13 Jan 08 – Brain – What do we Know…What do we Need?

13 January 2008

On this day in 1843, David Ferrier was born. Ferrier was a neurologist, with connections to the psychologist Alexander Bain (as Bain’s scientific assistant while Ferrier was in medical school), one of the founders of associative psychology (e.g., Pavlovian association). Bain encouraged Ferrier to spend time in the laboratories of Wundt (a philosopher who conducted early psychological experiments and who is considered by some to be the “Father of Psychology”) and Helmholtz (who was trained in physics).

In time, Ferrier localized functioning of visual and sensory functions, discovering both the visual and sensory cortex of the brain and mapping much of the function of the brain through electrical stimulation and removal of portions of the brain.

When it is said that human functions, such as vision and sensory functions that Ferrier discovered, are “localized,” this means that a particular area of the brain carries out the function indicated. For example, vision appears to be the result of functioning in the occipital lobe.

There are, however, difficulties with this assumption of localization of functioning. The primary difficulty is a problem of anomalies and paradoxes in brain studies that, unfortunately, are more often ignored, explained away, or discounted. One example of an anomaly is represented by an article written by Roger Lewin in 1980 in the very highly esteemed scientific journal, Science. Lewin summarized in this article the work of John Lorber who had conducted numerous studies of individuals with hydrocephaly (“water in the brain”).

Hydrocephaly is a condition where there is overproduction of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) in the brain and, as a result, the ventricles, which hold the CSF, expand. As the ventricles expand, brain matter decreases. Based on the conception of localization, the result of ventricle expansion is pressure on these areas and deficits in functioning. In fact, most individuals with hydrocephaly do experience deficits. And, again following the localization of functioning theory, those with the most severe forms of hydrocephaly also tend to have the most severe forms of dysfunction (e.g., often severe mental retardation and sometimes death).

Still, Lorber’s studies demonstrated what a number of scientists had reported anecdotally: some people with even very severe forms of hydrocephaly still appear to live normal – and sometimes much better than normal – lives. In fact, some of the people in Lorber’s studies, with as much as 95% of the cerebral cavity filled with CSF, still had normal intellectual development. One had an IQ higher than some of the investigators in the study!

Some have dismissed these findings, but they are not isolated. In fact, Lorber has conducted literally hundreds of scans to confirm these results. Furthermore, numerous studies have confirmed this possibility of normal to extraordinary functioning in individuals (and animals) with very little brain matter. Such findings have led some researchers to “explaining away” concepts such as “plasticity” (a theory that the brain has the ability to “bounce back” or relocate functioning – which still makes me wonder what the localization is).

Such anomalous findings actually led Wilder Penfield, who worked a great deal in discovering localization of functioning in the brain and was central to the development of the theory of lateralization of functioning in the brain – that certain functions are predominately the result of brain activity in the different hemispheres of the brain, to conclude that there must be a mind-body dualism. That is, his inability to explain anomalies in the brain led him to believe there must be a mind. One of the anomalies that led Penfield to this belief included discovering a localization of functioning, removing that portion of the brain where that functioning was located, and discovering that the function was not eliminated.

Do these findings indicate that there is a mind in addition to the brain? Penfield evidently felt this was so. Wundt, who was indicated above as having had some involvement with Ferrier, also felt this to be so. Fortunately, there are other possibilities, which do not leave the conceptual difficulties that such dualisms leave (for example, how a non-material mind and a material brain interact). I prefer some of the holistic conceptions of the brain and people in general, wherein the brain (and local parts of the brain) is one of other necessary factors required to explain functioning. Examples, though I do not necessarily advocate them, are the holonomic theory espoused by David Bohm and Karl Pribram and the hologramic theory espoused by Paul Pietsch (I am still not completely sure what the essential differences are between the two). Both of these theories conceptualize the brain as similar to a holograph, wherein any component part also possesses elements of the whole such that a destruction of the whole into its parts will lead to a total representation of the whole once again, though in a smaller form (I recommend that you read these conceptualizations, even if I don’t necessarily advocate them, as they are incredibly interesting).

Whether the holistic theories are right or wrong, they fill a very necessary gap: they attempt to account for phenomena that need to be accounted for. Our tendency to merely discount or explain away without accounting for them has been incredibly unscientific, at best. At worst, it has been incredibly misleading and fundamentally dishonest. To be a credible science, we cannot afford to merely discount or explain away such phenomena without attempting to account for them.

Fuel for thought, I guess…head to my website GivingPsychologyAway.net for more fuel for thought regarding psychology.