Three-brained being

Gurdjieff constantly emphasized an idea that at first glance seems very strange we are three-brained beings. Yet this idea is central in the development of modern growth psychologies. 

When we think of the brain, we think of that physical organ in our head whose function is to think, to simulate reality. Thinking is a logical process, and we obviously have one thinking brain, so what could a three-brained being be.>... 

There is an Eastern parable of the horse, carriage, and driver that richly illustrates our nature as three-brained beings and the problems resulting from poor development of each and from imbalance. 

This open-minded attention must be more than just intellectual attention. Remember that we are three-brained beings. Thus the attention we should strive to pay to our world and our selves is an emotional attention and a body attention as well as an intellectual attention. Saying the name of what you are observing to yourself is fine—unless you mistakenly think you are through with the observational process since you ve named it. What feelings, if any, does it arouse in you. What effects, if any, does it have on the way you sense your body. Sometimes a given focus of observation only has one or two of these qualities, but we should strive to be open to all of them all of the time. 

Chapter 14 Balance and Imbalance in Three-Brained Beings... 

Concurrent therapy for the treatment of more than three brain metastases using paclitaxel and radiation has been explored in a phase III trial (144). The hypothesis here being that high-dose paclitaxel in combination with cranial radiation should improve local control while providing systemically active amounts of chemotherapy. Unfortunately, there was no statically significant improvement in survival seen. There is certainly a place to further explore the benefits and toxicides experienced with concurrent taxane-based therapy with radiation in metastatic disease. The role of the taxanes in concurrent chemoradiotherapy with sarcomas and pediatric tumors has not been explored at this time. 

What would a Flatland brain be like Could it really work Our 3-D brains are highly convoluted with microscopic neurons making complicated interconnections. Without this complex three-space network of nerve filaments—... 

The Fourth Way of spiritual development, which Gurdjieff represented, combines the other three ways, aiming at developing all three brains in a relatively equal and harmonious fashion. This is obviously desirable in and of itself, as well as setting the stage for the development of an entirely different kind of center for the self, the center that we call the Master in the parable. Various characteristics of Fourth Way work will be discussed in the remainder of this book, and some have been mentioned already, although not specifically identified as such. One of the primary tasks of self-observation, discussed in Chapter 17, is the personal observation of the different flavors of the three brains and of the wrong work of one brain for another. 

Although there is some modern evidence from neurophysiological research for the anatomical and functional distinctness of these three brains, it is their observable functional qualities that matter for our discussion. I shall continue to use the word brain, but don t be concerned with the anatomy of the physical brain. Gurdjieff used centers at times rather than brain, and also spoke of other centers and finer divisions of these centers, but that level of detail will not concern us here. 

Recent pharmacological interest in KYN metabolites with respect to CNS diseases has mainly focused on three brain-active molecules 3-HK and QUIN, two molecules with neurotoxic properties, and KYN A, a presumed neuroprotective metabolite. These will be discussed in more detail in the following sections. 

As mentioned above, the Mossbauer spectra of iron in all three brain structures studied, showed only ferritin-like, high-spin trivalent iron. There has been one spectrophotometry study that claimed about 75% of the iron in control SN (and about 50% of iron in parkinsonian SN) is divalent [15]. Such a high percentage of divalent iron could not escape detection by MS. Computer simulations, aimed at determining the concentration of divalent iron in the tissues that could escape detection by MS, showed this to be at most 5% [5]. Analysis of the procedure of the sample preparation for spectrophotometry lead us to the suspicion that the high concentration of divalent iron found in this experiment may have been due to the destruction of the protein shell of ferritin by hydrochloric acid and pepsin, which may have caused an efflux of iron from ferritin. It may be that this iron was then reduced from trivalent to divalent iron by ascorbic acid present in the cells. Indeed, tissues pretreated in this way and assessed by MS did show large concentrations of divalent iron [16]. 

Studies of Absorption in Tissues. The histological sequences following implantation over the brain of steam-treated film, and also film modified by treatment with hot glycerol, have been extensively studied by Bailey (1947) and Bailey and Ingraham (1944). In this location both of these types of film, applied as dural substitutes, are largely absorbed within about three months, being replaced by a thin neomembrane no fibrous adhesions are formed. 

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