Mind and the Brain

¶ … Mind and the Brain by Schwartz and Begley In their book, The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley look into the concept of the mind as something separate and distinct from the physical brain. They do so by beginning with a discussion of behaviorism, an approach that has had tremendous influence on the world of psychology, not just in theory but in shaping of treatments for people who exhibited disordered or disturbed reasoning.

They talk about how behaviorism strips the humanity from people, placing human learning on roughly the same level as animal conditioning. Moreover, they also discuss the idea that, even if behaviorist approaches can effectuate therapeutic results, such as in habituation training for patients suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, there are other means that do not involve the same level of cruelty towards the patients, but can still achieve the desired results.

The conclusion was that "there is something deeply wrong, both morally and scientifically, with a school of psychology whose central tenet is that people's conscious life experience (the literal meaning of the word psyche) is irrelevant, and that the intrinsic difference between humans and brutes…could be safely ignored" (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). This book contains their attempt to explain the mind as this element that elevates humans above animals and those parts of human behavior that do not seem to align with traditional behaviorist theory.

The book begins with an exploration of the concept of mind and points out that even before there was a good understanding of anatomy, there was an understanding that the brain functioned as a control center for the rest of the body. Modern science has even made it possible to determine which regions of the brain are responsible for particular feelings and functions. However, the authors believe that mapping these regions and understanding the brain does not explain how the brain's functions transform into what is considered the mind.

"The most deeply puzzling question- whether that vast panoply of phenomena encompassed by the word mind can actually arise from nothing but the brain -- is not, in the view most researchers, a legitimate subject for scientific inquiry" (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). To the authors, the fact that human beings can have subjective experiences, as well as the ability to act through spontaneous free will suggest the presence of something more than simply mechanical learning pathways in the brain; in other words, the presence of a mind.

One of the most compelling chapters in the book describes monkeys kept in a primate research laboratory in Maryland, where the goal of the research was to examine whether an animal could be forced to use a limb that no longer had feeling. The chapter is compelling because the animals were kept in horrific conditions, but the results of the experiment were illumination.

Sensory deafferentation had long been presumed to lead to a loss of motor ability, even when the animal in question has not lost any actual use of motor nerves (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). However, when the animals had the good limbs restrained or were subjected to conditioning, they could learn to use the deafferentated limbs. In other words, "volitional movement did not require sensory feedback" (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). Another component of the book talks about how the brain is a changeable structure. This is not a new concept.

William James believed that frequent use make neural pathways deeper, wider, and stronger (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). Moreover, it had previously been observed that learning changed the structure of the brain. There was a notion that "enduring changes in the complex neural circuits of our cerebral cortex…must be induced by our behaviors (Schwartz & Begley, 2002).

Furthermore, when examining the brain and its attendant areas, something else becomes clear: "the amount of cortical territory assigned to a given part of the body reflects not the size of the body part but its sensitivity (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). Another element discussed by Schwartz and Begley focuses on the idea of familiarity in the creation of neural pathways. They examined the idea that "coincident sensory input, such as touching the fingerprints to piano keys, can alter the brain circuits responsible for moving those fingers" (2002).

In other words, "much as during brain development in childhood, experience changes the connectivity of neurons in response to the circuits that are most active" (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). What that means is that a physical activity that is often repeated does not only increase the size of the muscles used to engage in that physical activity, but also the size of the area of the brain responsible for that movement.

After establishing that the brain is capable of engaging in zoning, changing its map not only as a child requires knowledge and skills, but also in adults, the authors move on to examine how the quality of input, not simply the quantity of input, can impact the shape of the brain. They look at work done with people who have dyslexia, and reveal that those people often have problems differentiating words sounds rather than problems with processing visual information. As a result, their brains look different from "normal" brains.

However, the cortical maps that were created by the repeated rehearing of the wrong sounds that result in confusion for those afflicted suggested that it would be difficult to extinguish existing neural pathways and create new ones. However, by modeling drawn-out phonemes in laboratory environments, children were able to advance by years in their language proficiency, demonstrating that even well-worn paths that were being reinforced by outside factors could be subject to change (Schwartz & Begley, 2002).

The results suggested that the brain is far more malleable than had previously been believed. The fact that the brain is malleable provides a stepping stone to the next topic discussed by the authors, which is the relationship between the mind and the brain. At this point, the authors, while not abandoning a scientific, psychology-based approach, incorporate aspects that are generally considered to be religious or philosophical in nature; they talk about the concept of mindfulness.

They believe that, "Our will, our volition, our karma, constitutes the essential core of the active part of mental experience. It is the most important, if not the only important, active part of consciousness" (Schwartz & Begley,.