Brain and Mind

“The brain, and the brain alone, is the source of our pleasures, joys, laughter, and amusement, as well as our sorrow, pain, grief, and tears. It is especially the organ we use to think and learn, see and hear, to distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the bad from the good, and the pleasant from the unpleasant. The brain is also the seat of madness and delirium, of the fears and terrors which assail by night or by day, of sleeplessness, awkward mistakes and thoughts that will not come, of pointless anxieties, forgetfulness and eccentricities”. —Hippocrates, ca. 400
I need not add any more to this vivid statement made more than 2500 years ago. If the father of Modern Medicine could make this statement just by using his powers of observation and deductive reasoning, why many of us still find it difficult to accept this fact?

They ask “What is the evidence for this?”
Fair enough! I shall try to give some simple examples to ponder over.
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1) Epilepsy is a disorder of brain causing loss of consciousness. There is enough evidence to conclude that excessive uncontrollable firing of nerve cells (neurons) is causing epilepsy. An electro encephalogram (EEG) can show these discharges on a graph paper.
2) Drugs causing altered mental states cannot act if they do not reach the brain.
3) Mentally retarded children have smaller brains leading to their lower IQ.
4) In dementia loss of intellect results from damage to the nerve cells (neurons). This can be seen by taking brain scans.
5) Sleep - only the brain sleeps. The other vital organs like liver, heart, lungs etc continue to function while ‘we’ sleep. Who is this ‘we’? It is our brain.
6) Again heart, liver, kidneys etc can be transplanted. But nobody speaks of brain transplant.
Why?
If brain is transplanted, the person becomes another person.
Sever blow on the head causes almost unconsciousness


What about heart?

Why do people believe that heart is responsible for mind?
People generally equate mind with emotions. It is a common observation that hart beats faster when one is emotionally stimulated. For example when we are afraid, anxious or sexually stimulated heart beats faster. This might have given rise to the belief.

Brain

Cerebral cortex – is the outermost and bulkiest part – responsible for perception, thinking, conscious activity.
Middle part is responsible for emotions and unconscious actions.
Lowest parts are responsible for control of visceral functions. These are almost completely out of voluntary control

Basic functions of the brain / mind

Consciousness
Attention and concentration
Memory and orientation to time, place, self, and others (ability to be aware of who am I, where am I, what time is it now, who are these other people around me etc)
Perception
Language and speech
Thinking
Emotions and mood
Intelligence
Insight and judgment
Behavior and actions

How do we know about external world?
It is through our sense organs and the neurons which receive information from them.
Sensory systems which help us (or our brains) to understand about external world are listed below. This understanding is the basis of our ability to respond to events outside.
Visual, Auditory, Smell, Taste, Touch, Vibration, Joint and muscle sensations


Registration of incoming information about external world is called sensation.
Primary analysis helps to understand what is received.
Giving meaning to sensation based on past experience – perception and apperception.
Secondary analysis
Comparison with existing stored information – this is called memory
Language and second signaling
Control of attention and memory – this is called thinking
It is mostly under conscious control



Processing of emotions

This type of processing is mostly at unconscious level – unconscious mind of Freud. These are mostly under conscious control. Pathways for emotional expressions are not under voluntary control
Complex entities like human health or behavior cannot be understood or explained by a single theory or approach.

The bio-psycho-social model of brain / mind.

Bio-psycho-social model gives due consideration for all the factors.
Social factors operate in the social/interpersonal space.
Psychological mechanisms operate within the individual mind – thoughts, emotions, moods and subjective experiences and their interpretations. The final common pathway for all these factors to operate and affect us is the brain of the individual with its complex electro-chemical processes. Proper understanding of all these factors and their interplay is vital for proper understanding of human health and disease.