Video: Teenage Brain

This video looks particularly at how the prefrontal cortex develops through the teenage years up until the age of 25, and examines some of the ethical implications of this science. 

Neuroscience, Philosophy and Consciousness

Human beings are part of nature. They are made of flesh and blood, brain and bone; but for much of the time they are also conscious. The puzzling thing is how the intricate sequences of nerve cells and tissue that make up a person's brain and body can generate the special subjective feel of conscious experience.

Consciousness (What is human consciousness?) creates, in each of us, an inner life where we think and feel; a realm where we experience the sights, sounds, feels, tastes and smells that inform us of the world around us.

To many philosophers the central problem of consciousness is, how can the facts of conscious mental life be part of the world of facts described by the natural sciences?

The 17th-century philosopher, René Descartes, thought they couldn't and argued that, in addition to our physical make up, creatures like us had a non-material mind, or soul, in which thinking took place. For Descartes, only humans were subjects of experience. Animals were mere mechanisms. When they squealed with what we mistakenly took to be pain, it was just air escaping from their lungs.

Today we take other animals to be conscious; although we are not sure how far down the phylogenetic scale consciousness extends. Most problematically of all, if consciousness was immaterial, how could the immaterial soul move the physical body, or feel pain in response to physical injury?

The difficulty of understanding such material-immaterial interactions is the reason most contemporary philosophers reject Descartes' mind-body dualism. Surely it is the brain that is responsible for controlling the body, so it must be the brain that gives rise to consciousness and decision-making. So how does consciousness arise in the brain? Science still has no answer.

To a large extent consciousness has been dethroned from the central role it used to occupy in the study of our mental lives. Freud persuaded us that there is more going on mentally than we are consciously aware of, and that sometimes others can know more about what we are thinking and feeling than we do. Now we are also learning more and more from neuroscience and neurobiology about how much of what we do is the result of unconscious processes and mechanisms. And we are discovering that there are different levels of consciousness, different kinds of awareness, and that much of our thinking and decision-making can go on without it. So a more pressing question might be, what is consciousness for? Is it just a mere mental accompaniment to what is going to happen anyway? In that case it may be our sense of self and self-control that is most in need of revision.

It's also worth remembering that the only convincing example of consciousness we have is our own. Are the people around me really conscious in the way I am, or could they be zombies who act like humans?

Conscious awareness is bound up with our sense of self, but our sense of self is bound up with awareness of the body. The sense of agency and ownership of our limbs is very much part of who we are and how we operate in the world. But it can also go missing after brain injury. In rare cases of brain lesion people can experience sensations in their own hand but not think the hand or the experience belongs to them.

Wittgenstein once said that no one could have an experience and wonder whose experience it was. An experience I feel has to be my experience and it is conceptually impossible to think otherwise. However, when something goes awry in the injured brain the conceptually impossible becomes possible for certain patients. So the nature of consciousness and how we experience it depends on the proper functioning of the brain. We can be aware in moving our bodies that it is our own body we are moving, and we may still have a feeling of being the agent of that movement, but it may not be our conscious decisions that initiate those movements.

The sense of ourselves as consciously deciding everything we do is surely an illusion: but a persistent one. Equally, the idea that consciousness is unified and must be that way comes under increasing pressure in contemporary neuroscience. There are levels of consciousness and perhaps splits in conscious awareness. Can we have consciousness and lack awareness of it? Do we always know what our experience is like, and is experience always as it seems? Much recent experimental evidence from neuroscience suggests that this may not be the case. So it is a fruitful time for philosophers and neuroscientists to work together, to revise previous models and provide new accounts of how we perceive things and why our experience patterns in the way it does.

There may be no single answer to what consciousness is, but we may still be able to find ways to explain what is going on in the brain. This would help resolve why our conscious experience takes the shape and form it does, and elucidate what happens to consciousness when one of the interacting systems that make possible the self-knowing mind breaks down. These phenomena provide vital clues about the neural correlates of consciousness and are a step on the road to understanding why things work as they do.

