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A User’s Guide To The Brain

John Ratey M.D.

ISBN 0-679-45309-1

A collection of fascinating facts gleaned from this book.

Page 169
Recent research has overturned the old neruologic dogma that adult brains cannot renew
themselves. It used to be thought that neural stem cells-which divide to produce nerve
cells in an embryonic brain-shut down in adulthood. But Brent Reynolds and Sam Weiss
at Neurospheres, a Canadian biotechnology company, have shown that stem cells are still
alive and well in adults. They just need to be switched on again. This prompting is done
with growth factors-molecules that stimulate tissue growth that turn genes on and off and
then maintain mature organs. Reynolds has shown in controlled experiments that stem
cells treated with growth factors can be persuaded to produce new nerve cells.

Page 175
What’s even more fascinating is that motor control of movement related to emotion is not
in the same location as the control for a voluntary motion of the same kind. For example,
when a stroke destroys the motor cortex of the brain’s left hemisphere, the patient
experiences paralysis on the right side of the face. When asked to smile the patient
cannot move the right side of his mouth. However, when the same patient is told a joke
and laughs spontaneously, the smile is normal; both sides of the mouth move as they
should. The cortex cannot exercise its usual control of the muscles, but the muscles still
respond to the more automatic and implicitly learned responses that are located on the
first floor-the basal ganglia.

Page 183
The study of false memory was pioneered by Elizabeth Loftus at the University of
Washington in Seattle in the 1970’s. She walked the adult children through a list of the
real incidents and occasionally slipped in a fake one.
When asked to check off on a list the events that had actually occurred in their childhood,
about one quarter of them indicated that they had more confidence that the event they had
imagined had actually happened to them. See the book for the actual quotation as it was
fairly long. H.B.

Page 188
Sleep, specifically the sleep associated with dreaming, is important to human memory. In
Israel, researchers Avi Karni and Dov Sagi at the Weizmann Institute found that
interrupting REM sleep sixty times in a night completely blocked learning, but
interrupting non-REM sleep just as often did not. These findings and others suggest that
REM sleep is crucial for organizing pieces and associations between them needed for
forming lasting memories.

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Page 205
Creative and artistic individuals do indeed possess higher levels of interhemespheric
communication. The creative meanderings and patternings of the right hemisphere are
not enough for creativity; they must be joined with action or language (motor functions)
coordinated by the left hemisphere to be demonstrated to the world. (the opposite is true
for lefties.) A beautiful sonnet or painting in someone’s head must be expressed through
an understandable medium, which requires fine-motor movements. Other studies show
that creative people also have a higher degree of cortical arousal.

Page 206
A raft of studies that hit the popular media in 1996 showed that training in the arts, which
is in large part rehearsal of movements, extended to good learning in other areas.

The famous example of this phenomenon is Albert Einstein, who played the violin
regularly. At times he would suddenly stop playing, jump up and scribble down an idea
or part of an equation. People who hum or whistle a tune while they are contemplating
something- or walk the Stairmaster exercise machine, as I do – are using motor programs
in the brain to help them wander along in thought in search of neuronal connections. One
reason motor function and memory are so closely linked, as noted in the previous chapter,
is that they are both coordinated by the frontal lobe, home of the brain’s executive
function.

Page 325
Autism
APD is a complex failure of the social brain. Autism on the other hand, is a
developmental disorder that strikes at the heart of what makes us human: our ability to
love, laugh, and encounter others. People with autism have a range of symptoms that can
include deficits in IQ, delayed or nonexistent language, self-injurious behavior, and
repetitive, stereotyped movements. Some autistic people can have amazing talents as
well, such as an almost photographic drawing ability.
Leo Kanner of the John Hopkins Children’s Psychiatric Clinic described and named
autism in 1943. He listed four traits: a preference for aloneness, an insistence on
sameness, a liking for elaborate routines and some abilities that are remarkable compared
with those of the average person. Autistic people can be very upset at the slightest
change in routine.

Today autism is the diagnosis when a person has impaired social skills, impaired
language, and significantly restricted interests. There are many ways that these
symptoms and their subsets can be expressed. Whatever the individual mix, however, all
autistic people show a profound deficit in social abilities.

However, more recent research has shown that autism does have a genetic basis.
Identical twins are more likely to both be autistic than fraternal twins. Autism is 50 to
100 times more likely to occur twice in the same family than would be expected by
chance. Structural differences in the brains of autistic individuals-such as a smaller
cerebellar vermis or uncommon cell structures in other parts of the cerebellum,

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hippocampus, and amygdale-have been widely reported in postmortems, and the deficits
that autistic people show in tests of planning, initiative, and imagination are similar to
those suffered by people with frontal-lobe damage.

Page 326-327
Autistic children cannot understand pretense and do not pretend when they are playing.
It is unclear why this is so. Perhaps they do not have an inborn mechanism that allows
them to delay long enough in their thinking process to shift to a different level of
meaning, or have difficulty shifting from one line of thinking to another. They are bound
by where they are. They are unable to put themselves in another person’s place. It is as
if the ability to manipulate ideas and see them from more than one perspective as well as
a powerful integrating force to seek meaning are missing.

