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Fun Brain Information

Dave1001

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Jul 21, 2006
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The brain is endlessly cool and fascinating to me.

Apparently there's a part of the brain specifically devoted to recognizing faces. If a lesion appears on that part of the brain, all faces tend to look alike.

Also, one can dramatically change a person's personality by placing a lesion on the appropriate spot.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. For all those who read an Oliver Sachs book, or have heard a neuroscience lecture, what are the weirdest/coolest most interesting brain facts and areas of research for you?
 
The really cool fact I remember is that you are not alone in your skull.
What you think is "you", is in fact an amalgam of two distinct but almost identical conscious's.

One based in the left hemisphere of the brain and the other based in the right hemisphere of the brain.

The great majority of the time, both conscious's reach the same conclusion about events, so you never notice anything.
But occasionally they reach different conclusions, and when that happens, you often end up in a state of vassilation, unable to decide between two courses of action. You are litteraly "In two minds" about what to do!:)

Unfortunately I don't recall exactly where I read about this, I think it was a book called "Why Men don't Listen and Women can't read Maps" But I'm not sure, I think I also read about it in another article too, when I did some research into how truthful the above book was.
 
Dave1001 said:
Apparently there's a part of the brain specifically devoted to recognizing faces. If a lesion appears on that part of the brain, all faces tend to look alike.
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I've read about this and I suspect I have a mild form of it. It takes me quite some time to learn to recognize people, particularly if there’s nothing distinctive about their appearance. Dramas are sometimes hard to watch because as soon as people change clothes and/or location I have trouble figuring out who they are.
 
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Oldpossum said:
The really cool fact I remember is that you are not alone in your skull.
What you think is "you", is in fact an amalgam of two distinct but almost identical conscious's.

...
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I seem to recall that in any conversation between two people, there were six distinct identities (possibly more).

There is

"me" - the real me
"you" - the real you
"my" me - how I see myself
"your" me - how you see me
"my-your-me" - how I think you see me
"your-my-me" - what I think you think I see of myself
Of course this can escalate into "my-your-my-my-your-your-me", etc.

It's better to shut all that up and just talk.
 
Janus said:
I've read about this and I suspect I have a mild form of it. It takes me quite some time to learn to recognize people, particularly if there’s nothing distinctive about their appearance. Dramas are sometimes hard to watch because as soon as people change clothes and/or location I have trouble figuring out who they are.
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Interesting. This is counter-intuitive to me, because there do seem to be so many visual cues about which face is different: (nose type, eye size, spacing of eyes, wrinkles, lip size fullness of lips, length of lips, pigmentation, discolorings, facial hair, bushiness of eyebrows, roundness of head, condition of teeth, ear type, etc. I wouldn't see a need for a part of the brain to proces subtle facial differences. But apparently it is needed.
 
The inability to recognize faces is called prosopagnosia. Apparently, Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame has it.

In something called “mirror sign,” the one face you can’t recognize is your own.

But some of the weirdest stuff falls under the category delusional misidentification syndrome. This includes Capgras' syndrome, where you can identify familiar people, but are certain they’ve been replaced by imposters; and Fregoli delusion, the belief that multiple people are just one person in disguise.

Another weird one along similar lines, whose name I can’t recall, involves the lack of recognition of one’s own body parts. You might find an accident victim in a hospital totally disgusted by, and trying to throw his left leg off the bed, thinking it’s somebody else’s.

Then there’s Cotard's syndrome, where you think you’re dead, or don't really exist.

Or imagine the inability to perceive motion -- pouring a glass of water, one minute it’s half full, and the next it’s overflowing.

With so many potential problems, one wonders how anyone can be normal at all.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
The inability to recognize faces is called prosopagnosia. Apparently, Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame has it.

In something called “mirror sign,” the one face you can’t recognize is your own.

But some of the weirdest stuff falls under the category delusional misidentification syndrome. This includes Capgras' syndrome, where you can identify familiar people, but are certain they’ve been replaced by imposters; and Fregoli delusion, the belief that multiple people are just one person in disguise.

Another weird one along similar lines, whose name I can’t recall, involves the lack of recognition of one’s own body parts. You might find an accident victim in a hospital totally disgusted by, and trying to throw his left leg off the bed, thinking it’s somebody else’s.

Then there’s Cotard's syndrome, where you think you’re dead, or don't really exist.

Or imagine the inability to perceive motion -- pouring a glass of water, one minute it’s half full, and the next it’s overflowing.

With so many potential problems, one wonders how anyone can be normal at all.
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Are these all identified with particular areas of the brain where these disorders manifest when the area is lesioned the way prosopagnosia is?

