“True!” begins Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, which despite the rational approach of that story’s narrator to get to the truth at the core of the plot, never actually achieves this. Instead the story ends in a guilt-laden confession, weighted by the questions raised concerning the narrator’s state of mind; a confession which may or may not be based on the “truth”. In “The Tell-Tale Brain”, the third book from V.S. Ramachandran, noted neuroscientist, researcher, lecturer, author and according to TIME magazine, in 2011, one of the 100 most influential people of in the world; Ramachandran, just like Poe’s narrator, attempts to explain the “truth” about the human brain as we know it today. What that truth may be tomorrow remains to be known. For what is made clear by Ramachandran is that our knowledge of how the human brain functions remains open to new revelations, making our knowledge-base as plastic as our brains. Today’s truth might be proven false by the truth of tomorrow. He shows that we are on a journey, a journey which is revealing more “truth” each day, and the more truth which is revealed brings us closer to the core.“The Tell-Tale Brain” has been subtitled “A Neuroscientist’s Quest For What Makes Us Human”. Like an explorer searching for El Dorado, Ramachandran takes the average, non-scientist, reader along on this journey in pursuit of the essence of our humanness, our core.
Ramachandran explains the physiological workings of the human brain to the point that the “how” seems quite clear. There is an understanding of the structure of various cells, brain regions and areas and how via chemical processes these areas interact, forming our behaviors, thoughts and actions. In turn he shows us the way the “how” progresses to the “why”, and the “why” eventually spirals back to the “how”. This is one of the things that I have taken from this book: a visualization of our scientific approach to understanding the human brain and mind. Our traditional approach has been in a linear fashion, but just as the physical brain is a coil of cells, twisting and turning in on each other, allowing areas not always physically next to each other to communicate with each other, our understanding of the human brain must flow in a spiral, curling around, twisting and turning so that bits of knowledge become connected.
Known for his experiments in behavioral neurology, which despite their apparent simplicity address and reveal the complexity of our visual perception, Ramachandran is most notably known for inventing a “mirror box” which allows amputees to “see” [visually perceive] a missing limb. In the mirror box the amputee can move the limb, scratch an unscratchable itch, massage an un-relievable cramp; in essence to mentally re-attach the amputated limb thus enabling the amputee to on his or her own mentally detach from the limb and eliminate his or her “phantom limb syndrome”.
A great part of our visual perception, as explained by Ramachandran, lies in our ability to recognize objects, to see and to know. But, Ramachandran states, “object recognition is a difficult problem”. (p.60) We cannot recognize objects without associating a meaning to the object, and unless we can explain that meaning- memory association, recognition does not take us very far in our journey to understanding. The key question raised by Ramachandran is “how neurons encode meaning and evoke all the semantic associations of an object” this according to Ramachandran “is the holy grail of neuroscience, whether you are studying memory, perception, art or consciousness.” (p.60)
For me this statement connects the physical brain (matter) to the non-physical (perhaps?) mind. Ramachandran explains that while at one level our physical brains are similar, they quickly become extremely individual. I visualize this as the nose sitting in the approximate middle of our face. Now while there may be a variety of nose types, and certain noses may appear more similar as dissimilar, in the end no two noses are exactly the same. One nose is on one face and another nose is on a different face. And so too is the brain. But add into the mix the concept of the mind, then things get extremely individualized. Yes, the neurons encode and evoke in similar ways across all brains, but the question of “why in that particular brain” the encoding or evocation occurred in that way at that particular moment remains open and perhaps is or will only be truly answered from an individualized as opposed to generalized perspective.
“Sure enough, brains are made up of modules, but the modules are not fixed entities; they are constantly being updated through powerful interactions with each other, with the body, the environment, and indeed with other brains.” (p. 126)
As a visual artist I find Ramachandran’s approach to understanding and explaining the human brain via the pathways of visual perception has opened my own mind more to considering how people visually perceive my paintings. He shows through simple visual perception experiments how humans react to certain visual stimuli in a general way, explaining why that may be the case from an evolutionary perspective and how the reaction might cause another type of sensory response. It is through Ramachandran’s approach to the “universal laws” regarding brain matter in relation to the “individual rules” established by the mind which has made me think of ways in which this dichotomy can be expressed in my art; particularly in regards to epilepsy.
As far as Ramachandran directly addresses epilepsy in “The Tell-Tale Brain” it is generally in reference to case studies and how the disorder may (or may not as Ramachandran points out) be the cause for certain mental states. He explains that due to the nature of seizures- the repeated “mis-firing” of neurons, neural pathways are deepened, or “kindled”, which lead to atypical behaviors or mental states. Although these behaviors or states might be limited to the moment of the neural misfirings, then again as we learn more about the brain’s plasticity, this appears not to be the case. Connecting these ideas about the brain’s ability to change, its general/universal versus its individual nature, to the nature of epilepsy and gender has made me think of the role this division might play in our understanding and reaction to both.
In his quest for the El Dorado of our humanness, Ramachandran does not find a single truth, a single mine, or a single core; he finds instead pathways which lead to many truths, to many minds, to many cores.