Levels of consciousness

Reductionism vs. reductionism

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This 2004 essay by an evolutionary biologist reviewed his field’s direction in the current century:

“Science is impelled by two main factors, technological advance and a guiding vision (overview). A properly balanced relationship between the two is key to the successful development of a science.

Without the proper technological advances the road ahead is blocked. Without a guiding vision there is no road ahead; the science becomes an engineering discipline, concerned with temporal practical problems.

Empirical reductionism is in essence methodological; it is simply a mode of analysis, the dissection of a biological entity or system into its constituent parts in order better to understand it. Empirical reductionism makes no assumptions about the fundamental nature, an ultimate understanding, of living things.

Fundamentalist reductionism (the reductionism of 19th century classical physics), on the other hand, is in essence metaphysical. It is ipso facto a statement about the nature of the world: living systems (like all else) can be completely understood in terms of the properties of their constituent parts.

This is a view that flies in the face of what classically trained biologists tended to take for granted, the notion of emergent properties. Whereas emergence seems to be required to explain numerous biological phenomena, fundamentalist reductionism flatly denies its existence: in all cases the whole is no more than the sum of its parts.”

Regarding cellular evolution:

“Modern concepts of cellular evolution are effectively petrified versions of 19th century speculations. Try to imagine a biology released from the intellectual shackles of mechanism, reductionism, and determinism.

Evolution, as a complex dynamic process, will encounter critical points in its course, junctures that result in phase transitions (drastic changes in the character of the system as a whole). Human language is a development that has set Homo sapiens worlds apart from its otherwise very close primate relatives, adding new dimensions to the phase space within which human evolution occurs. Another good critical-point candidate is the advent of (eucaryotic) multicellularity.

Nowhere in thinking about a symbiotic origin of the eucaryotic cell has consideration been given to the fact that the process as envisioned would involve radical change in the designs of the cells involved. You can’t just tear cell designs apart and willy-nilly construct a new type of design from the parts.

The organization of the mitochondrial endosymbiont is radically changed during its evolution, but that change is a degeneration to a far simpler “cell-like” design. The mitochondrial design could never evolve back to the level of complexity that its free-living [bacterial] ancestor had.

A common thread that links language and multicellularity is communication (interaction at a distance). In each case a complex, sophisticated network of interactions forms the medium within which the new level of organization (entities) comes into existence.

Our experience with variation and selection in the modern context does not begin to prepare us for understanding what happened when cellular evolution was in its very early, rough-and-tumble phase(s) of spewing forth novelty. Cellular evolution began in a highly multiplex fashion, from many initial independent ancestral starting points, not just a single one.”

https://mmbr.asm.org/content/68/2/173 “A New Biology for a New Century”

I came across this review by it being referenced in this researcher’s blog post:

Chinese Longevity Herb
I often don’t agree with him, but I subscribe to his blog because it’s interesting.

Organ epigenetic memory

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This 2018 Japanese review subject was the relationships of organ memory and non-communicable diseases:

“Organ memory is the engraved phenotype of altered organ responsiveness acquired by a time-dependent accumulation of organ stress responses. This phenomenon is known as “metabolic memory” or “legacy effect,” which is similar to neuronal and immune memory.

Not only is the epigenetic change of key genes involved in the formation of organ memory but the alteration of multiple factors, including low molecular weight energy metabolites, immune mediators, and tissue structures, is involved as well. These factors intercommunicate during every stress response and carry out incessant remodeling in a certain direction in a spiral fashion through positive feedback mechanisms.

The systematic review revealed that each intervention type, that is:

  • Glucose lowering,
  • Blood pressure lowering, or
  • LDL-cholesterol lowering,

possessed unique characteristics of the memory phenomenon. Most of the observational periods of these studies lasted for > 10 years. Memory phenomenon was suggested to last for a long time and is thought to have a considerable effect on the clinical course of NCDs [non-communicable diseases].

Organs cannot possess consciousness, so it might not be appropriate to consider whether a recalling process exists in organs. However, the properties of organs are incessantly altered by external stimuli loaded on organs as if it is updating.

It is clinically important to investigate whether organ memory can be updated by our behaviors. Once organ memory is established in an organ, organ memory in each organ can influence one another and affect organ memory in a different organ.