We must have a neuroscientist or two on this board.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
The inability to recognize faces is called prosopagnosia. Apparently, Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame has it.
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I believe all cats have it too. I suspect many other animal species do too. Cats don't focus sharply, and really have no need to be able to recognize and distinguish between different human faces. Cats' vision is highly tuned to movement, especially in the horizontal plane. They recognize humans familiar to them by gait, other bodily movements and patterns, by sound, and by smell.

AS
 
There is a part of the brain called Fusiform which is used to, among other things, process word, number, colour and face information.

I believe my Fusiform is working as it should(i don't know) but i don't use it unless i want to(only when it comes to colour and faces that is). So, if you got any specific questions about that, just shoot.

I can, if i make the effort and concentrate about it, use fusiform. If i don't actively do that i will use the brain area(i don't know the name) which is normally used to look at objects(chairs, tables, etc).

This is a direct result of my autism. Any questions.. just shoot.
 
Dave1001 said:
Are these all identified with particular areas of the brain where these disorders manifest when the area is lesioned the way prosopagnosia is?

We must have a neuroscientist or two on this board.
Click to expand...
I'm not a neuroscientist, but my understanding is that all these syndromes were identified in patients with head trauma, strokes or the like, meaning that specific systems are disrupted.
 
TobiasTheCommie said:
There is a part of the brain called Fusiform which is used to, among other things, process word, number, colour and face information.

I believe my Fusiform is working as it should(i don't know) but i don't use it unless i want to(only when it comes to colour and faces that is). So, if you got any specific questions about that, just shoot.

I can, if i make the effort and concentrate about it, use fusiform. If i don't actively do that i will use the brain area(i don't know the name) which is normally used to look at objects(chairs, tables, etc).

This is a direct result of my autism. Any questions.. just shoot.
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fascinating. wow. I don't know where to begin asking questions.

So the world appears in shades of grey unless you make a conscious effort to see it in colors?
 
I love the story in The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat about the aphasic patients (patients who have lost the ability to comprehend or produce language).

Evidently, it was difficult to tell with some of the patients whether they were aphasic. Oliver Sachs said that he would have to reduce his language to as "pure" a form as possible by minimizing any intonations, body language, facial expressions, etc. to unmask these folks' problem. When people spoke to them as they normally would, all of the mannerisms that go along with their speech were sufficient to clue them into what other people were saying even if they couldn't understand the words themselves.

The story that he told was of these patients watching a speech by Ronald Reagan who, despite all of his emotional appeal and rhetoric, sent these patients into fits of laughter. The point was that they could see beyond the words coming out of Reagan's mouth and what they saw made them laugh.-well, most of them laughed. A few were outraged.

I find myself thinking of that story fairly often when I'm listening to politicians speak. I wonder what I would see behind the words and what my reaction would be. I would like to think that I would laugh, but I'm not so sure these days.

Nevertheless, I love that story. Great topic, Dave1001.

Link to Exerpt
 
Dave1001 said:
fascinating. wow. I don't know where to begin asking questions.

So the world appears in shades of grey unless you make a conscious effort to see it in colors?
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Not quite that bad. But i wouldn't be able to remember your hair colour 5 min after talking to you.. Hell, i don't know my own hair colour.

And that isn't because i'm colour blind, it is because colour offers no interesting input to me, it doesn't matter to me, so most of the time i don't register it(not all the time).

I could go look in the mirror and check my hair colour, and report it back(or as close as i can get with my colour blindness). The same goes for my eyes, no idea what colour they are.


I once ate a green beef. Someone asked me what colour it was(because i am colour blind).. i looked at it and said green(which of course it wasn't... but that is the colour it looked), i hadn't noticed the colour before he asked(that is, i had seen it, just not registered it, it wasn't important to me). Then i just kept eating(it tasted fine, no matter the colour). And the guy laughed because i was eating a beef i thought was green.


For the faces(which is a far more interesting subject) i had to learn, that is, teach myself, at the age of 14(or something like that) how to look at faces. How to see if someone was paying attention to me, or if someone was bored out of their skull, or if someone was interested.

This would usually come naturally, because NTs(Neurological Typical, that is all you "Normal people) use the fusiform.

I, however, because of my autism don't. So, during the normal development i never learned how to use it and process the information it gives me. After 9 years of training i have come a lot better at it. And i automaticly notice if people aren't interested in what i'm saying. It does, however, stres me a lot, because even though it is automagical, it is still a concious process, it doesn't just run on its own in the background, but it is right up front.

Also, if i am in a serious conversation(like with my shrink) i can't look her in the face while having it. Her eyes will be asking me all sorts of questions. Some i will understand ("do you follow?", "do you agree?"), but must i can't understand, this makes me scared, and confused. The ones i do understand i can't respond to with my own eyes, i have to verbally reply. And if i look at her while having hard conversations i can last maybe 3minutes... 5 at most. If, however, i don't look at her, i can last for hours.

