Fishing in the Stream of Consciousness

Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision -- an eternity at the speed of thought.

Their findings challenge conventional notions of choice.

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"We think our decisions are conscious," said neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, who is pioneering this research. "But these data show that consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. This doesn't rule out free will, but it does make it implausible."

Through a series of intriguing experiments, scientists in Germany, Norway and the U.S. have analyzed the distinctive cerebral activity that foreshadows our choices. They have tracked telltale waves of change through the cells that orchestrate our memory, language, reason and self-awareness.

In ways we are only beginning to understand, the synapses and neurons in the human nervous system work in concert to perceive the world around them, to learn from their perceptions, to remember important experiences, to plan ahead, and to decide and act on incomplete information. In a rudimentary way, they predetermine our choices.

To probe what happens in the brain during the moments before people sense they've reached a decision, Dr. Haynes and his colleagues devised a deceptively simple experiment, reported in April in Nature Neuroscience. They monitored the swift neural currents coursing through the brains of student volunteers as they decided, at their own pace and at random, whether to push a button with their left or right hands.

In all, they tested seven men and seven women from 21 to 30 years old. They recorded neural changes associated with thoughts using a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine and analyzed the results with an experimental pattern-recognition computer program.

While inside the brain scanner, the students watched random letters stream across a screen. Whenever they felt the urge, they pressed a button with their right hand or a button with their left hand. Then they marked down the letter that had been on the screen in the instant they had decided to press the button.

Studying the brain behavior leading up to the moment of conscious decision, the researchers identified signals that let them know when the students had decided to move 10 seconds or so before the students knew it themselves. About 70% of the time, the researchers could also predict which button the students would push.

"It's quite eerie," said Dr. Haynes.

Other researchers have pursued the act of decision deeper into the subcurrents of the brain.

In experiments with laboratory animals reported this spring, Caltech neuroscientist Richard Anderson and his colleagues explored how the effort to plan a movement forces cells throughout the brain to work together, organizing a choice below the threshold of awareness. Tuning in on the electrical dialogue between working neurons, they pinpointed the cells of what they called a "free choice" brain circuit that in milliseconds synchronized scattered synapses to settle on a course of action.

"It suggests we are looking at this actual decision being made," Dr. Anderson said. "It is pretty fast."

And when those networks momentarily malfunction, people do make mistakes. Working independently, psychologist Tom Eichele at Norway's University of Bergen monitored brain activity in people performing routine tasks and discovered neural static -- waves of disruptive signals -- preceded an error by up to 30 seconds. "Thirty seconds is a long time," Dr. Eichele said.

Such experiments suggest that our best reasons for some choices we make are understood only by our cells. The findings lend credence to researchers who argue that many important decisions may be best made by going with our gut -- not by thinking about them too much.

Dutch researchers led by psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis at the University of Amsterdam recently found that people struggling to make relatively complicated consumer choices -- which car to buy, apartment to rent or vacation to take -- appeared to make sounder decisions when they were distracted and unable to focus consciously on the problem.

Moreover, the more factors to be considered in a decision, the more likely the unconscious brain handled it all better, they reported in the peer-reviewed journal Science in 2006. "The idea that conscious deliberation before making a decision is always good is simply one of those illusions consciousness creates for us," Dr. Dijksterhuis said.

Does this make our self-awareness just a second thought?

All this work to deconstruct the mental machinery of choice may be the best evidence of conscious free will. By measuring the brain's physical processes, the mind seeks to know itself through its reflection in the mirror of science.

"We are trying to understand who we are," said Antonio Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, "by studying the organ that allows you to understand who you are."

To see this article in its original context:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121450609076407973.html?mod=yhoofront

MIND READING

Books
Is your freedom of choice an illusion?
Your brain knows what you're going to do 10 seconds before you are aware of it, neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes and his colleagues reported recently in Nature Neuroscience.
Last year In the journal Current Biology, the scientists reported they could use brain wave patterns to identify your intentions before you revealed them.
Their work builds on a landmark 1983 paper in the journal Brain by the late Benjamin Libet and his colleagues at the University of California in San Francisco, who found out that the brain initiates free choices about a third of a second before we are aware of them.
Together, these findings support the importance of the unconscious in shaping decisions. Psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis and his co-workers at the University of Amsterdam reported in the journal Science that it is not always best to deliberate too much before making a choice.
Nobel laureate Francis Crick -- co-discoverer of the structure of DNA -- tackled the implications of such cognitive science in his 1993 book The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul.
With co-author Giulio Tononi, Nobel laureate Gerald Edleman explores his biology-based theory of consciousness in A Universe Of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination.