Epigenome-modification enzymes, such as histone deacetylases and DNA methyltransferases, and transcription factors seem to be essential for the epigenetic regulation of gene expression, which is involved in the generation of organ memory. Cellular metabolism can epigenetically modulate the expression of genes that are related to the progression of diseases.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41440-018-0081-x “Organ memory: a key principle for understanding the pathophysiology of hypertension and other non-communicable diseases” (not freely available)

1. The reviewers asserted:

“Organs cannot possess consciousness, so it might not be appropriate to consider whether a recalling process exists in organs.”

Memory studies don’t require this consciousness to investigate even brain areas and functions. Researchers observe memory by measuring stimulus/response items like neuron activation and various levels of behavior. Consciousness is an emergent property.

2. Regarding recall: An organ’s “engraved phenotype of altered organ responsiveness” may not have recall itself, but it doesn’t have a separate existence apart from its body. An organ can’t be removed from its body for very long and still be part of its body.

When an organ is in its normal state as part of a body, it has access to recall-like functions via “inter-organ communication of organ memory.” The review also mentioned:

“Organ memory in each organ can influence one another and affect organ memory in a different organ.

Evolution didn’t support unnecessary duplication for a kidney’s memory to include recall because it’s part of a body that includes a brain that has recall. Evolution didn’t duplicate functions of a kidney’s memory in a brain, either.

Unindexed comment links?

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It’s dawned on me that although links in blog posts are indexed by search engines, links in comments may not be. Here’s a post to elevate links in three comments that may have escaped notice.

From A review of biological variability:

“It is my view that all researchers have a narrow focus on what they want to research, without having an over-riding paradigm in which to fit the research and its results. Janovian Primal Therapy and theory, with its focus and understanding of the three different levels of consciousness would provide for a much needed over-arching paradigm, especially in the area of mental health.”

Congratulations on an excellent podcast, Gil!
59. Gilbert Bates in “Feel It Still” // Love, Primal Therapy & the Three Levels of Consciousness

From Remembering Dr. Arthur Janov:

“You are right on. The Norcross survey, in particular, is utter crap. More than half of those “experts” surveyed were CBT therapists who knew nothing about PT and yet deemed themselves confident to judge “primal scream therapy” as “discredited.” I feel the therapy will never be understood for what it is.”

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Bruce!
The Worst Comparative Psychotherapy Study Ever Published

From How one person’s paradigms regarding stress and epigenetics impedes relevant research:

“There is of course, reversibility. Michael Meaney’s baby rats had their epigenetic changes reversed with loving maternal care. There are several compounds in development which have been shown to reverse methylation. This former physician and researcher says, “Epigenetic changes affect the level of activity of our genes. Genetic activity levels affect our emotions, beliefs, and our bodies. Exploring epigenetics and chronic illness may help us understand causes that many of us suspect have played a role in the onset and evolution of our illnesses. Furthermore, these epigenetic changes have been found to be reversible, at least some of the time, even with a seemingly indirect treatment such as psychotherapy.” Epigenetics and Chronic Illness: Why Symptoms May Be Reversible

I looked up the psychotherapy references and found this: Serotonin tranporter methylation and response to cognitive behaviour therapy in children with anxiety disorders (reversible even with CBT, the weakest therapy of all!)

And this:
MAOA gene hypomethylation in panic disorder—reversibility of an epigenetic risk pattern by psychotherapy (also CBT)

So what gives? I suspect that your researcher is working with his/her head in the sand, hamstrung by their ideological biases. If CBT can effect epigenetic changes, imagine what primal therapy can do.”

And a seven-year anniversary repost of events that affect me every day:

Reflections on my four-year anniversary of spine surgery

How do memories transfer?

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This 2018 Chinese study electronically modeled the brain’s circuits to evaluate memory transfer mechanisms:

“During non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep, thalamo-cortical spindles and hippocampal sharp wave-ripples have been implicated in declarative memory consolidation. Evidence suggests that long-term memory consolidation is coordinated by the generation of:

  • Hierarchically nested hippocampal ripples (100-250 Hz),
  • Thalamo-cortical spindles (7-15 Hz), and
  • Cortical slow oscillations (<1 Hz)

enabling memory transfer from the hippocampus to the cortex.

Consolidation has also been demonstrated in other brain tasks, such as:

  • In the acquisition of motor skills, where there is a shift from activity in prefrontal cortex to premotor, posterior parietal, and cerebellar structures; and
  • In the transfer of conscious to unconscious tasks, where activity in initial unskilled tasks and activity in skilled performance are located in different regions, the so-called ‘scaffolding-storage’ framework.

