia" is that the driver is afraid of the driving instructor or of the world or of both, so that the driver lets the driving instructor do all the driving. The driver may pretend to explore the world under the guidance of the driving instructor, but really, the driver is only going where he or she thinks the driving instructor wants him or her to go. Consequently, when the driving instructor leaves, the driver is unsafe, inconsiderate, naive and headstrong, and only able to explore the world by calling to mind memories of the driving instructor, as in: "I can hear the instructor talking to my Father about my driving." [Back to Prevention: mental health is the absence of mental illness.]
The gist of what has been called "depression" is that the driver acquires some knowledge of driving and of the world through the driving instructor, but a dependency remains between the driver and the driving instructor so that if the driving instructor is absent, the driver feels incompetent and lost (depression). The driver may make a determined attempt to explore the world as if nothing has changed, but this tends to be frantic and unpredictable (mania).
THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE BRAIN.
General outline, with a notional example.
The brain comprises a cerebrum, inclusive of two cerebral hemispheres (CH), and also a cerebellum, inclusive of two cerebellar hemispheres (CBH), and a brainstem (BS). The cerebral hemishperes are connected by a large bundle of nerves, the corpus callosum (CC). Each cerebral hemisphere is divided into lobes, specifically the parietal lobe (PL), the temporal lobe (TL), the occipital lobe (OL), and the frontal lobe (FL), which has both outer (OFL) and inner (IFL) parts.
Deep within each cerebral hemisphere are three basal ganglia, specifically the caudate nucleus (CN), the putamen (P), and the globus pallidus (GP), and, central to these, a thalamus (T). A hypothalamus (HY) is below the front of each thalamus, and is connected with a substantia innominata (SI), a hippocampus (HI), a stria terminalis (ST) and an amygdala (A). The brainstem is behind the hypothalami and below the thalami and extends to the top of the spinal cord, and comprises on each side, a midbrain (MB), a pons (P) and a medulla oblongata (MO). All these structures are connected to one another by a diffuse reticular network of nerves. Figure four shows a front view, while Figure six shows outside and inside views.
A young man of twenty-five, John, is asleep in his suburban flat. It is 7.30 am on a late September morning. John is awoken suddenly by a loud noise. Angrily, John sits up, throws off his bed-clothes, stands up and approaches his bedroom window, where he opens the curtains and peers out. The loud noise has activated the diffuse reticular network of nerves of John's brain, specifically those reticular nerves that accompany the auditory nerves, which in turn have activated the inferior colliculi in the midbrain. Initially, John's movements are being controlled by the superior colliculi, in conjunction with the cerebellum, which has stimulated spinal nerves to increase muscle tone. Potential movements are reverberating in a loop between the substantiae nigrae and a central motor nucleus in the pons. John's anger is reflected in activation of his amygdalae. Initially, John's responses are being determined by his immediate sensory perceptions, but these are starting to reverberate in his hippocampi, where they are becoming short-term memories.
Having thrown off his bed-clothes, John has started to feel cold, and as the cooled blood from his limbs circulates to his brain, his hypothalami produce constriction of his peripheral blood vessels through descending fibres to the sides of his spinal cord, and thereafter to his peripheral nerves, with consequent reduction in heat loss. The same circuitry is generating a degree of anxiety, as the hypothalami stimulate the release of adrenaline from the inner parts of the adrenal glands, which are on either side of the vertebral column, on top of the kidneys. The advent of light through the curtains has started to lower John's melatonin, with consequent increase in his cortisone and in his testosterone.
John's approach to his bedroom window was controlled by the front, motor nuclei of his thalami. The wave of reticular activation now reaches the entire thalami, so that sensory input, motor output and emotional and visceral responses are transmitted in an orderly fashion. Thus, the sensation of cold activates the back, sensory thalami, through spinal nerves that originate in skin receptors. The cerebellum updates the front, motor thalami with current, actual movements, while potential movements are now signalled to the front, motor thalami by an extended loop that includes not only the substantiae nigrae and the central, motor nucleus in the pons, but also the basal ganglia. The incensed amygdalae have stimulated the inner, emotional and visceral thalami. The immediate sensory perceptions, having reverberated in the hippocampi to become retrievable, short-term memories, are now starting to enter the outermost memory circuits of the lobes of the cerebral hemispheres, where they will be consolidated as long-term memories, under the influence of the substantiae innominatae: the loud noise will be associated with the abrupt awakening and with the reactions of anger and of anxiety. Such is the intensity of John's anger at this untimely interruption that his amygdalae have taken not only the indirect, thalamic route to the lobes of the brain, but they have also taken the quick, direct route through the hooked bundles.
The wave of reticular activation now reaches the lobes of John's cerebral hemispheres, both directly through reticular fibres and indirectly through the thalami. Given that the initial stimulus was a loud noise, there are relatively intense foci of activation in the auditory, temporal lobes, mediated in part by the sensory thalami. Given that John's initial, emotional response was one of anger, there are intense foci of activity in the cingulate lobes, mediated in part by the emotional and visceral thalami. The amygdalar quick response has stimulated the inner, front part of the frontal lobes through the hooked bundles. The visual, occipital lobes have been stimulated by the light, while the back parts of the parietal lobes are starting to orchestrate movements, inclusive of eye movements, and the front parts of the parietal lobes are mediating John's body image in the registration of cold. The back parts of the frontal lobes are contributing, with the parietal lobes, to control of movements in general and of eye movements in particular. These lobes of the cerebral hemispheres are communicating with each other through the corpus callosum and also through their outermost, memory circuits. John realises that he is sniffing for gas, and recalls that on a previous occasion, a loud noise that had awoken him suddenly had been due to an explosion of gas. At that moment, the perception of a loud noise is interacting with the memory of a previous loud noise to become an apperception, which is determining John's behaviour.
Hitherto, a wave of reticular activation has spread reactively from below upwards throughout John's brain. Now, John will take responsibility for his behaviour as his frontal lobes start to orchestrate his brain from above downwards.
In the first three examples below, John's behaviour is determined by his memories and by his emotional and visceral responses, in the absence of any further sensory input.
John shrugs his shoulders, closes the curtains and muses: "Not my problem.". John lies down on the bed and pulls up his bed-clothes. This is regression, because John is failing to take social responsibility, and is also failing to take the personal responsibility of using the incident to calibrate his behaviour against actuality. Reticular activation starts to recede. Reverberations, both motor and memory, start to slow. The cerebellum signals to the spinal cord to reduce muscle tone. Amygdalar activation diminishes. The warming of John's limbs by his bed-clothes produces a sensation of warmth through the sensory thalami and then in the body images of the parietal lobes. The resumption of darkness is followed by increases in melatonin with consequent decreases in cortisone and testosterone. Adrenaline levels diminish.
John's anxieties about a gas explosion overwhelm him. John thinks about turning off the central heating to extinguish the pilot light. John dithers for what seems like ages and is distracted by palpitations and by pins and needles in his hands and feet. John then 'phones 999, when he cannot remember if he has turned off the central heating when asked by the operator. Reticular activation is intense. Potential motor responses are those of flight. The cerebellum is redistributing tone to the extensor muscles, which are used for flight. John is finding it difficult to organise his thoughts, and to keep images of personal injury and death out of his mind. Adrenaline levels are extremely high and are affecting the cardiovascular and respiratory centres in John's medullae oblongatae, causing a very rapid heart rate and respiration that is so rapid that it has altered John's blood chemistry and thus his peripheral nerves.
Things have not gone well for John over the last couple of years. John's fiancée of two years ended their engagement a year ago, and rumour has had it that she married recently. Having been unemployed for a year, John has just commenced a probationary post at the local bank, but the Manager is an overbearing, irritable man. John's anger at these vagaries compounds his anger at having been awoken so rudely, and he bangs his now warm, perspirant fist on the bedroom wall, shouting: "Show some respect!". Reticular activation is particularly intense on the inner sides of John's brain. The amygdalae have transcended the inhibition afforded by the hooked bundles from the inner, front parts of the frontal lobes. The emotional and visceral thalami and the cingulate lobes are very active. Potential movements are those of hostility, and John visualises shouting: "Show some respect!" in the face of the Bank Manager. The cerebellum is distributing increased tone to the extensor muscles, which are used to stand up and fight. Adrenaline levels are high, and are activating the sweat glands.
In the next three examples, the outer, front parts of the frontal lobes orchestrate further sensory input as John surveys the scene through the opened curtains, and this input influences John's subsequent behaviour.
Across the road, in front of the Newsagent's shop John sees and hears a young lad picking himself up from underneath his felled bicycle. The Newsagent and passers-by are giving assistance. A bag of newspapers has started to empty over the pavement. Dolefully, John returns to sit on his bed, reflective of past, personal memories of similar mishaps. John feels a pain in his left knee. Reticular activation starts to recede. Reverberations, both motor and memory, slow. John's cerebellum distributes increased tone to his flexor muscles, enabling John to assume a rather hunched posture on his bed. John finds himself rubbing his left knee as he recalls a particular incident when he injured that knee during a newspaper round ten years' previously. There are consequent foci of activation in the sensory thalami and in the body image of John's left knee in his parietal lobes. Adrenaline levels are falling, while prolactin levels are rising, protectively.
At the entrance to the local supermarket, a young woman is standing shaking her clenched fists, and is screaming. The young woman's shopping bag has burst and her onions are rolling down the road. Now, this young woman has just moved into the neighbourhood, and John has rather fancied her. A smile plays gently on John's lips, and he readies himself to give assistance, testosterone ascendant. Reticular activation starts to recede, and reverberations, both motor and memory, slow. The cerebellum distributes increased muscle tone to John's flexor muscles, protectively so. Images of good times with his former fiancée start to come into John's mind. The sensation of cold is replaced by a rather ticklish feeling coming from his pelvis, and there are foci of activation in the body image of his genitalia in his parietal lobes. As well as the rise in testosterone, there is a fall in adrenaline and a rise in prolactin, protectively. The hypothalami reduce amygdalar arousal, and thus anger, through the striae terminales.
John's attention is taken by a light being switched off. Glancing at the car park, John sees to his dismay that a large, rather posh-looking car is in contact with the back of his own humble vehicle. The driver has disembarked and is surveying the damage. Furtively, the driver looks around, and then gets back into his car quickly and drives off, only switching on his lights when some fifty yards away. John's anger is incandescent, but is tempered by the realisation that the driver is none other than his current employer. John is stymied. Part of him wants to go to the bank immediately and confront the Manager with his carelessness and his dishonesty. But this job has been hard to come by. This Manager is not someone who would be objective about an employee to whom he felt behoven. Momentarily, John feels dizzy, and realises that he has been holding his breath. After what seems like an age of vacillation, John determines to inhibit his natural responses. Reticular activation is particularly intense on the inner sides of John's cerebral hemispheres. The activation in John's amygdalae is matched by extremely high levels of inhibition delivered by the inner, front parts of the frontal lobes through the hooked bundles. The conflicts reverberate around and around in John's cingulate lobes. Contradictory motor responses circulate backwards and forwards through the extended loop of the basal ganglia, the substantiae nigrae and the central, motor nucleus in the pons, seemingly challenging the outer, front parts of John's frontal lobes to make a decision. The cerebellum is distributing increased tone to the extensor muscles but at the same moment the cerebellum is distributing increased tone to the flexor muscles, so that John's stymied immobility is due to a generalised tension state. Images of triumph over the Bank Manager are offset by memories of inactivity and of penury. Adrenaline levels are so high that they are affecting the respiratory centre in the medullae oblongatae, with consequent breath-holding, and then dizziness.
Muscles contract because of the release of chemical activators from the ends of nerves. Over the next few months, John will experience multiple episodes when he is on the verge of giving vent to his anger to the Bank Manager, but every time, John will inhibit his responses for the sake of his job. Such muscular inhibition requires the release of chemical inhibitors to offset the chemical activators and thereby block the muscular contractions. The chemical activators are made in nerves by proteins called enzymes, which in turn are produced by ribonucleic acid (RNA), under the influence of chemical formulae held by deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the nuclei of the nerves. How many episodes of personal inhibition over what period of time will be required before the chemical inhibition starts to work backwards and affect the enzymes, then the RNA, and then the DNA? Is there a danger that this inhibition of natural responses at work will start to affect other areas of John's life? Let us suppose that after a year's restraint John secures a promotion to another branch. How long will it take for John's natural responses to return, so that he can relate spontaneously to authority figures? The answer is probably about six months if bereavement is anything to go by, because that is the average time required for the reconfiguration of responses after the death of a partner for whom the responses had been configured in the first place, so as to make the relationship workable.
What would happen chemically if this inhibition of natural responses endured in a five year-old child?
What would happen chemically if this inhibition of natural responses endured in a five month-old child?
The cerebral hemispheres.
The cerebral hemispheres are situated above the cerebellar hemispheres.
Each cerebral hemisphere is divided into lobes (2674), specifically the parietal lobe (PL), the temporal lobe (TL), the occipital lobe (OL), and the frontal lobe (FL), which has both outer (OFL) and inner (IFL) parts.
The inner side of each cerebral hemisphere mediates personal responses (232) (1079) (687) (1017) (2522), many of which come from the cingulate lobe (CL) (922) (528) (234) (235) (529) (19) (559) (2147) (2595) (2688). There are connections with areas that contain body images for pain (876) (1746), touch (469) (1596), temperature (2528), and visceral sensations (405) (406) (651) (1264) (416) (525), and with areas that generate motor responses (1048), and visceral responses (20) (233) (326) (416).
The inner side of each cerebral hemisphere is associated strongly with personal identity. By way of contrast, the outer side of each cerebral hemisphere is associated strongly with auditory (960) (1277) (2390) (470); (908); (21) (1694) and visual (574) (960) (2377); (2249) (2474) (2678); (882) (883) (1890) (2314) (2359) (2455) (2758); (1786); (21) (1694) representation of the outside world, including personal space (1833). There may be a unique, cellular basis to personal responses, of comparatively recent evolution (596), perhaps in relation to facial expression (1668) (2268).
Each cerebral hemisphere has general sensory awareness that can become focused (961); (410) (22) (934) (2585); (1239) (555a) (555b) (1245) and that can evoke past sensory experiences (P, pages 164-168) (23) (730); general motor responsiveness (1459) (1048) (1049) (930) that can become focused (2334) (2521); (24) (1050) (932) (2173) and that can evoke past motor responses; a general body image (879) (880) (886) (895) that can become focused (1518) (868) (1195) (2655) (2678) and that can evoke past body images (25) (26) (898); and a body image for pain, that can become focused (920), and that can evoke memories (921) (28) (27) (1972). The body image can be given external spatial coordinates, so that one sees onself through one's own eyes (1351) (1738). The inner side of each cerebral hemisphere evokes memories of personal responses, pain and visceral sensations.
Sensory integration occurs in the cerebral cortex, within the sense of vision (1390) (1330) (1140), and between the senses of taste and smell (1260), of taste, smell, touch, audition, and vision (1720), of touch and vision (1855) (2121) (2710), of touch and audition (1979) (1980), of touch, audition and vision (1237) (2450), of vibration and vision (2122), of balance and vision (1831), of motion and vision (2541), and of audition and vision (1336) (1171) (1694) (1748) (1854) (1962).
Sensory discrimination occurs in the cerebral cortex, within the sense of touch (1249) (2464), of audition (1236) (1245) (1647) (2540), and of vision (1291) (1292) (1286) (1994) (2275), and between the senses of audition and vision (1748) (2556). Sensory discrimination has been timed (1293) (1245).
Sensory attention can be divided (1355) (2620).
Sensory to motor transformation occurs in the cerebral cortex (1805) (2233) (2125) (2248) (2586) (2668) (2742).
Visceral sensations come from the viscera, that is the internal organs, whereas somatic sensations come from the soma, that is the body (814).
The outer side of each cerebral hemisphere is invaginated to form the insula, which is associated with pain (876), touch (1596), taste (405) (1264), visceral sensations (406) (1595) (1603) (525), visceral responses (416), and rewards (2762).
The horizontal area between the convex outer frontal lobe (OFL) and the vertical inner frontal lobe (IFL) overlies the eye cavity and is associated with taste (1124) and smell (1125), through respective sensory nerves (1126) (1127). Changes in taste may be mediated by the learning (1959) (2015) (2365) and reversal learning (1194) that are attributed to this particular area, which has been distinguished from the ventral IFL (233) (1430) (2255), and from the cingulate lobe (1470). Delays and rewards are mediated here (1025) (2303) (2629) (2658).
Each cerebral hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body, which balances the control of the same side of the body by each cerebellar hemisphere. However, some control of the same side of the body is possible by each cerebral hemisphere (972).
Each cerebral hemisphere is dominant for different activities (1278) (29) (686) (2281). For example, the left cerebral hemisphere is dominant for motor activities, while the right cerebral hemisphere is dominant for sensory activities (594) (1251) (1275) (2083). The left hemisphere is dominant for verbal memories, while the right hemisphere is dominant for visual memories (923). Sensory awareness diminishes during motor acts (59) (60) (976), so that dominance may have evolved to allow one cerebral hemisphere to remain fully aware while the other cerebral hemisphere acts. A likely corollary is that motor responsiveness diminishes during sensory focus, and, again, dominance would enable both activities to be maintained concurrently. Dominance is thus a form of specialisation (529) (1238) (1230) (2471), with related cerebral asymmetry (380) (560) (1560) (2072) (2662) (2725), which increases the range of activities, both in safety (266) (529), and in vigilance (1586). The transition from arboreality to terrestriality may have enabled laterality (2271). It is likely that in immediate danger, symmetry prevails, so that the danger is given undivided attention. Symmetry may be related to gender (1942) (1845) (2042) (2210), and to sexuality (2508).
Dominance may affect the threshold for muscular stimulation (2353).
Dominance varies with age (1077) (2364). Somatic dominance applies to eyes and to feet, as well as to hands (1288) (1289).
Senescence may bring asymmetry, and related symptoms (1234). Asymmetry has somatic and hormonal correlates (1283).
Concepts activate the front of the brain, whereas percepts activate the back of the brain (912).
Timed control has activated the language areas of the left cerebral hemisphere (2068).
Letters and symbols show common features across languages, and these appear to reflect the contours of natural scenes (744) (1122). Numeracy has been studied in birds (248), in monkeys (1161) (1619) (2060) (2178) (2592), in human infants (1347), and in human adults (2165). Reading is a function of multiple circuits, both during (1692) (1880), and after (1021) (2264) (2395) development. Rhyming and spelling have been localised (1328).
The lack of specialisation that has been described in schizophrenia may reflect apprehensiveness (861).
The contrast between the inner side and the outer side of both cerebral hemispheres, as distinct from the contrast between the two cerebral hemispheres, has been developed in a model of creativity (1585).
The inhibitory focus of the social and educational process is directed more at the verbal activity of the left cerebral hemisphere, than it is at the acoustic activity of the right cerebral hemisphere, which is why the guitar is a symbol of individuality in adolescence, and why the visual world is seen differently by the right and left sides of the brain (1133).
Communications within each cerebral hemisphere are facilitated by bundles of nerve fibres that connect its lobes (971) (1987), and these may be part of the intermediate step between perception and execution of gestures (989).
Communications between the two cerebral hemispheres are facilitated by a large bundle of nerves that connects them, the corpus callosum (1055) (240) (1987) (1904) (2320). One cerebral hemisphere can inhibit the other cerebral hemisphere so as to produce a unilateral motor response (959). Reduction of the inhibition between the two cerebral hemispheres has produced a more rapid motor response (1838). The two cerebral hemispheres can work together in sequence, when one cerebral hemisphere acts on the environment and then the other cerebral hemisphere monitors the effects of those acts on the environment and modifies subsequent acts accordingly (30) (1826). Perception may be facilitated by contrast enhancement between the two cerebral hemispheres (1057). The stimulation of one cerebral hemisphere by the other cerebral hemisphere is seen when humans talk to themselves or to their pets, and also when they participate in non-intersecting soliloquies with other humans. For a more detailed, cellular illustration, see Brain cells.
Communications within each cerebral hemisphere have been compared with communications between the two cerebral hemispheres (2221).
The corpus callosum may be reduced in size in schizophrenia (2462).
Each cerebral hemisphere has an outer layer of nerve cells called the cerebral cortex.
The outer surface of each cerebral hemisphere has a neocortex of six layers, while the inner surface of each cerebral hemisphere has a mesocortex of four or five layers above, and an allocortex of three layers below. See these references for studies of architecture (2175) (2166), of precise microarchitecture (945) (1284) (2107) (2684), of cell types (945) (2051) (2461) (2685) (2757), of cell development (946), and of spontaneous activity (1775).
The cells appear grey, compared with the nerve fibres, which appear white. Some unlikely associations have been found between white matter and mendacity (662) (1848), and between neocortical volume, that is grey matter plus white matter, and deception (2709), while a less unlikely association has been shown between grey matter and chronic back pain (1507). Grey matter has been seen to increase during learning (990) (1843).
The nerve cells are surrounded by connective tissue cells, called glia (2352) (2424) (2410) (2590), and these have been thought to support metabolic demands (2407). The ratios between glia and neurones in human brain structures are similar to those found in other primates (2559).
