계속: 두뇌는 그 변경 사항을 자체

장 구(nine): Psychoanalysis

Since the discovery of gene, we see that the psychiatric and character problems are due to our hardwired genes. However, the genes have the "transcription function". When, a gene is turned on, it makes a new protein that alters the structure ans function of the cell. Eric Kandel's work shows that when we learn our minds also affect which genes in our neurons are transcribed. Psychotherapy is about "talking to neurons", going deep into the brain ans its neurons and changing their structure by turning on the right genes.


In 1895 Sigmund Freud completed the "Project for a Scientific Psychology", one of the first comprehensive neuroscientific models to integrate brain and mind, still admired for its sophistication. The first plastic concept, "free association" is 60 years earlier than Hebb's Law (fire together, wire together). 


The third idea was a plastic view of memory. Children who were molested when very young and unable to understand what was being done to them were not always upset at the time, and their initial memories were not always negative. But once they matured sexually, they looked upon the incident anew and gave it new meaning, and their memory of the molestation changed. Memories are constantly remodeled. The memories had to be conscious and become the focus of our conscious attention to be changed. 


Baby:
The right hemisphere of the brain starts to grow, then the left hemisphere continues the spurt of its own. The right hemisphere processes nonverbal communication such as recognising faces, reading facial expressions, musical component of speech and tone. The left hemisphere processes the verbal-linguistic element of speech and analyses problems using conscious processing. 


Mother plays big role in her baby emotional development. She uses musical speech and nonverbal gestures, teaching baby about emotion. For children to know and regulate their emotions, and be socially connected, they need to experience this kind of interaction many hundreds of times in the critical period and then to have it reinforced later in life. 


-------> Case study <----------
During World War II Rene Spitz studied infants reared by their own mothers in prison, comparing them with those reared in a foundling home, where one nurse was responsible for seven infants. The foundling infants stopped developing intellectually, were unable to control their emotions, and instead rocked endlessly back and forth, or made strange hand movements. They also entered "turned-off" states and were indifferent to the world, unresponsive to people who tried to hold and comfort them. 


DreamWorld:

When we dream, the section of brain that in charge of emotion, sexual, survival, and aggressive instincts is quite active. On the other hand, the prefrontal cortex system, which is responsible for inhibiting our emotions and instincts, shows lower activity. So, the dream able to reveal impulses that are normally blocked from awareness. 


Sleep allows us to consolidate learning and memory. Therefore, neuroplasticity also happen in dream state. Infants spend many more hours in REM sleep than adults, and it is during infancy that neuroplastic change occurs  more rapidly. REM is required for normal neuron growth, enhancing our ability to retain emotional memories and turning short-term memories(hippocampus) into long-term memories.


Stress: 

Glucocorticoid is released when people stress, depress or desperate. It kills cells in the hippocampus so that it can't make the synaptic connections in neural networks that make learning and explicit long-term memory possible. Small hippocampuses are highly found on motherless children and animals. Adult survivors of childhood abuse also show signs of glucocorticoid supersensitivity lasting in adulthood. The longer people are depressed, the smaller their hippocampus gets. If the stress is brief, the shrinkage will be temporary. If it is too prolonged, the damage is permanent. Antidepressant medications increase the number of stem cells that become new neurons in the hippocampus. 


Paradox:

Human born with mental plasticity, capacity to change or adapt. Unfortunately, depletion of the plasticity occurs in many elder people. They become "unchangeable, fixed, and rigid." The plastic paradox is that the same neuroplastic properties that allow us to change our brains and produce more flexible behaviors can also allow us to produce more rigid ones. Anything that involves unvaried repetition-our careers, cultural activities, routines, skills, and neuroses-can lead to rigidity. 


As Pascual-Leone's metaphor illustrates, neuroplasticity is like pliable snow on a hill. When we go down the hill on a sled, we can be flexible because we have the option of taking different paths through the soft snow each time. But should we choose the same path a second or third time, tracks will start to develop, and soon we will tend to get stuck in a rut-our route will now be quite rigid, as neural circuits, once established, tend to become self -sustaining.  


Hippocampus:
Henry Gustav Molaison(H.M) had his both hippocampus cut out. As the result, he was unable to convert short-term memories into long, the structure of his brain and memory, and his mental and physical images of himself, are frozen where they were when he had his surgery. Sadly, he can't even recognise himself in the mirror.