By separating a neural circuit into a feedforward chain of gating populations and a second chain coupled to the gating chain (graded chain), graded information (i.e. information encoded in firing rate amplitudes) may be faithfully propagated and processed as it flows through the circuit. The neural populations in the gating chain generate pulses, which push populations in the graded chain above threshold, thus allowing information to flow in the graded chain.

In this paper, we will describe how a set of previously learned synapses may in turn be copied to another module with a pulse-gated transmission paradigm that operates internally to the circuit and is independent of the learning process.”

The study had neither been peer-reviewed, nor were the mechanisms tested in living beings.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/07/27/351114 “A Mechanism for Synaptic Copy between Neural Circuits”

A mid-year selection of epigenetic topics

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Here are the most popular of the 65 posts I’ve made so far in 2018, starting from the earliest:

The pain societies instill into children

DNA methylation and childhood adversity

Epigenetic mechanisms of muscle memory

Sex-specific impacts of childhood trauma

Sleep and adult brain neurogenesis

This dietary supplement is better for depression symptoms than placebo

The epigenetic clock theory of aging

A flying human tethered to a monkey

Immune memory in the brain

The lack of oxygen’s epigenetic effects on a fetus

Addictive behavior and epigenetic DNA methylation

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This 2018 McGill paper reviewed findings from animal and human studies on the relationships between drug-seeking behavior and epigenetic DNA methylation:

“Although there is an increasing line of evidence from preclinical models of addiction, there are only a few human studies that systematically assessed DNA methylation in addiction. Most of the studies were done on small cohorts and focused on one or a few candidate genes, except in the case of alcohol use where larger studies have been carried out.

A long line of evidence suggests that abnormal patterns of gene expression occur in brain regions related to drug addiction such as the nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and the ventral tegmental area.

Using the “incubation of craving” model in rats trained to self-administer cocaine, and treated with either SAM or RG108, the genome-wide DNA methylation and gene expression landscape in the nucleus accumbens after short (1 day) and long (30 days) abstinence periods and the effects of epigenetic treatments were delineated. The main findings are:

  • A long incubation period results in robust changes in methylation;
  • Direct accumbal infusion of SAM that is paired with a “cue” after long incubation times increases drug-seeking behavior,
  • Whereas a single treatment with RG108 decreases this behavior.

Importantly, the effects of these single administrations of a DNA methylation inhibitor remain stable for 30 more days. These data suggest that DNA methylation might be mediating the impact of “incubation” on the craving phenotype and that this phenotype could be reprogrammed by a DNA demethylation agent.”

The subject has a large scope, and a narrow aspect was presented in this paper. Rodent research by one of the coauthors that was cited, Chronic pain causes epigenetic changes in the brain and immune system, provided some relevant details.

The review covered neither human dimensions of the impacts of unfulfilled needs nor investigations of exactly what pain may impel human drug-seeking behavior. The “Implications for Diagnostic and Therapeutics” were largely at the molecular level.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877117318300164 “The Role of DNA Methylation in Drug Addiction: Implications for Diagnostic and Therapeutics” (not freely available)

Ideaesthesia!

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This 2018 UK review subject was colored-hearing experiences from music:

“Music-colour synaesthesia has a broad scope encompassing not only tone-colour synaesthesia elicited on hearing individual tones, but a complex and idiosyncratic mixture of phenomenological experiences often mediated by timbre, tempo, emotion and differing musical style.

Possession of synaesthesia or absolute pitch was shown to have very little effect on the actual colours chosen for each of the musical excerpts. But it might be reasonable to expect that music that elicits a strong emotional response may be more likely to induce synaesthesia than music that does not.

Examination of eight neuroimaging studies were found to be largely inconclusive in respect of confirming the perceptual nature of music-colour synaesthesia. Neither the hyperconnectivity nor the disinhibited feedback theory currently holds as a single categorical explanation for synaesthesia.

Theories promoting the notion of ‘ideaesthesia’ have highlighted the importance of role of concept and meaning in understanding of synaesthesia..and a replacement definition: Synaesthesia is a phenomenon in which a mental activation of a certain concept or idea is associated consistently with a certain perception-like experience.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810017305883 “Music-colour synaesthesia: Concept, context and qualia” (not freely available)

Much of the review was philosophizing and casting around for clues. The review cited interesting studies and reviews, including The Merit of Synesthesia for Consciousness Research.