Primate brains have a larger number of neurones than rodent brains of similar size (1887). Within primates, absolute brain size has been shown to be a better predictor of cognitive ability than relative brain size (2040). Within humans, cerebral volume has correlated with verbal ability and with visuospatial ability, subject to sex and to handedness (2042).
There are cells in the cerebral cortex that become active both when the organism sees another organism produce a response, and when it produces that response itself (31) (32) (2171) (2415). These cells are likely to be a basis for learning (1664) (2225), and they afford explanations for lip-reading (1078), for shared body images, for phantom limbs (1240), for enactment of someone else's wishes, for protective responses, and for division of labour within the animal kingdom (245) (341) (577) (804) (2010). Studies of mirror neurones in developmental disorders should address the actual relationship between the patient and his or her parents (1669), and, in particular, the degree to which each parent can mirror the patient's responses back to the patient, both in terms of motor responses, such as folding of the arms, and also in terms of what those motor responses are likely to mean to the patient; thus, the parent would accompany mirrored folding of the arms with a facial expression, such as sad or happy or angry. The predictions to be disproved, using an operant model, are that there will be less activation of identical areas of the brains of children with developmental disorders and the brains of their parents, than between the brains of normal children and the brains of their parents, not only when the child's responses follow the parent's responses, but also when the parent's responses follow the child's responses (1739); and also that the differences between the brains of parents of children with developmental disorders and the brains of their children persist when those parents are studied with normal children, and that the differences between the brains of children with developmental disorders and the brains of their parents reduce when those children are studied with the parents of normal children.
When cells in the cerebral cortex become active as the organism sees another organism produce a response (33), this is an expression of memory (263), and then of preparatory motor (premotor) behaviour (1787). Similar considerations apply to cells that become active when the organism hears sounds related to actions (1797), and sees objects related to actions (1935).
There are cells in the cerebral cortex that become active when the organism sees another organism receive a response (372), and this is an expression of memory (373) (1700), and then of preparatory (premotor) behaviour (374). Terms such as empathy (375) (376) (353) and schadenfreude (377) (2039) cloud the issues, and enable findings which are likely to lack specificity (1678).
Given that perception occurs in cells in the inner layers 4 to 6 of the cerebral cortex and that memory of perception occurs in cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the cerebral cortex, and given that one's self is represented by the mesocortex on the inner side of both cerebral hemispheres, while others are represented by the neocortex on the outer side of both cerebral hemispheres, then one's perception of another person perceiving one's self will make a complete circuit between cells in the inner layers 4 to 6 of the mesocortex on the inner side of both cerebral hemispheres and cells in the inner layers 4 to 6 of the neocortex on the outer side of both cerebral hemispheres, while one's memory of one's perception of one's self by another person will make a complete circuit between cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the mesocortex on the inner side of both cerebral hemispheres and cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the neocortex on the outer side of both cerebral hemispheres. It follows that the more often one has perceived one's self to be perceived by others and the more of one's self that one has perceived to be perceived by others, then the more one's self will be represented by the cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the cerebral cortex, and by a complete circuit between the cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the mesocortex on the inner side of both cerebral hemispheres and cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the neocortex on the outer side of both cerebral hemispheres. Insofar as the memory is of someone else's look of concern in response to one's facial quiver, and is thus in one's mind's eye, then the complete circuit will be between the cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the mesocortex on the inner side of both cerebral hemispheres and cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the neocortex of the occipital lobes, which is the cellular specification of seeing one's self through the eyes of another person, because one has seen another person see one's self. Insofar as the memory is of someone else's words of comfort in response to one's plaintive cry, and is thus in one's mind's ear, then the complete circuit will be between the cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the mesocortex on the inner side of both cerebral hemispheres and cells in the outer layers 1 to 3 of the neocortex of the temporal lobes, which is the cellular specification of hearing one's self through the ears of another person, because one has heard another person hear one's self. Complete circuits between mesocortex and neocortex reduce the likelihood of splits in the brain, whether they are within cerebral hemispheres or between cerebral hemispheres, because of the instinctual input to the mesocortex and the perceptual input to the neocortex. [Back to Introduction if required.]
For historical perspectives of the cerebral hemispheres, see references (616) and (1160).
The cerebellar hemispheres.
The cerebellar hemispheres are situated below the cerebral hemispheres and behind the brainstem, and they are connected by the central vermis, with which they constitute the cerebellum.
Each cerebellar hemisphere controls the same side of the body (2734). This balances the control by each cerebral hemisphere of the opposite side of the body: if one side of the brain is injured, both sides of the body can still be moved.
The cerebellar hemispheres coordinate movement (34) (500) (676) (2320), including eye movement (2486), through the use of immediate sensory feedback stimuli to refine motor responses (1303) (1306) (1597) (1706) (2068), which otherwise would be based on remembered motor responses to similar stimuli in the past (35) (36). The lack of such refinements is evident in the motor approximations of drunkenness, in which state talking and walking are based largely on memory, as distinct from perception.
Immediacy may be served by connections between brain cells that are electrical (535), and implicitly quicker, rather than chemical, and implicitly slower, although the immediacy may bring a loss of precision. Chemical connections may occur between neurones and blood vessels (673) (1192) (1304) (1371) (2355).
The immediate sensory stimuli come from the spinal cord (37a) (37b), and from the brainstem (355) (889), while at least some of the remembered responses are relayed from the parietal (38) (1556), temporal (440), occipital and frontal lobes of the cerebral hemispheres, through the pons in the brainstem (39) (1031) (2226).
Responses that have been unproductive in the past may be inhibited by the cerebellar hemispheres; this minimises the organism's responses to predictable sensory events, which emphasises the importance of an immediate, on-line, brainstem review of sensory events to ensure that they are indeed the same, predictable events that occurred before.
The cerebellar hemispheres may detect the operation of an outside force on the organism, through the occurrence of muscular stretch in the absence of prior, explanatory, muscular contraction. This could work as follows: when the organism moves its own muscles, the stimuli to move the muscles are copied to the cerebellar hemispheres, where they offset the activation caused by the resultant stretch of the muscles, which activation is recorded in the cerebellar hemispheres; the absence of the offset, or corollary discharge, indicates that the muscle has been stretched by an external force (41) (2761).
Memories of past motor responses to sensory stimuli enable visual images of motor responses (42), and play activity enables a child to acquire these images in relative safety (43) (2143) (2157, page 68). Inferences may be made about motor skills when adults play (348). The cerebellum distinguishes between actual movement and imagined movement (927), especially in its anterior area (1009).
A child whose motor responses are inhibited habitually acquires a body image of motor responses that is less than his or her innate, that is genetic, potential. When the sex hormones of puberty surmount inhibitions, the now adolescent is faced with the problem of who is responsible for unfamiliar motor responses, for example to anger. It is extremely common for adolescents to use alcohol and recreational drugs to address this problem, because, objectively, the implementation of the unfamiliar responses during inebriety is seemingly because of inebriety, and, subjectively, it feels as if another character has been responsible. Failure to address the problem augurs the disturbances of passivity phenomena (44).
Alcohol and recreational drugs may act as deterrents to social interactions (583).
The cerebellum has an outer cortex of three cell layers (1310), and in humans, each cerebellar hemisphere contains four nuclei. Traversal of the cerebellar cortex entails more synapses than circuitry through the cerebellar nuclei alone (1307) (1309) (1755).
Within the Purkinje cell in the cerebellar cortex, coordination occurs as the electrical activity evoked by an immediate sensory stimulus offsets the electrical activity associated with the remembered response to a similar sensory stimulus (40) (1305) (1370) (1394). Presumably, the cerebellar nuclei transmit the result of the offset to the rest of the brain (1378) (1812). A similar system may enable variation of responsiveness to sensory stimuli (929). Timing is a function of alignment of Purkinje cells (2003).
The cerebellum may participate in visceral activity (844); in cognition (950); and in working memory (1302) (2463).
The cerebellum varies in size and structure between and within vertebrate classes, for example (F, page 199) (G, pages 306-307) (611) (2269a) (2269b). The hemispheres of primates are relatively large, probably due to their manual dexterity (762). The phylogeny of the cerebellum has been studied comparatively in birds and in flying reptiles (1162).
The basal ganglia.
Deep within each cerebral hemisphere, beside, and lateral to, each thalamus, are three basal ganglia, which produce and contain potential motor responses (45) (1781).
Specifically, the caudate nucleus produces motor responses for the head, neck and eyes (46) (1163) (1016), the putamen produces motor responses for the body, while the globus pallidus keeps motor responses on hold until they are needed (47), when they are literally funnelled through (1201). Lack of movement may be an active process (48). Potential responses reverberate with the brainstem, specifically the substantia nigra, which also keeps motor responses on hold until they are needed (1749). The organism is thus able to select from a number of potential motor responses that are in a state of readiness (49) (2248) (2613).
One of the meanings of stress is that the reverberant system of potential motor responses is overloaded, because input has exceeded output.
Winding someone up includes stimulating potential motor responses while at the same time denying an opportunity to express them (356). A debrief is winding down by giving an opportunity to discharge reverberant motor responses, expressed in animals as the redirection of aggression (321), and in early Man, as laughter (565).
The need to discharge unused muscular activity so as to reset motor units may explain the timing of participation in ritual fights between conspecifics (18), which are relatively safe (321), and may also be at least somewhat explanatory of homosexual behaviour in animals (2143), of why predators attack unpalatable prey (322), of why herring gulls pull up grass during a fight (518), of why dead offspring are nursed (551), and of punishment (80) (2130) (2330) (2357) (2595) (2704) (2755).
Each caudate nucleus and each putamen include a chemical called dopamine, which translates an unmet visceral need into the motor activity necessary to meet that unmet need, through stimulation of the substantia nigra (50a) (50b) (1090) (758) and, through it, a reticular network of nerves in the brainstem and spinal cord. This reticular network of nerves controls muscle stretch receptors, that can tone muscles or make them more sensitive to stretch, or both. Thus, the hungry animal can have the muscles in its neck and trunk toned, with its hip flexors also toned but its hip extensors lengthened and set to react to the slightest stretch, as it waits, poised, to pounce on its prey. This state of readiness is achievable because the dopamine nerves of the caudate nucleus and putamen that can stimulate the reticular network, send nerve branches to the globus pallidus where they activate an inhibitory chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), that keeps the movements on hold until they are needed (51) (1180) (997) (2311) (2677). This preparatory mode is achieved at a cost, in terms of the energy required to maintain activation of some responses and to inhibit other responses.
The state of readiness of reverberant, potential motor responses enables basal ganglia responses to move forward in time, relative to cerebral cortical responses and to thalamic responses (925).
The basal ganglia contain images that enable different muscles to be maintained in a state of readiness and then either toned in a posture or alternately flexed and extended in movements, through the patterned disinhibition of the muscle stretch receptors.
We reset our muscle stretch receptors every night when we yawn and stretch, thereby to enable muscles to be stretched without reflex contraction during sleep (52a) (52b), and also to facilitate the deep inhalations that will induce sleep through oxidation (1538). The next morning, we reset the stretch receptors to produce a reflex contraction at a shorter muscle length as we brace ourselves and tighten our muscles (935).
Motor response patterns can be delivered to the muscles through the spinal cord by the cerebral cortex in conjunction with the cerebellum, using chemicals which include acetylcholine. This circuit uses more of the brain than the dopamine circuit, so that it is longer, less spontaneous and less reflex (53), and thus is subject to premeditation on its way through the brain. Immediacy of response can be used to judge truthfulness in Courts of Law.
Tension states are due to a generalised increase in muscle tone, which is sustained to the degree that pain may be caused by lactic acid, trapped nerves or torn muscles. Importantly, the muscle tone is increased symmetrically, which conveys the lack of readiness for movement.
Trembling, fidgeting and twitching are all due to a state in which, within the basal ganglia, the drive to move the muscles through dopamine is close to surmounting the inhibitory control through GABA. However, there is no motor response pattern from the cerebral cortex and cerebellum for the basal ganglia to drive, because of a premeditated wish for restraint. Remove that wish and the individual in this state can move very quickly.
Different again is the state of restlessness in which patterns of movement, such as getting up and walking around, occur in a disjointed, fragmentary manner. Herein, the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum are delivering motor response patterns, but these are ineffective because the basal ganglia are not producing the sustained stretch reflex sequences necessary for their implementation. This state can be seen in someone who has mixed feelings about how to respond (321).
Evidently, the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum on the one hand and the basal ganglia on the other hand, have to coordinate their responses for meaningful movement to occur (36), and this requires them to be in phase with one another (1557) (54). The basal ganglia receive input from the cerebral cortex (1468d) (1449) (1063) (1165) (1130) (2245), although there is no direct reciprocal circuitry. With respect to any particular joint, contraction of its flexor muscles should be associated with inhibition of the stretch reflex of its extensor muscles, and vice versa. If the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum on the one hand and the basal ganglia on the other hand are out of phase, then tremor or rigidity will result, depending on the phase relationship, because if the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum activate a flexor to contract against an extensor in which the stretch receptor has been set by the basal ganglia to be taut, then a tremor will be initated, because the extensor will be stretched by the flexion and will itself contract vigorously and stretch the flexor, which will react with equal vigour if the basal ganglia have set its stretch receptor in a taut position; and so on (1509). If a flexor contracts against an extensor that is already contracted, then the result is rigidity, which is desirable if the intention is to maintain a posture, but is undesirable if the intention is to produce a movement. Both tremor, and rigidity during movement, are caused by the major tranquillisers, used to treat mental illness, which inhibit dopamine, and by Parkinson`s disease, in which there is degeneration of cells that produce dopamine. In both circumstances, drugs that inhibit acetylcholine may be effective, because they bring the acetylcholine and dopamine systems back into phase.
The restoration of normal phase relationships may be the common feature in the therapeutic effects of drugs (1168), electrical stimulation (1095) (1169) (1482), and ablation (1170).
The concept of an emotional motor system (1052) has not generalised.
The circuitry of the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum can compensate for the circuitry of the basal ganglia when it is diseased (55) (1473) (144) (1067) or genetically weak (56) (1181). The distribution of genetic weakness of movement within the human population may explain the distribution of disorders of movement due to major tranquillisers within the human population. The delineation of genetic weakness anticipates the general use of genetic profiles prior to drug prescription to predict, and thus avoid, drug side-effects (57) (805).
Movements can become automatic, which has been associated with a reduction in activity in the basal ganglia as well as in the cerebellum and in the cerebral cortex (968), with an increase in activity in the basal ganglia relative to the cerebral cortex (1895), and also with a change in the distribution of activity within the basal ganglia (1186) (1187) (1327). Measures of automaticity based on distractors (968) (1327) may be confounded by working memory (1331) (1333) (2406). If learned movements rather than perceived location are used to find one's way around, then basal ganglia activity increases (1164) (1188).
The claustrum is an indeterminate collection of cells (411) on the inner side of each insula (405) (406), and it receives auditory, visual and visceral stimuli (412) (1468d) and transmits to the neocortex (413), to the mesocortex (495), to the allocortex (1468b), and to the thalamus (1496), suggestive of a correlative function.
The dorsal and ventral parts of the basal ganglia may process different types of stimuli (2631).
Shorter latency pathways may include the claustrum (411) (413), and the lower, ventral parts of the basal ganglia (721) (722) (1788) (2562), while the longer latency intra-thalamic pathways may include the upper, dorsal parts of the basal ganglia.
The basal ganglia show a wide anatomical variation within vertebrate phylogeny (C) (1182) (1183). The functional analogy is of preparatory motor (premotor) behaviour.
The thalami.
Each thalamus is situated deep within the cerebral hemisphere, beside, and central to, the basal ganglia. Below the thalami are the hypothalami in front and the brainstem behind. Each thalamus is connected with the cerebral hemisphere on the same side, and, less strongly, with the cerebral hemisphere on the opposite side (2530). Consistent terminology of the thalamus has been elusive (70) (617) (618) (2019) (2451) (2745).
Each thalamus can determine the degree of sensory, motor and visceral activity that passes through it at any moment (58) (986). Suppose that, on the threshold of its habitat, an animal surveys its territory in a state of vigilance. The animal then forages, that is it explores the territory in a state of anticipation. The sudden appearance of a predator results in fight, flight, or frozen immobility (2338). Having survived the encounter, the animal returns to its habitat to feed, excrete, rest, mate, and sleep. In this example, at any moment an animal can be in one of ten different states, each of which has a different combination of sensory, motor and visceral activities. Vigilance is a sensory state, with motor readiness and with visceral inactivity. Foraging is a combination of sensory and motor states (1460) (2154), again with visceral inactivity. Fight, flight and frozen immobility are motor states that are protective of the animal, to the exclusion of potentially hazardous sensory and visceral activities. When it is safe, the animal feeds, excretes (714), rests, mates (269) and sleeps (712) when sensory vigilance (285) and muscular readiness (567) have been relaxed. Feeding and mating involve different parts of the visceral nervous system, and attempts to combine these states carry hazards, for example of choking (506).
Each thalamus is a transmission gate between its cerebral hemisphere (2531), and the brainstem (59) (60) (61) and spinal cord (1322) (1726) (1727), so that the thalamus orchestrates (62) (748) (2295) (2649), between sensory (277) (620) (63) (64) (2134) (2466), motor (65) (66) and visceral (67) (1080) (1660) (2246) modes. Within the sensory mode, both sensory integration (2523) and sensory discrimination occur (1505) (1748); (1500) (2513) (2336) (2368) (2587); (1498) (2299); (1497) (1499) (2296) (2446). Within the motor mode, evoked and spontaneous responses have different thalamic circuitry (68) (69) (2571).
It is likely that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is participative in thalamic transmissions (1493).
Stimuli may reach the cerebral cortex without traversal of the thalami (1250), and responses may pass from the cerebral cortex to the spinal cord without traversal of the thalami (926); these extra-thalamic pathways have a shorter latency than intra-thalamic pathways, but they are not orchestrated to the same degree (1867). It is likely that fight, flight and frozen immobility are extra-thalamic (288) (850) (289) (471), given the need for urgency, whereas vigilance, exploration, feeding, excreting, resting, mating and sleeping are likely to be intra-thalamic, given the need for orchestration. It is likely that juries use response latency to judge truthfulness, if not spontaneously, then under judicial direction. Legal intent becomes anatomically accessible through the likely relationship between the response latency and the degree of premeditation (2643) (2680).
The shorter latency, extra-thalamic pathways may include the claustrum (411) (413), and the lower, ventral parts of the basal ganglia (721) (722) (1788) (2562), while the longer latency intra-thalamic pathways may include the upper, dorsal parts of the basal ganglia. The dorsal and ventral parts of the basal ganglia may process different types of stimuli (2631).
Each thalamus can disconnect and then reconnect its cerebral hemisphere and the brainstem during sleep (81) (1510), and during hibernation (2195). Disconnection allows the nerve circuits of the cerebral hemisphere and of the brainstem to reverberate independently of each other (1074) (825) (2503), so that the cerebral hemisphere is able to process unused motor responses without activation of the brainstem and the brainstem is able to process unused motor responses without activation of the cerebral hemisphere (82) (1410). Reverberant sensory stimuli and memories can be processed without having to compete with new sensory stimulation. This is the refresh mode of the brain (1818), and its effects have been shown during the day (1594), overnight (84), after 12 hours (1539), after 24 hours (2047), after 48 hours (1540) (2252), after 3 days (83), and after 6 months (2252). Repeat of the same sensory stimulation during sleep, as when awake, may improve memory (1872). The type of sleep may reflect predation risk (1634) (2327). The need for sleep may distinguish between transcription, translation, and protein release, in nerve cells.
The need for orchestration of the different activities afforded by the brain (71) is illustrated further by their sometimes opposite effects on the body. For example, during flight, the limb muscles are set to react to the slightest stretch, the trunk muscles are toned, the heart rate is rapid, the airways are dilated and breathing is deep and rapid, vision is set for distance, secretions are dried, bowels are inactive and there is no sexual activity: during feeding, the limb muscles are set to tolerate stretch without contraction, the trunk muscles are relaxed, the heart rate and breathing are slow, vision is set for nearby (832) (779), salivary and alimentary secretions flow, bowels are active and there is no sexual activity.
It is likely that the sensitivity of the outer hair cells of the cochlea (2137) (2138) (1345) (1263) (2177) (2013) is set according to sensory, motor, and visceral activity.
Spontaneous eye blinks have been shown to be controlled by humans, to minimise the chance of losing critical information (2614).
It has been contended that different visceral responses are controlled by different cerebral hemispheres (1029), although this seems to be based largely on cardiovascular responses, for example (1033), and on specious arguments, for example, that excessive arousal in the left hemisphere in response to negative emotional stimuli is evidence of specialisation of the left hemisphere in positive emotions (1034), and that excessive sweating on the paralysed side after a stroke (1035) allows the inference that different cerebral hemispheres control different visceral functions in health (1029).