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- The elderly fear breaking a hip when they fall, but a government study indicates that hitting their head can also have deadly consequences: Brain injuries account for half of all deaths from falls.

The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the first comprehensive national look at the role brain injuries play in fatal elderly falls. It examined 16,000 deaths in 2005 that listed unintentional falls as an underlying cause of death.

CDC researchers found that slightly more than half of the deaths were attributed to brain injuries. The other deaths were due to a variety of causes including heart failure, strokes, infections and existing chronic conditions worsened by a broken hip or other injuries sustained in a fall.

"A lot of people don't think a fall is serious unless they broke a bone, they don't think it's serious unless they break a hip. They don't worry about their head," said Pat Flemming, a senior physical therapist and researcher at Vanderbilt University

Don't Miss

• CDC: Injury Center

Each year, one in three Americans age 65 and older fall. About 30 percent of such falls require medical treatment.

Previous CDC research showed that the U.S. death rate from falling has risen dramatically -- about 55 percent -- for the elderly since the 1990s. The new study highlights the role that brain injuries play in such deaths.

As people age, veins and arteries can be more easily torn during a sudden blow or jolt to the head, said Marlena Wald, a CDC epidemiologist who co-authored the study.

That can cause a fatal brain bleed. Other factors can contribute, such as the use of blood-thinners, said Judy Stevens, another CDC researcher and co-author.

The severity of brain injuries isn't always immediately apparent, and some people may not lose consciousness. Wald noted a scenario seen in hospitals in which an elderly fall victim comes in alert and talking, but dies an hour or two later.

Health Library

• MayoClinic.com: 6 ways to reduce your risk of falling

The study also found that deaths and hospitalization rates for fall-related brain injuries increased with age. Brain injuries accounted for about 8 percent of hospital stays for non-fatal falls.

There are several steps older Americans can take to try to prevent falls. Exercise can increase leg strength and balance. Glasses or other vision correction measures can help people avoid obstacles. And being careful with the use of drugs that can affect thinking and coordination -- such as tranquilizers and sleeping pills -- can also make a difference.

"Falls are not an inevitable consequence of aging. These head injuries are not inevitable, either," Wald said.

The research is being published in the June issue of a scientific publication, the Journal of Safety Research.

To view this article in its original context:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/06/24/elderly.falls.ap/index.html

What Foods Trigger Headaches and Migraines?

Some of the most common foods, beverages, and additives associated with headaches include:

* Aged cheese and other tyramine-containing foods: Tyramine is a substance found naturally in some foods. It is formed from the breakdown of protein as foods age. Generally, the longer a high-protein food ages, the greater the tyramine content. The amount of tyramine in cheeses differs greatly due to the variations in processing, fermenting, aging, degradation, or even bacterial contamination. For people who take monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor medications to treat their headaches, it is especially important to avoid all foods containing tyramine, including aged cheeses, red wine, alcoholic beverages, and some processed meats, as these foods can trigger severe hypertension.
* Alcohol: Blood flow to your brain increases when you drink alcohol. Some scientists blame the headache on impurities in alcohol or by-products produced as your body metabolizes alcohol. Red wine, beer, whiskey, and champagne are the most commonly identified headache triggers.
* Food additives: Food preservatives (or additives) contained in certain foods can trigger headaches. The additives, nitrates and nitrites, dilate blood vessels, causing headaches in some people.

Cold foods: Cold foods can cause headaches in some people. It's more likely to occur if you are over-heated from exercise or hot temperatures. Pain, which is felt in the forehead, peaks 25 to 60 seconds and lasts from several seconds to one or two minutes. More than 90% of migraine sufferers report sensitivity to ice cream and cold substances.

Migraine Relief?

Can Migraines be Controlled?

— Kelsie Kenefick

Can migraines be controlled? In most cases, YES! The pain of migraines is so horrible that, to many, it seems almost impossible to believe that they are controllable. How could something so painful be controlled simply by bringing the nervous system back into balance... back to “homeostasis”?

To understand how it is possible to control your headaches, let me explain a bit about the physiology of migraine headaches and muscle tension headaches. In working with hundreds of sufferers over the years, I have found that all migraineurs have high muscle tension and, therefore, both issues must be addressed. Migraines have often been called “vascular” headaches. In other words, they have to do with the blood flow through the arteries. When the arteries over-dilate (open up too much), after having been constricted, the blood goes throbbing to the eyes and brain, causing these debilitating headaches. Muscle tension headaches, on the other hand, are caused by the muscles in the shoulders, neck, head, and face, tightening up, thereby causing the pain of these headaches.