One relevant element missed by the underlying research and review was critical periods of human development. A cited reference in How brains mature during critical periods was Sensitive periods in human development: Evidence from musical training (not freely available) illuminated some aspects:

“In contrast to a critical period, where a function cannot be acquired outside the specific developmental window, a sensitive period denotes a time where sensory experience has a relatively greater influence on behavioral and cortical development. Sensitive periods may also be times when exposure to specific stimuli stimulates plasticity, enhancing changes at neuronal and behavioral levels.

The developmental window for absolute pitch may be more similar to a critical than a sensitive period.

The auditory cortex appears to have an unusually long period of developmental plasticity compared with other sensory systems; changes in its cellular organization and connectivity continue into late childhood.

Effects of musical training have been shown to impact auditory processing in the brainstem as well.”

Let’s say that a researcher wanted – as one cited study did – to examine absolute pitch, a rare trait, present in a subset of synesthetes – music-color, another rare trait. The study as designed would probably be underpowered due to an insufficient number of subjects, and it would subsequently find “very little effect.”

Let’s say another researcher focused on cerebral brain areas – and like eight cited studies – ignored brainstem pons nuclei which are the first brain recipients of sound and equilibrium information from the inner ear via the eighth cranial nerve. Like those studies, the researcher was also biased against including limbic brain areas that would indicate “a strong emotional response.”

A study design that combined leaving out important brain-area participants in the synesthesia process with a few number of synesthetes would be unlikely to find conclusive evidence.

The reviewer viewed a lack of evidence from “eight neuroimaging studies” as indicating something about the “perceptual nature of music-colour synaesthesia.” An alternative view is that “inconclusive” evidence had more to do with study designs that:

  • Had a small number of subjects;
  • Omitted brain areas relevant to the music-color synesthesia process;
  • Didn’t investigate likely music-color synesthesia development periods; and
  • Didn’t investigate associations of music-color synesthesia with epigenetic states.

Consider the magnitude of omitting the thalamus brain area from synesthesia studies as one “perceptual nature of music-colour synaesthesia” example. Just background information of Thalamus gating and control of the limbic system and cerebrum is a form of memory indicated its relevance to synesthesia:

“Despite fundamental differences between visual, auditory and somatosensory signals, basic layouts of thalamocortical systems for each modality are quite similar.

For a given stimulus, output neural response will not be static, but will depend on recent stimulus and response history.

Sensory signals en route to the cortex undergo profound signal transformations in the thalamus. A key thalamic transformation is sensory adaptation in which neural output adjusts to statistics and dynamics of past stimuli.”

One of this study’s researchers described ways that an individual’s “stimulus and response history” became unconscious memories with the thalamus. Including the thalamus in synesthesia studies may also have findings that involve reliving or re-experiencing a memory, possibly an emotional memory.

In such future research, it could be a design element to ask synesthetes before and after an experiment to identify feelings and memories accompanying synesthesia experiences.

It shouldn’t be a requirement, however, to insist that memories and emotions be consciously identified in order to be included in findings. Human studies such as Unconscious stimuli have a pervasive effect on our brain function and behavior have found:

“Pain responses can be shaped by learning that takes place outside conscious awareness.

Our results support the notion that nonconscious stimuli have a pervasive effect on human brain function and behavior and may affect learning of complex cognitive processes such as psychologically mediated analgesic and hyperalgesic responses.”

Does an orangey twilight of aging sunflowers help you feel?

A flying human tethered to a monkey

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Ponder this drone photo of “a flying human tethered to a monkey” ground drawing made over 1,000 years ago as reported by National Geographic and excerpted by the Daily Star:
Flying human tethered to a monkey

1. Aren’t the geoglyph and its description pretty good expressions of our evolved condition? Especially since it’s the interpretation of people who lived more a millennium ago?

With so many information sources freely available now, though, one couldn’t successfully argue that the ancients understood the world better than we do. Our understanding comes from our “flying human” time and efforts, without which we’re as ignorant as our “monkey.”

2. A few aspects of the current comprehension of the differences between our two pictured primates are in Genetic imprinting, sleep, and parent-offspring conflict:

“I remain skeptical of a tendency to ascribe most modern woes to incongruence between our evolved nature and western cultural practices. We did not evolve to be happy or healthy but to leave genetic descendants, and an undue emphasis on mismatch risks conflating health and fitness [genetic rather than physical fitness].”

Our “flying human” can make happiness and health choices that our “monkey” can’t:

“Our genetic adaptations often try to fool us into doing things that enhance fitness at costs to our happiness.

Our genes do not care about us and we should have no compunction about fooling them to deliver benefits without serving their ends.