An animal's defence against potential danger includes immobility, which implies diminished respiration, so that the sound of its breathing does not give away its location to the predator. Anaerobic respiration is adaptive in this respect. Hyperventilation will occur because of the hypoxic drive to chemoreceptors, and may determine the moment of fight or flight (72). One of the more surprising pieces of advice imparted by doctors is that an anxious person who is overbreathing should be encouraged to re-breathe from a paper bag. Not only does this go against the grain, but the poor physiology takes away what little breath one has left. Medical opinion is that anxiety causes hyperventilation that, in turn, causes hypocapnia, hence the advice to re-breathe from a paper bag and increase the levels of carbon dioxide (73). Conspicuous by their absence are questions about what part hypoxia has had to play, and when, in evolution, we switched from being animals with bated breath to being humans with hyperventilation. Until proven otherwise, hyperventilation in humans should be assumed to be secondary to hypoxia consequent upon bated breath, and should be alleviated through deep, slow breaths, and not worsened by moving the same column of air up and down the dead space. The management of hypocapnia and its consequences should be deferred until after the hypoxia has been addressed. When the anxiety is associated with depersonalisation, hypoxia should be considered as a possible explanation.
Modern stress may include too much sustained sensory and motor activity with too few punctuations by visceral activity, including digestion, so that the related high fat levels are unsurprising. The social structure of the territory and of the habitat may be influential in the outcomes of stress (973) (974); (310) (803); (2516); (2506) (2492) (2713), and vice versa (2203) (2468). Proactive and reactive stress coping styles have been identified (2200). The parents of a child with schizophrenia may have a reduced risk of cancer (1849). The thalamus has been implicated in hysteria (1204), a reference that was absent predictably from a recent reductionist review of the thalami (2518), written by someone who had spent relatively little time with psychiatric patients. EG Jones' ignorance of psychiatric patients and his perfunctory attitude to psychiatry were well shown in an otherwise erudite and instructive article about calcium channels in the brain (2519), wherein Jones perpetrated the offensive metonymy of "schizophrenics", and cited, as evidence of impaired cognitive control in schizophrenia, a study in which the patients were taking medication, in which there was no control group with mental illness, and in which there was no reference to diagnostic reliability (1770).
One of the meanings of stress is the lack of activity in circuits that pass from cells on the inner sides of the cerebral hemispheres to cells on the outer sides of the cerebral hemispheres, relative to activity in circuits that pass from cells on the outer sides of the cerebral hemispheres to cells on the inner sides of the cerebral hemispheres. The discrepancy may be due somewhat to the differential responses of the people on whom we depend to activate the cells on the inner sides of our cerebral hemispheres. Sufferers from tension headache may wish to experiment.
The thalami deliver the instinctual activity of the brainstem and of hypothalamic structures to the cerebral hemispheres, including the eye-fields of the frontal lobes (74) (1508), so that the other occupants of the territory and of the habitat are characterised, (75) (474), for example as hostile (76) or in need of protection. This transmission of sensory information from the periphery to the cerebral cortex is first gear (1503) (597) (2335). Relay of information from one cerebral cortical area to another is second gear (598). The gears are operated by the driver (1387) (1853) (2751).
Animals, including humans, demarcate their terriories (1185). Animals use secretions and excretions. In recent years there has been a realisation by human animals that there may be a connection between excretions and cigarette smoke. Insofar as the smoker gets the benefit of group membership without the cost of conformity, he or she is a social cheat, and as such, has antecedents, both unicellular (16) (1184) (77) (776) (2192) and multicellular (2379).
The protectiveness of animals, including humans, towards unknown adult animals is, at least to some degree, territorial, in that the demarcated territory is kept safe (1814), and therefore so are the other animals in it; thus what has been called altruism (78) (79) (80) has primitive origins (95) (816) (75) (253) (1760) (1814) (1884). It is not surprising that preferences may be shown to animals that resemble oneself (733) (790) (1815), and that antagonism may be shown to animals that differ from onself (1639).
Responses to the releasing stimuli proposed by ethologists (K), are likely to be conditional upon perceived safety (545).
Hypothalamic structures.
A hypothalamus is below the front of each thalamus and in front of the brainstem, and it sends branching nerve fibres, and thus identical messages, to each of these structures, which are therefore kept in tune with one another.
Each hypothalamus sends nerve fibres to the brainstem (1583) (654) (772) (1590) (672) (1323) and to the spinal cord; fibres to the front of the spinal cord control motor output (336), those to the side of the spinal cord control visceral output (445) (338) (337) (1600) (1601) (853) (421) (422) and those to the back of the spinal cord regulate input (338), both sensory (339) and visceral (340), including, in animals, the position of the tail (554) (1618). Some nerve fibres have branches to both the brainstem and the spinal cord (1599).
Each hypothalamus receives nerve fibres from the brainstem (2454).
Each hypothalamus receives nerve fibres from the retinae (395) (357) (358) and from the derivative visual nerves (2169), and transmits the influence of daylight to the brain (360) (361) (359) (362) and to the body (2348), partly through local chemical diffusion (947), and partly through the release of a chemical, melatonin (363) (364) (1762), from the pineal gland, into the circulation. The hypothalami mediate effects on appetite (365), sleep (366) (367) (368) (1146) (2386), body temperature (369) (542), sugar (791), protein (1002), fat (801), fluid (602) (603), and salt (845) (836). Within this network, the thalami can act as gears that determine the degree to which the brain's engine is engaged (149), conditional upon the chemical state of the organism inside and the visibility outside.
The specific circuitry entails the lateral habenular nuclei (360) (361) (362) (150) (2756) and the lateral geniculate bodies (370).
The hypothalami participate in immune responses (85) (86) (87) (270) (1918), and thus in the cellular definition of what has been called self and non-self (741). Immune responses change over minutes, and days (1571) (1572), perhaps because the distinction between self and non-self becomes blurred. Presumably, the costs increase (1579) (2383).
The hypothalami orchestrate puberty (2055) (2056), sexual behaviour (523) (777) (2746), urination (micturition) (1323), lactation (759) (775), salivation and lacrimation (1101), aggressiveness (1551) (294) (775), fear (1093), defensiveness (295) (738), foraging (808), and hibernation (2195).
The hypothalami orchestrate the release of chemicals from glands directly into the circulation (2683), often through the intermediary activity of the nearby pituitary gland. These endocrine glands do not have ducts, unlike exocrine glands, such as those that lubricate digestion, for example the salivary glands. The endocrine glands include the thyroid gland, the parathyroid glands, the adrenal glands, the pancreas, the testes, the ovaries, and the placenta (649), in addition to the pineal gland and the pituitary gland. The chemicals released are called hormones, and these influence the brain (371) (1339) (1342) (1343) (1358) (1940) (1969) (2419), the spinal cord (2548), and the body (1570) (581) (582) (1736) (2634) (2670), inclusive of variations in the body image (482) (1690).
The hypothalami, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands coordinate a response to stress (1532) (1856) (2036) (2203) (2205).
The hypothalami are themselves orchestrated by chemical signals from other parts of the brain, inclusive of the cerebral cortex (1782), the thalami (754), the cerebellum (844), and the medulla oblongata (901).
There have been reports that growth hormone is produced in the hippocampi (792) (755).
Leptin is a designated hormone produced by fat cells (801) (802), and is part of a circuitry that mediates arousal (846) (815) (829) (672) (2070), sexual arousal (1889), stress (835) (2100), and food intake (828) (830), which latter may be increased by humans in an attempt to lower stress levels. Related hormones are ghrelin (543), amylin (543), and adiponectin (2414).
One hypothalamic hormone, oxytocin, has been reported to increase trust in humans when given intranasally (291), but the researchers did not attempt disproof of their "double-blind" design, which decreases trust in their report, not only because oxytocin may have a smell, but also because it affects the sense of smell (589). Another hypothalamic hormone, vasopressin, has been reported to evoke agonistic facial responses in men, and affiliative responses in women, in relation to unfamiliar faces (697), but then so does a fart. Both oxytocin and vasopressin have been described as affected by early social experiences (1373), although these were group comparisons, without change scores.
Hormones are chemical signals within one organism. Pheromones are chemical signals between organisms (1992), and can, in principle, include tastes as well as odours (774). Pheromones have been compared with other odours (1254). Different anatomical structures have been though to mediate odours and pheromones (2079) (1719).
Anatomically, the distinction between inner personal responses, and outer reactivity to the environment, appears to obtain in the hypothalami (739).
Electrical stimulation of the hypothalami has been used to treat intractable headaches (823) (824) (2172).
Each hypothalamus is connected with a number of other structures that are also below the level of the thalamus and that are thus hypothalamic in the anatomical sense.
The substantia innominata is beneath the globus pallidus, and is, as its name suggests, a diffuse area: it includes a network of cells that release acetylcholine (89) (1321), and this network coordinates brain activity when awake (90) (1285) (689) (1611) (1627), and during paradoxical sleep (91) (1206). The distribution of acetylcholine has been compared in the frontal cortex of humans, chimpanzees and macaque monkeys (2254).
The hippocampus allows sensory stimuli, and their associated arousal, to reverberate and to form and then evoke memories (92) (1356) (1337), which are then comparable with subsequent sensory stimuli (2243). These reverberations include visceral (93), olfactory (297) (1442) (1872), visual (94) (1397) (1950) (2735), vestibular (1446) (2293), positional (1725), and tactile (2243) stimuli, so that associations are made between the inner world of feelings and the outer world of places (95) (1461) (1443) (1435) (1640) (1870) (2008), and of contexts (96) (1820) (1945). If you feel hungry, you recall the smell of food and in your mind's eye, you see places where you have eaten in the past.
Some reverberations may not form memories (1475).
The left hippocampus and the right hippocampus may have different functions (2001).
Memories of objects (1893), of configurations (1463), of backgrounds (1286) and of odours (1257) have been demonstrated in the mesocortex adjacent to the hippocampus, and these may be stimulated by sensory input (1468a) (1466) (1448) (98). Damage to the mesocortex adjacent to the hippocampus has resulted in loss of memory for events covering decades, compared with damage to the hippocampus itself, which resulted in loss of memory for events covering approximately 5 years (1792). Autobiographical memory has been shown to be sensitive to the interview technique (1792) (2351). Surgical resection that included the mesocortex adjacent to the left hippocampus, but excluded the left hippocampus itself, has resulted in impaired verbal learning (1991).
Electrical activity has been recorded from human hippocampi through electrodes (2720).
The association of each sensory stimulus with a type and a degree of arousal explains why happiness brings happy memories, why sadness brings sad memories, why anxiety brings worry about the past and about the future, why a low blood sugar makes us think of food, and why fatigue makes us think of sleep: we perceive (1756) (1774) (2744) and recall (1173) through our moods. Dependent adults who lack insight into their moods tend to be led by those moods, and to imagine that the thoughts and images consequent upon those moods are the premeditated causes of those moods. Thoughts and images that are associated with the same mood at different times become conflated as false memories of a single event. Potential motor responses may be generated and then implemented, to the chaotic degree that the individual seeks out events that are associated with the same thoughts and images. Hence the importance of periods of reflection to disentangle moods, memories and actions.
An adaptive value of moods is the demonstration to the organism that it exists (2157, page 88), thereby prompting the organism to locate itself in a dangerous world: "Where are the causes of this mood? Are they in me? Are they in my habitat? Are they in my territory? How far do I forage?" Emotional abuse of children occurs when adults locate the causes of their own moods inside those children.
Anatomically, moods are states of arousal, each associated with nerve circuits that originate in the brainstem and then extend upwards to include the hippocampus. Each nerve circuit, and thus each state of arousal, each mood, and the related perceptions and memories, are associated with a particular chemical (1589); (986) (2297); (2029), illustrated by a drug that inhibits a noradrenaline nerve circuit, the arousal and mood of anxiety, and fear memories (1550). A brain protein, kibra, has been associated with memory (2427).
The same nerve cell can store, at the same time, more than one type of sensory input (1265), for example, visceral input from the brainstem, olfactory input from the diagonal band and the septum, and visual input from the mid-brain, so that the future occurrence of any of those inputs evokes the other types of input, in their absence, as memories (420) (492) (1828). Conditioned responses are predicated on cellular associations (1504) (1379) (1512). Recall by the cerebral cortex in the absence of sensory input requires the cerebral cortex to activate memories of sensory input into the hippocampus, which memories then activate the cerebral cortex (349) (350). Such activation increases the number of open nerve circuits and therefore increases response time, so that it is subject to perceived safety (545). Recall makes a memory fragile (1445) (1614). Repeated episodes of recall by the cerebral cortex are themselves remembered by the cerebral cortex, and can be used as cues for further episodes of recall, independent of memories of the original sensory input into the hippocampus (415) (628). Left frontal regions of the cerebral cortex have been shown to be important for recollection (1329) (2234), for recognition (910) (1598), and for recall (1598), albeit subject to variation in definitions and in experimental formats. To this writer, the more spontaneous, and thus the less latency, as in familiarity and recognition, then the more subcortical and the more allocortical are the processes, whereas the more voluntary, and thus the more latency, as in recollection and recall, then the more mesocortical and the more neocortical are the processes (1708) (1709) (1710) (2292) (2315) (2680).
The hippocampus may be supplemented by the basal ganglia in navigation (1164) (1188) (2416), and by the cerebellum in conditioning (2463).
Input to, and output from, the hippocampus can be contained in reverberatory circuits (1467a) (1467b) (97) (1429) (99) (100) (1391) (2488) (2489) (2719), until it is safe, efficient and desirable to process the stimuli and action the responses (613) (1389), or until containment is no longer relevant (1864). The human organism's introspection of full reverberatory circuits is of stress, and repose or sleep may be needed to empty the circuits, for example, through integration of new hippocampal associations into the cerebral cortex (1450) (101) (1398) (1404) (906) (2252). The prior existence of similar memories in the cerebral cortex enables stimuli to be processed more quickly, with less hippocampal containment (1928).
The mesocortex between the hippocampal allocortex and the neocortex is where the organism meets the organism's representation of the world (771); (1426) (1428) (1001) (1926) (2052); (1179) (1633); (2062); (1976) (1977) (1978), (1141) (1142), and this may include the organism's representation of itself (2206) (2098) (2429). The neocortex is where the organism meets other organisms (1676).
The hippocampus transmits directly to the amygdala (2174) and to the inner side of the frontal lobe (881) (884) (1381) (2500), which circuits may be related to foraging.
Aging has been related to specific hippocampal cells (1436), and to compensatory overactivity in the hippocampi and in the cerebral cortices (2350).
The curvature of the cells of the hippocampus, that is, the sea-horse, may enable containment of stimuli (1437) (1877).
The amygdala detects an unsafe outside world (102) (1054) (1189) (103) (896) (2058) (2220) (2570) (2735) and reacts instinctively, for example with fight, flight (104) (105) or frozen immobility (1190) (471). The amygdala can transmit to the hippocampus directly (1511), and to the inner side of the frontal lobe of the cerebral hemisphere, both directly (878) (1728), and through the thalamus (76) (1867), and its responses can be controlled by the inner side of the frontal lobe of the cerebral hemisphere directly (106) (1835) (2133), through the uncinate fasciculus (1987). The unsafe outside world may be detected through another organism (558), possibly through eye movements (1200) (1528). The amygdala modulates appetitive responses (1082) (1522), presumably when it is safe to do so.
The central nucleus of the amygdala is old, in evolutionary terms (438), and it delivers generalised, instinctive, unconditioned, responses, which can, in turn, be conditioned (1520) (1514) (1750). The medial nucleus mediates olfaction (536) (471), and sexual responses (1401) (2073). The basolateral nuclear complex has evolved more recently (438), and it is responsive to auditory (1530) (1535) and visual (1529) stimuli, which can be conditioned, perhaps through orthogonality (903). Stress has been reported to produce enduring neuronal changes in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala, compared with the hippocampus (1544).
The amygdala requires distinction from its surrounding cortex (1018) (1462) (1019) (1592) (1839) (2150).
The amygdala and the substantia innominata have been separated (689) and combined (773) in the concept of the extended amygdala (488) (1525) (1491) (2247). A central extended amygdala has been described (1129).
The potential to extinguish fear memories in anxiety states, including post-traumatic stress disorder, has a theoretical basis in the circuitry of the frontal lobe, the uncinate fasciculus, the amygdala (913), and the basal ganglia (1772), but, in practice, extinction requires the clearest possible distinction between anxiety (2376) (1773) and the arousal of heightened personal identity, and often necessitates the involvement of family members in the treatment plan (2459).
The nerve cells of the stria terminalis (593) (335) (1856) (2525) detect an unsafe outside world (107), show consistent sex differences (734), and respond to the sex hormones (108) (109) (2073), so that this structure is probably instrumental in orchestration of firstly the inverse relationship between sex and aggressiveness, which relationship has been studied in fish (517) (516), wasps (682), birds (321) (110) (2186), rats (111), prairie voles (1983), and humans (847), and secondly the inverse relationship between parenting and predation (2625).
Comparison of, say, references (593) (335) (1856) and (2525), conveys a lack of agreement about the nuclear structure of the stria terminalis.
The phylogeny of the amygdala has been studied in amphibians (1196), and also in goldfish (1197), the latter as part of a contrast with hippocampal phylogeny.
The amygdala and the stria terminalis have been contrasted (2546).
Bodily and visceral responses can be conditional upon the responses of others. An example of how a circuit is made between an infant and its mother is in the use of lachrymosity as a signal and as an aid to feeding. Crocodiles shed tears so as to lubricate (116) (1097) and sterilise (1096) their food. The brain cells that activate the lacrimal glands are much closer to the brain cells that activate the salivary glands than they are to the brain cells that activate the eyes (F, figure 224) (1098) (1099) (1100) (609). Hungry human infants signal visceral emptiness through lachrymosity (117) (1102), which then lubricates the act of feeding and feeds the feeder. Silent, as distinct from noisy, lachrymosity will have protected our cave-dwelling ancestors from predation (498) (118), presumably through parental conditioning (1563), so that there is an evolutionary difference between lachrymosity and crying (1199). An example of how a circuit is made between two adults is when they signal sexual readiness through lachrymosity, which then lubricates the sexual activity: the lacrimal glands are influenced by the sex hormones. The hypothalami control the sequences of hunger, lachrymosity and then feeding, and sexual arousal, lachrymosity and then copulation through the sphenopalatine (pterygopalatine) ganglia. Signals may also be transmitted through odours, as in flies (584) (671) (1922), moths (1156) (668), crickets (1990), beetles (1623), mice (119) (589) (1719), hamsters (537), elephants (346), and humans (120) (515) (793) (794) (795) (777) (1844). [Back to Pheromones if required.]
The hypothalami, the substantiae innominatae, the hippocampi, the amygdalae and the striae terminales, in conjunction with the brainstem, the basal ganglia and the inner sides of the cerebral hemispheres, represent the instinctual brain of lower animals (112) (329) (1608) (2244), while the outer sides of the cerebral hemispheres represent the advanced brain of higher animals (286) (1790). The hypothalami and the thalami are pivotal in the connecting circuitry (8) (1458a) (1458b) (2154). In an adult human, too much activity in the instinctual brain relative to the advanced brain results in anxiety and irritability, which is another meaning of stress. An example of this is getting out of bed on the wrong side, which really means that responses are not yet being orchestrated by the advanced brain through the thalami, but are coming from the instinctual brain without passing through the thalami. This illustrates the controlled, inhibitory nature of the advanced brain and the spontaneous, excitatory nature of the instinctual brain. Too much activity in the advanced brain relative to the instinctual brain may result in the inhibition of normal responses, such as urination (502) (503) (504) (505). The rate of increase of activity in the instinctual brain may matter as much, if not more, than the absolute level of activity (993). The whole brain has been shown to be as good a predictor of cognitive ability as the advanced brain alone (2040). Damage to the advanced brain may disinhibit the instinctual brain (1081).
Damage to the instinctual brain disinhibits successively lower levels, so that, for example, mesocortical damage disinhibits subcortical structures (1084). Stress has been followed by structural changes in brain cells (1086) (2258) (2282) (2316) (2398).
There is diurnal variation in the degree to which the instinctual brain is distributed on to the advanced brain, being least in the morning. This is why a seriously depressed patient feels worse in the morning, because his or her instinctual brain has been depleted to the degree that the usual diurnal variation has become intrusive.
The hormones orchestrated by the hypothalami consign females to lunar variations in the degree to which the instinctual brain is distributed on to the advanced brain (264) (284), and thus in the degree of connectedness with the world. When distribution is low, the instinctual brain of the female is more likely to seek increased connectedness with the outside world through the advanced brain of others.
Hormonal discontinuity is likely to render females more vulnerable to some forms of stress than males, and less vulnerable to other forms of stress than males (1087), the latter because females acquire memories of stress that equip them to cope better. Hormonal discontinuity should be a controlled variable in studies of differences between the sexes (1569) (1845).
Timed activities and targets are a consequent male response to notional sexual equality.
Nowadays, disinhibited mobile telephone conversations enable the instinctual brain of a solitary, bleary-eyed human to provoke audible and visible peer responses (M), which then activate his or her sensory thalami. This is an example of regressed human behaviour, which is addressed in more detail in figures seven and eight, and in the related text. From a network perspective, the crucial elements are the induction of a circuit from the instigator to the bystander and back again, and the insight that the part of the instigator's brain that receives the response is not the same part that produced the stimulus. Thus, the purpose of the mobile telephone is not necessarily the transfer of information between two individuals (2005).