Getting at the elusive nature of our own experience and freeing ourselves from faulty interpretations is a tricky business. Many disciplines are needed if we are to make a real breakthrough.

By Barry Smith

Original: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/04/consciousness-neuroscience-self-philosophy From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Hypnosis and the Immune System

The flu is expected to reach more people this year (1999) compared to the average flu season. There are many uncertainties this year due to the H1N1 influenza virus. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that the H1N1 virus has caused the first pandemic (global outbreak) of influenza in 40 years. The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that H1N1 is going to cause more people to get sick, more hospitalizations, and more deaths than the average flu season. Research has shown that hypnosis can improve the immune system and improve the body`s functioning.

According to the CDC, timing is uncertain. In past flu seasons, the outbreak has reached its peak in the months of January and February in the United States. However, the H1N1 virus caused sickness, hospitalizations, and death during the summer months, which is highly unusual. It is not known when the virus will reach its peak and how long it will last. Due to this uncertainty, people must be proactive about building their immune system to combat the flu.



Research performed at Washington State University in Pullman found that hypnosis strengthens two different types of immune cells that fight off disease. Sixty-five students participated in the study. Thirty-three participants were highly hypnotizable and responded well to hypnotherapy induction. Thirty-two participants had difficulty achieving a hypnotic state.

All 65 participants were randomly assigned into 3 separate groups. One group received hypnosis, one group received relaxation therapy, and one group served as the control group and received no form of therapy or treatment. Results showed that the participants who received hypnosis displayed a jump in 2 important types of white blood cells. Those who were highly hypnotizable and received hypnosis showed the greatest increase. This shows that hypnosis can help people boost their white blood cell count and thus boost their immune system and better enable themselves to fight off disease (Ruzyla-Smith).

Researchers from Ohio State University have determined that hypnotherapy can prevent the immune system from weakening due to stress. Hypnosis helps strengthen the immune system through relaxation. For people who worry a lot, are anxious, or are easily distracted, hypnosis helps them calm down so that their immune system does not weaken due to the stress. When hypnosis is induced in a person, relaxation techniques are used. Stress is a main contributor to a weakened immune system. Hypnosis acts to increase positive thinking through suggestion while using relaxation techniques to decrease stress (Holland).

It is important to keep your immune system strong so that you are able to fight off disease and viruses. Using hypnosis and eating healthy foods can help you keep your immune system strong through this pandemic. Reducing stress and increasing your white blood cells can greatly increase your odds of not getting the flu this season.

Full Article;:http://www.naturalnews.com/027405_hypnosis_flu_immune_system.html#ixzz1oDKMJtDJ

The Different Depths of Hypnosis

A frequent question surrounding hypnotherapy is 'was I hypnotised?' The answer to that question is that hypnosis does not work like a light switch that is either on or off, there are different levels of hypnosis in the same way there are levels of sleep when the brain works at different levels or cycles (more like a dimmer switch then).

There are numerous scales of hypnosis that document the different depths of hypnosis the mind works through and the effects that can be seen, some account for up to 50 different levels while the one below keeps things simple at a mere 6. This scale is the 'Arons Depth Scale' named after its creator Harry Arons. This is not the definitive scale as every scale has its differences, but it is a useful and simple indication of what happens to the body/mind under hypnosis and is well worthy of reference.

The scale below is summarised by Joshua Houghton on his fantastic blog  http://www.whatsonmybrain.com/

Stage 1: HYPNOIDAL – Very light stage of hypnosis in which most clients don’t feel hypnotized. The majority of people feel completely awake. Two types of HYPNOIDAL states are Hypnopompic and Hypnoagogic. Hypnopompic is the state by before waking up in the morning and Hypnoagogic is the state right before falling asleep at night.

A lot can be accomplished in this 1st stage: Weight reduction, smoking withdrawal and simple muscle control such as eyelid catalepsy.

Stage 2: More relaxed state where larger muscle groups can be controlled and manipulated such as Arm Catalepsy. Your power of critical reasoning starts to become impaired.