Contraception, to take one obvious example, allows those who choose childlessness to enjoy the pleasures of sexual activity without the fitness-enhancing risk of conception.”

3. Another aspect of our two primates’ differences is illuminated in a reference to A study of DNA methylation and age:

“Aging is not and cannot be programmed. Instead, aging is a continuation of developmental growth, driven by genetic pathways.

Genetic programs determine developmental growth and the onset of reproduction. When these programs are completed, they are not switched off.

Aging has no purpose (neither for individuals nor for group), no intention. Nature does not select for quasi-programs. It selects for robust developmental growth.”

The epigenetic clock theory of aging cited the same author, and modified his point to say:

“The proposed epigenetic clock theory of ageing views biological ageing as an unintended consequence of both developmental programmes and maintenance programmes.”

Aging decisions are examples of our “flying human” making choices that aren’t available to our “monkey” concerning the structure, direction, and duration of our one precious life.

“What are you doing to reverse epigenetic processes and realize what you want? Do you have ideas and/or behaviors that interfere with taking constructive actions to change your phenotype?”

Your need to feel important will run your life, and you’ll never feel satisfied

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Yesterday’s team meeting at work provided one display after another of a person’s need to feel important. These eye-openers were the reason the scheduled 30-minute meeting lasted 45 minutes.

Although half of the forty or so attendees are under the age of 40, curiously, only two of them spoke during the meeting. I wasn’t among the older people who had something to say.

Not that I wasn’t tempted by the team-building exercise with its Skittles prompts:

  • Red – Tell us something you do well
  • Orange – Tell us something about your childhood
  • Purple – What could you live without?
  • Yellow – What couldn’t you live without?

Participation in the exercise was voluntary. Yes, I drew an orange Skittle.

Everyone knew there wasn’t enough time for each of us to speak and have the exercise become team-building, yet a dozen people piped up. Every one of the self-selected responses could have been prefaced with “I’m important because..”


There are many needs a person develops and tries to satisfy as substitutes for real needs that weren’t fulfilled. In this blog I’ve focused on the need to feel important.

I started with How do we assess “importance” in our lives? An example from scientists’ research choices and highlighted it on the Welcome page:

“Do you agree that an individual’s need to feel important is NOT a basic human need on the same level as nourishment, protection, and socialization? How does this need arise in our lives?”

I supported an explanation of the need to feel important with evidence and arguments on the Scientific evidence page and said:

“If the explanation is true yet someone rejected it, they at least wouldn’t have suffered from exposure to it. They’ll just remain in our world’s default mode of existence:

  1. Unaware of their own unconscious act-outs to feel important;
  2. Unaware of what’s driving such personal behavior; and
  3. Uninformed of other people’s behavioral origins as a consequence of 1 and 2.”

Other examples of substitute needs include:

What do you think? Any arguments for or against interrupting our default mode of existence?

Beyond Belief: The impact of merciless beatings on beliefs

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Continuing with Dr. Arthur Janov’s May 2016 book Beyond Belief:

“p. 17 When someone insults us, we immediately create reasons and rationales for it. We cover the pain. Now imagine a whole early childhood of insults and assaults and how that leaves a legacy that must be dealt with.

The mind of ideas and philosophies doesn’t know it is being used; doesn’t know it serves as a barricade against the danger of feeling.

It is why no one can convince the person out of her ideas. They serve a key purpose and should not be tampered with. We are tampering with a survival function.

p. 19 It seems like a miracle that something as intangible and invisible as an idea has the power to transform our biologic system. It makes us see what doesn’t exist and sometimes not see what does. What greater power exists than that? To be fooled is not only to convince someone to believe the false, but also to convince others to not believe the truth.

The unloved child who cannot bear the terrible feelings of hopelessness shuts down his own feeling centers and grows insensitive, not only to his pain, but to that of others. So he commits the same error on his child that was visited upon him, and he does so because of the way he was unloved early on. He cannot see his own hopelessness or that of his child.

p. 56 All defensive beliefs must have a kernel of hope inside of them. It is the embedded hopelessness that gives rise to its opposite – hope – and its accompanying biochemistry of inhibition or gating.

To be even more precise, it is the advent of pain surrounding hopelessness that produces the belief entwined with hope. All defensive belief serves the same function – repression, absorbing the energy of pain.

p. 57 An unloved child is a potential future believer.

p. 58 NO ONE HAS THE ANSWER TO LIFE’S QUESTIONS BUT YOU. How you should lead your life depends on you, not outside counsel.