The comparative inability of related, as distinct from unrelated, humans to activate one another's brains is a risk factor for mental illness, and is a major reason for the evolutionary stability of "nonkin" social groups (317). This may be a variant of reduced vigour due to genetic relatedness (578) (579).
Responses from the advanced brain that pass through the thalami, that is intra-thalamic responses, are orchestrated, planned and measured, and thus carry the connotation of personal responsibility. (You engaged the gears and set off, so that you were responsible for the journey undertaken.) Responses from the instinctual brain that do not pass through the thalami, that is extra-thalamic responses, are spontaneous, unplanned and unrestrained, like reflexes, and carry the connotation that they are outside personal control. (You swerved to avoid a lorry.) Thus there is an anatomical basis for criminal responsibility, and this may have physiological correlates (2644). Much medical and legal thought has been given to these issues in at least one practice, where anatomical precision brought legal unease.
The relationship between the advanced brain and the instinctual brain can be remade each day, conditional upon the experiences of the day (1243), such as who we meet, and the lyrical activities that we pursue, and this existential variability has been referred to as plasticity (732), for which there is a chemical basis in hormones (1940) and in acetylcholine (113) (1548), and a physical basis in neuronal spines (1011) (1062), which have been shown to appear (1012) and stabilise (1014) in response to sensory input. Some degree of functional stability, and thus, arguably, of lack of plasticity, is likely in sensory neurones (1013), and perhaps moreso in motor neurones (1006). Plasticity probably varies with age, with age at first reproduction, with gender, and with experience. Plasticity probably increases partner choice, if not a love that endures. Hallucinations are likely to reflect relative lack of plasticity, while delusions are likely to reflect relative lack of stability.
Lyrical activties include music (2193), song, dance, and poetry.
In scientific literature, the responses of the controlled, inhibitory, advanced brain may be referred to as "top-down", and the responses of the spontaneous, excitatory, instinctual brain may be referred to as "bottom-up" (114) (115) (511) (614).
However, scientists have brains as well (P, pages 162-164) (2118). If an experimenter compares the performance of patients and controls on an interactive test, say with matchsticks (312), but knows whether each participant is a patient or a control, then the "top-down" intention to compare objectively may be subverted by "bottom-up" intimation, such as change in respiration, motivated by the wish to find what one is looking for. If subjects are given either an active drug or a placebo, then they may form an impression of which it is, for example, through taste, so that a "top-down" expectation colours whatever "bottom-up" effect there might be (562). Subjects should be tested for this capacity to distinguish the test substances before randomisation, and then either excluded, or distributed equally between the experimental groups.
To what degree is a conditioned response "top-down" or "bottom-up"?
Although the distinction between "top-down" and "bottom-up" has immediate, intuitive meaning, it is anatomically loose, and may mean different things to different people (1494) (1316) (1916) (1134) (1346) (1349) (1607) (2223) (2215)(1927) (2093) (2280) (2416) (2456) (2553) (2675) (2691) (2698) (2717). In The Evolution of Mental Health, the distinction is a vector, "top-down" from the neocortex through the increasingly instinctual mesocortex, allocortex and brainstem, and "bottom-up" from the brainstem through the decreasingly instinctual, allocortex, mesocortex and neocortex (2748).
Adolescence may include some disproportion between "bottom-up" and "top-down" (1017).
Aging brings a shift from "bottom-up" to "top-down" (857) (858) (996).
Anatomical localisation of "top-down" versus "bottom-up" activity has resulted in some pervasive animal experimentation (820), and this writer's view is that the advent of neuroimages should raise the threshold for animal experimentation. Now that we can observe humans directly, the case for inference from animals is weakened, particularly as the inference may be incorrect due to differences between species, not to say between genera, families, and orders.
The distinction between "top-down" and "bottom-up" can be taken to an extreme, dualist position, when a disorder is seen as either organic, due to disease in the "bottom-up" body, or psychogenic, that is, generated in the "top-down" brain: this has led to surgical interventions, without full exploration of the interaction between the body and the brain. If the external urethral sphincter is overactive, then try to relax it with formal distraction and relaxation, before resorting to the invasive insertion of a stimulating lead through the third sacral foramen (504). Observe the effects of formal distraction and relaxation with neuroimages, mindful of the possibility that there may be differences between individual patients that require different emphases on different parts of the circuitry between the body and the brain. Less extreme, but still dualist, is the question of whether psychological factors or cortical processing modify spinal mechanisms (1315), which appears to discount centrifugal processes (1399) (1408) (1409) (1400) (392) (1318) (2545). Reference (683) is exemplary in these respects.
"Top-down" without "bottom-up" is the basis of paranoid apperceptions, wherein one experiences an inhibited part of oneself as another person through one's own eyes and ears, and this is often due to fatigue. The inhibition is of "bottom-up" subcortical activity, which makes the "top-down" cortical activity appear to come from external stimuli alone, exclusive of remembered responses to those external stimuli. Irritability may ensue, as the loss of contact with onself leads to a reduced capacity to see and hear oneself through other people.
So-called obsessional checking is evidence of attempted "top-down" reassurance in the absence of "bottom-up" introspective knowledge.
The thespian profession illustrates that plasticity can be acheived in a territory, and that the ability to be plastic can be learned. Acting outside the thespian profession is extremely common, in that humans dissemble and dissimulate so as to conceal their true feelings, thereby to survive in a territory or in a habitat where they feel that the expression of those true feelings would result in extrusion, which, for children, would mean abandonment. The verisimilitude of acting depends on the degree to which the responses can be made to appear "bottom-up" when they are, in fact, "top-down" as evidenced by response latency, and this may depend ultimately on varied formative experiences that develop the ability to mobilise nucleic acids and thus proteins quickly in response to stimuli, and afford a wide range of nucleic acids and thus proteins that have been developed to a degree already (2361).
The brainstem: the mid-brain.
The top part of the brainstem is the mid-brain, which is situated behind the hypothalamus, below the thalamus and in front of the cerebellum. Like the rest of the brainstem, the mid-brain has symmetrical right and left parts.
The mid-brain receives auditory (396) (397) (797) (398) (399) (450) and visual (400) (403) (401) (402) (970) (2300) (2307) (2699) (2723) stimuli, and may produce preparatory motor (premotor) and motor responses (121) (1697) (2759), some of which enter the reverberant system of potential motor responses through the substantia nigra (122) (1313) (453). The same auditory and visual stimuli that enter the mid-brain may be transmitted to the thalamus (1763), and also to the cerebral hemisphere (473), where auditory stimuli enter the temporal lobe and visual stimuli enter the occipital lobe (123) (404) and the frontal lobe (979) (2594), such that these sensory stimuli can reverberate (1148) (1108) (1109) (2025). Motor responses may be engendered (1715) (2594), and may enter the reverberant system of potential motor responses afforded by the basal ganglia. Responses to auditory and visual stimuli that have passed through the thalamus occur after the responses to mid-brain stimulation (587) because of the greater number of nerve gaps that have to be traversed. The reverberant system of potential motor responses can thus come to contain both immediate and delayed responses to the same auditory and visual stimuli (446) (447). The immediate responses are more personal and instinctive, whereas the delayed reponses are based more on perception of the outside world.
Sensory integration occurs in the mid-brain (2238). Sensory to motor transformation occurs in the mid-brain (1472) (2425) (2507) (2577). Auditory stimuli have been shown to facilitate motor and premotor visual responses (1143). Auditory and visual stimuli may be superadditive, additive, or subadditive (1144) (2057). Mid-brain circuits can be conditioned (1176).
The circuitries of the mid-brain and of the thalamus have been contrasted (123) (1145a) (1145b) (1147) (2305).
Insofar as the eyes influence each other (441) it is likely that the circuitry is in the mid-brain (401) (1866), so that it is as reflex as possible.
One side of the midbrain may compensate for underactivity in the other side of the brain (951).
Another meaning of stress is that the immediate and delayed responses to the same auditory and visual stimuli contradict each other, as in: "Look" and "Don't look ". Lack of movement may be an active process (1947). A sinister implication is that, if the contradiction becomes habitual, it may feel like a split in the brain. The same sinister import accompanies any incongruity between auditory and visual stimuli (124).
The compactness of the brainstem necessitates convergence, of both sensory stimuli and motor responses. Thus, the improvement of arthritic pain in the summer may occur because the added sensation of warmth competes with the established degree of pain sensation for transmission through the brainstem. Electrical stimulators may relieve pain through competitive transmission (823) (1045) (824). Conscious pain control has been shown to correlate with brainstem activation (849). The theatrical double-take is consistent with parallel motor responses that race (563). Motor responses are particularly condensed and focused in the cells around the central fluid canal of the mid-brain, called the periaqueductal gray (2074) (288) (501), where small changes in anatomical location result in large changes in behaviour (489) (490), for example in maternal responses (108) (564) (519).
There are nerves that pass from the auditory brain to the ear (173), from the visual brain to the eye (174), from the tactile brain to the ear (619) and to the spinal cord (1533) (2321), and from the olfactory brain to the olfactory bulb, which receives the nerves from the nose (268) (1403). These centrifugal nerves may enable the reverberation of sensory stimuli within the sensory nerve circuits (455), so that the stimuli are contained within a buffer, until transmission is possible. Dopamine may be participative (760) (655) (1830).
The brainstem: general structure.
The pons forms a bridge between the two hemispheres of the cerebellum (125) and is below the mid-brain and above the medulla oblongata, which is above the spinal cord. The pons and the medulla oblongata include vital centres (1412) (1808); (1487) (126) (2154) (2657); (419) (142b) (1326) (392) (2694) (2702), and these are contained in segments common to all vertebrates (609).
The vital centres include the nerves to the larynx (2074) (2294), which organ is a source of responses in the form of pulsations of the frequency and of the amplitude of sounds (P, page 33 and page 43) (2176) (2329) (2600) (2682). The larynx may convey greater reliability of responses than the face (R, page 273), and than gestures (2006).
The mid-brain and the pons contain the nerves to the eyes, which may convey greater reliability of responses than the face (2638).
The entire brainstem, inclusive of the mid-brain, is arranged in columns, with three on each side.
The outer column includes nerves that contain noradrenaline (127) (546), that are stimulated by the outside world (128) and that are particularly active in states of arousal (838), during which states they enable motor responses without loss of vigilance (129) (130), and actually improve motor performance (131) (1631) (888).
The middle column includes a diffuse reticular network of nerves that facilitates the transmission of both sensory and visceral stimuli (1402) (871) (1320) (2656), and that prepares muscles for motor responses (132) (133) (1488) (1787), with rapidity (1319) (699) (247), and control (2529).
Figure five
Actual motor responses seem to decrease the level of activation (520) (K) (592) (1620), which may contribute to the beneficial effects of humour on performance (1673), and which needs to be included in analyses of punishment (80) (2130) (2330) (2357) (2595) (2704) (2755). Exercise may enable the lowering of arousal before it acquires unhelpful content. The diffuse reticular network activates each hippocampus (134) (1427a) (1427b) wherein sensory stimuli can reverberate and evoke memories, that can in turn reverberate. The diffuse reticular network permeates the entire brain, and is especially concentrated around the thalamus, as the reticular nucleus, which is paramount in the orchestration of sensory, motor and visceral activities (62) (2466). The diffuse reticular network has been related to measures of personality, and these have been studied using neuroimages (1028).
Professional atheletes and martial artists are skilled in the inhibition of marginal movements, with consequent accumulation of arousal, until the critical moment, when one movement set is deployed.
The diffuse reticular network is phylogenetically old (331) (332), and is thus a likely anatomical basis for responses that are described loosely in the literature as "hardwired" (326) (465), which really means instinctive. The diffuse reticular network should be central to any explanation of emotion (1657).
The diffuse reticular network is central to consciousness. The diffuse reticular network is distributed to the outer side of the brain, which represents the outside world, and also to the inner side of the brain, which represents the individual. Consciousness is mediated through activation of the outer diffuse reticular network, self-consciousness is mediated by activation of the inner diffuse reticular network, while one form of stress entails excessive activation of the inner diffuse reticular network relative to the outer diffuse reticular network, remedied by transfer of activation from the inner diffuse reticular network to the outer diffuse reticular network, for example by motor responses, or through reflection. One of the reasons why women live longer than men is through their ability to relieve stress by the transfer of activation from the inner diffuse reticular network to the outer diffuse reticular network through the motor response of talk (2132). The success of the religious confessional may reflect the same circuitry.
The state of readiness afforded by the diffuse reticular network is consistent with a default mode (408), such that focus brings a redistribution of generalised arousal, with some areas of increased arousal and some areas of decreased arousal, perhaps orchestrated by the zona incerta (58) (71) (986) (2297), and by the reticular thalamic nucleus (62) (748) (2295), which is under the control of the cerebral cortex (1242) (1172).
A further meaning of stress is that the diffuse reticular network has become overloaded by too much sensory stimulation and too many potential, as distinct from actual, motor responses. To chill out is to recognise this, to disengage from the sensory stimulation of the outside world, to decide about some motor responses and then implement them.
Help is nearby, because the inner column of the brainstem includes nerves that contain serotonin, which slow responses (135), inhibit painful stimuli (842), modulate sensory stimuli (887) (2182), reduce anxiety and stress (841), and inhibit the diffuse reticular network (215) and thus control input into the hippocampi (134) (494). All of these functions are consistent with disengagement from the outside world. Relatedly, these cells help to maintain body temperature, in spite of thermal changes in the outside world (458) (499), and mediate visceral responses (1920).
It is likely that the columns of the brainstem participate in a basic rest activity cycle (136), with alternate phases every few hours, to ensure balanced expression of each mode represented by each pair of columns. Loss of balanced expression may result in symptoms of stress, such as muscular tension, headache, and nausea. Simultaneous expression of all columns reduces stress (538).
Loss of balanced expression may be due to the absence of another human to provide a focus for personal and visceral activities, which, consequently, reverberate intrusively. The human imposition of an hebdomadal cycle may be of considerable significance.
The prolonged noradrenaline activity of anxiety may cause headache because the sustained increase in muscle tone causes vasoconstriction (137) (1030), local lactic acidosis (612), and thus cramp in the head muscles (606). Also, if either eye gets too dry, it sets off a lacrimal (138) (483) (484) and vascular (486) (1041) (485) (1413) (487) reflex that is protectively painful. It is well known that anxiety causes a dry mouth, but less so that anxiety causes dry eyes. Lack of habituation between attacks of migraine (1042) (1043) is consistent with anxiety, as is variable delivery of oxygen to the brain (1056) (1776) (1961) consequent upon hyperventilation, and the beneficial effect of anxiolytic drugs such as propranolol (1044). From an evolutionary perspective, moisture on the window of the mind works against the distant vision of vigilance because, in smaller quantities, the refractive activity of the moisture moves the visual focal point towards the eye, while in larger quantities, it simply blurs vision. One eye may be affected by dryness before the other because of local drainage factors, such as the vertical angle of the head. Sufferers from migraine and other headaches could carry a bottle of their own tears, and use these as eye drops to keep their eyes moist during stressful times, signalled by dryness of the eyes or of the mouth.
The nitrergic circuitry between neurones (673) and blood vessels (1192) may have relevance in migraine.
There are nerves that contain choline and dopamine distributed through the brainstem (1547); (784) (785) (1625) (1917) (2168) (2024), and these may be associated with arousal (1802) (2400) (2657), but movement may have been a complication in at least one exposition (780).
The spinal cord: premotor activity.
Sensory stimuli reach the spinal cord in nerves from muscles (2227) (2020) and from tendons (141) (2228), as well as from skin (568) and from joints (G, page 57).
Motor responses may be kept on hold until they are needed (715) (2248), which is likely to be advantageous in the implied states of readiness of tone and of movement. This premotor activity could be orchestrated by the frontal lobes (978) (1174) and could pass through the diffuse reticular network (595), to the brainstem (631) (632) (568) (1325) and spinal cord (633a) (633b) (139) to continue as the sequence of activation of gamma efferent neurones, shortened muscle spindles, activation of 1A afferent neurones, and then inhibition at the synapse between the 1A afferent neurones and alpha motor neurones (140). Other sensory stimuli from muscles could be kept on hold in parallel (568).
Inhibition of the inhibition at the synapse between the 1A afferent neurones and alpha motor neurones would convert premotor activity into motor responses. This model is consistent with spatially parallel processes (142a), and with temporally early and late inhibition (142c). The subsequent muscle contraction would be sustained only if there was inhibition of 1B afferent neurones, and thus of the tendon reflex (141) (143), and gain could be exercised through variation of the recurrent inhibition afforded by Renshaw cells (569).
The distribution of activation, and of inhibition of inhibition, of alpha motor neurones between agonist and antagonist muscles, would determine the degree to which the outcome was a change in tone or a movement.
The appearance of drug-induced parkinsonism is of reduced premotor activity. Indeed, the lesser likelihood and longer latency of movement may be useful.
The substantia nigra pars compacta is affected in Parkinson's disease, and an implication is that, normally, this structure delivers premotor activity to the spinal cord, perhaps through the activation of gamma efferent neurones. Given that premotor activity requires simultaneous activation and inhibition, and given the unlikelihood that one anatomical structure delivers these opposite functions simultaneously, it is reasonable to suppose that other anatomical structures are required for such premotor activity. The subthalamic nucleus (1471) (1198) (145) (442) (1091) (2104) is at the same level as the substantia nigra pars compacta, and when it is diseased, abnormal limb movements result, consistent with loss of inhibition of alpha motor neurones. This loss of inhibition could then release 1A afferent activation. The substantia nigra pars reticulata may have a similar inhibitory role in the brainstem (146) (147) (831), perhaps in relation to eye movements (1478) (1290) (2310), as distinct from limb movements (1479).
Existent knowledge of circuitry suggests that the substantia nigra pars compacta delivers activation to the spinal cord through the descending pathways of the subthalamic nucleus and of the substantia nigra pars reticulata, rather than through descending pathways of its own, which have not been identified. In other words, neurones from the subthalamic nucleus (1765), and from the substantia nigra pars reticulata (1524), to the brainstem and to the spinal cord, are the final common pathways along which the inhibitory activity of those two structures is modulated by activations from the substantia nigra pars compacta, perhaps through excitatory dendrites (153).
The globus pallidus is another inhibitory structure (148), and it distributes neurones both to the thalamus and to the brainstem (149) (150). The division of the globus pallidus into an inner part and an outer part may reflect its role as a distributor of muscle tone that enables movement but does not disable posture (151) (1417), for example through a firing-frequency dependent mechanism (152) (2657), acting on differential time windows (265) (997): the sudden-onset trains of > 90 Hz might occur in the larger time window of 400 ms in the outer part of the globus pallidus to enable movement, while the slowly ramped frequencies of 40-60 Hz might operate in the smaller time window of 60 ms in the inner part of the globus pallidus, to maintain tone. Erect posture may have been a major evolutionary impetus for the integration of the substantia nigra and of the subthalamic nucleus with the caudate nucleus, the putamen, and the globus pallidus.
Neurosurgical perspectives do not give enough emphasis to the systematic examination of tone, as distinct from movement, nor to the comparison of isometric and isotonic contraction (1553) (1554) (2061), although there are exceptions (2290) (1765).
Normally, premotor activation by the substantia nigra pars compacta is augmented with activation from the caudate nucleus and the putamen, which are driven in turn by perceptions and by memories. Parallel inhibition is delivered through the subthalamic nucleus (573), the substantia nigra pars reticulata (153) and the globus pallidus, to maintain the premotor, as distinct from motor, emphasis. Thus, activation drives inhibition to control activation, for example through striopallidal neurones (51). The caudate nucleus and the putamen are affected in Parkinson's disease (154).
Premotor activity would become motor activity because of a change in the balance between activation that is inhibited, and the inhibition of that inhibition, which inhibition may require activation (2091). Activation could be varied by the substantia nigra pars compacta, the caudate nucleus and the putamen through the chemical dopamine. Inhibition could be varied by the subthalamic nucleus, the substantia nigra pars reticulata and the globus pallidus through the chemical gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA). Local GABA circuitry has been demonstrated in the substantia nigra pars compacta (1484) (1485), and this would enable inhibitory refinement of its predominantly excitatory circuitry.
Distinct D1 and D2 receptors (1092) (1897) (2750), different forms of D2 (1202), distinct GABA(A) and GABA(B) receptors (1474) (1094) (997) (2461), a capacity for GABA to activate as well as to inhibit, dependent on time (265) and place (439), the activation of inhibition of GABA (2517), and additional receptors to a fast inhibitor, glycine (1981), would give flexibility in the parallel orchestration of movement and posture. Each of these chemical forms in the brain would have an anatomical correlate in the spinal cord, so that, for example, monosynaptic excitation and disynaptic inhibition in the brain would produce a discrete movement in the spinal cord (1203).
Studies of the distribution of dopamine in human volunteers should include estimates of movement and of tone (2434).