Simply becuase i don't have to process all this extra information, and because i don't have to get frustrated at the questions she is asking(with her eyes and body) that i don't understand, and annoyed that i can't respond to her in the same manner(which means i have to stall the conversation by replying to her subconcious questions).


Another thing, very new to me, is this(not related to the fusiform, but kinda the same thing to me). When you talk to people you normally hook into what they are interested in, and remember it for further conversations. NTs would often(not always) remember to ask about how other people are doing with (project X) which their peer has been doing since they last met.

I do this, but only when i am at work,I just learned(this year) to do this, it isn't automatical at all, and i have to actively concentrate to do this. I have to, at all times. think "should i hook into this, is this something this person wants to talk about at some later point.... is this something i should ask about the next time we meet". It is very hard on me, and a big stress. At some point it will probably be automatic(which simply means that i will be doing it all the time, but it will still be something i'm actively concentrating on, and i will always have to ask those questions, all the time), and i will start using it outside of work as well.

I should do this on my friends, since it shows them i am interested in them and in their life. And it makes them feel that i enjoy their company. But i don't do it, because i didn't know that it was information that was available to me(that is, untill this year).


Any questions? Was it usefull/interesting?


Btw. As some may note i do a lot of work in autism, i hold lecture and courses. After every event i have to ask "did i do something wrong?", just because i need to know if i did(so i can work on it), and i might not have noticed from the people around me if i did.(in some cases i would, in some i wouldn't. For now i still have to ask, hopefully not forever).

Sincerely
Tobias
A Barstard Commie.
 
Tobias,
This is extremely fascinating. I can see how not being able to recognize facial cues could be related to autism.

But other things, like learning and remembering to ask people about themselves and bring up topics you know they're interested in: I don't think that's natural for most people. It's a conscious, learned process for most of us, cause almost all of us as a default nature would prefer to talk about what we're interested in and ourselves rather than other people.

Hence so many books and resources on communication skills, and so much human conflict due to the lack of communication skills.
 
Dave1001 said:
Tobias,
This is extremely fascinating. I can see how not being able to recognize facial cues could be related to autism.

But other things, like learning and remembering to ask people about themselves and bring up topics you know they're interested in: I don't think that's natural for most people. It's a conscious, learned process for most of us, cause almost all of us as a default nature would prefer to talk about what we're interested in and ourselves rather than other people.

Hence so many books and resources on communication skills, and so much human conflict due to the lack of communication skills.
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Oh, i'm not saying that most people wouldn't benefit from being better at asking other people those questions. What i am saying is that NTs would usually notice and collect that information, to get a general gist of other peoples interest, where or not that person uses it is something else entirefly.

And i'm sure many NTs could learn something from books on communication skills, but NTs would still be starting from a higher level than me.
 
Dave1001 said:
Thanks. Oliver Sacks is on my to read list. Hopefully one of these days. Although now I wonder if his books are dated and if I should just skip to the latest writings on neuroscience.
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Oh, I wouldn't skip the book. Some of the medicine may not be all that current (honestly, I can't remember), but the stories are so entertaining in the way that he tells them. Also, what is happening to the patients really helps you to understand how the nervous system works (and what happens when certain parts of it don't). I think it's a much more entertaining way to learn about neuroanatomy and neuropathology than through dry textbooks. Just my humble opinion, o' course.
 
Oldpossum said:
The really cool fact I remember is that you are not alone in your skull.
What you think is "you", is in fact an amalgam of two distinct but almost identical conscious's.
Click to expand...
I had attempted to read Daniel C. Dennett's book Consciousness Explained, a couple of times. His Multiple Drafts theory of consciousness makes the claim that there are a lot more than only two consciousnesses in there! :eek:

It is not an easy book to get through, but his ideas, based predominantly on empirical evidence (but some parts are admittedly philosophical), are fascinating.
 
There are all kinds of unusual cases of brain damage in PBS's and BBC's series of documentaries about the brain. Including people who are blind *except* when something is moving, people who suffer from roughly the opposite (failure to recognize movement), people who have some kind of unilateral blindness, prosopagnosia (which they describe being like a normal person seeing faces of chimps and then trying to recognize who's who, the guy can't even recognize his own photo), a more dramatic damage that makes recognition of objects impossible (you have to see this), another case that the center of "familiarity" has been damaged (he sees his own parents but he thinks they're just look-alikes and not his real parents), cases of extremely poor memory, total changing of personality during the transitional stages of degenerative brain diseases, others who can't understand the meaning of complex sentences even though they know all the words, phantom pain and phantom senses and a lot more I don't remember right now. There are also the brain and mind teaching modules which are short downloadable videos about a lot of subjects relevant to brain pathology and physiology.
 
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