We do not direct patients, nor dispense wisdom upon them. We have only to put them in touch with themselves; the rest is up to them.

Everything the patient has to learn already resides inside. The patient can make herself conscious. No one else can.”

“p. 29 The personal experience stories throughout the book are written by my patients and, with the exception of a few grammatical corrections, they are presented here exactly as they were given to me.”

All of the Primal Therapy patients’ stories started with HORRENDOUS childhoods that produced correspondingly strong beliefs!

I came across a public figure example today in 10 Defining Moments In The Childhood Of Martin Luther King Jr. The author included two items germane to an understanding of how beliefs may develop from adverse childhood experiences:

  • 8. King Sr. “Would beat Martin and his brother, Alfred, senseless for any infraction, usually with a belt.”
  • 6. “By the time King was 13, he’d tried to kill himself twice.”

Every reference I found tied King Jr.’s suicide attempts to his grandmother’s death. What an implausible narrative!

“A whole early childhood of insults and assaults” certainly had more to do with the causes for his preteen suicide attempts.

Consider a child’s feelings of helplessness, worthlessness, pain, and betrayal when the people who are supposed to love them are cruel to them instead. Feelings like what I expressed in Reflections on my four-year anniversary of spine surgery.

Consider the appeal of escaping from this life when “The unloved child cannot bear the terrible feelings of hopelessness.”

Granted that it’s only the patient who can put together what happened in their life so that it’s therapeutic. Beyond Belief and Dr. Janov’s other publications outline the framework.

On Primal Therapy with Drs. Art and France Janov

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Experiential feeling therapy addressing the pain of the lack of love.

Outward expressions of inner truth

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“Truth needs no defense except when that truth is more than the system can integrate; then it requires defenses.

Our merciful brain has found back-up ways to protect us. It keeps the truth from us even when we go on searching for the truth.

After patients have deep feelings they come up with many truths about their lives. It is buried and defended along with the pain. Thus no one has to give anyone insights; they are already there just waiting for the exit.”

In the blog post’s Comments section:

“When repression is not effective, the imprint rises for connection. But it is transformed into an act-out before it becomes conscious.

I had to get out each morning to feel free and shake my malaise. I never ever knew the origins of needing to get out. And the act out would never stop until I felt the origins and relived them.

The memory is continuously pushing and forces all kinds of act-out behaviors. The behavior has to be close to the original imprint to make act outs effective.

The brain knows, even when we don’t. And offers up all kinds of reasons for our behavior except the right one.”

http://cigognenews.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-act-out-and-more_29.html “The Act-out and More”

A problematic study of testosterone’s influence on behavior and brain measurements

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This 2015 US/Canadian human study of people ages 6 to 22 years found:

“Testosterone-specific associations between amygdala volume and key prefrontal areas involved in emotional regulation and impulse control:

  1. Testosterone-specific modulation of the covariance between the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC);
  2. A significant relationship between amygdala-mPFC covariance and levels of aggression; and
  3. Mediation effects of amygdala-mPFC covariance on the relationship between testosterone and aggression.

These effects were independent of sex, age, pubertal stage, estradiol levels and anxious-depressed symptoms.

For the great majority of individuals in this sample, higher thickness of the mPFC was associated with lower aggression levels at a given amygdala volume. This effect diminished greatly and disappeared at more extreme amygdala values.”

The study provided noncausal associations among the effects (behavioral, hormonal, and brain measurements).

From the Limitations section:

“No umbilical cord or amniotic measurements were available in this study and we therefore cannot control for testosterone levels in utero, a period during which significant testosterone-related changes in brain structure are thought to occur.”

There’s evidence that too much testosterone for a female fetus and too little testosterone for a male fetus both have lifelong adverse effects. The researchers dismissed this etiologic line of inquiry with a “supporting the notion” referral to noncausal studies.

The researchers were keen to establish:

“A very specific, aggression-related structural brain phenotype.”

This putative phenotype hinged on:

  • Older subjects’ behavioral self-reports, and
  • Parental assessments of younger subjects’ behavior

exhibited during the previous six months, and within six months of their fMRI scan.

These self-reports and interested-party observations were the entire bases for the “aggressive behavior” and “anxious–depressed” associations! The researchers disingenuously provided multiple references and models for the reliability of these assessments.

Experimental behavioral measurements – such as those done to measure performance in decision studies – may have been more accurate and informative than what the older subjects chose to self-report about their own behavior over the previous six months.