Stage 3: You get fairly complete control of your entire muscular system. Most people won’t be able to articulate a number, stuck to a chair, can’t walk and even partial analgesia.

Stage 4: In this stage you start to produce greater phenomena and is known as the beginning of the amnesic stages. Your client will actually forget items such as their name, number, address and other items. Glove Analgesia and feeling touch, but no discomfort.

Stage 5: This is considered the start of somnambulism. You get cool stuff like complete anesthesia and experience the ability to neither feel discomfort or touch. A lot of different pain control techniques can be used in this stage as well.  You can also experience what is called Positive Hallucinations which means you can see and hear things which do not actually exist. You can also experience real Age Regression in this state and not just remembering the past.

Stage 6: This is the next level of Profound Somnambulism. You can experience Negative hallucinations which means you won’t see or hear things that actually do exist.

Full article here: http://www.whatsonmybrain.com/arons-depth-scale-depth-stages-hypnosis/

Can We Confidently Predict the Future?

Predicting the future is one of those abilities often discussed throughout both historical times and the modern; but could it be possible? This article may not answer that question entirely, but it does document new research that sheds light on the topic. According to the article, research by Professor Michel Tuam Pham et al in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that a higher trust in feelings results in a higher degree of accuracy when predicting future occurrences... 

In the research, the researchers conducted a series of eight studies in which their participants were asked to predict various future outcomes, including the 2008 U.S. Democratic presidential nominee, the box-office success of different movies, the winner of American Idol, movements of the Dow Jones Index, the winner of a college football championship game, and even the weather. Despite the range of events and prediction horizons (in terms of when the future outcome would be determined), the results across all studies consistently revealed that people with higher trust in their feelings were more likely to correctly predict the final outcome than those with lower trust in their feelings. The researchers call this phenomenon the emotional oracle effect.

Across studies, the researchers used two different methods to manipulate or measure how much individuals relied on their feelings to make their predictions. In some studies, the researchers used an increasingly standard trust-in-feelings manipulation originally developed by Tamar Avnet, PhD '04 and Professor Michel Pham based on earlier findings by Norbert Schwarz of the University of Michigan and his colleagues. In other studies, the researchers simply measured how much participants typically relied on their feelings in general when making predictions. Regardless of the method used, participants who trusted their feelings in general or were induced to trust their feelings experimentally were more accurate in their predictions compared to participants with lower trust in their feelings and participants in a control group.

In one study involving the Clinton-Obama contest in 2008, high-trust-in-feelings respondents predicted correctly for Obama about 72 percent of the time compared with low-trust respondents, who predicted for Obama about 64 percent of the time - a striking result given that major polls reflected a very tight race between Clinton and Obama at that time. For the winner of American Idol, the difference was 41 percent for high-trust-in-feelings respondents compared to 24 percent for low-trust respondents. In another study participants were even asked to predict future levels of the Dow Jones stock market index. Those who trusted their feelings were 25 percent more accurate than those who trusted their feelings less.

The researchers explain their findings through a "privileged window" hypothesis. Professor Michel Pham elaborates on the hypothesis.

"When we rely on our feelings, what feels 'right' or 'wrong' summarizes all the knowledge and information that we have acquired consciously and unconsciously about the world around us. It is this cumulative knowledge, which our feelings summarize for us, that allows us make better predictions. In a sense, our feelings give us access to a privileged window of knowledge and information -- a window that a more analytical form of reasoning blocks us from."

In accordance with the privileged window hypothesis, the researchers caution that some amount of relevant knowledge appears to be required to more accurately forecast the future. For example, in one study participants were asked to predict the weather. While participants who trusted their feelings were again better able to predict the weather, they were only able to do so for the weather in their own zip codes, not for the weather in Beijing or Melbourne. Professor Leonard Lee explains this is because "…they don't possess a knowledge base that would help them to make those predictions." As another example, only participants who had some background knowledge about the current football season benefited from trust in feelings in predicting the winner of the national college football BCS game.

Thus, if we have a proper knowledge base, the future need not be totally indecipherable if we simply learn to trust our feelings.

Full article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120224140512.htm