Posted on June 21, 2007
Brain Damage and Realism
Sometimes I read a couple of articles and just wonder if they’re more closely related than they seem to be. This happened last year about this time related to speedy house building. As Kory is quick to point out, this sort of thing falls into the Synchronicity category. Maybe it’s the weather.
In any case, there are two interesting articles out lately in the brain-science department. The first article [originally published in Nature] talks about damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reducing emotional responses to ethical decision making. For example people with such damage were three times more likely to recommend pushing someone in front of a train in order to save a others’ lives. I always figured myself for a pusher, just for the record, which is why it strikes me as interesting. (Lesson learned: don’t stand in front of Chip at a train station).
The second article deals with depression and self-image. Some studies apparently measured people’s perception of the world and compared it to “reality”. One generally expects depressed people, or people with other mental disorders to have an unrealistic view of the world, but the results of the studies indicated the exact opposite. “Normal” people have an unrealistically positive view of themselves and the world around them. Troubled people seemed to think of the world more in line with the way it actually is. For example, people with an eating disorder felt they were less attractive than people without a disorder, even when both people were rated as equally attractive (by some blinded study method). More to the point, the troubled group rated themselves closer to the rating they were given by the third-party ratings than the “normal” group.
Go read the articles, of course — my synopses were both pretty severe oversimplified and selectly emphasized versions of the full articles.
Still, my point is that I wonder if there’s any relationship between the parts of the brain that cause these behavior. It seems like both problems relate to outlook and the ability to view and form opinions about the world and react to those opinions. Are people with ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage more or less likely to have realistic opinions of themselves? Does that translate to a likelyhood to be depressed? And in contrast, are people with depression more or less likely to make the same ethical/emotional decisions as people with ventromedial prefrontal cortex brain damage? Or do they just push people in front of trains for completely different reasons?
Now my brain hurts. the workings of the brain have always interested me since I watched my father, after his stroke, lose the ability to name animals items that BEGAN with specific letters. Name things that start with P = 10 words. Name things that start with L = nothing. Those areas have to be right next to each other, just folds in the mass, but stroke can be just that particular. Amazing. Glad you’re settling in. Jen and I had a great time with you guys before the move and hoep to see you again on a visit in. Take good care. Bryan