People of all ages have an imperative to NOT be completely honest about their own behavior. One motivation for this condition is that some of our historical realities are too painful to enter our conscious awareness and inform us about our own behavior. As a result, our feelings, thoughts, and behavior are sometimes driven by our histories without us being aware of it.

For example, would a teenager/young adult subject self-report an impulsive act, even if they didn’t fully understand why they acted that way? Maybe they would if the act could be viewed as prosocial, but what if it was antisocial?

What are the chances that the lives of these teenager/young adult subjects were NOT filled with impulsive actions during the six months before their fMRI scans? Could complete and accurate self-reports of such behaviors be expected?

Experimental behavioral measurements may have also been more accurate and informative than second-hand, interested-party observations of the younger subjects. Could a parent who provided half of the genes and who was responsible for many of their child’s epigenetic changes make anything other than subjective observations of their handiwork’s behavior?

Epigenetic studies have shown that adaptations to environments are among the long-lasting causes for effects that include behavior, hormones, and brain measurements. Why, in 2015, did researchers spend public funds developing what they knew or should have known would be noncausal associations, while not investigating possible causes for these effects?

Why weren’t the researchers interested enough to gather and assess etiologic genetic and epigenetic evidence? Was it that difficult to get blood samples at the same time the subjects gave saliva samples, and perform selected genetic and DNA methylation analyses?

What did the study contribute towards advancing science? Who did the study really help?

My judgment: less than nothing; and nobody. The researchers only wasted public funds advancing a meme, giving it an imprimatur of science.

http://www.psyneuen-journal.com/article/S0306-4530%2815%2900924-5/fulltext “A testosterone-related structural brain phenotype predicts aggressive behavior from childhood to adulthood”

Is the purpose of research to define opportunities for interventions?

gettingwell4 < 0 Detracted from science, Brain development, Epigenetics, Primal Therapy, Stress , , , , , , , , ,

In this 2014 review, a social scientist first presented an interpretive history of what he found to be important in the emergence of epigenetics. He proceeded into his ideas of “a possible agenda of the social studies of the life-sciences” in the “postgenomic age” with headings such as “Postgenomic biopolitics: “upgrade yourself” or born damaged for ever?”

This perspective included:

“The upgradable epigenome may become the basis for a new motivation to intervene, control and improve it through pharmacological agents or social interventions.

An important trend is the use of epigenetic and developmental findings in the so-called early-intervention programmes.

It is possible that epigenetic findings will become increasingly relevant in social policy strategies.”

In this blog I often highlight research that may help us understand details of how each of us is a unique individual. It’s my view that insofar as research helps each of us understand our unique, real self, we may be able to empathetically understand others’ unique qualities.

Click individual differences for a sample of how researchers explain away uniqueness in order to converge on a study’s desired objectives. There’s seldom an attempt to further understand what caused each subject to develop their unique qualities.

Why would this reviewer advocate that

  • Researchers,
  • People working in the social sciences,
  • People employed or involved in social services, and
  • Their sponsors and employers

intentionally disregard another individual’s unique qualities?

I’ll answer this question from a perspective that explains how this common, reflexive action derives from a person being unable to face the facts of their own life. Pertinent fundamentals of Dr Arthur Janov’s Primal Therapy are:

  1. Pain motivates a person’s unconscious act-outs of their underlying problems.
  2. The behavior that caused a problem is sometimes also the act-out behavior.
  3. Act-outs enable a person to re-experience the feelings of their historical struggles, in a vain attempt to resolve them.
  4. Due to pain barriers, people seldom become consciously aware of and – more importantly – address the causes for their own problematic behavior.
  5. “The patient has the power to heal himself.”

A consequent hypothesis is that a person will often glorify their unconscious act-outs and surround themself with justifications for these actions. For example, a person who can’t sit still may refer to their incessant activity with socially acceptable phrases such as “I’m always busy” or “I love to travel.” They’ll structure their life to enable their unconscious behavior, never questioning how they were attracted to an always-on-the-go occupation such as flight attendant, only vaguely feeling that they were made for it.

The behavior relevant to the current review may be exhibited by a person with a history of having no control over their own life. Following the above first two fundamentals, the pain of historically not having control over their life may motivate them to control other people’s lives.