Replacement of GABA has been attempted by "subthalamic gene therapy" (2263).
Individual dopamine neurones are picked out by the thalamus, and by the cerebral cortex using the chemical glutamic acid, and are combined by neurones that contain acetylcholine into functional units (1628) (155) (1368) (1827) (2635) that drive muscle groups in response to perceptions (1481) (156) (534) (1626) and to memories (309) (2555). If dopamine is lost or inhibited, then groups of neurones are activated in blunderbuss fashion (615), which, in the spinal cord, results in movement when a posture is required (tremor) and posture when a movement is required (rigidity) (157).
For the premotor activity of the basal ganglia circuitry to be realised as purposeful motor activity, it would require orchestration (1449) (2245), to be integrated with those circuits of the thalamus (1248) (1256) (159) (1968), the cerebellum (1300) and the cerebral cortex (158) (556) that also drive alpha motor neurones, but through different pathways, which requirement is particularly evident in sports injuries, when agonists and antagonists have contracted simultaneously during movement, resulting in pulled muscles. Parallel pathways from the frontal lobes may facilitate coordination of eye movements and of limb movements (1480).
Damage to the thalamus and to the basal ganglia may result in spatial neglect (1501) (1118), which may impair premotor activity.
Visceral muscles, as distinct from limb and trunk muscles, show premotor activity (1411) (391). The different types of muscle may be controlled by different chemicals (599).
Human organisms who are unsure about which premotor responses to choose have been known to seek direction through the feedback from their own motor demonstrativeness, like the lady who protested too much.
Like the motor activity it precedes, premotor activity can induce a mental set, a notable feature of which is a raised threshold to perceptions other than those that generated the premotor activity: this affords focus, at the expense of vigilance. In conversation, there may be a consequent insensitivity to cues that other people want to speak. Very intense levels of premotor activity can become repetitive, because of the wish to avoid the unpleasant emptiness inherent in a change of mental set, so that there is a driven search for perceptions relevant to the existent mental set, and this is enabled by nerve fibres that descend from the visual (160) and auditory cortices (161) to the mid-brain, where new sensory input can be gated.
The gamma efferent activity mediated through the brainstem and spinal cord contributes to facial, vocal and postural changes, and is thus a correlate of the mental state (2020).
The existence of premotor activity creates the need to establish that a movement has actually occurred, as distinct from having been about to occur, and this is expressed in corollary discharge (162) (201) (163) (1508) (1715).
Movement itself is a sensory stimulus that needs to be inhibited as part of premotor control (1276).
Gravity increases greatly the number of motor responses that need to be kept on hold, in the form of states of readiness of tone. Hence the dramatic change in sleep pattern when the fur seal leaves the sea for land (334).
Brain cells.
Nerves are brain cells, while nerve circuits are sequences of brain cells that are separated from one another by gaps, which, if bridged chemically, are called synapses (1375), and if bridged electrically are called gap junctions (535), or electrical synapses (1414), and these may coexist within the same neurone pair (2382). Developmentally, gap junctions have been seen to be supplanted by synapses in the cerebral cortex (917). Electrical connections are quicker than chemical connections (1456), but the temporal advantage may result in a spatial disadvantage, in that the varied actions of different chemicals on the cell membrane are unavaliable (539). Electrical connections may support synchrony (1860), whereas chemical connections may mediate asynchrony (1415). Synthesis of chemical connections has been addressed (2428). The average synaptic distance is 15-19 nm (1909). Average synaptic times are a peak of 0.3 ms and a decay over 2-5 ms (1914) (1915).
The gaps between
brain cells place a time limit on how quickly the outside world can be processed by the brain (1832). Our sense of time is probably based on the time taken for a gap to be bridged (604). Illusions of time may reflect variations within the range of gap time, compared with real time: when the brain works quickly, so that gaps are bridged quickly, then events will appear to slow down, assuming that they continue to occur at a constant rate in real time (605). Subjective rhythmicity given to objective events may reflect reverberation through circuits within which the number of gaps has been fixed for a finite period, perhaps by perceptions or by memories or by some combination thereof; such rhythms may be recognisable between organisms through actions (P, pages 146-148). Timed control has activated the language areas of the left cerebral hemisphere (2068). Elapsed time has activated cells in the frontal lobe (2102).
The gaps between brain cells enable nerve circuits to be made and broken in response to changes in the outside world, which molecular changes have been particularly well studied in olfaction (1253) (1254) (1255a) (1255b). Simple circuits are made through activation and are broken through inhibition, while more complex circuits may be made through inhibition (265) (439) (2452). Time is given precision through inhibition (1231) (1232) (1244). Circuits can be made in both directions (956) (905) (1359). Brain cells may inhibit themselves (2199). Hormones have been reported to modify synaptic activity (1342) (1940).
Cells respond after stimulation has reached a threshold (2360). Stimuli may interact predictably, both above and below threshold (2721).
Cells become refractory after stimulation, to allow chemical recovery, so that the absence of a response to a repeated stimulus may be a passive process (1447) (2380) (2639): the geometry of cells reflects this constraint (1758). Gaps between nerve cells vary with temperature (1794).
Circuits may be made between neurones and blood vessels (673) (1192) (1304) (1371) (2355).
The back of the mind and the front of the mind are not places in the anatomical sense, but are greater and lesser degrees of synaptic inhibition, respectively. This inhibition can be orchestrated by the frontal lobes, which activity is utilised in hypnosis (240). The inhibitory capacity of the brain is evident in the blindness that results to an eye that presents an eccentric image to the brain (1149) (2101). Consignment of ideas, feelings and images to the back of the mind requires mental effort, so that it is achieved at a cost (2713), and utilises attentional resources (P, pages 140-141). Models of attention are unlikely to reach consensus (1065) without this consideration. Suppression has been used as an index of activity (1447) (2380) (2475). Inhibition has been found to be greater in adolescents than in young adults (1135). If a psychiatric disturbance reflects the activation of aberrant unconscious memory processes (1376), then the timing of the activation requires explanation.
The more inhibited a personal idea is, and thus the further back in the mind it is, then the more likely it is to appear in the front of the mind as someone else's idea, because whenever the idea is evoked by circumstances, there is a lack of personal repsonses that would give ownership to the idea, and to any associated memories.
Attempts have been made to identify the neural correlates of beauty, which attempts have transcended the cosmetic masquerade perpetrated deathlessly by the escapist media (701). The beauty of the Mona Lisa may include the depiction of a personal response consigned to the back of the mind, which means that men can be beautiful too. The face and the body may stimulate different parts of the brain (2115). Correlations between visual attractiveness and vocal attractiveness have been shown to vary with gender and with movement (2343).
For an historical perspective of the study of nerve cells and of nerve circuits, see reference (1936).
Neurone is a synonym for nerve and for brain cell.
The brain cells that represent the individual are in circuits that include personal responses, pain and visceral sensation, whereas the brain cells that represent the outside world are not in those circuits.
Each cerebral hemisphere is lined by brain cells that comprise the cerebral cortex and that are arranged in layers, usually six in number (164) (165) (166).
Brain cells may be generated during adult life (273) (330) (740) (2126) (2524) (2590) (2671), in some parts of the brain (2373) (2714), subject to the effects of mental activity (1422) (1431) (1406) (1423) (1424) (1432), of physical activity (1407) (1580), of a critical period (1901), of age (2211), of stress (955) (933), of sleep (1740), of social structure (2201), of housing conditions (1581) (2653), of irradiation (2112), of disease (998) (1516) (1783), and of drugs (2389). Cell counts may vary with techniques (2616). The generation of brain cells during adolescence has been shown to be very sensitive to inhibition by alcohol (1998). Generation may be possible through chemical (1010) (1061) (1582) (1688) (1730) and electrical (2018) (2695) stimulation. The sprouting of new connections between brain cells may contribute to epilepsy (2460).
Within the cerebral cortex, the inner cell layers perceive immediate sensory stimuli (167) and produce immediate motor responses (323), while the outer cell layers evoke past sensory experiences, that is memories (1280) (1040) (1743), which may modulate immediate motor responses (953) (958).
The immediate sensory stimuli to a particular cortical cell column (945) may reverberate through the laminae of that column in circuitry inclusive of the thalamus (170) (1841) (1965), while memories arrive in the outer layers of that column through the neocortex (169), and through the mesocortex (1468c), subject to attention (1247a) (1247b) (2456). This could be expressed in the electroencephalograph as an initial burst, then a pause, then more sustained activity (966).
Evoked past responses may feed forward to vary immediate responses (1824), as when a reward is expected to occur (2014). When an expected reward fails to occur, the disparity between immediate sensory stimuli and memories may activate motor responses to remove the disparity (172), for example by foraging (1058). Perceived discrepancy between current body image and remembered body image may drive sexual behaviour, perhaps through variations in testosterone levels (393). Facial metrics (2537), and a small waist-to-hip ratio (1879), remind us of when we were young. Memory minus perception equals action, which translates chemically into acetylcholine (2298) (2304) minus adrenaline equals dopamine (891).
The placebo effect is likely to include the activation of memories of pain relief by the prospect of pain relief (R, pages 263-264) (171) (2111) (2696), perhaps through the activation of inhibitory circuits driven by the outer cell layers in response to the perception of analgesics by the inner cell layers.
Perception in the inner cell layers is subject to memory in the outer cell layers, that is the eye of the beholder (904) (2302). The impassivity of any seducer and of some film stars is intended to minimise disruption by the inner cell layers of what is active in the outer cell layers.
The outer cell layers are the mind's eye and the mind's ear (P, page 5, and page 167).
In conversation, a stressed human sometimes talks about the memories evoked by the other person rather than to the immediate perception of that person, which feels like insensitivity to that other person; this is part of the logic of indirect speech (2333).
Given that the cellular basis of perception is cells in layers 4 to 6 of the cerebral cortex and the cellular basis of memory is cells in layers 1 to 3 of the cerebral cortex, and given that the subject is represented by the mesocortex on the inner side of both cerebral hemispheres while the object is represented by the neocortex on the outer side of both cerebral hemispheres, the social soliloquy is in fact a dialogue wholly within the brain of the subject, specifically between cells in layers 1 to 3 of the mesocortex on the inner side of both cerebral hemispheres and cells in layers 1 to 3 of the neocortex on the outer side of both cerebral hemispheres. Syntactic rules are not sensitive to this variation, illustrative of their reducibility. [Back to Theories of language or The cerebral hemispheres if required.]
Insofar as an organism's perception of the world through sensory stimuli is altered by its own brain, for example by its memories, then that experience of the world is called apperception, which carries the implications that different organisms may experience the same world in different ways at the same time (2007) (2189) (2409), and the same organism may experience the same world in different ways at different times (605) (2147). The frequency of a sound is the physical vibration, while the pitch of the same sound is the psychological experience, (P, page 29). Attempts to explain the relationship between sensory stimuli and responses in terms of the sensory stimuli alone, such as Weber's Law and Fechner's Law, have been shown to be approximations at best (1296) (1297) (1123) (1875) (2645) (2744). Prey may avoid predation through disruption of the predator's memories, as distinct from its perceptions (1564). The organism makes adjustments, through the eyes (2078) (2077) (220), through the ears (2075) (2076) (P, pages 63-68, page 277, and page 378), and through the brain (2430) (R, page 289, and pages 291-296) (1298) (1575) (1649) (1777) (1878) (2422) (2722). Thus, an effect of a pure tone of 700 ~ and 80 db on the inner ear has been shown to be the production of subjective overtones, that is overtones with distinct pitch, loudness and harmonic relation to the fundamental, but with no corresponding physical frequency (P, page 65) (2075), perhaps because of amplification by the outer hair cells of the cochlea (2137) (2138) (1345) (1263) (2177) (2013). Tones have been made to disappear through competition (2146). Gaps in perception are filled in by the organism (1267) (476) (2397); (1705) (1863) (1956) (2431). The demonstration of fibres that pass from the hypothalami and from the hippocampi to the retinae, suggests circuitry whereby memories could alter perceptions (647) (1587).
The occult exists because of lack of introspective knowledge (R, page 172). The containment of anger does feel like something unpleasant inside (854), and this needs to be included in analyses of punishment (80) (2130) (2330) (2357) (2595) (2704) (2755). One's brain is divided into self, inside, and others, outside. A perception of an object or of a person can remove inhibitions, so that something unpleasant inside appears to move from inside to outside. It is this lack of introspective knowledge that gives the occult its extrospective force.
There are less dramatic, more mundane ways of shifting an unpleasant feeling from inside to outside, that is, from the part of the brain associated with personal responses, to the part of the brain associated with perception of the outside world, especially other people: these include confession, regression, sexual activity, and the ubiquitous, non-intersecting soliloquies of 'buses, corridors, shops, and telephones. Electronic mails (818) (678), mobile telephones (1923) (2005), and a website (2231) have been illustrative.
A major developmental issue is how parents deal with the responses of their offspring that are unexpected and that reflect the distinctive genetic mix of those offspring. Some members of English society have reacted by trying to have their supposedly aberrant children labelled as "mentally ill" by a psychiatrist, when all the children have been doing is experiencing the same world in different ways to their parents at the same time (588).
Consistency in the outside world makes it easier for a child to realise how it may vary in its experience of the immediate outside world through its memories.
Language is subject to apperception, so that particular words mean different things to different people. An example in psychiatric language is "Freudian", an example in neuroscientific language is "limbic" (2139) (2140) (1934), while examples in scientific language are "gene" (1637), "endangered" (1975), "species" (2253) (1941), and "behaviour" (2602).
The electrical activity of brain cells is cyclical, like alternating current, which means that it is relatively easy to stop at any moment in response to an event in the outside world, because, by its very nature, it is at the zero point on a regular basis. Like the electrical activity of the home, the electrical activity of the brain incurs costs (2605).
If neurones cycle independently rather than in groups, then at any given moment, at least one of them will be close to discharge and free from interference by the other neurones that are at different points in the cycle (177). The loss of these individual neuronal cycles, and the resultant synchronous discharge of groups of neurones is abnormal, as is seen in Parkinson's disease (178) (2478), dystonia (1166) and experimental parkinsonism (1167).
The electrical activity of brain cells is detectable in the electroencephalograph (1312) (292), in the electrocorticograph (1862) (2066) (2604) (2619), and through intracranial electrodes (2720), as alpha waves (179) (427) (670) (1543) (2436) (2717), beta waves (54) (1542) (1543) (2378), gamma waves (139) (1382) (1542) (1621) (2179) (2284) (2611) (2650), delta waves (184) (2480) (2720), theta waves (313) (1382) (1388) (1621) (2720) (2743), slow waves (987) (988), spikes, and spindles (1594), which phenomena have been studied from electrical (314) (1334), clinical (184) (1846) (2286) (2405); (1395) (2287) (2404); (1622) (1770) (2033); (2030) (2031), cellular (1380) (1457) (296), and vascular (1076) (636), perspectives, and, also, in relation to attention (1609) (1927) (2063) (2163) (2187) (2284), perception (1840) (2556); (2125); (1311); (443) (645) (1891) (2443) (2650), movement (2569) (2701), working memory (1995) (1707) (1900) (2197) (2198) (2477) (2612), learning (180) (1258), remembering - both recognition (267) (1175) (1708) (1709) (1710) (2378) and recall (798) (1383) (1594), sleep (82) (84) (1594), behaviour consequent upon remembering (315), complex natural stimuli (1829), personality (1465) (1541) (2283) (2285) (2496), social performance (2010), and performance in traffic (2163) (2479). Rewards have increased the power of existent brain waves (513) (2651), indicative of the association between focused attention and visceral activity. Brain waves have been shown to be sensitive to modulations of sound waves (674) (2626) (2641). Sensory oscillations have been found in invertebrates, suggestive of evolutionary importance (635). Oscillations have been studied in three dimensions (1377).
It is unremarkable that the neuronal spikes that generate brain oscillations are to some degree correlated with those oscillations (1955).
A change in the outside world may be registered by one of a group of brain cells firing out of phase (181) (182) (1405). Different aspects of actuality may be represented by the difference between amplitude and frequency (1605), and, within frequency, between the effects of regular and irregular stimuli (1834), between bursts and spikes of electrical activity (1506) (183) (659) (833) (2256), and also by systematic variations within bursts and within spikes (590) (1606) (2309a) (2309b) (2318). Bursts have been shown to predict behavioural responses (1658) (2009). Burst and tonic response modes have been contrasted in the relays between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex (2531, pages 247-250, and pages 313-314). The timing of electrical activity, as a response, may reflect the number of nerve gaps crossed following the stimulus (1593). The information per spike has been reported to be greater at lower firing rates (1287). Different spike patterns have been observed in males and in females (1205). A change in the body may be coded by a change in rate (643). Different firing patterns have been shown between different cortical areas (866) and between different cortical layers within the same cortical areas (866) (867). Within the motor system, averages may be more instructive than individual spikes (931). Active movement and passive movement have produced different firing patterns (1519).
The explanatory value of electroencephalographic activity is debatable, as reflected in references (763) and (764).
Related techniques include electromyography (2294) (2375) (2288) (2403) (2406), sonography (2437), acoustic analysis (2481), visual image analysis (2498) (2515), magnetoencephalography (674) (2164) (2475) (2490) (2611) (2626) (2627) (2701), transcranial magnetic stimulation (2354) (2402) (2448), brainstem stimulation (2544), and transcutaneous electrical stimulation (2497).
Genes.
Cells have a nucleus and a cytoplasm, that is a cell body, surrounded by a cell membrane. The interaction between heredity and the environment begins when sensory stimuli cause changes in a cell (1266) (1259) (1441) (1717) (2731); (1253) (1254) (1255a) (1255b) (1718) (1919) (1982) (2037); (1228) (1873) (2326) (2152) (2319) (2527) (2627) (2630) (2687) (2747) (2727); (1345) (1261) (1262) (1263) (2177) (2013) (1771) (1837) (2110); (1921) (2181) (2184) (2334); (1803) (1804) (1757) (2588), which changes may be transmitted to neighbouring cells. Within a nerve circuit of brain cells, chemicals released by one brain cell cross the synapse and cause the shape of the cell membrane of an adjacent brain cell to alter (1384) (660) (591) (770), which, in turn, activates changes in chemicals in the cytoplasm of that adjacent brain cell. These cytoplasmic chemicals may include proteins, (667) phosphates, calcium and fats, and the changes in them are transmitted to the cell nucleus. Within minutes of a sensory stimulus (175), the deoxyribonucleic acid [DNA] in the genes of the cell nucleus sends ribonucleic acid [RNA] (1712) into the cytoplasm to make new protein (1713) in response to the new sensory stimulus. For example, a painful stimulus may produce proteins that inhibit pain transmission between brain cells; a sensory experience may induce new memories (176) (1385) (1747).
Adaptive cellular changes are more likely to occur if the organism is in safe repose, so that an adult human who finds a safe place, activates the serotonin nerves to stop input to the hippocampus and then reflects, will reduce levels of stress.
Chemical changes in the genes of patients with mental illness may be consequences of the illness, or of its treatment.
The possession of a particular gene has very little predictive value with respect to any mental illness, and the diagnosis of any mental illness has very little predictive value with respect to the possession of any gene.
Twin concordance may reflect placental overlap.
We inherit through our genes an array of potential responses, but these require to be developed for us by our family (2129), even if they do not use those responses themselves.
Genetic therapy requires a risk assesment, and sustained follow-up over decades.
Genetic chemistry is very intricate (1637).
Cell nuclei are so small, that the process of study of nuclear DNA may influence the findings (417).
Different cell nuclei in the same organism may have different configurations of DNA (389) (2673).
The chemicals orchestrated by sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes are RNA (379) and then cytoplasmic protein (325) (378) (650) (2427).
Some parts of the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes do not orchestrate RNA and then cytoplasmic protein (324) (1716) (1722) (2084).
The parts of the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes that do not orchestrate RNA and then cytoplasmic protein, are called introns in reference (324), but one such part is called an exon in reference (1655).
Some parts of the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes that do not orchestrate RNA and then cytoplasmic protein, may interact with the nuclear DNA that does orchestrate RNA, and with RNA (1110).
Identical nuclear DNA sequences known as genes may produce different chemicals at different times (656).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes can be induced to produce different chemicals at different times (256) (627) (1369).
The same sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may produce different chemicals at the same time (684) (1350).
Some sequences of DNA known as genes may be cryptic within the cell nucleus (333), perhaps kept in reserve.
Some sequences of DNA known as genes are duplicated within the cell nucleus (426) (768) (799) (1721) (1741), perhaps kept in reserve in the event of damage, and thus of the need for repair (1974).
The duplication of sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes within the cell nucleus has been associated with disease (2127).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may recombine (703) (735), perhaps to produce robustness (788), or to encode a new memory (827) (1268). The causal relationship with mating is likely to be instructive (1555).
Recombinations and mutations are both produced by the crossing over of sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes, between chromosomes, in germ cells (788) (1924).
The capacity for mutation enables adaptation to environmental change (1993).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as chromosomes may be inhibited by the sequences of nuclear DNA known as chromosomes (281) (282) (283) (716) (717).
