Brain and mind

E. R. Kandel and L. R. Squire, Neuroscience breaking down scientific barriers to the study of brain and mind, Science, 290, 1113 (2000). 

Over the past century, chemists have discovered the ability to explain a whole range of biological phenomena, from the mechanisms by which genetic information is passed from parents to children to the processes by which certain compounds kill microorganisms. Is there any aspect about "being human" that chemists cannot explain Is it possible that even questions of how the brain and mind function can be answered by a better understanding of the biochemistry of the human body ... 

To some extent, these ideas about consciousness are present in modern cognitive science, although with different forms and terminology, and the interested reader can refer to more specialized literature, for example the work by Damasio (1999) or by le Doux (2002). There are now many books on the subject of consciousness and many novel academic institutions devoted to the study of consciousness, with much emphasis on the relation between brain and mind. This is certainly remarkable in an area dominated by the molecular paradigm. Very little has yet been done to connect this with a bio-logical theory of life as a property from within, but I believe that the trend will move in this direction. In this sense, Francisco Varela has again been somewhat of a pioneer. 

This simple quatrain wonderfully epitomizes the essence of the human mind. Awareness of one s inner and outer environments is central to the functioning of the human mind. Consciousness is the enigmatic phenomenon that is crucial to the interface between brain and mind. General anesthetics are drugs that temporarily rob us of our consciousness GABA is a key molecular target for general anesthesia. 

As for the details needed to flesh out a new model, we must admit that there is more of an opportunity within our reach than there is substantial information in hand. The time is thus ripe for a major program of research that uses our now extensive knowledge of how conscious and unconscious processes are naturally generated and regulated in the diurnal evolution of our states of brain and mind as a foundation for a new comprehensive theory that encompasses the comparative, the evolutionary developmental, intra- and interindividual, and the social levels of analysis. 

We are left with the tantalizing approximation of two models - one controlling sleep, the other controlling mood - which are about to collapse into each other, but not quite. Not yet. Those yearning for a unified theory of brain and mind must exercise patience and be satisfied that, in this case at least, the cup is well over half-full, whereas only 25 years ago it was completely empty. 

The brain-disabling principle states that as soon as toxicity is reached, the drug begins to have a psychoactive effect that is, it begins to affect the brain and mind. Without toxicity, the drug would have no psychoactive effect. 

Given so many acknowledgments by researchers that neuroleptics work by subduing the brain and mind, and sometimes the body itself, it is remarkable that psychiatric drug advocates continue to promote these drugs as if they have a specifically ameliorating effect on psychosis, mania, or schizophrenia. 

Many former psychiatric patients and inmates have described the brain- and mind-numbing effects of the neuroleptics (Burstow et al., 1988 Chamberlin, 1978 Frank, 1980 Grobe, 1995 Hudson, 1980 Millett, 1990 Modrow, 1992). 

The claim that lithium is a disease-specific therapy for mania or manic-depressive (bipolar) disorder has no basis in fact it is a braindisabling agent. Its efficacy has been exaggerated, and its adverse effects on the brain and mind, as well as the body as a whole, have been too frequently minimized. 

Consider that all of this was published before Sackeim et al. s (2007) study showing permanent harm to the brain and mind caused by ECT. Psychiatry has ignored the decades of research that long ago should have brought the treatment to a halt. 

The stimulant drugs, including all methylphenidate and amphetamine products, produce a wide array of adverse effects on the brain and mind as well as the overall body. Strattera, marketed by Eli Lilly as a nonstimulant, shares most of these adverse effects. Table 11.1 summarizes the adverse drug reaction data from eight controlled clinic trials. Table 11.2... 

Not surprising, lifestyle changes can help more than psychiatric drugs, with no adverse effects on the brain and mind. A number of studies have also described the antidepressant effects of exercise (Babyak et al., 2000 Blumenthal et al., 1999). 

Keep in mind that if you or I as therapists cannot seem to help some of our patients, the alternative answer is not drugs. The alternative could be another therapist or no therapy at all. No treatment at all is better than being subjected to toxic chemicals that cross the blood-brain barrier and interfere with higher human functions. With a clear brain and mind, people can take advantage of all the healing opportunities afforded by life, from support groups and workshops to community activities and religious worship. 

Robbins TW, Owen AM, Sahakian BJ (1998b) The neuropsychology of basal ganglia disorders An integrative cognitive and comparative approach. In Ron MA, David AS (Eds), Disorders of Brain and Mind, pp. 57-84. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 

The serotonergic neurons of the raphe nuclei in the brainstem innervate the entire brain and likely exert substantial modulatory effects on our perceptions, emotions, thought processes, and conscious awareness— the mental states that may collectively be called the mind. Psilocybin and related tryptamines from Psilocybe fungi are believed to produce their profound effects on the brain and mind by way of interacting with 5-HT2A receptors in the cerebral cortex, limbic system, and elsewhere. As chemical probes that might lead to a better understanding of how the neural circuitry of the brain is related to the nature of mind, they offer unprecedented opportunities ... 

So we see that across the various hierarchical levels between the physics and chemistry of neurons of the brain and the human mind, it is very difficult if not impossible to attribute clear-cut principles of causation. Causation seems to enter the picture at each and every hierarchical level, and is not wholly reducible to prior causation at another level of organization. About all that can be said with confidence at this point is that brain and mind facilitate and reflect each other, like the valley and the river, but in no logical sense do they cause each other that they are parallel processes, and for an analogue of this seemingly paradoxical statement I would compare the mind-brain duality to particle-wave duality in quantum mechanics. The wave attributes of electromagnetic radiation do not cause the particle attributes, nor vice versa. The... 

Does the particle nature of light cause its wave aspects Or vice versa All these questions may only be asked from the point of view of classical physics, they only have meaning from the classical view. Once quantum mechanical physics enters the scene, no one even attempts to answer the questions on the classical level, if my guess that brain and mind are parallel aspects of a more fundamental reality is nebulous, perhaps it will take on some relevance when a "quantum mechanics of philosophy" will be available, whether a process of mind studying mind will accomplish such a feat is still an open question. 

Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Research Center for Science and Technology in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Research Institute for Nuclear Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Department of Medical Instrument Technology, Technological Educational Institute, Athens, Greece Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Sydney, Australia Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Sydney, Australia... 

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