Unfortunately for everyone who’s affected, such unconscious act-outs don’t resolve anything:

  1. The initiator may achieve some symbolic satisfaction by controlling others’ lives.
  2. This temporary satisfaction doesn’t make the initiator’s underlying problems less painful.
  3. The motivation impelling these unconscious act-outs isn’t thereby reduced.
  4. So the initiator soon repeats their controlling behavior, stuck in a loop of unresolved feelings.
  5. Since the self-chosen interests of someone who’s being controlled are lesser concerns to the initiator than exercising control, the controlled person may or may not be helped by the controller’s act-outs.

Research provides abundant evidence that we are unique individuals.

This is a strong indicator of who is best qualified to direct each of our unique lives.

A person who is driven to control others’ lives won’t accept epigenetic research as instructive for understanding, honoring, and respecting others as unique individuals. They’ll use research as a way to enable their own unconscious act-outs, and view it as offering opportunities for interventions into the lives of others.

This is the way that “pharmacological agents or social interventions” are often the intended “use of epigenetic and developmental findings.” Interventions receive justifications with “a possible agenda of the social studies of the life-sciences.”

Becoming aware of one’s own act-outs – and then individually addressing one’s own underlying problems – often take backseats to employment and other concerns to keep enabling one’s own behavior. That makes it likely that interventions justified by “epigenetic findings..in social policy” will continue, whether or not the subjects agree that they’re being helped.

For examples, take a look at a few of the YouTube presentations by people employed in the social sciences and social services on a topic of epigenetics. Compare them with the current state of epigenetic research in Grokking an Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) score.

What did you notice? How many presentations emphasized disrupted prenatal development – a period when problems can be prevented? Did you instead see that many more of the presentations emphasized controlling behavior?

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00309/full “The social brain meets the reactive genome: neuroscience, epigenetics and the new social biology“

What can cause memories that are accessible only when returning to the original brain state?

gettingwell4 5+ stars Premium, Hippocampus, Limbic system, Memory, Primal Therapy , , , , ,

This 2015 French rodent study found:

“Memories can be established and maintained without de novo protein synthesis and that experimental amnesia may not result from a disruption of memory consolidation/reconsolidation.

Posttraining/postreactivation treatments induce an internal state, which becomes encoded with the memory, and should be present at the time of testing to ensure a successful retrieval.

This integration concept includes most of the previous explanations of memory recovery after retrograde amnesia and critically challenges the traditional memory consolidation/reconsolidation hypothesis, providing a more dynamic and flexible view of memory.”

From Neuroskeptic’s analysis of the study:

“A different drug, lithium chloride, produces the same pattern of effects – it blocks ‘reconsolidation’, but this can be reversed by a second dose at the time of recall. However, lithium chloride is not an amnestic [a drug that blocks memory formation] – it doesn’t block protein synthesis. Rather, it causes nausea.

The implication of the lithium experiment is that any drug that causes an ‘internal state change’, even if it’s just nausea, can trigger state-dependent memory and behave just like an ‘amnestic’.”

As this study may apply to humans, a drug wouldn’t necessarily be required to “induce an internal state.” If the findings of studies such as Are 50 Shades of Grey behaviors learned in infancy? extend to humans, an emotional or physical experience may be sufficient to produce a state-dependent memory. For example, A study that provided evidence for basic principles of Primal Therapy found, albeit with rodents and use of a drug:

“Fear-inducing memories can be state dependent, meaning that they can best be retrieved if the brain states at encoding and retrieval are similar.”

Memories triggered while in a brain state reentered through an emotion or a physical reaction are experienced by Primal Therapy patients and observed by therapists every day. However, as mentioned in What scientific evidence can be offered for Primal Therapy’s capability to benefit people’s lives? there’s a difficulty in developing human evidence for such state-dependent emotional memories.

Standard procedures would use human subjects and control groups in a way that retrieved memories according to the researchers’ schedule and experimental parameters. In order for the retrieval of an emotional memory to be therapeutic, though, the methods of an experiential therapy such as Dr. Arthur Janov’s Primal Therapy leave the timing of entering a triggering brain state up to the patient.

When a brain state protects a human emotional memory from being accessed, it probably wouldn’t be therapeutic to:

  • Force a return to that brain state, and thereby
  • Remove the memory’s protection, then
  • Retrieve and re-experience the memory

just for the sake of research.

The evidence for retrieving and re-experiencing a state-dependent memory lies mainly within the individual’s experiences.

A challenge is to find innovative ways to document human evidence for state-dependent emotional memories while ensuring a therapeutic process.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/33/11623 “Integration of New Information with Active Memory Accounts for Retrograde Amnesia: A Challenge to the Consolidation/Reconsolidation Hypothesis?”