Other theories link autism to cerebellar damage, which would interfere with smooth
coordination of shifts in attention. Most recently, another group of theorists, Lynn
Waterhouse and colleagues at Trenton State College, identified four neurofunctional
deficits in autism. The first is canalesthesia, a problem with the hippocampus, the
memory center of the brain. In this dysfunction the neurons in the hippocampus have too
great a cell-packing density, which results in abnormal fragmentation of both current
events and long-term memories. The second is a problem with the amygdale that disrupts
the ability to assign emotional significance to events as they happen. The third is
asociality, a problem with the oxytocin system that leads to less bonding and affiliative
behavior. The fourth is extended selective attention, a problem with the temporal and
parietal lobes that causes over processing of primary representations, where the brain gets
stuck on some detail. Causal relationships between symptoms have not been established,
though, and the variety of symptoms in autism makes it difficult to find a single cause of
this disorder.
Regardless of which theory prevails, all of them take into account that autism results
from deficits in several areas of the social brain. Some scientists think this could be the
result of damage to the developing embryo’s brain. Patricia Rodier of the University of
Rochester reported that in 33 percent of mothers, who before its use was banned in
pregnant women, had ingested thalidomide between days 24 and 27 of pregnancy, their
children developed autism, and that fetuses exposed at other times did not (thalidomide is
a tranquilizer that was used to help prolong pregnancy and was banned because it was
proved to cause birth defects). The period between days 24 and 27 of pregnancy is
exactly the time that the brain neurons are just starting to form.
Other evidence supports injury in the first trimester, particularly to the brainstem, as the
cause of autism. Many autistic people have problems with eye movements, facial nerve
palsy, and hearing problems that are indicative of brainstem injury. All of this research
can give us insight into how to help people with autism and how the social brain works in
everyday situations.

Page 364
Mental exercise strengthens and even renews neural connections, keeping the brain
flexible and resilient. For years scientists believed that the irreversible loss of neurons
was inevitable in old age. However, actual evidence indicates that there is not a great

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deal of loss. PET scans show that the frontal lobes of a twenty-five year old and a
seventy-five year old glow equally bright after the same memory test.
Decline in old age is caused primarily by the lack of mental exercise.
New mental tasks increase neural connections and help the brain become more adaptive
to future events, whether these include coping with the death of a family member or
mastering a new computer language. You have the best chance of growing connections
between your axons and dendrites by tackling activities that are unfamiliar to you.

You can indeed teach an old dog new tricks.

The lesson here is that we have the power to change our brains. The human brain’s
amazing plasticity enables it to continually rewire and learn, not just through academic
study but through experience, thought, action, and emotion. As with our muscles, we can
strengthen our neural pathways with exercise. Or we can let them wither. It is wise to
remember once again one of the brain’s most basic principles: Use it or lose it.

Page 366
Memory changes due to advancing age are largely the result of lesser efficiency in
processing, not of some pathological breakdown in the brain. Aging is unavoidable;
severe memory loss is not. Several factors may slow the onset of memory problems
encountered in Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The intake of anti-
oxidants such as vitamin E and selegeline may help the brain fend off cellular attacks on
the neurons. The use of no steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin
and ibuprofen may be helpful too, since inflammation is thought to be a cause of the
plaques and tangles found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Corroboration comes
from a view of numerous epidemiological studies on people with arthritis; early
indications are that those who have taken anti-inflammatory agents for years to reduce
the symptoms of arthritis have a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s. but researchers have
issued a strong warning against using these studies as a mandate to start downing aspirin
or ibuprofen daily. None of the anti-inflammatory drugs was ever designed for long term
use, and there could be serious side effects such as damage to the stomach lining, internal
bleeding and interference with kidney function- conditions that could be much more life
threatening than Alzheimer’s.

Page 369
Poor diet is common in people who suffer from depression and other mental disorders.
Even minor nutritional deficiencies can be associated with changes in mood. Memory
loss, confusion, depression, and other mental disorders in the elderly, once attributed
simply to aging, can also be the consequences of a poor diet.
One significant relationship is that food intake affects the formation and activity of
neurotransmitters. It is no coincidence that people turn to pasta, desserts, and other
carbohydrate-rich foods when they feel down in the dumps. Carbohydrates increase
brain concentrations of an amino acid called tryptophan, which is the building block for
the neurotransmitter serotonin. Consequently, increased tryptophan means a higher level
of serotonin in the brain, which in turn relieves depression, insomnia, and irritability by
promoting the feelings of calmness and serenity.

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Page 369 (continued lower down) and 370
In recent studies, rapidly lowered cholesterol levels have been associated with
depression, anxiety , panic disorder, violence, and suicide. When we go wild in altering
food intake, in this case absurdly lowering cholesterol levels, we risk upsetting the
equilibrium we need.

Deficiencies in vitamins B1, B2, B6, and B12, niacin, folic acid and vitamin C are often
found in psychiatric patients and are thought to contribute to a cycle of depression, lack
of interest in food, progressive malnutrition, and increasing mental and emotional
disorders. Vitamin deficiencies seldom occur singly and are almost always accompanied
by inadequate intake of other vitamins, protein, iron, and minerals.
Even small deficiencies in normal people can promote personality and mood changes,
insomnia, aggressiveness, and impaired reasoning and judgment. Clearly, a better diet
rich in vitamins and minerals, with supplements if necessary, is the road to reversing
many ailments of the brain. This may sound as old as the ages, but a balanced diet is the
best brain medicine.

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