One of the X chromosomes may be inactive (1871) (2084).
Some sequences of nuclear DNA on the inhibited X chromosome escape inhibition (1003).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as chromosomes may be remodelled (1655) (385).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may be inhibited by the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes (333) (680) (1642) (2011).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may add to the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes (688) (860) (1642) (2011).
The relationships between the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may vary over time (324) (692) (1677), and in place (1677).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may be inhibited by RNA (789) (915).
RNA may be inhibited by short RNA (1064) (1439).
RNA may be inhibited by microRNA (1643).
RNA induces retraction of synapses and of dendritic spines (1193).
Repression may have molecular correlates (1154) (1517) (1591) (2617), as may suppression (2618). However, the introduction of the words repression and suppression, with their emotional connotations, rather than the use of the word inhibition, with its chemical denotations, requires molecular justification, lest we fail to learn from psychiatry (1591) (A).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes that are inherited from each parent may be expressed differentially (281) (282) (283) (723), perhaps in response to differential stimulation by each parent.
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may be inherited atavistically, from grandparents but not from parents, perhaps through ancestral RNA (1659).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may be altered atavistically, for example, through a grandmother's diet (1734).
Chemical changes may occur in the cell independent of changes of the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes (385); some of these changes may be due to variations in RNA (708) (704) (705) (706) (707).
Chemical changes may occur in the cell independent of the orchestration by sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes of RNA and then of cytoplasmic protein; the time-scale of these chemical changes is 15 to 30 minutes (88), compared with a time-scale of 2 to 4 hours for the orchestration by sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes of RNA and then of cytoplasmic protein (175).
Chemical changes may be transmitted across generations (225) (1071) (1577), notionally independent of changes of the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes (386) (810), called epigenetic inheritance (387) (388) (809). There is no epigene (2085), but there is an epigenome (2086), and there are epigenotypes (2087).
The relationship between synaptic chemicals, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the orchestration by sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes of RNA and then of cytoplasmic protein, is propositional (175) (942) (176) (1534) (626) (648) (1795) (1847).
Behavioural changes that require transcription are likely to take longer then behavioural changes that only require translation, which, in turn, will probably take longer than behavioural changes that just require the release of existent protein from a neurone into a synapse. Sleep may be needed for the more complex alterations.
Cross-sectional findings may be correlates, or consequences, rather than causes (708) (707) (390) (724) (938) (709) (1944) (1665) (1036) (1469) (1742) (1996) (1852) (1885).
Cross-sectional findings have been used to infer genetic ancestry (2180).
Changes in the environment are not necessarily followed by chemical changes in sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes (713) (333) (746) (747).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may include modules (684).
The sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may show oscillations (843).
The same sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may be associated with different effects, called pleiotropy (333) (684), and phenotypic polymorphism (1207).
The same effects may be associated with different sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes, called genetic polymorphism (1208) (2043).
Different sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may be adapted equally to a given environment (731).
The same sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may be adapted differently to a given environment, and this may slow evolution (2202).
Too much similarity between neighbouring sequences of nuclear DNA predicts social mobility (317) (578) (579).
Sequences of DNA may move around the nucleus (378), sometimes through the intermediary activity of RNA (669) (690).
Sequences of DNA may be present in the cytoplasm (720) (1764).
Some sequences of DNA present in the cytoplasm of plant cells may transfer into the cell nuclei (1925).
Some sequences of nuclear DNA known as chromosomes characterise mammals (2050).
Some sequences of nuclear DNA known as chromosomes, characterise mammals, as distinct from birds, and from reptiles (1735).
Some sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes characterise mammals, as distinct from birds (726).
Some sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes have been conserved between fishes and mammals (1761).
Within the class of mammals, some sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes may have the same (1722) (2128) or different (952) effects.
The parts of the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes that do not orchestrate RNA and then cytoplasmic protein have been shown to vary more than the parts of the sequences of nuclear DNA that do orchestrate RNA and then cytoplasmic protein, in one group of mammals compared with another group of mammals (2084).
Sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes have been compared within the order of primates, with the production of a blueprint (1988), and of drafts (1989).
Some sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes have been shown to be conserved to a greater degree in the subcortex than in the cerebral cortex, between species, within the order of primates (1733).
Some diseases may occur because sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes are shared by mammals and microorganisms (1308).
Genes may be transferred horizontally (1881).
Some diseases are associated with instability of the sequences of nuclear DNA known as genes (1798).
The addition of a gene to treat one disease may increase the risk of another disease (806).
The deletion of a gene to prevent a disease may expose the subject to other diseases.
The addition or deletion of genes may affect fertility, aging, and, in animals, predation risk (1702).
Models of gene structure and function are available (168) (786) (826) (834).
The assignment of fixed probabilities to many genes is simplistic, given the variation that can occur between some genes and the subsequent expression of characteristics (781) (1552).
For a literate critique, see reference (O).
Incredulity that genes associated with mental illness, and thus with reduced fertility, should persist across generations (2520), suggests simplistic ideas about genes (1637). Genes exist in a genetic environment. Genes are structured as reciprocal pairs, with one member of each reciprocal pair derived from each parent. The chemical responses of any reciprocal gene depend on the other reciprocal gene, and also on the reciprocal genes of other pairs, and it is this distinctive genetic network that is associated with mental illness and reduced fertility in any individual.
The relationship between reciprocal genes may be altered by the meiotic chromosomal reconfigurations that precede fertilisation (2607). Arguably, meiosis acts as a circuit-breaker that removes the network inhibitions of reciprocal genes occasioned during the life of the potential parent to date, and thereby makes those reciprocal genes available to offspring in uninhibited form.
Protein-coding changes may be less important than regulatory changes (2607).
A DETAILED GUIDE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL ILLNESS.
The frontal lobe.
The general sensory awareness, general motor responsiveness and general body image of the cerebral hemisphere can be brought into focus by its frontal lobe (185), between modes by orchestration of the thalamus (1172), and within modes by a process of central activation and lateral, or surround inhibition, which also involves the thalamus (1489) (187) (1490) (1221) (1822), and which is present in both the sensory system (186) (188) (1150) (481) (429) (491), and the motor system (189) (837). For tactile stimuli, the distribution of central activation and surround inhibition may depend on whether one hand is used, or whether both hands are used (890).
Lateral inhibition is only one way in which the brain orchestrates sensory stimuli to produce perceptions (1152) (1153) (2760). The same central and peripheral stimuli are orchestrated by the brain in a different way to produce the perception of movement (675), and in yet another way to negotiate darkness (1121) (220) (992) (1151) (1418) (1858) (1957). Inhibition is used to resolve time (1231) (1232) (1244), as well as space (1732).
Excessive lateral inhibition has been implicated in developmental disorders (1675).
A corollary of lateral inhibition has been referred to as relative blindsight (1737).
Given their lives so far, patients with schizophrenia may prefer the bigger picture (1699).
The frontal lobe contains brain cells that continue to respond after the stimulus has ceased (1005), to a degree that reflects the duration of the stimulus (2102) (2444). Relatedly, each frontal lobe interacts with its parietal (192) (916) (524a) (524b) (1789) (2065) (2183) (2566) (2591) (2592), occipital (191) (872) (1695) and temporal lobes (479) (977) (1695) (1703), to contain not only the sensory stimuli transmitted to those lobes by the thalamus (1902) (2215), but also the memories evoked by those sensory stimuli (2350), even after the stimuli have ended, with retention of the order of the stimuli (2170): this is called working memory (199) (1903) (2027) (2754). In the same way, each frontal lobe assists its basal ganglia (477), that is the caudate nucleus (2613), the putamen (570) and the globus pallidus, and its midbrain (957) in the production and containment of potential motor responses through dopamine (382) (193) (194) (190) (381), and can stabilise the potential responses from interference by irrelevant stimuli. Potential motor responses include eye movements (911) (1752) (1966). The frontal lobe can also maintain a response after attention has ended to a stimulus that has continued (1331). The cerebellum may be participative (1302) (2463).
It follows that stimuli can occur without responses, that responses can occur without stimuli, and that responses may follow stimuli arbitrarily. Responses may occur because of the need to avoid overload by too many reverberant potential motor responses in the output, motor side of the working memory system. Ethological concepts of releasers (K), and some psychological concepts of stimuli and responses (449), appear simplistic in this context.
Working memory represents a major challenge to empiricism and phenomenology, where these terms mean taking things at face value (565) (2054).
The graphical relationship between performance, as ordinate, and reverberation, as abscissa, may be an inverted U (472).
Working memory has generated its own vocabulary (1332), inclusive of encoding (623), load (195), maintenance (623) (729), buffer (624), interference (195) (622) (2612), nonemotional distracters (1616), distractors and interruptors (2612), rule implementation (544), temporal segmentation (1352), domain-general or domain-specific component subsystems (1340), flexible updating (switching) (2026), discrete fixed-capacity (2420), and the oxymoronic non-mnemonic role (521).
Working memory has been explored during infancy (2512), while the development of working memory between the ages of 8 and 30 has been studied (863) (1696) (2550), as has the adaptation of working memory to aging (1745) (2628).
Working memory dysfunction is not a core component of schizophrenia (737) (2331) (2442), and it is just as likely that "the pervasive and profound cognitive deficits observed in patients with this illness" contribute substantially to working memory dysfunction, as it is that working memory dysfunction contributes substantially to "the pervasive and profound cognitive deficits observed in patients with this illness." (478). Hallucinations, delusions, and treatment may also contribute substantially to working memory dysfunction in patients with this illness (621).
"Give me a reminder..." is a regressed attempt to increase one's working memory capacity through someone else. Electronic mails, telephone calls and telephone texts may be used for the same effect.
In written texts, a "window of attention" of 100 words has been studied (767). Covert attention is likely to be a correlate of working memory (2417).
Working memory is just that, work, so that it is achieved at a cost (1344).
Working memory for sensory stimuli is consistent with the greater number of neurones engaged in the internal representation of a stimulus compared with its transduction (1177).
If a bigger brain means more synapses (2715), then it may confer an advantage in terms of reverberatory capacity, and thus of working memory.
Working memory applies to sounds as well as to words, (P, page 339).
The anatomical correlates of verbal working memory and of sentence comprehension have been compared (2067).
The circuitry of working memory may overlap the circuitry of longer term memory (1046).
Working memory capacity has been shown to correlate with the rate of motor sequence learning (2597) (2628).
Working memory has electroencephalographic correlates (1995) (1707) (1900) (2197) (2198) (2477) (2612).
With the motor system on hold in cortical layer 5 (acetylcholine) (936), and against the template of consolidated memory (acetylcholine) (424) (425) (1433), working memory (dopamine) (688), (dopamine D1) (193) (941) (dopamine D5) (1368) is stabilised from perceptual (GABA) (193) (2677) and visceral (serotonin) (381) interference, while remaining perceptually aware (noradrenaline) (129), able to activate the motor system (dopamine D2) (761) through cortical layer 5 (382), and responsive to chemical closure (430), all provided that steroid responses have not been affected by stress (848). Spontaneous firing is not necessarily noise (664), it may be consolidated memory.
A dopamine D1 agonist has been shown to improve working memory in aged monkeys, but not in young adult monkeys (944), perhaps through gain modulation of layer 5 pyramidal neurones (2449). A dopamine D1-D2 agonist had mixed effects in humans (1354), whereas a D2 agonist improved flexible updating (switching) in impulsive humans (2026).
An association has been demonstrated between impairment of spatial working memory, and neuronal loss in layer 2 of the cingulate cortices, in rats given dexamethasone (919).
Working memory has been found to improve following brain damage (1882).
The frontal lobe transforms a potential motor response into an actual motor response (196) (540), through the inhibition of an old motor response made obsolescent by a new sensory stimulus, and then the activation of a new motor response that is relevant to the new sensory stimulus (197) (547). This inhibition of old motor responses in the face of new sensory stimuli is subject to fatigue, so that an old motor response may persist in spite of a change of sensory stimulus, which is called perseveration.
There are other definitions of perseveration (1241). Brain damage has resulted in sensory persistence, when the tactile sensory stimulus has stopped, but the sensation of touch has continued (1252).
The frontal lobe may produce a particular mental set, through the activation of the outer cell layers of the cerebral cortex, which evokes a set of memories that the organism then tries to match in the inner cell layers of the cerebral cortex by search of the outside world for the relevant sensory stimuli (839) (1724). The existence of a prior mental set facilitates memory (1928). Change of mental set requires the frontal lobe to inhibit the existent mental set and then activate a new mental set (198) (1083) (1365) (1951) and, again, this is subject to fatigue. Response inhibition has been quantified (563) (1025) (1027) (2569), as have response activation (757) and response error (1060). The frontal lobe orchestrates hypnosis through the distribution of activation and inhibition (240).
The frontal lobe enables plans to be made (1037), through the activation of memories (199) (514) (1778), which feed forward what has happened in the past: this becomes feedback about what might happen in the future which may then influence motor responses (642).
The frontal lobes enable consistency (1004).
The frontal lobe can modulate responses to sensory stimuli. One example is when a frontal lobe reduces the likelihood of sensory stimulation by inhibitory priming of sensory nerves, a ubiquitous activity called presynaptic inhibition (969) (975) (1128). Another example is when an imperative sensory stimulus causes both outer frontal lobes to produce a momentary alerting response, which is seen in the electroencephalograph as a negative deflection, called the contingent negative variation (200) (1859). An example of an imperative sensory stimulus is a sudden loud noise.
The frontal lobe includes visual (979) (907) (965) (994) (2224) (2742), and auditory and tactile (979) fields, within which other organisms can be perceived (201), and from which responses can be activated (1973) (2136). The amygdala characterises other organisms in degrees of safety (1513) (787) (1527) (2301), and transmits this information to the frontal lobe. Insofar as an organism experiences other organisms as safe, it will be able to experience itself within its visual fields to the degree that those organisms feedback perceptions about the organism itself (1464), rather than feed forward memories about themselves (448). Thus, the frontal lobe affords the opportunity for an organism to construct a map of itself within the outside world, albeit subject to the responses of other organisms (202) (203) (1608). As indicated in the quick guide, if a child is afraid then he or she will not construct a map of himself or herself in the outside world, or will merely pretend to do so, with dire consequences.
An organism that is threatened keeps the parts of the brain associated with personal responses, that is the cingulate lobes, and with hostile instincts, that is the amygdalae, on hold until it produces its response, which could be fight, flight or continued retraction. Fight or flight would require the amygdalae to surmount any inhibition imposed by the inner frontal lobes through the uncinate fasciculi. Continued retraction, which might amount to a frozen state, would require the inner frontal lobes to maintain inhibition of the amygdalae through the uncinate fasciculi.
The recognition of personal responses in others (1372) requires conversancy with one's own personal responses, which, in turn, requires a habitat in which those personal responses can be expressed, and identified as one's own (1653).
The longer a child remains retracted from the outside world, then the less his or her cingulate lobes and amygdalae will be conditioned by the outside world, (1672) (855) (1670) and the less they will learn how to condition the outside world (1651) (311) (1038), perhaps due to reduced gaze fixation (1680) (1674) (1958). Given that the alerting inhibition by the outer frontal lobes of the rest of the brain evoked by an imperative sensory stimulus (1859) is produced initially by the outside world, the child will have less opportunity to learn that the inhibition is nonetheless the product of his or her own brain (204) (1711) (2151) (2421). There is a major difference between an adult human who finds the world a hostile place and an adult human who has learned that in certain hostile environments his or her brain will respond in a particular way, with inhibition of itself.
A split in the brain: schizophrenia
A child who perceives its outside world as unsafe may remain in a retracted, cryptic, state, so that, day-by-day, he or she will abide by the rules of the family (205), and will not display the personal responses of the cingulate lobes and the instinctive responses of the amygdalae (1728), but will keep these hidden, through inhibition by the inner frontal lobes (1568) (2462). The child will, in consequence, lack spontaneity. The potential for spontaneity will remain, however, because the child can choose to reveal his or her personal and instinctive responses at any moment. Bets are thus hedged, for which there are evolutionary antecedents (2196).
In an attempt to fit in and feel less unsafe, the child may dissimulate: the child actively camouflages himself or herself (207) (700) through the production of the responses that reflect his or her perception of other people by his or her temporal and occipital lobes, which responses he or she thinks the other people in his or her unsafe outer world want to hear and see. The child may mimick siblings who appear favoured (206) (208), so that individuality is sacrificed for uniformity (1022). Then, to avoid any contradiction between these delayed responses and any possible immediate responses to the same auditory and visual stimuli, the child intensifies the inhibition of his or her own personal and instinctive responses. Effectively, the child reduces the signal to noise ratio, where the signal is the real child.
A healthy sibling has been known to feign disturbance so as to confuse his parents, and thus keep them at bay, which dissimulation was confided convincingly to the psychiatrist (1209).
Even more difficult for the child is incongruity between auditory and visual stimuli, which may produce a feeling of double bind, that whatever the child does at that moment is wrong. Initially, the child may respond to that part of the incongruity that induces fear (124), but catastrophic inhibition of that instinct may follow, in order to reduce conflict, ambiguity, and anxiety.
Children in this mode can be heard describing themselves as how they think other people see them: "I am a bit naughty?" or: "I am a bit naughty!" or: "I am a bit .........naughty." There is a double meaning. The words are spoken on behalf of perceived other people, while the meanings conveyed by the punctuation marks are expressed by the embattled instincts of the child.
The instinctually estranged child has a stark choice (489) (490) (501): face the fear of abandonment by getting into contact with your hostility through your amygdalae; or, in order to fit in, to feel less unsafe and to negotiate the pecking order, at least inhibit your amygdalae and thus your hostilty and come to lack spontaneity, and, at most, compound this lack of spontaneity with lack of authenticity, through the pretence that you are someone you are not. The child may compromise by keeping just within the prescribed boundaries but not without a degree of truculence, which is as healthy in the long-term as it is disruptive in the short-term (209). Paradoxically, then, the more biddable the child, the more disturbed the adolescent, because the more retracted the child, the less the personal and instinctive responses of the child will have been conditioned by the world (1672) (855) (1670), and the less the child will have learned how to condition the world (1651) (311) (1038), perhaps due to reduced gaze fixation (1680) (1674) (1958), and the more likely the child will have been to have acquired a hollow character (16).
Some displays of truculence are clearly aposematic (571) (657), which makes diagnostic medical intervention all the more misplaced (588).
The more dissimulated the child, the more mentally disorganised the disturbed adolescent (hebephrenic schizophrenia), while the less dissimulated the child, the less mentally disorganised the disturbed adolescent (paranoid schizophrenia).
Before puberty, the habitat of the retracted, biddable child is relatively untroubled because of the efforts of the child to conceal any anger and thus to fit in. The child becomes conditioned to express personal responses in terms of other people. "I hate you, Daddy!" becomes "Mummy said she told you I had been good." The child acquires a set of memories of having expressed personal responses in terms of other people. However, when the sex hormones of puberty bring instincts closer to the surface, what was easily put to the back of the mind at the age of seven intrudes at the age of seventeen. The part of the brain that has been inhibited so as to make dissimulation workable is unable to give any explanatory, personal content to the intensified feelings of arousal that are associated with provocative auditory and visual stimuli. The adolescent can only explain these feelings of arousal in terms of other people. Perceptions are too immediate, because they invite hostility, so that the adolescent takes recourse in memories of other people that are associated with the current level of arousal. "God, I hate my bloody Father!" becomes "I can hear my Mother talking to my Father about me."
The memories become hallucinations because the inhibition of personal responses as causes of the memories gives those memories the character of perceptions, which are normally independent of personal antecedents (1850). There is a lack of offsets, that is cancellation signals, that is corollary discharges, to distinguish memories from perceptions (41).
The part of the brain that has survived through retraction starts to express itself in an unconditioned and thus idiosyncratic way (995), with delusions.
Anatomically, the sex hormones of puberty stimulate the genitalia and, through these, the reticular network of nerves. The diffuse nature of the reticular network means that it is more difficult to inhibit than circumscribed structures like the cingulate lobes and the amygdalae (210). In addition, the sex hormones of puberty activate the brain directly, for example through each stria terminalis, so that arousal is brought closer to the inhibitory threshold set hitherto instinctively by the child, through the inner frontal lobes, to enable the child's perception of family life. This arousal enters the hippocampi through the brainstem and through the amygdalae (864), which are now more active than in years gone by because of hormonal stimulation by the proximate striae terminales. The points of entry of the arousal on the longitudinal axes of the hippocampi are determined by the auditory and visual stimuli in question. The arousal accesses the mesocortices through the mamillo-thalamic tracts (8) and accesses the neocortices through the sequence of CA1, subicular cortices, entorhinal cortices and perirhinal cortices (212) (527) (530) (211) (531) (532).
To the degree that the perceived, personal arousal is not associated with perceived, personal, mesocortical input through the cingulum bundles, and a consequent response such as: "God, I hate my bloody Father!", because the cingulate lobes remain inhibited (213) (214), the hippocampi elicit remembered, impersonal, neocortical responses associated with the same degree of arousal (215), such as: "I can hear my Mother talking to my Father about me." The resultant hallucinations are not perceptions without external stimuli (211) (476), they are apperceptions without internal stimuli.