Both types of headaches can be brought under control by controlling one's autonomic (or “automatic”) nervous system. This is the part of the nervous system that is usually not consciously controlled. For example, you do not usually consciously control your heart rate, but if you had a fast heart rate, or an irregular heart rate, I could teach you how to control that. I simply attach instruments to your body to measure certain body functions, and, with the feedback on the computer, I would coach you to control the readings. You are getting biological feedback, or “biofeedback” for short, on the screen.

Other things that normally are not consciously controlled include respiration, circulation, blood pressure, brain waves, muscle tension, digestion, sweat gland activity, and much more. Learning how to control the inner functionings of the body, and mind, is enormously empowering to people. People learn how to create health and well-being in their bodies, and these are skills they use, and benefit from, for the rest of their lives. It is so much fun to do!

You have likely heard of the “fight or flight” response. This is when the body goes into high gear after confronted with a real, or perceived, threat or danger. The body has this mechanism to protect itself. All animals have this. Centuries ago our dangers were more physical. We had to protect ourselves from lions, bears and other tribes. Adrenaline would go into the blood stream and give us super strength. This is a great thing in times of emergencies. The problem, nowadays, is that most people run on adrenaline way too much. Stress has become a global epidemic. And, most of our stressors now are psychological stressors so the tension does not get released from the body by running or fleeing. It is often held in.

Back to migraines! There are two things that happen in the body during the fight or flight response that contribute to migraines. First, all animals (including human animals) have an unconscious instinct to protect the throat when they perceive danger or stress. This is because animals are usually attacked at the throat. So, human animals tighten in the neck and shoulders first when they experience stress. This excess muscle tension can create muscle tension headaches and, additionally, contributes to the migraines by crimping the arteries.

Another thing that happens, to people who get migraines, is that their arteries constrict when they experience stress. The body unconsciously does this because if you were to be attacked, or cut, you would bleed less if the arteries were constricted. It is, again, the fight or flight response kicking in. Interestingly, the migraine does not occur when the person is under stress. It happens after the stress is over (usually). This is why the migraine may come on in the middle of the night, the first day of the weekend, or at the beginning of vacation. So, the muscle tension headaches occur when the person is under stress and the migraines occur when the person begins to relax.

People with migraines tend to have cold hands and feet. I teach them how to consciously warm their hands and feet; thereby opening, or dilating, their arteries. They need to keep their arteries dilated in order to prevent the migraines from occurring. I simply get a temperature reading on the surface of their skin. If their arteries are dilated I will see a reading of 93 degrees, or higher, on the surface. I train them how to keep their arteries dilated in order to prevent the migraines from occurring. Often when I start sessions with someone, their surface skin temperature will be in the low 80's. That is a lot of constriction!

Most of the people I work with are on a lot of medications when they first come. The triptans, such as Imitrex or Maxalt, cause the arteries to constrict. These medications are taken as the migraine is coming on to slow it down. Sometimes people crave caffeine when they feel a migraine coming on, for the same reason. The problem, then, is that rebound headaches can occur. In other words, the medications will constrict the arteries, giving temporary relief, but then when the arteries open up as the medication wears off, another migraine often occurs. Then the headaches get worse and worse as time goes on. Sometimes people get to the point where they have chronic daily headaches from medication overuse. The best thing is to learn how to control your nervous system as soon as possible so you don't get into this trap. Think of the medications as being a temporary solution while you take control.

When working with migraine sufferers, I first teach them some general skills for bringing their nervous system into balance (such as proper breathing, deep relaxation of the body and mind, imagery). The Wild Divine is, of course, a wonderful way for patients to practice general relaxation skills at home. Then, I teach them to bring certain muscles to “normal tension”. Every muscle has a normal level of tension that it should be at and it is measured in microvolts. I teach my patients how to bring their shoulder, neck, forehead, and sometimes the jaw muscles, to normal tension. Then, I teach them how to use their mind to help eliminate stress from their nervous system. Since every thought creates both a chemical change in the body and an electrical change in the nervous system, working with the mind is critical. Finally, I end the training with teaching my patients to dilate their arteries.

There are several ways in which migraine sufferers can start learning how to balance their nervous systems. You could see a biofeedback therapist, such as myself, who deals with these issues, Or, you can start learning meditation, imagery, or breathing techniques to calm the body-mind at home.