what i learned today

is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read. It walks the reader through studies of patients suffering from neurological disorders to explain how our brains are constantly adapting. For a long time, neuroscience believed the brain was immutable – fixed - one part of the brain for each body part or function and that’s that. But recently the field of neuroplasticity, the idea that the organization and function of neurons can change, has gained support. The brain, is, in fact, adaptive.

Some fascinating examples:

• As we get better at something, the number of neurons required to perform that task decreases, and the whole system becomes faster and more efficient.
• In one experiment, a cat’s eye was sewn shut so the eye got no visual stimulation. When the eye was opened they found that the visual area in the brain map that normally processed input from the closed eye had failed to develop. Even further, the part of the brain that had been deprived began to process visual input from the open eye, “as though the brain didn’t want to waste any ‘cortical real estate’ and had found a way to rewire itself.”
• Falling in love is like taking cocaine. It lowers the threshold at which pleasure centers fire. Because the pleasure centers are firing so freely, “the enamored person falls in love not only with the beloved but with the world and romanticizes his view of it.” It makes us harder to experience pain and displeasure or aversion. When one falls in love, “millions of neural networks have to be obliterated and replaced with new ones,” and that is why falling in love often feels like a loss of identity.
• Interesting description of moving on from a love. “Often people cannot move on because they cannot yet grieve… In neuroplastic terms, if the romantic or the widow is to begin a new relationship without baggage, each must first rewire billions of connections in their brains. The world of mourning is piecemeal, Freud noted… We grieve by calling up one memory at a time, reliving it, and then letting it go” 
• This one neurologist at UCSD, Ramachandran, does a lot of research on phantom limbs. He has a bunch of Ted Talks, and I highly recommend watching if you want your mind blown.
• The work of some neuroscientists shows us that we can shape our genes, or rather our gene expression. This can be done through means of psychotherapy, that goes “deep into the brain and its neurons” and changes their structure. A psychoanalyst can be a “microsurgeon of the mind” to help patients make needed alternations in neuronal networks. 
• One study showed that muscles get stronger if we imagine they are being exercised! 
• Neurons that fire together wire together is the main mantra here. This means that the more a thought or action is repeated, the stronger the connection between the neurons. This is known as Hebbian theory, which is a little too much for me but interesting nonetheless.

Super fascinating book. I took notes on nearly every page. 

dimensions of personality. I read this book called Personality about a year ago and thought it was great. It’s book two in my behavior/personality reads.

David Nettle, the same author of Happiness (seriously, if you haven’t read that one yet, try it out), writes about the five dimensions of personality - extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness. Here’s what I got from the book:

There are at least five broad personality dimension. We all have each of the dimensions, but just differ in the magnitude of each. Where we lie on the spectrum of each is what causes us to behave in certain ways rather than others. What happens in our careers, relationships, interests, love lives, and health all occur depending on where we lie on these dimensions. And where we end up on the dimensions is due to how our brains our wired, which is due firstly to genetics (about 50%) and then to early life experiences that shape us. 

You can determine where you lie on the spectrum by taking The Newcastle Personality Assessor.

Then he goes through each of the five dimensions in detail and it’s pretty darn interesting. To give you the gist of it…

Extraversion
measures your response to reward.  It’s the variation in responsiveness of positive emotions. Those with high extraversion have a greater psychological reaction to positive events - achievement, romance, adulation, even seeing a puppy. They like to spend more time in social activity than low scorers, are more talkative, like parties more, are quicker to form social relationships, and like sex and romance more than those with low. High extraversion scorers report more states of joy, desire, enthusiasm and excitement than low scorers. MRI studies show they have higher metabolic activity in the brain when shown something positive than those with low extraversion.

Those with low extraversion have low responsiveness – thus the psychological benefits of achievement, romance are fewer. They are seen as aloof.

But it’s not all good. Higher extraversion yields more risky and impulsive behavior. High scorers are less satisfied with their current possessions. They can be less dependable.

Neuroticism
measures your response to threat. Extraversion: positive :: neuroticism: negative. It’s the responsiveness of negative emotion systems. Negative emotions – anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, disgust, sadness, are designed to make us detect and avoid things that would be bad for us.

The high neuroticism scorer is constantly ruminating, and wondering about one’s path in life, and often reports several changes of identity and goals even in their mature life. High neuroticism can lead to borderline personality disorder – where one does not know who he is, what could make him happy, and what he really is worth. Other detriments are depression, anxiety disorders, and even health problems like heart disease.

However it does have benefits. Negative emotions are protective systems. If you think about our ancestors, those with low negative emotion responsiveness would not responded appropriately to threats, and thus not survived. The negative self image often pushes individuals to work harder and innovate.

Conscientiousness
measures your response inhibition. It’s basically the opposite of impulsiveness. It’s the ability to inhibit immediate rewards to follow some internally set goal or more deferred gratification.

He makes a distinction between gaining pleasure from certain behaviors, and the inability to prohibit oneself from partaking. “High Extraversion scorers will get a bigger buzz from a drink, a high, or a thrilling game of chance than low scorers. However, if they are also high in Conscientiousness, they will be able to decide not to do it again, however big the buzz was.” Addictions are really about the failure to inhibit a once-rewarded behavior, not about the degree of euphoria that is created.

High conscientiousness scorers set a lot of goals and stick to them. Interestingly, studies have shown that the smarter people are, the less conscientious they are. Likely this is because things come a bit easier, they have been able to get away without being prepared for things too far in advance, and their quick smarts have been able to get them through challenges. They have been trained to not have to inhibit their impulses.

While conscientiousness is good – it helps us maintain relationships, succeed in a career, follow the law, too much is not good and is characterized by obsessive compulsive disorder, perfectionism, the inability to have fun and leisure, and excessive drive.

Agreeableness
measures your regard for others. High scorers on agreeableness are trusting, cooperative and empathetic. Low scorers are uncooperative and hostile. 

Interestingly, brain imaging suggests that empathizing makes use of areas of brain that would be involved in if you were the one actually experiencing the situation first hand. I think that’s super interesting. People high in agreeableness help others more, have more harmonious interpersonal relationships and rarely insult people. They are quick to forgive and slow to anger.

Those with extremely low levels of Agreeableness have psychopathy - egocentric, remorseless, dishonest. Those with high levels, however, often lose themselves and are too dependent upon others.

Openness
measures your breadth of mental associations. High scorers are creative, imaginative, eccentric. Low scorers are practical and conventional.

Those with high openness participate in artistic and cultural activities of all kinds. He says “it is not that some people like reading whilst others like going to galleries.” Those with high openness are “keen on reading and galleries and theatre and music,” while those low in Openness are not particularly interested in any of them.” Often, those high in Openness have strong idiosyncratic beliefs concerning supernatural or spiritual activity in the world. They are also apparently more prone to psychosis.

Okay so there you have it. Some final encouragement — he assures us that, while our personalities may be unchangeable, we still may have a hope in changing the way we express our personalities. He says “if your personality is causing you trouble and worry, you need to find alternative and less destructive outlets for the same characteristics. You don’t have to change yourself. You just have to change your self’s outlet.”