The preponderance of auditory hallucinations reflects the verbal nature of the inhibited responses. Less commonly, somatic hallucinations are produced by inhibited motor responses (44).
The occurrence of third person rather than second person auditory hallucinations reflects a greater degree of inhibition of personal responses.
To the degree that the perceived, personal arousal activates the cingulate lobes for the first time in years, the perceived, personal, mesocortical input to the hippocampi is diffuse on their longitudinal axes and is outside the controls that the frontal lobes can exercise through the presubiculum (244) and the parasubiculum (H, volume 1), so that outlandish associations are formed between the neocortex, the mesocortex and the brainstem, such as: "Father (neocortex), you are making me (mesocortex) into a homosexual (brainstem)!" Cortico-cortical activations occur. During childhood, the pyramidal cells of the infragranular layers of the mesocortical cingulate cortices have been quiescent, due to focused inhibition by the outer frontal lobes, mediated by the inner frontal lobes, for example through the superior fronto-occipital bundles and through the cingulum bundles. Any activation of the pyramidal cells of the infragranular layers of the cingulate cortices has been from the supragranular layers of the neocortices (216) (679), perhaps layer 1, through the supragranular layers of the cingulate cortices: "top-down" rather than "bottom-up". These have been the neuronal equivalents of the driver going where he or she thought the driving instructor wanted him or her to go. Memories may have been formed of activations of the mesocortex by the neocortex, and these will have been stored in the supragranular layers, perhaps layer 3. Now, during adolesent arousal, the diffuse reticular network activates all parts of the brain in the direction brainstem to mesocortex and to neocortex. The unfamiliar activation of the infragranular layers of the cingulate cortices from below is experienced as something strange going on, that is delusional mood, which the adolescent tries to explain in terms of immediate surroundings, with consequent delusional perceptions and paranoid delusions. Insofar as memories have been formed of activations of the mesocortex by the neocortex and stored in the supragranular layers, these are experienced passively by the mesocortex now activated innovatively in the opposite direction, for example, as delusions of thought insertion and delusions of thought withdrawal. Motor acts that have been performed by the infragranular pyramidal cells of the cingulate cortices in response to the neocortices are expressed now as passivity phenomena (44). Innovative amygdalar arousal may reach the cerebral cortex directly, that is without traversal of the thalami, and may then cause delusions, with short latency.
The cingulate cortex has been shown to contain at least 13 different subregions in the rat, while the anterior cingulate cortex has been shown to comprise two unique parts in the human (2401), which divisions would enable simultaneous inhibition and activation (877), perhaps using an electronic chip (2724).
Hallucinations and delusions produce memories, and these are drawn on in future psychotic episodes.
Prevention could begin before birth (1868) (2435) or during infancy (995) (1661), and, thereafter, could include probes for social inhibition, and for ambivalent anger, the latter tested with a GO-NO GO format. The probes should be human, and not inanimate, so that money would be unlikely to elicit differences between groups (995). For children at risk, neuroimagery and quantitative electroencephalography (2496) could address responses to anger more precisely, for example, in the anterior thalamic nuclei (384), with a view to neurofeedback (1464).
Evidently, progress will require the combination of neuroimages and electroencephalography, rather than either technique alone (962) (463) (480) (1859) (2160) (2197) (2216) (2279) (2369) (2534) (2552) (2599) (2627).
Deprived of introspective cues, the disturbed adolescent has to negotiate the outside world through memories of external landmarks (217).
A corollary of the foregoing is that loss of contact with instincts is a risk factor for disturbance. Abuse, be it emotional, sexual or physical, conditions children not to respond to their instincts. A frightened child is dependent on those adults around him or her to recognise, contain, represent, and reflect back in tranquillity, those personal responses and memories that have been retracted through fear.
The unconditioned and idiosyncratic expression of the part of the brain that has survived includes the delusion that the momentary, inhibitory response of the outer frontal lobes to an imperative stimulus is really outside interference with personal thoughts; this happens because the hitherto retracted brain has not been able to learn the difference between the provocative stimulus and the personal response (218).
Insofar as the temporal precision of neuronal spiking responses is increased by inhibition (219), and insofar as inhibition actually moves a neuronal peak forward by decreasing the firing rate after a while (220), it amounts to disturbance if that inhibition is in the name of someone else: the driving instructor.
The surviving brain may resort to angry overstatement, which may amount to violence and which is an understandable attempt to put the record straight. Just as understandable is the attempt of this surviving, uninhibited part of the brain to disinhibit the damaged, inhibited part of the brain with alcohol and recreational drugs.
The disinhibition of inhibited hostility in schizophrenia may reflect the use of clozapine, a drug that suppresses bone marrow (221), and thus white cell precursors (222), some of which produce hostile responses (223).
Some adolescents who have started to experience delusions and hallucinations have an inkling that something has changed, but they locate this mistakenly in the outside world (paranoid schizophrenia). Others have no such inkling (hebephrenic schizophrenia).
Insofar as there is something to fear in the outside world (D, chapter 22) (224), then the more sensitive the child, the greater the risk of disturbance, because this child will be more likely to inhibit himself or herself than the less sensitive child, who does not detect the threat.
If the child is more sensitive, then the greater the probability that there is something to fear in the outside world, and so the greater the risk of disturbance. Greater personal sensitivity is one of the ways in which a child may be distinctive relative to other members of a habitat or territory, including parents and teachers, whose envious responses make the outside world unsafe. The child thus chooses to remain in a retracted state: the driver is afraid of the driving instructor.
The child may perceive its outside world as unsafe, not because of abuse or of envy, but because of lack of recognition. For example, a child who does not recognise itself at all in the outside world remains in its own autistic world (1671) (769) (1635) (1636) (2082), with inhibition of the personal responses of the cingulate lobes (1068), and of the instinctive responses of the amygdalae (1069) (1191). A child recognises itself in response to parental sensibility, which means that the parent inhibits his or her own responses so as to minimise apperceptions, and thus accommodate perceptions of the child. Attempts to understand the evolution of autism in terms of formal intelligence have been inconclusive (1905), but not so in terms of intimation (2581) (2582) (2583) (2584). The parent's sensibility could be accessed through his or her perception of ∂x/∂t, where x is his or her child's vocal frequency or vocal intensity and t is time (2499), and through the Profile of Nonverbal Sensivitivity (S, page 308). How much of the parents' language is adjusted to the ages of their children when it is analysed by frequency and intensity (2579) (2608) (2580, page 1829) (2654) (2670)? Robots could be used as systematic comparisons with parents (2242) (2260). A child who has some recognition of itself in the outside world, perhaps through one of its parents, but who has become afraid of everyone else, relates naturally to the resonant parent but retracts and dissimulates with everyone else. The single, resonant relationship protects the child from hallucinations, and may have the same effect on delusions, although this requires openness. If the single, resonant relationship is covert, then delusions may actually be encouraged.
The first appearance of hallucinations and delusions in adolescence may reflect the impact of the sex hormones of puberty on the differential expression of the genetic material inherited from each parent (281) (282) (283) (723), which would make particular sense if the prior chromosomal configuration had been inhibition of chromosomal material by the mother in terms of her own resources (680). This raises dark questions about the capacity of the mother to orchestrate chromosomes (725) so that the family has a sterile helper with increased vigilance (681) (698), effectively, an adaptive personality variation. Sex ratio variations (1273) (1274) (2272) (1367) (2109) (2391) that may be adaptive (2274) could be accessible through the introspection of energy intake (2473), of change in glucose levels (2262), and of hormonal fluctuations (1217) (1997) (2706), for example as a choice between: "I feel bad, so I need to create a male to protect me when I feel like this in later life..." (2161), associated with raised testosterone levels, and: "I feel good, so I need to create a female to assist with the rearing of more children...", associated with normal testosterone levels. Maternal effects have been studied in humans (2473) and in macaques (663), observed in reindeer (2149), modelled in vertebrates (2273) (2229), and inferred in birds (1644a) (1644b) (1644c) (1645) (1646). Paternal effects have been observed in birds (2681). Sibling effects have been studied in humans (2703). Siblings may be distinguishable by the degree of placental invasiveness, and thus by the degree of foetal antigen exposure, and consequent degree of downregulation of natural immune responses (1362).
Schizophrenia is an extreme expression of discrepancy between the genotype and the phenotype. Flocks, herds, subcultures, groups, and families may collaborate to prevent the natural selection of an individual (226) (1361) (250). Christmas is reparative, and epideictic (D) (586). Sexual conflict reduces offspring fitness (1271). The advent of a child alters the social environment in which the phenotype of each parent's sex evolves (227). Conflicts between parents that embroil a child are risk factors for schizophrenia, and these may have differential effects between, and within, families (1723). In humans, the third party in a sexual conflict may be another facet of the personality of the first party or of the second party. If models of family life (1218) (1219) and of parent-offspring conflict (226) (1211) (224) (1652) are to apply to humans, then they need to include the configuration of the offspring's brain as a parent by the parent, through inhibition of the natural instincts of the offspring. The child learns a conditional strategy (228), unaware that hormones are going to change conditions. For example, if feelings that run high between the parents are managed through attribution to the child, who is acquiescent, then the child may lose individual fitness through that phenotype. The direct fitness of the child is sacrificed for the indirect fitness of the family (1849) (2520). The concept of inclusive fitness (9) (1364) looks simplistic when the fitness of the child is increased by containment and protection from human predators outside the family during childhood (1269), only to be decreased thereafter because of the inhibition necessary to make the containment workable (710). The unlikelihood that a child would increase its parents' future reproductive fitness altruistically raises the whole issue of the capacity of the performer of an altruistic act to deliberate thereon, with particular reference to the condition k > 1/r (9), and Hamilton's unworldly statement on page 16, (9) that: "Behaviour that involves taking too much from close relatives will not evolve.". If k = b/c, so that b/c > 1/r, where b is the benefit of an act to the recipient in terms of its fitness gains, c is the fitness cost of the act to the performer, and r is the average degree of relatedness between the performer and the recipient, then, in the real world, the condition has an inherent unlikelihood in the juxtaposition of the vastly different timescales of b and of c.
The stark realities of the psychiatric consulting room have been restated as genetic anthropomorphisms, such as "Parental antagonism,..." (716), "...disagreement between the maternally and paternally derived genomes of mothers..." (718), "...intra-genomic conflict..." (475), "...spiteful cytoplasmic elements." (720), and "...more 'abstemious' expression of maternally derived alleles and more 'greedy' expression of paternally derived alleles." (875).
From the perspective of the life-time production of offspring, patients with schizophrenia can be seen as the products of group selection (competition between families), kin selection broadly defined (the disfavour of relatives inclusive of offspring) and weak individual selection (308). The family is divided into the reproductives, who will not develop schizophrenia, and the sterile workers (2495), who will develop schizophrenia. The carrying capacity of the family has been exceeded (1212). One of a number of siblings may be singled out because of his or her perceived Marginal Political Product (1213) at a given moment, which has environmental determinants (1272). The parental wish for platonic partnership and for care in later life may result in the production of helpful helpers (1214). Worker policing may take the form of disapproval of relationships outside the family (1215) (1943). Similar techniques may be used to cultivate non-relatives (1216), to the detriment of their mental health (2114). There is a form of enslavement (783). The delay in the onset of symptoms and signs until puberty argues strongly for genes that induce cooperation and reduce individuality, as distinct from genes that cause hallucinations.
The concept of a learned Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS), (205) (I, chapter 1) (229) looks unrealistic from the perspective of plasticity (732) without a currently obverse, inhibited, Evolutionarily Unstable Strategy (EUS). For every equilibrium between individuals, there will be, perforce, an equilibrium within each individual (230). Genetic and mathematical theories need a physical basis for how they work in the brain (1222) (1911), which, for an EUS, is likely to include synaptic inhibition through gamma-aminobutyric acid, and mirror neurones (31) (32) (33) (263).
Differences between the neurones of patients and of controls may be correlates, or consequences, rather than causes. How long is needed before invasive family life produces developmental noise (333, page 295), phenotypic noise (333, page 295), phenotypic modifications (2341, page 583), cellular changes (728) (707) (390) (388) (737) (736) (379) (691) (963) (1821) (1852), chromosomal abnormalities (1036), or genetic alterations (324) (325) (708) (724) (938) (389) (378) (752) (940) (1885) (2277)? To what degree can the human habitat be an environment that engenders mutations, or alterations in gene expression (2476)? How many studies explore the impact of family life on the configuration and activity of alleles? If attempted disproof is the best way to reduce uncertainty (2167), then the failure to attempt disproof is consistent with a wish not to reduce uncertainty. Putative sensory encoding deficits in people with schizophrenia (902) may reflect the family who raised them. How is inherited genetic potential modified by activations and inhibitions, in particular those produced by ontogenetic selection pressures (307)? Genomic imprinting (283) (717) (680) (2084) may apply to children and to adults, perhaps through epigenetic mechanisms (385), conditioned by other members of the habitat. The identification of causative alleles is unlikely until family life is a controlled experimental variable (1929) (1930). RNA has been shown to induce retraction of synapses and of dendritic spines (1193), so that the stress of ontogenetic selection pressures could produce neuronal changes without involvement of nuclear DNA.
The collaborative activity of groups may begin because those who harbour particular beliefs associate with one another; mutual reinforcement may lead to the beliefs becoming delusions, with loss of perspective about the idiosyncratic nature of the beliefs. Family life and terrorism may be viewed from this perspective.
Schizophrenia is an extreme expression of the capacity to inhibit completely personal responses and memories, and thus the self, and to see a stimulus as accurately as possible, less extreme forms of which capacity confer an advantage, while, at the same time, leaving some of the self to experience that advantage (585) (2259) (2277). The greater the capacity to inhibit oneself, then the greater the dependency on others to represent the self during formative years. Once schizophrenia is established, then the probability of auditory hallucinations is a function of the sum of personal contacts that inhibit spontaneity minus personal contacts that enable spontaneity. Critical comments by important family members are a subset of this function (231).
The schizotypy described in reference (585) has been shown to include larger volumes of the bilateral middle frontal gyrus, than controls (859). Negative frequency-dependent selection may operate (948).
Atypical antipsychotic drugs have parasympathetic effects such as salivation, rhinitis, increased appetite and urinary incontinence, which may be the autonomic expression of spontaneity, the drugs having disinhibited the cingulate lobes (20). The circuitry may include the bone marrow (270). Vagus nerve stimulation should have something to offer (271) (290), because of the activation of inhibited personal responses (272) (293) (454).
The claim that the anti-psychotic drug, haloperidol, inhibited replication of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii (796) was based purely on behavioural inference, with no accessible evidence of a direct effect of haloperidol on the parasite, so that there were no significant implications for the aetiology and treatment of schizophrenia.
Attempts to represent schizophrenia as primarily a cognitive disorder (1425) (2331), are likely to be unconvincing. Schizophrenia is not a neurodegenerative disorder like Alzheimer's disease (2041).
The evolution of the brain may have contributed to what is now called schizophrenia (1934). The sulci, the gyri and the insular operculae attest to the rapidity of expansion of the neocortex, as does the consequent obliteration of the dorsal hippocampi and the resultant loss of new neurones that they could have provided (273) (330): the main input pathway to what remains of each hippocampus has to perforate the main output pathway to reach its target (274) (1641). All of this stretches evolutionary teleology to the limit. The detailed map of the world that the neocortex affords (575) is futile if one cannot find onself in it. The implication is that we may be at a point in time when evolution of the brain has got ahead of itself (1691) (2291), which we need to offset with the clearest possible establishment of personal responses and instincts before parental attempts at contemporary characterisation. Targets and standardised measures are means to the end of the relationship between a pupil and a teacher, and are not ends in themselves. The dangers of expansion of the neocortex, at the expense of the mesocortex and of the allocortex, increase as organisms become more altricial, and less precocial.
Vulnerability to loss: mood disorders.
The inner side of each cerebral hemisphere mediates personal responses (232) (1079) (687) (1017) (2522), including those from the cingulate lobe (CL) (922) (528) (234) (235) (529) (19) (559) (2147) (2595) (2688) which can be both activated and inhibited by the front end of the inner side of each cerebral hemisphere, the inner frontal lobe (IFL) (237) (236) (238) (865).
Figure six
[Back to Figure four]
The inner frontal lobe and the cingulate lobe can be both activated and inhibited in response to the auditory and visual stimuli of the outside world by the outer frontal lobe (OFL) (1038) (1365) (1648). Thus the inner frontal lobe has an intermediary relationship between the personal responses of the cingulate lobe and the outside world (1047) (1225) (870) (1392) (996) (1801) (2423) (2647), which is mediated by the outer frontal lobe (21) (1662) (1793) (1861) (1865). For example, the inner frontal lobe restrains the spontaneity of the cingulate lobe (1051) until the outer frontal lobe signals that the outside world is safe (2108), whereupon the cingulate lobe can express itself through play and creativity (1007) (1393) (1819) (2017). The right inner frontal lobe has been implicated in stress responses (1338) (1731), and in social responses (1567). The right outer frontal lobe has been associated with insight (1701). The left outer frontal lobe has been associated with truth (1754).
The cingulate lobe, at least in its motor area, distinguishes clearly between the Ready and the Steady and the Go of Ready Steady Go (1059), but distinguishes less clearly between different spatial locations of Ready Steady Go (899), for which it requires, presumably, the intermediary activity of its inner frontal lobe.
It is normal to do different things with the two cerebral hemispheres of the brain, at the same moment, in safety (266) (529), and in vigilance (1586). In immediate danger, the two cerebral hemispheres of the brain probably act as one, so that, at the same moment, both inner frontal lobes and both cingulate lobes are inhibited by the alerting response of both outer frontal lobes.
During formative years, the inner and outer frontal lobes are activated and inhibited by real people, but if the child is to become self-sufficient, then he or she has to learn to activate and inhibit his or her own frontal lobes, and to manage conflict (1698), independent of other people (749). This will equip the individual with response inhibition, focus, working memory, motor response potential, mental set, planning, consistency, and mapping.
It is likely that the degree of unowned inhibitory capacity sets a phenotypic limit on the genotype.
The capacity to vary one's responses when the environment changes, within one's territory and within one's habitat, in the absence of other people, is called homeostasis.
It is likely that the costs of variation are set against the benefits. Humans expend energy to maintain a relatively constant body temperature in response to environmental changes, which enables them to function within a range of environmental temperatures. Some animals do not expend the energy necessary to function in cold environments, and hibernate. The more motor responses that a change of environment requires, then the more predation risks and the more physical costs (2487), seen in humans as the relatively stressful move of house and change of job. Better to adapt inside one's head than to move physically.
The more that an individual remains dependent on other people to activate and inhibit his or her frontal lobes, then the more he or she will be vulnerable to the absence or loss of those other people, with consequent depression.
Homeostasis is impeded by embroilment of children with parents (226) (2426), and such embroilment runs in families, as do the depression and mania associated with impeded homeostasis (239). Examples of embroilment include the adult who has consigned painful childhood memories to the back of the mind, only to find that parenthood brings the memories to the front of the mind, with exposure of his or her child to his or her own painful childhood memories, and so on. Again, reversal of the roles between the inner frontal lobes and the cingulate lobes during childhood may bring some depression to parenthood because of the realisation of the loss of spontaneity occasioned by protective responses during childhood, which pattern may then be repeated, and so on.
Sometimes, an individual who has become homeostatically challenged due to loss, may make a determined attempt to carry on as if nothing has happened. This response pattern is extremely common, and can, at times, be productive (347) (1584). However, the more that an unmet visceral need is due to lack of a dependent relationship, then the more difficult is the corrective action, the more frantic and unpredictable are the attempts at correction and the greater is the risk of mania (241). Overactivity of children has the same import as mania in adults; the avoidance of emptiness. As for adults, there may be absence of someone who is necessary to complete a circuit that will meet an unmet need. Amphetamines are effective because they activate nerves that contain dopamine.
The appearance of mania is of too much nervous energy in too few circuits, and the appearance of the lachrymose, therapeutic moment when loss is faced is of circuits closed hitherto, opened anew, so that the current level of nervous energy falls through increased containment.
The verbal emphasis of pressure of talk and flight of ideas conveys that the language circuits of the cerebral cortex are open. The wish to gloss over loss and unmet need conveys that the visceral circuits driven by the basal ganglia are closed. Working memory may be overused to avoid introspection, with consequent distractibility (287).
The hippocampi are possible sites for the machinations of mania. Visceral input circuits from the brainstem and from the olfactory cortex could be inhibited by the amygdalae (242), or by the cerebral cortex (244), so that incoming stimuli would be restricted to auditory and visual. The site of inhibition could be where the Schaffer collaterals synapse with the pyramidal cells of CA1 (275) (276), but there are other possibilities with respect to topography (1468e), laminae (278) (243) and nerve endings (279).
Attempts to relate decisions about war to overconfidence need to address the essentially manic failure to consider someone else's losses as if they are one's own. The statement that mentally healthy people tend to exibit "positive illusions" is questionable, hence the use of quotation marks (1576), which shows a lack of confidence.
