We all know that our lives are not our own and sometimes inevitable things happen that change us immediately both directly and indirectly. By taking a biological psychology course you are able to learn more about your body and understand how fragile and how much more we need to be aware of our health and our surroundings. This semester I took a 490 Senior Seminar Psychology course that was centered on Neuroscience. I for one was very thrilled to know I'd be learning about a psychology sub field I was already interested in. The brain is such a beautiful and complex organ that is not completely understood. We have come a long way from the ancient times were Greek philosophers like Aristotle thought our consciousness, imagination, and memory was rooted in the human heart. A belief even the Egyptians shared by preserving the heart of a mummy. And although the heart is a very important organ whose main job is to keep us alive. The brain is able to explain how “we are all one car crash or slip away from being a different person,” a quote stated by Paul Broks.
To understand what he is trying to say we need to know how the brain functions. The brain forms part of the central nervous system together with the spinal cord. The body’s nervous system is our main center of communication and decision-making. The brain is composed of many parts that control our cognitions and every day movements. It is composed of three main segments: the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain. The forebrain includes the cerebrum, the thalamus and the hypothalamus. The midbrain is composed of the tegmentum and the tectum. The hindbrain consists of the cerebellum, pons and medulla, also known as the brainstem. Aside from this, the cerebrum is made up of four segments: the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe. And these four segments all have different functions.
So what does learning about our brain and all its structures have to do with the quote from Paul Broks? Well that is because unlike any other diseases where we are able to detect something or prevent it from progressing, diseases or things that affect the brain does not have the same luxury. Once something attacks the brain and it disturbs its functioning, we are in most cases, unable to prevent or even stop it from progressing. For example, while I was in my 490 Seminar class, Professor Melucci played a podcast from radio lab that explains in depth how the brain makes someone and potentially breaks someone. Essentially who we are. One of the stories that stood out was from a producer named Hannah Palan about her mother who suffered a brain aneurysm at 46 years old.
The mother explains that the last thing she remembered was working out and having a horrible headache. Suddenly she was in a hospital bed and her daughter explains how she could see her mother die and resurrect as a different person. Her mother was in a coma for a couple of days and when she came back she remembered a previous life. She said that she was an old Vietnam farmer that grew vegetables. The odd thing was that her mother had never been to Vietnam or knew anyone that could have possibly fed her that story and created false memories. At this point her daughter believes that the only part that is still her mother was just her physical self, a shell she called it. The person she spoke to and saw everyday was not her mother, but someone else. The mother she knew and who raised her had left her body the day she suffered that aneurysm. After that, she became a totally different person, the things she did and the way she acted was completely the opposite of the person she was before. This is where the brain makes its grand debut. A part of her mother had been damaged or awaken through that aneurysm that allowed her mother to become a different person. And the only explanation we have is that the brain makes a lot of different connections that make us who we are. Since the moment we are conceived and we start building our brain and spinal cord we are already creating connections that will define us later in life.
It is stories like these that makes us really think how beautiful life is and how we shouldn’t take it for granted. These stories make us appreciate the simple things in life. We still don’t know everything there is to know about the brain. Because as you may know, we cannot fully study a brain unless someone passes away. We can’t just cut your skull open and poke around your brain to learn new things. There are many factors that have great impact on our state of being. Even when we are going through an emotional event in our life we become a whole different person. A part of our brain is activated that we allow to take over for a moment. This is what makes learning about neuroscience so fascinating. To think that we went from believing that our heart was where our true self was created or stored, to actually learning that our brain is what creates and stores who we truly are.
As we know we can’t make memories unless we have meanings behind the things we do. Remembering is a biological thing, and our synapses are reshaped every time in order to learn new things. My professor always says that we either use our brain or we lose it because without our hippocampus being active, it won’t have the need to work hard in order to remember things. This is why I love learning so much about the brain because even doing the simplest task takes a lot of work. Our brain needs to tell our body to move one foot forward and then the next in order for us to walk, tell our eyes to blink, or even stay quiet when someone is pushing our buttons. One little movement can take many different parts of our brain to come together.
And after all the things I have listed there is still so much more that we can learn from different points of views or sub fields in psychology. Our life is truly one step closer from changing because our brain is the only thing in us that has everything we need to know about ourselves. One wrong hit on our head or an aneurysm and the person who we know we are can be gone in a blink of an eye. This also reminds me of another event that helps explain what Brok meant with that quote. Football players and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (C.T.E.), you would think that the only thing they need to worry about is physical injury. Little do they know that taking multiple hits to the head can change who they are over time.
C.T.E. is a serious disease that has been found in many deceased NFL players. The symptoms of the disease can include confusion, memory loss, a drop in concentration, and the most popular symptom, depression that can later lead to suicide. Those little jolts and head bangs players get during practice, a game of scrimmage and an actual game can all lead to C.T.E.. The trauma of repetitive blows to the head triggers degeneration in brain tissue, and this creates a build up of an abnormal protein called Tau. This protein invades the brain and practically strangles the brain killing off brain cells. It’s surprising to learn that even a beloved American sport can be so dangerous as to change a players life with one wrong hit to the head. The players who have suffered from C.T.E. have been known to be aggressive, confused, and forgetful. They literally start becoming a whole different person without even knowing.
The worst part about this and any other disease that may affect who we are does not only affect us but also our family members. Even when we don’t know that we are acting different or becoming someone else, they are the first to see the signs or symptoms. We change based on many factors; it could be an injury to the head, suffering from a migraine, or even being let down by someone close to you. If we look back ten years I am most certain that we are not the same person we were before. In my opinion, Paul Broks was on to something, although he meant it in a neurological perspective. Hopefully this entices you to take a neuroscience course in order to learn as much or more about the brain and its functions. Because we never know if there will be a wrong connection one day in our brain that will reshape us and make us a whole new person.