Homeostatically adjusted adults may elect to participate in a division of labour (245) (1451) (341) (1624) (577) (804), when they choose to depend on someone else for some of their responses. Loss of that someone else, through bereavement, is usually followed by depression for about six months, the length of time it takes to regain mastery of the parts of the brain that hitherto required activation by the deceased. Depression can also occur sporadically in an adjusted person because of a wish to protect a loved one, often a child, from anger (17). The necessary inhibition of the amygdalae spreads to the hypothalami, where it affects body chemistry and thus functions such as sleep, appetite, and hormone release, and also cellular defences, so that damaged cells are not removed, with predisposition to cancer (862). Again, guilt about one's responses may lead to depression because of inhibition of the brain by the brain, specifically of the cingulate lobes and amygdalae which delivered those questionable responses, by the outer frontal lobes, which represent the people to whom the responses were delivered. The different antecedents to depression may help to explain the inconsistent and contradictory structural findings (239) (641) (327) (7) (328) (2589).
A division of labour is achieved at a cost to the participants (2502). For example, in adult humans, the male partner may be dominant and the female partner may be submissive, which, in principle, requires the male to do the work of maintaining preparatory, dominant responses and of inhibiting submissive responses, and requires the female to do the work of maintaining preparatory, submissive responses and of inhibiting dominant responses. Compare regression, in which one partner tries to get the other partner to do as much of the work as possible.
The distribution of responses in a division of labour necessitates genetic inhibition, that is the inhibiton of genes that produce the responses to be delivered by the other party, and genetic activation, that is the activation of genes that produce the responses to be delivered by onself. Each inhibition and activation is likely to have chemical and hormonal consequences for both genders (2392), with obligate chemical time constants necessary for the inhibitions and activations to be constructed at a molecular level.
Spite in animals is unlikely to be accessible without clarification of whether spite entails harm to the self, as well as to others (822) (982); cost to the self, as well as to others (311); or a lack of benefit to the self, as well as to others (719). For a review, see reference (1039). Displacement activities require consideration (321). Calculation of the cost needs to include the work of inhibiton of hostility, relative to its expression, with particular reference to subsequent predation risk, in terms of disclosure and lack of readiness. For humans, the timing of the expression of an emotion is significant (854), with particular reference to the cost of containment of a bad feeling relative to its expression, and this needs to be included in analyses of punishment (80) (2130) (2330) (2357) (2595) (2704) (2755). Complete lack of expression carries the risk of depression. Suicidal gestures may harm others more than the self, and may even benefit the self, from the perspective of the costs of working memory and of the division of labour. Some forms of jealousy are rational, in that there are continued costs, but loss of benefits.
It is unlikely that "treatment-resistant depression" and the anomalous steroid hormone response in depression will be clarified until anger is included as a controlled variable in the experimental design.
Evidently, depression, often consequent upon loss, may affect both those who have attained autonomy in the past, and those who have not attained autonomy in the past, and as such, the occurrence of depression does not distinguish between these backgrounds.. The occurrence of mania does, however, suggest such a distinction, because it discloses the preference to gloss over loss, even when invited to reflect on this in tranquillity, which invitation is usually accepted by the bereft stoic. The difference between so-called bipolar depression and unipolar depression may, to a degree, reflect the difference between depression without prior homeostatic adjustment and depression with prior homeostatic adjustment, respectively. This is a cause for concern, because if a history of mania increases the likelihood that someone with depression receives lithium, then the very person who needs counsel, and who is done a disservice in the long run by the use of explanatory medication, is setting off in exactly the wrong direction. The journey may be hazardous. Of all the chemicals introduced into medicine through poor science, lithium is one of the most dangerous. The overview in reference (10) still applies: population studies still do not show convincing evidence of the effects of lithium over time (246); the reference to a trial as "double-blind" when lithium had been found in the serum of four of the patients who had been given placebo indicated a nadir of wishful thinking that beggared belief, but this preference for fantasy endures (11). On an individual basis, lithium may be helpful because it obliges homeostatically challenged patients to follow a routine, but there are safer ways to achieve autonomy, such as religion tempered with humility, and cognitive therapy (937).
The diagnostic category called "manic-depression" is simplistic because it fails to ascertain the degree to which the patient's mental health has evolved prior to diagnosis and thus it fails to address the management and the prognosis: has the patient been homeostatically adjusted in the past, because if so, then this can be relearned, whereas if not, then it will have to be learned for the first time, with family involvement.
Not to be confused with depression is regression, which occurs when adult humans choose to relinquish some of their customary self-control and to invite other humans to take over. This voluntary, adult form of regression is not to be confused with the involuntary, developmental regression of a child (1682). Adult, voluntary regression is transitory, and immediate features include fleeting eye contact, faintness of voice (2741), flexed posture and failure to produce complete sentences. The first person singular personal pronoun may be particularly inaudible and verbs may be in the passive voice. Anxieties shoot up and are moved on rapidly to someone else. Disagreeable experiences are off-loaded verbally so that they can be heard coming in through the ears, and, as such, disowned by the regressor as outside him or her. Regression often has a sexual element, which may have a basis in cooperative breeding (J, chapter 8) and in anisogamy (J, chapter 5). Regressive relationships evoke producers and scroungers (249), and exploitation (R, page 172) (J, chapter 6).
Regression can be seen in the market place. An indecisive operative can reach a decision quickly if he or she is able to induce responses in a colleague.
Figure seven
As shown in figure seven, the shift of either the + or the - of the + or - conflict from the part of the brain associated with personal responses to the part of the brain associated with the outside world frees the part of the brain associated with personal responses to be decisive in the opposite direction.
An unfocused operative can concentrate by causing disruption in those nearby.
Figure eight
As shown in figure eight, the limited inhibitory capacity of the inner frontal lobes is unable to provide the necessary focus. The disruption activates further inhibitory capacity in the outer frontal lobes, which augments the existent but insufficient inhibitory activity of the inner frontal lobes, and enables concentration; effectively, the outer frontal lobes dampen internal noise. This phenomenon is recognised in science (1419), and has been called stochastic resonance (251) (1229). Noise may improve the sensitivity of circuitry that has adapted to stimuli (2317).
Regression can be collective (280), which is an example of the lack of capacity to vary or not one's responses in changing circumstances within one's territory and within one's habitat in the presence of other people, and which is likely to be a predictor of the mood disorder of anxiety.
Regression may have genetic correlates (646).
The habitual use of other people for the purpose of definition of oneself is, like the occult, a function of limited introspective identity, and invites the uncomfortable aphorism: "I am who I am with." Transitory occupations and relationships may give an illusory experience of onself through perceptions of other people's loss of one. A network model of human relationships would emphasise the degree of interaction with other people that is necessary before one can communicate with oneself, inclusive of one's visceral self: the realisation of any of tense muscles, tight sphincters, palpitations, bated breath, dry eyes, dry mouth, abdominal sensations and genital engorgement.
The numinous tendencies of humans are essentially regressive, and account for phenomena such as the Barnum effect (2557) (R, page 171), and for recourse in magical solutions to stress (2430) (R, page 174).
"Give me a reminder..." is a regressed attempt to increase one's working memory capacity through someone else. "Make sure I am up in the morning..." is a regressed attempt to improve quality of sleep, as is the articulation of stresses to someone else, just before one retires to bed.
Electronic mails and mobile telephones facilitate regression.
These are examples of the lack of capacity to vary or not one's responses in changing circumstances within one's territory and within one's habitat in the absence of other people; this is a risk factor for mood disorders, and it varies with age and with gender.
Dependency on another organism may be the result of a decision to take part in a division of labour (2558), or it may be the result of a decision to regress, or it may occur spontaneously. Irrespective of their antecedents, such episodes of dependency can be remembered (1210), and can thus be expected in the future, so that cooperation is hardly surprising, and does not require the invocation of anthropomorphic genes (252) (1224) (2366) that are unlikely to explain very much of the variance in the real world, or of artificial games (1000) (1578) (1984) (2366), the results of at least one of which have been related to pictures of sexy women or lingerie, and to digit ratio (1282). Spontaneous dependency may be construed as inversely related to differentiation, inclusive of sex chromosome differentiation.
Memory of dependency is central to the production of supposedly altruistic acts (78) (79) (576) (2712), which are also motivated by territory protection (95) (816) (75) (253) (1760) (1814) (1884), and by the cultivation of reputation (304) (1223), of good standing (305), of status (498), of reproductive promise (812) (840) (2276) (2623), and of image (1573) (306) (1008), which latter may be exploited subsequently (383) (1817) (2261). Brain images have identified circuitry consistent with memories (254). Spontaneity, as distinct from memory, is also important in altruistic behaviours (80), one motive for which is the enlivenment of one part of the actor's brain by another part of the actor's brain through the elicited responses of bystanders. It is likely that humans vary in their spontaneous altruistic behaviour over time.
To date, theories about the stability, over time, of selection, cooperation, and altruism, have been based on presumptions about the stability, over time, of individuals. This has resulted in attempts to reconcile the reality of internal conflict with evolutionary principles (557). The definition of mental health in this text includes a social component that entails reference to other people, which is consigned during development (2580) and is then elective during adult life. Stability over time is thus a function of other people, such that we are who we are with. True, as adults there are nodal points at which we choose with whom to be, but between those points, our fitness depends on the behaviour of others (711) (2440), to the degree that activation of one part of one's brain by another part of one's brain can be conditional upon the intermediary activity of someone else (M) (2005). This is why potential partners appraise each other prior to commitment (653), to ensure that the other party will activate the part of the brain that has to be inhibited if procreation is to occur.
Dependency on others brings fluctuations in one's adjustment, and thus unfitness, as a function of the variations within and between those others, exemplified by changes in females due to lunar hormonal variations. We need other humans to provide foci for the expression of our personal and visceral responses, which, otherwise, reverberate intrusively, and produce symptoms such as muscular tension, headache, and nausea. Some occupational roles may evolve to produce an array of inhibitions and dissimulations that are unworkable, for example, because of contradictory responses with family life, so that one's role in the territory is in conflict with one's role in the habitat. Crossword puzzles on the way home from work convey a hard, inhibited, day at the office, and may not be the best preparation for one's return home.
Natural selection in humans is not based on the survival of the fittest, it is based on the survival of the less unfit. One's unfitness may be increased or decreased by kin, friends and acquaintances alike (2002). Fitness is likely to depend on the ability to distinguish between other individuals' kin, friends and acquaintances (2141), which, in turn, is likely to depend on memory, and thus on brain size (2142). Supposedly altruistic acts delivered to strangers who one will not meet again are a function of the present mental state, especially the part of one's brain that is activated by the stranger at the moment of altruism (M). Supposedly altruistic acts delivered to people who one will meet again are calculated, to reduce personal unfitness. The capacity to perceive personal unfitness is increased by the capacity to see and hear oneself through the eyes and ears of other people within one's territory and within one's habitat, and thus by mental health. If "...the fitness a* of an individual is treated as the sum of his basic unit, the effect ∂a of his personal genotype and the total eº of effects on him due to his neighbours which will depend on their genotypes: a* = 1 + ∂a + eº." (9), then ∂a can have a negative value > –1 such that 1 + ∂a is negative, and is a measure of unfitness, such that eº is needed for immediate survival, and thus for enduring fitness. Success is the ability to learn from failure.
Unlike his contemporary Charles Dickens (1536), Charles Darwin did not include mental illness in his scheme of things. Nor, one suspects, did Darwin's epigoni.
Successful human development requires that the personal responses and instincts of a child are expressed to the degree that they can be demonstrated to the child as his or hers: this is the capacity to see and hear oneself through the eyes and ears of other people. Parents and teachers are then able to provide the child with a model of how to condition his or her own personal responses and instincts using his or her own frontal lobes: this leads to the capacities to vary or not one's responses because of what one sees and hears through the eyes and ears of other people, and also to the capacities to orchestrate one's responses in changing circumstances in the absence, and in the presence, of other people. As development proceeds, parents and teachers model increasingly the variability of the outside world (428), to reduce behavioural carryover across contexts (342).
Adult adjustment requires the frontal lobes to mediate between personal responses and instincts on the one hand and social imperatives and inhibitions on the other hand.
The adjusted human allows time to reflect, integrate, wind down and rehearse in repose every four to six hours (255) (1751), to visualise who, and where, he or she has been (750), with reference to other people and to achievements, during that period. This protects the adjusted human from memories fed forward by other people (2230), and from regressive exploitation (1689). At the same time, this adjusted human identifies, and then makes decisions about, personal and instinctive responses to sensory stimuli, inclusive of proactive resolution of conceptual conflicts and then of imaginal task implementation (984) (1314). This adjusted human knows that personal and instinctive responses represent unfulfilled potential (256), whether they are expressed in a particular setting or not, and that if they are not recalled in tranquillity and then channelled into the frontal lobes of the cerebral hemispheres then they will be lost to conscious control (257). The "Deliberation-without-attention" effect demonstrated in shopping (553) should be assumed not to apply to relationships, at least until after deliberation with attention to what is me and what is not me.
A written variant of reflective integrity has been demonstrated (414).
Examples of reflective activity are prayer, meditation, relaxation and self-hypnosis (258) (2213).
If the capacity to reflect and focus is developed while still young, it may pay dividends later in life (452), and it may prolong life, if one's body is conditioned to different emotional responses, so that, for example, one's body can distinguish between the nervous reaction to acute anger and the nervous reaction to acute haemorrhage (661) (778). Some of the beneficial effects of regular exercise may be due to a nerve growth factor (851) (852), and to tolerance to change (1811). Pain is reduced if anxiety is managed (1704).
Sleep affords assimilation of personal and instinctive responses, but without the awareness afforded by reflection in repose. Alcohol removes inhibitions chemically, ergo in vino veritas, although how much of the veritas is recalled in tranquillity, and is therefore owned, is another matter. Other chemicals affect personal responses and instincts, especially on Midsummer Nights.
Corporate activity may be sought to manage inhibited personal responses and instincts, hence the occurrence of religions, cults, nepotism, and terrorism. A group may believe that a particular object is talismanic in the removal of inhibitions, and this may reach delusional intensity with respect to the rest of Society.
Relationships between organisms may be adaptive in the mediation between personal and instinctive responses on the one hand and imperatives and inhibitions on the other hand (2099), conditional upon the use of time (259) and the demands of place, such as whether one lives on a prairie or in a meadow (302). One human may condition another human to orchestrate his or her personal responses and instincts, and this division of labour may begin with the experience of "love" (640) (261) (2667), one meaning of which is a simultaneous realisation by two humans: "I know that you know that I am inhibiting my personal responses and instincts so that your personal responses and instincts can be expressed, and I know that you know that I know that you are inhibiting your personal responses and instincts so that my personal responses and instincts can be expressed." This is mutual genetic inhibition, and mutual containment of consequent paranoid apperceptions. Sufferers from hallucinations find this reciprocity difficult, because the inhibition required increases the probability of hallucinations, so that a more egoistic style prevails (318) (260) (1226).
The conditionality of the human courtship is the homologue of the preparatory, exploratory activity of birds (653), and probably bees, and educated fleas, amongst others: "If I put part of my brain into abeyance in order to have children, will you look after it?"
Stress promotes love (262). When the environment changes abruptly, prior oscillatory activity becomes maladaptive and hazardous. Sex is a circuit-breaker (2453) (550).
A QUICK GUIDE TO THE PREVENTION OF MENTAL ILLNESS.
Parents may wish to consider the following questions.
Is my child clumsy or accident-prone, perhaps because of haste that exceeds the capacity of the brain to streamline motor responses? If so, should I address this through more play activities in safe areas?
Does my child recognise that someone else can experience the same circumstances differently at the same time? Does my child recognise that he or she can experience the same circumstances differently at different times? If not, do I need to look at the consistency in my child's world?
Does my adolescent child recognise that changes of mood can cause him or her to experience the same circumstances in different ways at different times? If not, should I try to illustrate this through personal example?
How much do the people in my child's world feed back perceptions of my child to my child, and how much do they feed forward personal memories onto my child, who they misperceive in consequence? Should I decide to make an immediate detraction if I hear myself or anyone else construe my child in terms of personal memories? (..."you remind me of my mother"... ).
Is my child able to express his or her personal responses and instincts to the degree that they can be conditioned? If not, is my child too good to be true and too good for his or her own good? Is my child afraid to say how he or she really feels, perhaps for fear of upsetting me? Does my child tell me what he or she thinks I want to hear, and can I hear double messages that intimate the real feeling? If so, should I articulate what else my child might be feeling at such a moment?
Is my child's apparent misbehaviour really a cry for recognition? If so, should I review the formats available to my child on the basis that they do not enable my child to be himself or herself?
Does my child prefer to let other people do for him or her what he or she can do perfectly well for himself or herself? If so, does my child need more peer group activities?
Does my adolescent child have the capacity for closure, which is the completion of what he or she has started? If not, should I consider an orchestrated, family approach?
Does my adolescent child gloss over difficulties that are obviously upsetting, to the degree that he or she becomes driven and accident-prone? If so, should I encourage my child to articulate the difficulties at a quiet moment?
Does my adolescent child understand the benefits of reflection every four to six hours? Specifically, does he or she understand the need to visualise where he or she has been in the last four to six hours, and then to consider who he or she has been, with reference both to other people and to his or her achievements, during that period? Does he or she understand the need to make decisions about personal responses and instincts during that period and then implement those? Does this adolescent child realise that he or she can orchestrate the cells of his or her brain to meet new demands within minutes?
Figure nine
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES AND MENTAL ILLNESS.
The teleology of survival of the fittest puts the individual into conflict with the family. A theory of survival of the less unfit, who has become less unfit through his or her family, does not put the individual into conflict with the family, but enables cooperation and altruism within the family, and thus increases the likelihood of enduring reproductive fitness in the distant future.
The theory of inclusive fitness does not work if the family improves its fitness at the expense of one of its members, because of the loss of future reproductive fitness in that member, who shares genes with the rest of the family.
The theory of exclusive fitness is that the families of patients with mental illness behave in ways that reduce the patients' reproductive fitness. The frequency of mental illness remains constant within the population because the major causes of mental illness are developmental, not genetic.
The ideal that our genes live on after we die is an intellectually defended version of Life After Death. Genetic similarity brings physical similarity, which may make our mental lives worse, not better, because it invites our family to imagine that we are more like them than is, in fact, the case, with consequent embroilment and lack of autonomy.
Explanations of animal behaviour in terms of future reproductive fitness risk the intellectual anthropomorphism that animals plan their futures (2157, page 22). For example, ritual fights between members of the same species may amount to practice for real fights between members of the same species (18) (1559) (610) (685) (1107) (2204) (2344), and for real fights between members of different species. Reproductive fitness in the future requires survival in the present. Reproductive fitness may be an epiphenomenon (2470).
The notional direction of the relationship between evolution and behaviour may depend on one's professional training, for example as an evolutionary biologist or as a physiological and functional ecologist (2408, page 357).
We inherit through our genes an array of potential responses, but these require to be developed for us by our family (2129), even if they do not use those responses themselves. If the responses are developed, then we are able to reduce our unfitness through cooperation in Society.
Our genes limit our instincts. Our genes limit our potential to inhibit our instincts. Our genes do not limit the potential of the adults who rear us to influence our instincts and our potential to inhibit our instincts. Hence the limited predictive value of genes in relation to mental illness (860) (1929) (1930).
The Greek or Latin origin of some of the unusual terms in this text is as follows:-
Homeostasis - like standing still.
Schizophrenia - divided mind.
Depression - pressed down.
Mania - madness.
Cerebrum - brain.
Cerebellum - little brain.
Cortex - outer part.
neocortex - new cortex.
mesocortex - middle cortex.
allocortex - other cortex.
Frontal - of the forehead.
Parietal - of the wall.
Temporal - of the temple.
Occipital - of the back of the head.
Cingulate - girdle.
Insula - island.
Corpus callosum - hard body.
Glia - glue.
Vermis - worm.
Ganglia - knots.
Caudate - having a tail.
Putamen - shell.
Globus pallidus - pale sphere.
Claustrum - enclosed place.
Thalamus - inner chamber.
Cochlea - snail shell.
Hypothalamus - below the thalamus.
Endocrine - sift within.
Exocrine - sift outside.
Pineal - pine cone.
Pituitary - secreting phlegm.
Thyroid - oblong shield
Parathyroid - beside the thyroid.
Adrenal - above the kidney.
Pancreas - all flesh.
Testis - witness, to virility.
Ovary - egg.
Placenta - flat plate.
Hormone - set in motion.
Pheromone - transfer hormone.
Substantia innominata - nameless substance.
Hippocampus - sea-horse.
Stria terminalis - terminal furrow.
Amygdala - almond.
Uncinate fasciculus - hooked bundle.
Substantia nigra - black substance.
Pons - bridge.
Medulla oblongata - oblong inner part.
Synapse - join together.
Reticular - net.
Migraine - half skull.
Apperception - towards perception.
Hebephrenic - of youthful mind.
Paranoid - beyond the mind.
Hallucination - wandering in the mind.
Delusion - from a game.
Regression - going back.
Stochastic - conjecturing.
Michael Robinson.
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